The Four Houses of Hogwarts

Before you join the Four Houses of Hogwarts you must ask yourself if this is the right style RPG for you. First and foremost, this site is PG-13, so anyone under 13 will have to wait until they are 13 to join! Now there are different types of RPGs. First you’ll hear people mention Canon vs. Non Canon sites. We are a Canon Site, which means we try to stick as close to the books as possible, so you will not find half vampire students or dragon students at our school. Secondly is the writing style of the RPG. At the Four Houses of Hogwarts, we strive for quality rather than quantity. Our members write two or more paragraphs for each post, and except the same quality from other members. This does not mean that new members are expected to be able to write multiple paragraphs when they first begin, but rather, we want our new members to enjoy this site and gradually build their Role Playing skills so that they can write multiple paragraphs.

Finally, after much debate we have decided to play our 2005-2006 Hogwarts year as Harry's 7th year. However due to the fact that many people have still not read the Half Blood Prince, we are going to base our 7th year off of the plot we had on this site during Harry's 6th year.

Now if you feel the Four Houses of Hogwarts is the right style of RPG for you, please continue reading!

Joining our site!

To join our site, first you will need to register on our forum. Once you’ve done that, Proboards will send you an email with your activation code that will allow you to log in to the board. Some e-mail filters will consider Proboards as spam, so if you do not receive your email, check your junk mail folder or click the button to resend your activation code. If you’ve done that and still haven’t received your code, let the staff know in Talk to the Staff.

Once you have registered your next step is to make your student. The choice of what house you wish to join is entirely up to you. However if you truly want the Hogwarts experience, you may try on our Sorting Hat in the Character Approval Board. Once you have decided on your house you will need to decide what year you wish to play. We require all our new members to start with a 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th year student. Once you have decided your house and year, it’s time to write your biography! To write your biography, go to the Character Approval Board and post your biography in the Student Character Approval section. This is the format we require:

Name:
Blood:
Age:
Year:
House:
Pet: Wand:

Physical Description:

Biography (include information about your character's personality, interests, and history. The more detail the better!)

The following are some tips that will help your chances of getting your profile approved the first time:

• Use proper grammar
• Check your spelling
• Write a believable biography
• Spell your House correctly
• Physical appearance should be appropriate for the age of your character
• Your wand must have a solid hair or feather core such as: Unicorn Hair, Dragon Heartstring, Phoenix Feather, Leprechaun Hair, Demiguise Hair, Hippogriff Talon, Runespoor Fang, Hair from the maine of a Kelpie, Chimaera Scale, and Ashwinder Ash.
• You may have a pet cat, rat, owl, toad, Puffskein or Pygmy Puff.
• Hogwarts doesn't accept transfer students.
• Hogwarts only accepts students from the U.K. (England, Ireland, and Scotland).

To see examples of biographies, look at the Approved Characters Board. If you look at the board, please do not copy the biographies! Our members have worked hard on creating their unique students and it's upsetting to see one's hard work stolen.

Once you have posted your character’s biography, a staff member will look it over and approve or deny your character. In either case, that staff member will send you a message in the Character Owl board letting you know the outcome. If you character was approved, you can begin Role Playing! If your character was not approved, the staff member will tell you exactly what needs to be done to get your character approved.

When your character has been approved, please read over the RULES and Frequently Asked Questions pages.

If you are reading this next section, Congratulations! You've been approved and are now ready to begin Role Playing! This section goes into detail about what Role Playing actually is, below is an example of Role Playing for those who don't know.

Kimberly: Kimberly walked into the library and looked for an empty table where she could do her homework. Finding none she approached a girl sitting alone at a table "Excuse me, mind if I join you?" she asked.
Catalina: Catalina was busy writing her charms essay when another girl asked if she could join her. Catalina smiled and moved her bag to make room "Sure, have a seat!" she said.
Kimberly: "Thanks!" Kimberly exclaimed as she sat down and took out her potions book. "What are you working on?" she asked as she looked for her potion homework.

Role playing is fairly easy to get started with, you write in the 3rd person, just like you would write a story. The biggest issue with Role Playing is to remember that there are OTHER people playing as well, so please refrain from "God Moding." God Moding refers to when you Role Play the actions of someone else' character. When you Role Play, please try to use proper grammar and write with plenty of detail.

For your very first post you can read through some posts on the forum and if you find one that you like, you can join in. You may also post in the Plots board your idea for a post and someone else will reply and you can then set up a post.

The Forum

The Forum is where our members spend most of their time. There are two types, In Character ( IC ) , and Out of Character ( OOC ). In character boards are where you role play exactly the way your student would act. Out of Character boards are where you, yourself write and talk. These two types of boards NEVER cross, meaning you don't Role Play in an OOC board, and you don't personally talk in an ( IC ) board. The following is a list of the forums.

Out of Character Forums