What's the best way to start off a Roleplay? General tips?
- Thread starter Marley
- Start date
Well, that's... A heck of a broad question there, but I suppose I can offer a few (general) tips. Joining a roleplay is generally easier than creating one, so we'll start with that.
Joining a Roleplay!
#1: Start with the Bulletin Board and Out of Character Discussion areas. The Bulletin Board area is used for interest checks--this is where players go to see where GM's are looking for players. The Out of Character Discussion area is where currently active role plays are. New role plays will often be recruiting and looking for players. If you don't see anything you like, you can try making your own role play or joining the STC Chat to ask around about genres and ideas you enjoy playing, or for further help.
#2: Once you've found a role play you want to join...
--Bulletin Board: Express your interest in joining the story, and ask the GM when they plan on creating an OOC (out of character) thread for you to post a character in.
--OOC Discussion: Fill out a character sheet (usually provided in the first post by the GM). If there is no character sheet, ask if you can join. If the RP seems pretty full already, but you're still interested in joining, ask if there is available space for you.
#3: Once you've found an RP that you want to join, and it has space available for you to join it, fill in a character sheet. Ordinarily, you will need to fill in name, age, gender/sex, appearance, and biography fields. Try to consider the role play you are joining--if it's a Fantasy role play, a knight on his trusty steed would fit a lot better than a soldier from modern times. If the plot is about rescuing a princess from a tower, you should probably consider how your character would be interested in this task, and how motivated they would be to accomplish it.
#4: Once you've filled out and posted your character sheet, try to see if there is some way of remaining in consistent contact with your GM. An instant messenger service--like Skype, Steam, or Discord--can be very helpful in this regard. It allows you to have live conversations with the GM, allows you to ask questions to improve your understanding of the world in real time, and allows you to ask about deadlines--such as when the IC (in character) will be opened. This is not a requirement, but it is often one of the most useful tools you have at your disposal to ensure that you can maintain contact with the GM and other players.
#5: Once an IC thread is created by the GM, post in it. Do not wait for others to post before you unless you are instructed to do so by the GM. If you wait for everyone else to post before you, and everyone else is waiting for everyone else to post, the RP will most definitely die. You have to take the initiative if you are the first person to see the IC thread go live, or after every GM post.
#6: Accept that most role plays will die before their time is properly due. It's the nature of things. You may want to join 2-3 role plays at a time, or, create your own role play and try your hand at it if you get tired of role plays dying on you. Speaking of...
Creating a Roleplay! (Note: This is oversimplified and generalistic to shit. There are a ton of ways you can make a role play or run a role play, but these are just some tips and instructions on the bare basics.)
#1: Before you even make a thread, think about the following.
#3: Open a word document (or open source equivalent) and write your role play out there. Make sure to have most of it done before you even start talking about it--you don't want to promise something and then find out you don't actually want to go through with it. People will remember that. Make sure to have a plot/premise, and a character sheet. Everything else is optional--add it as you need it.
Optional Alternative: If you have one or two co-authors who are helping you build this role play, create a Google Doc and change the share settings on it so that your two co-authors have access to it.
#4: Once your role play is mostly written, here comes the most neglected part, that I cannot stress enough... ADVERTISE IT. Write a teaser for the plot and post it in the Bulletin Board area as an Interest Check thread. Join the STC Chat and ask people if they would be interested in joining your role play--mention what it's about. Don't be afraid to admit if you're new at GMing--people vastly prefer honesty over empty boasting. Hell, some people will even want to join your RP more because they will want to help you grow as a GM, and by extension, give themselves a fun adventure in the process! You will probably want to do this for at least 2-3 days or around 10+ responses in your Interest Check thread to give people sufficient time to learn that your role play is there.
#5: After 2-3 days of advertising and/or 10+ replies in your interest check have been reached, create your OOC thread in the Out of Character Discussion Area. By now you should be done writing it, so you can just copy all the text in your document and paste it into the post box. Make sure to use preview post first, so you can make sure that there's no glaring errors--like out of place text, or improperly sized text.
