A Simple, Understandable, Role-playing Guide

Role-playing is an art, and you are the artist. The keyboard is your brush, and words are your paint. Further reading will help you create the masterpiece.

Like Bob Ross.

Oh, curious as to who this little green fellow is? This is the SSRPG Mascot. Greenwolf.

It’s really quite simple, believe you me. What type of role-play will you be interested in? Medieval? Fantasy? Perhaps a series role-play, based on a movie or book (Harry Potter is a good example of that)? Maybe even anthro…or quad? Again, you will need a character.

Starting with a character isn’t hard. It’s easier to come up with your character’s biography first. What was their history? How did they grow up? Where did they live? Who is their family? How many siblings? What about their parents? How did they get where they are? There’s much more to that, but I’ll leave it to you to decide how far you want to detail your character.

Personally, I usually go pretty far. If you’ve got something special about your character, you’ll definitely want to go into detail about that. Scars, emotional baggage, special traits, abilities, etc—you’ll want to go into how your character got the things he or she did.

It’s easiest to begin with their childhood, or at least from a young age. What kind of friends did he or she have, was their childhood prosperous?

Now, this leads me to something else. As a beginning role player, you’ll probably think about creating a clichéd character—even if you don’t know what that means, you’re more than likely going to do it.

Having a clichéd character is normal among beginning role-players, that’s understandable. But, having a character that grew up just like everyone else, with a horrible (or wonderful) past, gets a little boring every now and again.

That is clichéd.

Clichéd is bad.

Start with something all your own—instead of a blonde (or white furred) character with blue eyes, or a black (or black furred) character with red eyes. Or with a character that grew up to be the world’s best…whatever. Of course, you can’t play a character that’s the world’s best, whatever! Everyone would want to do that. There would be too much competition. Keep it simple.

Something reasonable and easy at first, perhaps. A character without such a complicated personality—or split personalities. As a beginner, you might not be willing to handle such a complex character. Even if you are, start out with something easy; and develop from there.

I can’t, however, tell you what to pick. This is your choice—how your character acts, and looks.

Oh, I forgot to mention…

Designs and appearance! Will your character have special designs? Such as stripes, spots, stars, shapes, etc? Where will they be placed? How will they be placed? Will your character be slimming? Perhaps heavy? Lean, muscular, broad-shouldered even? All of these are key ingredients when it comes to creating a character; so don’t forget to include them.

Having a skinny character can be all the difference between having a heavy character. At first it is hard to decide how you want everything, but it does get easier. Mixing colors, shades, tints, furs, hairs, clothes, scales, etc, is all very hard…but it’s a very important step!

Just as important is the personality of your character. Without a personality, your character would be bland and uninteresting. Spark them up a bit with something unexpected. A character with an odd obsession is a good thing to start out with—simple characteristics are best for a beginning role-player.

How does your character react when being talked to? Are they friendly, aggressive, absurd, crude, witty, intelligent…these are also key points. You can’t forget to give your character a personality.

Your character should be as alive as you or I.

Meaning: Don’t forget to give them a history. An appearance. And a personality.

If you’re planning on a one-on-one role-play (probably over an instant messenger, or e-mail) a smaller setting might be better. Perhaps a single building, and build from that. However, if it’s much bigger, take a forum with probably…twenty or so members, you’re setting is probably going to be much bigger. From one building, to an entire town—or a plot of land to an entire country.

Though, if you plan on joining a role-playing forum, a setting may already be picked out. Which is a good thing, because usually picking a place to role-play is rather hard. You’ll have to stick to that setting—because it would be pretty pointless to start role-playing in the middle of a field, and introduce your character in the middle of space.

Again, is your setting clichéd? You’ll want to stray away from things that are used often, such as a dense forest at night, with the full moon; or maybe have the role-play start in the middle of winter or summer. Try something off the wall.

(Beginning is always the hardest part…coming up with your own, unique, setting is difficult, but try your best and everything should flow easily!)

You can do whatever you like with the plot, and include as many or as little characters as you like. Plots aren’t mandatory in a role-play, but occasionally an administrator will host a plot to get more members for their forum, or to spice things up a bit.

When a plot isn’t being played, things are pretty much free falling—and going whichever way the role-players have them. During a plot, the administrator may ask that the forum members stay on subject, and not to stray too far from the idea of the basic, over all idea.

W: Weather.
A: Actions.
S: Setting.
L: Language.
E: Emotions.

It’s nice to have an introduction, or your very first post, that describes the weather, the emotions and thoughts of your character, some actions, the setting, and some language.

Describing the weather gives the other role-players a good feel of how their own characters should act. If it’s raining, they’ll probably run for cover, or if it’s bright and hot the character(s) may hang around in the summer sunshine.

Which leads us to some emotions and actions. Does your character like the rain or sunshine? Perhaps they’re thinking, ‘Why’s it always so gloomy?’ or, ‘I wish it were winter.’ It’s okay to include your character’s thoughts, where appropriate. Sometimes other role-players will want or need to know your character’s thoughts—like in a book. Your character(s) aren’t stationary blocks of ice, they move, think, and feel—just like you do.

It’s easiest to describe the weather and setting first, though you don’t have to. Introducing your character and allowing them to interact with the setting and weather is a great way to get in tune with things. Actions and language/emotions should also be mixed within, and used where appropriate.

Detail is a must! But remember, there is such thing as too much detail. You don’t want to kill the other players by using unrelated words, and huge gigantic words which you don’t know the meaning to. The thesaurus is a good friend, use it when you’ve used a word too many times, but make sure you know the correct definition of the word you’re about to use.

Now that you’ve seen all of the basics, do you think you’re ready to start your own role-play? Do you feel more confident in your skills, or have you learned anything at all…? I’m sure that you’ve learned something, or at least enjoyed reading part of this. I know I enjoyed making it!

Now, go role-play!

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