Roleplaying for Dummies

What is Roleplaying? | How to Create a Character | Example of a Post | Different Types of Roleplay

This is a page for people who have never heard of roleplaying before or don't really understand what it is. Not to be mistaken for Roleplaying Tips, which was created to help people who know how to roleplay make better characters. You should probably read it AFTER reading this.

What is roleplaying?
(back to top)
Roleplaying has many meanings, but its name vaguely reveals its general meaning. Roleplaying = playing a role. This meaning encompassing all the types of roleplay.

Basically, our type of roleplay is a written (typed) roleplay where you pretend to be a character and interact with other characters. It's like group improv fanfiction, but you control only one character. Here's a short example. (The blue is what the first person wrote while the red is what the second person wrote in response).

Daisy was walking down the street when she saw Mike. "Hi Mike," she said.

"Hi Daisy," said Mike, waving his hand at her.

Obviously, that's NOT a good representation of the caliber of writing that we expect, but that's the basic format. You can see that the first person mentioned her character seeing Mike. That's not the same as controlling Mike. It would only be controlling Mike if she said that Daisy saw Mike but the person who plays Mike never said he was on the street or nearby.

Our type of written roleplay is supposed to be a lot longer. Each post should have at least one solid paragraph, if not more, of roleplay. Some roleplay sites even have length requirements for each post (usually around 7 - 11 sentences), but our site doesn't because I don't believe in it. It's quality, not quantity. Which brings to my next point: a long post is not necessarily a good post. A super long post will probably just make everything difficult for the other person. So try to aim for around 1 - 4 paragraphs / 5 - 20 sentences.

How to Create a Character
(back to top)
You might be wondering how to create character. There are many ways to do it, but I'll just explain my way of doing things. I start with a premise, an idea, one basic characteristic or situation on which I will base the character. Often I'll take one personality trait (possibly one that I have) and exaggerate it. For example, sensitivity. A boy so sensitive he cries every time he hears the word "Titanic." Everyone calls a wimp, many people question whether he's gay, and the sensitivity is so high that girls can't even take it.

Now that I've created sort of a stereotype of the character, it's time to add depth. One way of adding depth that I use is answering the question "why?". Why is he so damn sensitive? Perhaps he's afraid of being happy. He's sabotaging himself because he has low self-esteem and feels that he doesn't deserve to be happy. If you get to know him, you realize that perhaps the sensitivity isn't real, that he can control it without even knowing that he can.

Then, after I answer the question "why?," I add more details. Who are his parents? Where does he live? And, since this is an X-men RPG, what is his power? It should be related to his personality, but it doesn't have to be. I'd say empathy would be good for Tristan.

At one point (which could be at any time), I have to give the character a name. I always choose a name that has meaning but doesn't sound too obvious. For example, Dreary Crier isn't a good name. Tristan Rune would be better ("Tristan" meaning melancholy, "Rune" meaning secret). I usually go to babynames.com for my naming needs. They have a really good search engine of names.

Example of a Post
(back to top)
Here's an example of a post as Tristan Rune.

Sitting in the cafe, staring at the wide red curtains, Tristan slowly stirred his espresso while pondering his own emotional battleground. He wondered if Rogue was right. Was he really just playing up the angst to impress girls? He didn't think so. It went deeper than that. Maybe it was just his nature, like Mom said. It was cute when he was a little kid. It was sweet when girls first met him, even attractive. Unfortunately, it was just too much for even the biggest sympathizers to handle.

Different Types of Roleplay
(back to top)
When a person hears the word "roleplay," various things may come to mind. Many people equate it with sexual roleplay, which is either something like cybersex or dressing up like a maid while screwing somebody. Though it's true that it is one type of roleplay, that's not the type we're talking about. Other people imagine a bunch of geeks playing Dungeons & Dragons while wearing capes. That is also a type of roleplay (called LARP or Live Action Roleplay), but Jesus Christ, that's friggen messed up. Another type of roleplay is the psychotherapy roleplay where people play out various roles to improve their mental health. That's not what we're talking about either. Finally, there's the video game/computer game RPG. Though this is a very common and not too geeky type of RPG, it's not our type.