#6: Post in the Interest Check that your OOC thread has gone live. PM people who took interest that it has gone live. Make sure that it doesn't go unnoticed by the people who took interest in it.
#7: Review character sheets that are submitted by players and answer their questions. By this point, it would not be a bad idea to offer your instant messenger (Skype, Discord, Steam, et cetera) so that your players can add you and talk to you live. This also gives you the ability to ask them when they can post next in your role play later down the line, and allows you to keep an eye on how often they are online. If a character sheet doesn't fit your world, or makes no sense, reject it softly. Explain why the character sheet did not fit and what the player can do to fix it--the vast majority of players will be more than happy to adjust their characters to fit your world if you word it nicely. Remember, that your players are your lifeblood--treat them with kindness and work hard and most will repay it in spades. During this time, think about what you want to do with your opening IC post.
#8: After about 1-2 weeks, or once you have all the characters you want, create your first IC post. Make sure that your opening post...
#10: Deal with the fact that your RP may die. In fact, statistically speaking, it will. If it does, take the players who stayed with you to the end, and ask them if they would be interested in a remake. If they are, congratulations--you now have your first core group of players. Remake the role play, rewrite and edit anything that didn't work, wait a month or so, and then redeploy it. Or, optionally, simply continue the role play with that small core group of players! When a role play dies, that's just an opportunity to make it better and try, try again, until it works!
That's about it really. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask--it may help to make your inquiries more specific in the future, to get specific answers.
Joining a Roleplay!
#1: Start with the Bulletin Board and Out of Character Discussion areas. The Bulletin Board area is used for interest checks--this is where players go to see where GM's are looking for players. The Out of Character Discussion area is where currently active role plays are. New role plays will often be recruiting and looking for players. If you don't see anything you like, you can try making your own role play or joining the STC Chat to ask around about genres and ideas you enjoy playing, or for further help.
#2: Once you've found a role play you want to join...
--Bulletin Board: Express your interest in joining the story, and ask the GM when they plan on creating an OOC (out of character) thread for you to post a character in.
--OOC Discussion: Fill out a character sheet (usually provided in the first post by the GM). If there is no character sheet, ask if you can join. If the RP seems pretty full already, but you're still interested in joining, ask if there is available space for you.
#3: Once you've found an RP that you want to join, and it has space available for you to join it, fill in a character sheet. Ordinarily, you will need to fill in name, age, gender/sex, appearance, and biography fields. Try to consider the role play you are joining--if it's a Fantasy role play, a knight on his trusty steed would fit a lot better than a soldier from modern times. If the plot is about rescuing a princess from a tower, you should probably consider how your character would be interested in this task, and how motivated they would be to accomplish it.
#4: Once you've filled out and posted your character sheet, try to see if there is some way of remaining in consistent contact with your GM. An instant messenger service--like Skype, Steam, or Discord--can be very helpful in this regard. It allows you to have live conversations with the GM, allows you to ask questions to improve your understanding of the world in real time, and allows you to ask about deadlines--such as when the IC (in character) will be opened. This is not a requirement, but it is often one of the most useful tools you have at your disposal to ensure that you can maintain contact with the GM and other players.
#5: Once an IC thread is created by the GM, post in it. Do not wait for others to post before you unless you are instructed to do so by the GM. If you wait for everyone else to post before you, and everyone else is waiting for everyone else to post, the RP will most definitely die. You have to take the initiative if you are the first person to see the IC thread go live, or after every GM post.
#6: Accept that most role plays will die before their time is properly due. It's the nature of things. You may want to join 2-3 role plays at a time, or, create your own role play and try your hand at it if you get tired of role plays dying on you. Speaking of...
Creating a Roleplay! (Note: This is oversimplified and generalistic to shit. There are a ton of ways you can make a role play or run a role play, but these are just some tips and instructions on the bare basics.)
#1: Before you even make a thread, think about the following.
