Roleplaying – The Art Form
and RPG Rules

by Antien Rohas

This thread is a guide to the do’s and don’ts of roleplaying. Hopefully, with the reading of it, everyone can maybe have a better idea about how to roleplay, especially if this is their first time trying their hand at it. Please read this and take into consideration everything that’s being said, because if everyone just tried to do these things, then Potter’s World would very quickly become one of the top rp sites on the web. (Not that it isn’t already on its way to becoming that)

What is Roleplaying?

Roleplaying is the act of telling a story from your character’s point of view while other people and their character contribute to it as well. You all begin on a specific plot line with a common knowledge background, which, in this case, is the Harry Potter universe and the back story plot line which has been kindly provided by the creators of Potter’s World.

As you begin to make your way into the RP world, please remember that everyone’s going to mess up sometimes so do not jump down someone’s throat if they make one or two mistakes. We’re all learning and trying to improve. Instead, be kind, helpful, and try to aid others in becoming better roleplayers while striving to do the best that you can. If you have any questions or if you need something clarified, please feel free to ask. We want this site to be enjoyable for everyone and don’t want you to not roleplay because you’re afraid of doing something wrong.

Following is an outline of the posts/topics below:

What to Do When Posting?
-- The Past Tense
-- The Third Person
-- Capitalization
-- Punctuation
-- Spacing
-- First post in a topic
-- Post length
-- Actions

Common Roleplay Missteps
-- Ignorance
-- Clairvoyance
-- God-moding
-- Mary Sue/Larry Stu
-- Drama Queen/King

Some Other Pointers
-- Closed Topics
-- Previewing Posts
-- Respecting Other Players
-- Chat-speak
-- A Word about Font Formatting

What To Do When Posting?

The development of your character is only half of roleplaying. You should also pay attention to what you are posting. There are many mistakes made by new, and seasoned, roleplayers that probably could be corrected with just a bit of effort, like re-reading posts or running them through spell check. Others are not as simple to correct, but still not hugely difficult to fix.

*the past tense
*the third person
*capitalization
*punctuation
*spacing
*the first post
*post length
*actions

The Past Tense
Roleplays should be written in the past tense, which means that you use verbs such as ran, said, ate, did, and looked and not verbs like runs, says, eats, does, and looks. When you read stories, you find that most of them are written in the past tense and that is what most people have become accustomed to reading. This isn’t usually that big of an issue because the past tense is what most people generally write in, but we all still want to make sure that we are remaining in the past tense because switching tenses in the middle of a paragraph or post can make reading it very confusing and annoying for other people, especially if it is done multiple times.

The Third Person
To avoid confusion, roleplays should be written in the Third Person at all times. This means using your character name as well as the other people’s character names and pronouns such as he, she, him, her, they, and them. Pronouns like I, we, you, and us should be avoided. The one exception to the third person rule is when you are saying what your character is thinking or speaking. People generally don’t think or speak in the third person, they do it in the first.

Capitalization
I’m sure we all know how to properly capitalize, but it isn’t always being done so I’m going to talk about it anyway. There are also other issues with capitalization that need to be addressed. To start however, we’re going to talk about when we use a capital letter.
*beginning of a sentence
*a name
*a specific place that has a name (i.e. Hogwarts, America, Leaky Cauldron, etc)
*a title
*I is always capitalized when used as a pronoun

We do not need to use excessive capitalization however. You can emphasize something just as well by using descriptive words as opposed to all capitals. Don’t write something like ‘“I HATE MY LIFE!” Katy said.’ Instead, try writing something like, ‘“I hate my life!” Katy screamed, her voice full of anger.’

Punctuation
Excessive use of capitals brings us into a common punctuation mistake. One exclamation point (!) or one question mark (?) work just as well as three or four of them. Like I said with capitals, try to use descriptive words instead and just drop the excessive punctuation.

That being said, punctuation is not something to be ignored. Sentences need to be finished with proper punctuation, like a period (.) or exclamation point. We also place a period after abbreviations like Mr. or Mrs. Quotations (“ ”) are used to enclose spoken words and apostrophes (‘ ’) are used to enclose your character’s thoughts.

