Play by post Role Playing

[ken barber]

1. What is Roleplaying?

Roleplay is assuming the role of a character and writing, acting, or playing as that character would. There are many forms of roleplaying: gaming console, live action roleplay, tabletop roleplay, text-based roleplay, forum roleplay, and on and on.

 

1.1. What is Forum Roleplaying?

 

Forum roleplaying happens when a group of people using a forum to create a story. The story can be loosely related, as in a large forum roleplaying game where many characters inhabit a huge world. The story can also be closely related, as in a small boarding school roleplaying game where all characters know each other.

 

The actual roleplaying happens through text. Roleplayers write responses to one another through posts. Each post describes the character’s actions, speech, and thoughts. Forum roleplay is often called play-by-post roleplay.

 

Note that play-by-post roleplay does not always take place on a forum. With the rise of social media, Tumblr has become a large roleplaying hub. Livejournal has always hosted roleplaying communities, too. Forums are still a popular way of organizing roleplaying games, however.

 

2. How Does Forum Roleplay Work?

When you roleplay, you assume the role of a character. A character is made-up entity created for roleplaying. You create a character (a person, animal, demon, alien, or whatever is appropriate for your RPG setting) and writing from their perspective/role. Your character isn’t you, and you aren’t your character — you’re separate entities. You can think of it like an actor in a movie — the actor is not the character. Johnny Depp is not Captain Jack Sparrow, Mort Rainey, or Jack Skellington.

 

2.1. An Example of Forum Roleplay

 

Alice (a roleplayer, as Baphomet): The hours nearest dawn were the worst for Baphomet. He hated the thought of going underground, he hated where he slept, and he hated the many dreary hours between the closing of the coffin and the rising of the moon. Gray dawn was creeping ever nearer. Even its palest beginnings of light stung his eyes. He scowled.

 

You (as Azazel): New as she was to the vampire clan, Azazel was already comfortable with her fellow vampires. It was always like that for her — she just melded, wherever she went. Adaptability all but ensured her long survival. There was one exception, though. That exception stood directly in Azazel’s path to sweet darkness. The slim vampire shifted her weight from one pale leg to the other, unsure what she might say to placate the dark-tempered elder. Too late, she realized he would hear even that minute movement.

 

Alice: Baphomet’s head swiveled around, almost serpentine. He glowered at the new-made vampire — she was young and arrogant as they always were. Their skin was as soft and fleshy as a humans, yet they always thought of themselves as gods and goddesses. “Yes? Am I in your way, little girl?” the vampire asked. He might have tainted the question with coy sweetness if it was not so desperately near to dawn.

 

And it goes from there! Later in the thread, Azazel and Baphomet might end up fighting, or creeping into a coffin together, or making plans to hunt later that night, or getting stuck outside of their nest, or…

 

2.2. Post Length

 

Generally, posts will be much longer than the provided examples. Some roleplaying games have word minimums, a requirement for you to write a certain amount of words within every roleplaying post. You can find roleplaying games without minimums or with very high minimums.

 

Forum Roleplay isn’t a fan of huge word minimums (800-1000 word minimums generally mean you’ve found a very advanced RPG — or a very silly one, depending). However, it can be helpful (especially for novice writers and the youngest roleplayers) to strive for 200-300 words per post.

 

2.3. Roleplay Realism

 

Realism is an important aspect of creating a flowing storyline. Even writing novels — if you create a world with rules and then break those rules later (especially unintentionally), it irritates your reader. Roleplay realism is not exactly like real life realism. A game based in the year 5392, with space travel and highly advanced technologies, has different rules of realism than a forum roleplaying game set in 1930. Realism is especially important in forum roleplaying because many people are writing in the same universe.

 

If you’re playing a kingdom RPG, and the character Azazel states that the princess should inherit because of this law in one thread, but later Baphomet says the prince should inherit because the priest has always appointed the king… well, you see? The characters are giving conflicting information, but both are treating it as the truth.

 

This could be an interesting plot if it was due to misdirection on Baphomet’s part or a secret scroll Azazel discovered. However, if unresolved — this might lead to confusion later (especially if the players do not remember who was correct). Re-reading old posts might lead to even more confusion.

 

In order to be successful in a forum roleplaying game, you should know your RPG’s acceptable level of realism. If you don’t care about realism, you can always find a simpler, freeform game. However, in some of the most complex forum RPGs, realism is very important.

 

3. Writing in A Collaborative Environment

3.1. OOC Does Not Equal IC

 

Definitions

OOC

Out of Character. This is the player, the person behind the computer.

IC

In Character. This is the character, the fictional creation.

One of the most important things to remember in forum roleplaying: your character can be different from you. Many people say your character should be different, and that it’s the best way to roleplay. New roleplayers find it easy to create “themselves” as characters. This can very easily lead to destructive roleplay behavior, though! For example, a player with a self-character may take offense at another character disliking the self-character.

 

IC does not equal OOC. Keeping that in mind is very important for an enjoyable roleplaying experience. Just because a character dislikes your character does not mean that player dislikes you. A fight between players does not mean characters have to start disliking one another (though it may be easiest to avoid drama by avoiding the roleplayer).

 

3.2. IC Action Equals IC Consequence

 

One essential of forum roleplaying is remembering you are writing a story with many other players. Though your character is important to you, others’ characters are equally important to them. Though there is great freedom in online forum roleplaying, it’s not absolute.

