I found this old guide that I wrote in 2007 and thought maybe some role players might be able to benefit from it.
Creating a Thread
Your first step is to find a place to post, something which I have no tips for, unfortunately. But after you have found a spot to post, and it really can be anywhere, think about this:
1.) Where is your character at? City, and the board name. Read the board’s description.
2.) Is your character there alone, or did they come with someone else?
3.) If they came with someone else, what is your character’s relationship with this person?
4.) Is there anyone else in the area, or is your character (or your character and the other person they’re with) there with someone else? Such as in a store setting where there’s tons of other people.
5.) What smells are in the area that your character can pick up? Sounds that your character can hear? When looking around, what could your character see? What furniture, flora, et cetera is there? What colors are things? Are those things moving at all (river flowing, leaves moving, boxes falling…)? What type of clothes is your character wearing? What colors are the clothes?
6.) What time of day is it?
7.) What is the weather like?
8.) What is your character doing? What is s/he here for? What goals does s/he have? What is your character thinking? What does s/he feel (physically, mentally, emotionally)? How does your character react to their surroundings? What else is happening in your characters life that could affect right now?
Take my Japanese character, Aiji. He’s a natural jerk, and has rank in the Japanese mob. His lover just left him. So let’s put him in a Wendy’s restaurant in Chicago.
Commence post;
The trip to the United States was not as eventful as he was hoping for, however he should be thankful enough that the plane didn’t crash. After all, that wouldn’t have been fun, now would it have been? Everyone had been involved in their own things; talking on phones with friends and family, on their laptops, listening to their music, or talking to friends or family near them. To tell the truth, Aiji had been bored to death the entire flight to Chicago, but it serves him right for not bringing any source of entertainment. The moment they were let off the plane and made it to the main building, Aiji called a cab to bring him to a hotel, which was easy enough.
Being so densely packed, from his hotel (after a shower and a change of clothes), he could easily walk to pretty much wherever he wanted to go. Traffic was buzzing, as it always is in Chicago. So much so that it took him at least fifteen minutes to cross the street to get to the fast food joint. In the process of trying to walk himself to Wendy’s, he’d nearly been hit at least three times. It was rather humid outside, and he could feel it in the air, which was all the more reason to get himself inside, because even already he was sweating buckets.
Sweating was exactly what Aiji was trying to avoid by taking a shower, so that pretty much defeated the purpose, and only caused him to feel irritation already. Finding his way inside the restaurant, the first thing he could smell was the grease of fried food. The smell did smell appetizing though, don’t get him wrong. There weren’t more than two other customers in the restaurant, and at each end of the place next to the windows, and then a handful of employees behind the registers, cooking the food, and tending to the take-out window. For how slow it seemed, it was right around noon or so.
He couldn’t see the take-out window, but assumed that there might be a ton of people there by now (who knew). He’d walked himself up around that dumb next-in-line thing they had going, towards the register, as his brown eyes cast their glance upward at the menu. It was rather difficult for him to decide; this wasn’t like McDonald’s in Japan. When he’d tilted his head up, his multi-colored dreads felt a little heavy, though he’d chosen to ignore it. A cashier had come up and offered a slightly irritated smile while he continued to stare at the menu and decide what he’d wanted.
He was hungry, but yet he was not. Well, he might as well order something decent. After all, Aiji could always take it back to the hotel for later, right? Although that’s not what he’d do in Japan, but that sort of behavior was acceptable here in the States. He brushed the worry off and finally tilted his head down to speak (of course with his lovely accent), removing his wallet from the back pocket of his black jeans.
“I’ll have the number 4 combo with a sour cream and chives potato and a small dr. pepper.”
The cashier rang up his total, and he’d handed her cash (U.S. legal tender, mind you), and she’d promptly handed Aiji his receipt, and he’d stepped to the side to wait for his order. There was a curious little number on his receipt now that he looked at it, which read ‘137’. Maybe that was the number that they’d call his order by? Not that there was anyone in front of him that he needed to wait for.
End post.
Ok so we can end the post, and someone else can pick up on it. Or you could continue with it if you wanted to, but you get the basic point, right? You can make your starting threads really long, with not all that much work.
Replying to a Post
“How the heck do I reply to that?” is a common thought that even I have. You look at a post, and if it’s good then you can reply. But if it’s not so good, it’s very difficult. Here are some things to keep in mind when starting a reply to a post someone else has made;
1.) What is the setting? What are the other characters doing? What are the non-player characters doing?
2.) What is the weather like where everyone is at?
3.) What goals does everyone have? Why are they there?
4.) What is everyone doing or talking about? What is the general feel? Are people angry? Are they trying to work some agreement out? Or is everyone just having fun or talking? What’s going on?
5.) How much time has elapsed, and what have people done up until this point? Who is talking to your character?
6.) How does your character feel about what’s currently going on? Is there any new smells, sights, sounds or emotions?
7.) What is everyone wearing? How is everyone behaving? Have your character’s goals been accomplished, or are they currently left undone?