Spacing
You put two spaces after each sentence before starting the next one with a capital letter. You put two spaces after a colon as well unless you’re representing time and only one after everything else.

Also, please double space (hit enter twice) when starting a new paragraph. This provides easier reading since we are not indenting. Also, whenever a new person speaks, you start a new paragraph. You do not have five different people speaking in one paragraph. It gets to confusing. Paragraphs are also started when a new idea is being introduced or something is changing.

The First Post in a Topic
The first post of a roleplay is probably one of the most important in that it sets the scene. The first post should be well thought out, well written, and definitely more then a few lines long. It should state where you are, what the conditions are (weather if you’re outside, time of day, etc), why you’re there and how you got there. Three well written paragraphs (five to six sentences each) is probably the minimum that an introduction post should be. Trust me, it isn’t that hard to do if you’ve actually put some effort into what you’re writing.

The first post for each additional player is also important. While you don’t have to be setting the scene, you should still be explaining why you’re there and how you got there. Therefore, unless you are the beginning post in a thread, your first post in a topic should be at least two well written paragraphs in length.

Post Length
Posts should be five, longer, well written sentences in length at least unless it is one of the posts mentioned above (a minimum of 20 words). And those five well written sentences do not include quoted words of another player. They should be your character’s own words, thoughts, feelings, and descriptions of what’s going on. One line posts do not give the other players much to go off of and it also does not show much thought or effort. If you don’t have enough to say to make it five long sentences, then you should wait until someone else posts so that you can have more to say. Remember, posting isn’t about quantity, it’s about quality. That’s what makes a good roleplayer and a successful roleplay.

Actions
Actions are not described with asterisks (*) or brackets. Use words, and sentences to describe them. It makes a roleplay much easier to read and much less annoying.

Common Roleplay Missteps

Now that we all have a firm grasp on what roleplaying is we can get into what we do and don’t want to do while roleplaying. Some of the most common problems that we run into while roleplaying are listed below and don’t worry if you don’t know what some of them mean, I’ll explain them in detail later on.

*Ignorance
*Clairvoyance
*God-Moding
*Mary Sue/Larry Stu
*Drama Queen/Drama King

Ignorance
When I say Ignorance, I am not talking about your character’s personal ignorance or naivety, but your own. When entering a thread, you should make sure to read the previous page of posts as well as the first page of posting. This is especially true in longer threads. If within the first two posts, Jimmy and Sally enter and that’s all you read, you’re probably going to address Jimmy and Sally when you then post. Too bad they left ten posts later and are no longer there. This is fixed by making sure that you read the most recent five to seven posts, in a longer thread or maybe even the whole roleplay up to date if the thread is still shorter. You do, however, also want to read the first post or two as well because they provide valuable information on what’s going on in the thread, such as weather, where you are, etc. So to avoid ignorance, or a lack of knowledge, make sure that you have properly read the first posts as well as the most recent. This will help in roleplaying and also help prevent you from looking somewhat, if not very, foolish.

Clairvoyance
On the flip side of Ignorance is Clairvoyance, which is knowing too much, or more then you should. None of us are allowed to be psychic and because of this, none of us should be able to read minds or just ‘know’ things that we aren’t supposed to. An example of clairvoyance:



In case you did not figure it out, Mark was the one being Clairvoyant, not Paula. In her post, Paula specifically stated that she did not allow the sadness to show on her face and that she instead had a broad smile and was happily skipping across the hall. Mark should not have known that anything was wrong and further more, how could he have known about her pet rabbit when she never said anything was wrong with it? So to retouch, Clairvoyance is knowing something about someone else that you should have no knowledge of.

God-Moding
God-moding can be broken up into two categories, Personal and General god-moding, but in both cases, god-moding is the controlling of someone else that is not your character.