 

It is important to remember that for your character’s actions, there are often consequences. Though it was a fun plot when your character suddenly snapped, your RPG group leader may not approve. This plot could end up with your roleplay character being kicked out (in a Limited Consent game) or killed (in a Non-Consent game).

 

Don’t expect to be able to do whatever you want at all times. If you roleplay, there are other people playing, too. If your character does something, other characters will react. Some roleplaying games have courtesy policies requiring at least cursory discussion of certain plots. If you do not extend this courtesy to others before plotting something out of the ordinary, you may end up with some unintended or unwanted consequences.

 

3.3. Interweaving Stories

 

It is also important to remember that your character is not the central point of the plot at all times. Don’t join a thread where there is clearly something going on between the other characters and expect everyone’s focus to shift to your character. Play to the story; don’t expect others to gravitate toward or even care about your character in any particular moment.

 

Azazel: The coyote leaned over his mother’s grave, his ears folded back and his expression somber. There was not an ounce of happiness within the man. She didn’t need die, he thought, again and again.

 

Baphomet: He wandered toward the other wolf, clearly distraught. “I lost my favorite bag, man,” he said. This was his absolute favorite possession and he really wanted it back.

 

This would be really rude in real life — it’s also really rude in roleplaying. If a player has a particular idea or plot in mind, reply only if you’re interested in shaping that storyline with them.

[ken barber]

Anybody Interested?

[Jeikor]

Definite maybe here. It sounds interesting but wondering how time consuming it might be.

[ken barber]

Definite maybe here. It sounds interesting but wondering how time consuming it might be.

Well its based on what is posted so the timing is pretty easy when all characters in the game have reacted to a situation then the situation moves forward. If that takes a day or a week its up to the players

[Zach Caldwell]

Sounds interesting. I might take part, depending on the starting concept. I would want to suggest too, that in doing something like this, all those involved need to try and use the same font type and size. This would make it much easier for those taking part in the story and those who are simply reading it.

[ken barber]

Ok we would need to establish housekeeping rules and game rules. I was thinking it might be cool to roleplay in one of the story settings from the site. Have to think on that a bit as we dont want to take away from someones story. Obviously we would not use the characters in the storys but create new ones

[Zach Caldwell]

The only way I could see, doing a game, based on an established story-verse, is in game we could only react to events from the story-verse. The game-verse, could never create or cause events. If it did, it would confuse readers, especially readers who follow a given story-verse. Also, if the game-verse is set in a story-verse, then everyone involved would have to have read or be familiar with the story-verse.

[D'Artagnon]

This is AWESOME. Could see all kinds of possibilities!

[ken barber]

Zach we could create our own story-verse for it then 

[ken barber]

D'Artagnon i take it your in?

[Jeikor]

I'm going to drop the maybe. I'm all in.

Do you think it would be a problem if the story-verse was from one of the shared universes? Readers are already used to stories from different authors so the game-verse would just be like another story. And yes the players would need to be a little familiar with the universe. I for one would have no problem reading up on a universe in order to play.

[Jack Schaeffer]

I'd be willing to give it a try. I've never done any role play gaming of any kind, but doing it through writing sounds a little like improv to me. Set up a premise, the barest outline of a character, and start reacting to each other. From the example Ken laid out above, it seems like it's more than dialog though. We would be speaking and explaining and illustrating the scene for the readers, correct? Would it not also make sense to have some kind of "limit" to the length of a post. Some of us might write a paragraph or two, others a whole book!

[D'Artagnon]

Do we have a scenario in mind?  Futuristic?  Old West?  Ancient times?  Medieval Europe?  Star Wars?  Some epic version of one of the stories here?  Comic Book style?

[ken barber]

No scenario in mind that is completely open 

[Kyle Aarons]

so, Ken, are you running this? what about character creation?

[ken barber]

Kyle its all still in just discussion phase its something I came across and thought I would see who is interested before we go further

[Jeikor]

Sounds like somebody needs to get busy figuring out all the rules and regulations and policies and whatever else is needed to get this up and running. I am familiar with the way character creation is done in D&D. Also will there be a regulator like the Dungeon Master is for D&D?

Because it sounds like there is plenty of interest.

[Kyle Aarons]

back in the day I ran one that was quite successful on Ghoul Drool in the Kandric Universe. It is certainly something that could be done.

[ken barber]

back in the day I ran one that was quite successful on Ghoul Drool in the Kandric Universe. It is certainly something that could be done.

Kyle would you be interested in help setting it up

[A.B]

YES!!! Count me in!!

[A.B]

I can be gamemaster

[A.B]

Doesn't have to be only one scenario...could have players creating their own scenarios and if there's enough interest it goes on if not it dies out...? I'm defo interested in Epic LOTR style (elves, humans orcs, spirits, magic etc etc etc), star wars and futuristic style...

[A.B]

Also I think we need to set up the rules for sexual interaction between characters...what is allowed etc, there's bound to be members who create minors and members who create adult chars. are sexual interactions (if both chars (or more than two) consent)) allowed between minors and adults or only adults or will this be set by gamemaster/member who runs each of the RPs? Will there be global rules and/or only RP specific rules?

[A.B]

Also I'm thinking maybe create skype groups so that there's no need for out of char. comments in forum RP thread(s)? Maybe?

[A.B]

maybe have sub-forums where ppl can post their character for the RP, so that whoever wants to know how to react with a character can look it up there, maybe have "public" and "private" areas in there, so that public is what everyone can see/know like appearance, obvious character/personality traits and private what other characters need to converse/spend time with that character to find out...