8.) How can your character react to the weather, other characters, the non-player characters, or the rest of it’s surroundings?
Also look back to creating a thread, above. You can also incorporate those thing too. If someone hasn’t set a scene (usually in the first post, but not always), do it yourself. Don’t step on anyone’s toes or anything though, but add something like grass, a river (if you’re outside, you know), or if you’re indoors a condiment stands, furniture. You can do it slowly if you wish, and just add a couple things, which doesn’t step on peoples’ toes and the other people can add to it if they want to.
If they don’t, you can continue to add stuff, since no one else’s doing it. What is the weather like? Is your character chilly, is your character too warm? Just make sure that no one else has set any scene before you go changing this though, because changing scenes on people that already have something set can make them rather angry. And if no one has set any scene and you start doing it for them and they complain, tell them sorry and just take it out and tell them to set it themselves then because no one had and to set a scene is very important.
It tells everyone what is around them and gives the role-player something solid to start with. After all, you’re not going to go outside if you’re not sure if there’s ground or not, right? I certainly wouldn’t. What everyone else is doing is also extremely important, and something you need to pay attention to. You don’t want to ignore peoples’ characters that are trying to interact with yours.
And yes, you do need to interact with other characters, because not interacting right away is sad and very boring. I personally hate replying to people when they’re not going to try to interact with mine. It drives me crazy! I once role-played with this one chick, and she started it with her character in a club/bar that was dimly lit. Her character was sitting at the stool having a drink.
There was not much to go on, because her post was two whole lines long, so there was no true setting, no non-player characters, her character wasn’t doing anything except literally staring off into space. So when I replied, my character had walked in, looked around, and took a seat next to him, and had asked him a question like “Is this seat taken?” to start up some smalltalk. Her character never looked over at mine, never so much as moved but just said “No.” That was the entire role-play, I kid you not. I tried so hard to interact with her character, and never once did she move her character, all she had him do was spit out one-word replies, and promptly blamed me for not typing enough as to the reason why her posts sucked.
Needless to say, it didn’t last long. The problem was not myself, but rather she just could not role-play well, and not interacting or setting scenes is a good indicator of this. It turns people off of your posts, and I have been guilty of doing this multiple times in the past, and still do. Let’s start a reply to Aiji being in Wendy’s, shall we?
Let’s use my American character, Akala. She’s kind of a flirt, dyes her hair, lives alone. Her history with Aiji is a confusing one. They have this odd love-hate relationship. See, Aiji’s slapped her around and just been outright mean to her, she allows him to get under her skin very quickly and the fights they can get into can become very serious.
She’s even on his Kill on Sight list. Yet when it really comes down to it, they’ll be there for the other. Hence the fact that he hasn’t killed her yet. But for the sake of this guide, we’ll pretend they don’t know each other.
Commence;
Chicago was such a huge city, and it was so easy for the untrained being to get lost in. This, she was guilty of herself as she had no idea what part of town she was in, but she knew it wasn’t the correct one. She was already late to the meeting she was supposed to attend, and hopefully her boss wasn’t going to be too upset with her. It wasn’t like she came into Chicago a lot anyway, which gave her an excuse. However unfortunate as it may be, this meeting was mandatory and she was not allowed to miss it.
She was contemplating the consequences of her getting lost as she decided that, while she was lost and late already, might as well make it worth while and have some lunch. Not much more harm could be done at the moment, right? She had to be dressed in a business suit today, and had chosen her medium-gray pin-stripe one that had a skirt that fell past her knees a bit instead of pants, a white shirt, and a blazer over the shirt. She suddenly felt very out of place as she entered the Wendy’s restaurant, with everyone else dressed in what appeared to be casual clothing and her in her business suit. However, she didn’t exactly have a choice or anything, and so had no choice but to blow it off.
Making her way through the empty line towards the register, currently not noticing the man that was waiting for his food to the side, it had taken her only a mere moment to decide what she’d wanted. Blue eyes scanned the menu, before glancing back down at a waiting cashier.
“I’ll have the number 6 combo, with a coke and no ice, please.”
The cashier nodded and Akala had given him her credit card to pay for her noon meal. She had to eat this quickly, find out where she needed to be, and get there. She also had to order another cab, which she should probably do soon, no? She had been handed her receipt, and told to wait towards the side. Akala, currently being in her own little world, had done so and rather quickly, nearly hitting (but thankfully missing) the guy that was waiting too.
Quickly she had looked up from her receipt at him.
“I’m so sorry! I should have been paying more attention. Geeze. I apologize.”
You could stop it here. Or you could continue, although running into someone is pretty cliche’. Or you could veto that, have her step to the side, and start small talk with him. Something like “are you late too? *laugh*” You know, some simple small talk. There is a lot more that one could have done with both of those example posts too, I actually left a bunch of stuff out, especially with the example reply post. But you get the point, right?
This guide provided by Diana on December 9 of 2007. Please do not steal this. It took a while to put together. If you want to use it on a site of your own, please contact me and ask. The original article can be found here.
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