Personal God-Moding
Personal god-moding is the controlling of another person’s character specifically. Personal god-moding is saying that you threw a punch at someone and hit them square in the jaw, knocking them out. You should instead have given them the ability to dodge or counter the attack. The same goes for duels, pranks, thrown objects. There are some points where this particular rule can be stretched. If you are rounding a corner at a run and suddenly collide with someone, you can say who you collided with, but don’t say what happened to them. Whether they fell and scattered their textbooks all over is their choice, just make sure that you deal with yourself. You also want to make sure that you always let a person speak for and act for themselves. The person controlling the other character knows very well how to make their own choices.

General God-Moding
General god-moding is very much like personal god-moding, except that it is the controlling or a general group of people, not a specific one or two people. An example since that definition isn’t really clear:



It is not Peter’s choice as to what the rest of the Great Hall does and says and he was general god-moding by controlling what everyone else did upon his appearance. Let everyone else make their own choices on what to do.

Mary Sue/Larry Stu
A Marry Sue/Larry Stu is a character who is absolutely perfect. They are gorgeous, loved by everyone, have no faults, and are amazing at everything they try. So, basically, they are boring, one-dimensional character with no thought put into them. They are also extremely annoying to roleplay with. I’m not saying that your character cannot be pretty, or smart, or really good a one particular field, but let’s make sure that we keep this realistic. No one is perfect and everyone has faults. A good roleplayer makes sure that their character has a good balance of strengths and weaknesses. It makes them a lot more fun to roleplay with. It also gives you the opportunity to have more fun with your character because if you can always do everything right the first time you try it, your character’s going to be getting boring really fast.

Drama Queen/Drama King
The Drama Royalty often times run hand in hand with Mary Sue/Larry Stu characters. Basically, everything always happens to a Drama Queen/King. Their parents are usually dead or dying, that or their parents are completely evil to them. If they do not live with their parents, they then live in an orphanage or with cruel relatives. They are also constantly having bad things happen to them and are generally seen crying a lot, and a warning, Drama Queens and Kings rarely want to be comforted or offered advice on how to fix their problems because that could remove them from the center of attention.

Some Other Pointers

Just a few other things about roleplaying and I’ll let you all go.

*closed topics
*previewing posts
*respect
*chat-speak

Closed Topics
When a topic is closed to someone or certain people, do not post in it unless you are one of those people or you have been invited by a member of the topic. Nothing is more annoying then someone barging in on a roleplay that was not intended for more then a few people. Always read the title, description, and the start of the first post because that is where the author of the topic will post any restrictions on who can enter. Read them, listen to them, show some respect.

Previewing Posts
Always, always, always read through your post before you post it. Running it through a spelling/grammar check is a good idea as well. One helpful idea for this is to type your post in a word document before actually posting it. That way, you have them saved and you can also use Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar check to help edit your posts.

Respecting Other Players
First off, there is a difference between respect for a character and respect for the player behind the character. In character, I may hate your character and will always be saying mean things to them and putting them down. Out of character, I will do no such thing. We have to remember that there’s a line between pretend and real life and that we cannot cross that line. People are not going to get along in character, that’s part of what makes roleplaying fun and realistic, but out of character, you had better respect your fellow players. If you have a problem with someone’s roleplaying style, deal with it. If their style is breaking the rules, maybe inform this of them in a nice, polite pm. Burning is rude and not to be tolerated. Or, if you have tried to tell them or don’t feel comfortable, take it up with a governor in the appropriate forum/thread.

Chat-Speak
Chat-speak is what many of us use online when talking on instant messenger or something similar. It is the use of word abbreviations such as lol, rofl, brb, ttyl, w/e, w/o, and u. Don’t be lazy, write the entire word out. It is not something that needs to be present on this site. Also, something that goes along with chat-speak, is wRiTiNg WoRdS lIkE tHiS. Don’t! It’s annoying and becomes very difficult to read. Also, there’s no real need to. If you are trying to emphasize something, use better descriptive words and if you want to make something stand out a bit more in, let’s say, a signature, there is a reason that we have so many different font color choices.

A Word about Font Formatting
Would you want to read something that looks like this? Or how about this -- is this easy to read? No... we didn't think so. The default font and text size for this board should be sufficient for regular posting purposes. You may find that you will turn off readers and potential posting partners if you make it difficult for them to read your words.