Post by Ali Corium on Jul 30, 2004 10:44:30 GMT -5
For those of you who are new to role playing games(RPG), here are a few guidelines to help you make your postings more interesting:
1. Make a character sheet for the student you'll be playing to give him or her some history from which to start. You'll want to include the following: name, gender, age, family, best & worst memories, childhood dreams, current dreams, skills, appearance, personality. Keep this sheet in mind when interacting with others.
2. When posting, try to engage others by setting a mood based on your characters attitude as revealed through his actions and words. Don't forget to include physical descriptions but limit them to allow more room for character interaction. Excessive physical description is boring.
3. Try to aim for moderation in developing your character. Characters that are excessively involved in "doom and gloom" or who have ridiculously violent and &god-like powers are not interesting. People need to be able to interact with your character, and if you're a vampire out to suck everyone's blood dry, or a snob who won't give anyone the time of day, there's not going to be much interaction for very long, is there? Don't get me wrong, we need a few snobs, but if the place is full of Draco Malfoy wannabes, things become very dull.
4. Try to develop a character that is unlike existing characters, and incorporate some of your own personality into it if you like. Not every character has to be narcissitic, arrogant, supremely gifted and uber powerful. We need characters with other attributes around here, too, and they are often more fun to play. Try selecting one or two of the following attributes to your character to see how it affects his personality:
ditzy, bubbly, shy, flirty, studious, generous,
distracted, chatty, lonely, athletic, nosy, obsessive-compulsive, humble, lazy, bilingual, sincere, forgetful, delicate, playful, superficial, disabled, musical, calm, determined, quirky, competitive, tongue-tied, pessimistic, happy-go-lucky, flamboyant, earthy...
And make sure that once you have a few attributes picked out try to develop a story that you develop in your head to explain why this person is that way.
5. Most importantly, remember the RPing is about character interaction. Try to conclude your postings with some sort of opening or implied invitation for others to reply, either positively or negatively. If you find that no one every replies to your postings, it might be that you are simply not creating a scene that captures their imagination.
6. Avoid overly long posts or posts that have nothing to do with the life of a Hogwarts student. Students of all ages should feel welcome to interact, which means that everyone should remember that your "audience" isn't just your best friend or most intelligent adult. You audience is made up primarily of Harry Potter fans who want to make Harry's world come to life. These people are not necessarily experienced RPGers and are not necessarily interested in long-winded posts in which it takes a character half an hour to accomplish a minor task.
7. Finally, try to stick to one of three methods of differentiating actions from speech:
1. Put actions in white and speech in the color of your choice.
OR
2. Put actions between asterisks like this: *points to example written on blackboard*.
OR
3. Put speech in quotes.
The ultimate goal here is for everyone to have fun. With a little practice, your character should evolve from a sketchy work-in-process to a kwirky, well-defined but occasionally unpredictable student here at Hogwarts!
1. Make a character sheet for the student you'll be playing to give him or her some history from which to start. You'll want to include the following: name, gender, age, family, best & worst memories, childhood dreams, current dreams, skills, appearance, personality. Keep this sheet in mind when interacting with others.
2. When posting, try to engage others by setting a mood based on your characters attitude as revealed through his actions and words. Don't forget to include physical descriptions but limit them to allow more room for character interaction. Excessive physical description is boring.
3. Try to aim for moderation in developing your character. Characters that are excessively involved in "doom and gloom" or who have ridiculously violent and &god-like powers are not interesting. People need to be able to interact with your character, and if you're a vampire out to suck everyone's blood dry, or a snob who won't give anyone the time of day, there's not going to be much interaction for very long, is there? Don't get me wrong, we need a few snobs, but if the place is full of Draco Malfoy wannabes, things become very dull.
4. Try to develop a character that is unlike existing characters, and incorporate some of your own personality into it if you like. Not every character has to be narcissitic, arrogant, supremely gifted and uber powerful. We need characters with other attributes around here, too, and they are often more fun to play. Try selecting one or two of the following attributes to your character to see how it affects his personality:
ditzy, bubbly, shy, flirty, studious, generous,
distracted, chatty, lonely, athletic, nosy, obsessive-compulsive, humble, lazy, bilingual, sincere, forgetful, delicate, playful, superficial, disabled, musical, calm, determined, quirky, competitive, tongue-tied, pessimistic, happy-go-lucky, flamboyant, earthy...
And make sure that once you have a few attributes picked out try to develop a story that you develop in your head to explain why this person is that way.
5. Most importantly, remember the RPing is about character interaction. Try to conclude your postings with some sort of opening or implied invitation for others to reply, either positively or negatively. If you find that no one every replies to your postings, it might be that you are simply not creating a scene that captures their imagination.
6. Avoid overly long posts or posts that have nothing to do with the life of a Hogwarts student. Students of all ages should feel welcome to interact, which means that everyone should remember that your "audience" isn't just your best friend or most intelligent adult. You audience is made up primarily of Harry Potter fans who want to make Harry's world come to life. These people are not necessarily experienced RPGers and are not necessarily interested in long-winded posts in which it takes a character half an hour to accomplish a minor task.
7. Finally, try to stick to one of three methods of differentiating actions from speech:
1. Put actions in white and speech in the color of your choice.
OR
2. Put actions between asterisks like this: *points to example written on blackboard*.
OR
3. Put speech in quotes.
The ultimate goal here is for everyone to have fun. With a little practice, your character should evolve from a sketchy work-in-process to a kwirky, well-defined but occasionally unpredictable student here at Hogwarts!