- Plot/Premise: What is the story of this role play? You don't need to have the entire thing mapped out from start to finish, but try to have some vague idea about how the role play will start, what obstacles the players may have to overcome, and how the role play will end. The most important function a plot serves is to create a conflict for players to resolve. Example: You need to rescue a princess in a distant castle from a fire breathing dragon. The conflict is self-evident, it gives players a clear objective--one they can tie character motivations to. It doesn't always have to be a conflict based in violence, or with a clear end, but for your first few role plays you'll likely want to keep it simple and straightforward.
- How many players do you want?: Sometimes, you just want one other player--for example, in a romantic adventure. Sometimes, you want a whole heap of players--like in a roleplay with multiple playable factions at war. Again, for your first few role plays, you'll want to keep the numbers relatively low--between 6-8 is probably the ideal amount you want. Keep in mind to allow a couple extra players in over what you want--because you should expect at least two players to leave your role play without rhyme or reason given for doing so. Thus, if you have 2 extra players, and 2 players leave, you have the ideal number of players you wanted all along.
- Fill Vital Roles with NPC's: This is a life saver. If you have a vital role that absolutely needs to be filled for the story to work, use an NPC. Until you have a core base of players you can trust to stay with you, giving players vital roles is playing Russian Roulette that they will not only stay, but do everything you need them to do. Once you have a core base of players who follow you from role play to role play, this isn't as much of a concern.
- What will players be doing?: Make sure you know what you want your players to do. If you have a big world but the players aren't given some clear indication as to what they should be doing, or how they should be doing it, you will lose a lot of potential players from confusion. Do you want your players as a classic fantasy party, or just a group of knights out to save that princess? Knowing this, you can then know exactly what you want out of your players from the word go--and your players will know what expectations you have of them, and decide accordingly if they want to live with those expectations or not.
#3: Open a word document (or open source equivalent) and write your role play out there. Make sure to have most of it done before you even start talking about it--you don't want to promise something and then find out you don't actually want to go through with it. People will remember that. Make sure to have a plot/premise, and a character sheet. Everything else is optional--add it as you need it.
Optional Alternative: If you have one or two co-authors who are helping you build this role play, create a Google Doc and change the share settings on it so that your two co-authors have access to it.
#4: Once your role play is mostly written, here comes the most neglected part, that I cannot stress enough... ADVERTISE IT. Write a teaser for the plot and post it in the Bulletin Board area as an Interest Check thread. Join the STC Chat and ask people if they would be interested in joining your role play--mention what it's about. Don't be afraid to admit if you're new at GMing--people vastly prefer honesty over empty boasting. Hell, some people will even want to join your RP more because they will want to help you grow as a GM, and by extension, give themselves a fun adventure in the process! You will probably want to do this for at least 2-3 days or around 10+ responses in your Interest Check thread to give people sufficient time to learn that your role play is there.
#5: After 2-3 days of advertising and/or 10+ replies in your interest check have been reached, create your OOC thread in the Out of Character Discussion Area. By now you should be done writing it, so you can just copy all the text in your document and paste it into the post box. Make sure to use preview post first, so you can make sure that there's no glaring errors--like out of place text, or improperly sized text.
#6: Post in the Interest Check that your OOC thread has gone live. PM people who took interest that it has gone live. Make sure that it doesn't go unnoticed by the people who took interest in it.
#7: Review character sheets that are submitted by players and answer their questions. By this point, it would not be a bad idea to offer your instant messenger (Skype, Discord, Steam, et cetera) so that your players can add you and talk to you live. This also gives you the ability to ask them when they can post next in your role play later down the line, and allows you to keep an eye on how often they are online. If a character sheet doesn't fit your world, or makes no sense, reject it softly. Explain why the character sheet did not fit and what the player can do to fix it--the vast majority of players will be more than happy to adjust their characters to fit your world if you word it nicely. Remember, that your players are your lifeblood--treat them with kindness and work hard and most will repay it in spades. During this time, think about what you want to do with your opening IC post.
#8: After about 1-2 weeks, or once you have all the characters you want, create your first IC post. Make sure that your opening post...
- Has a hook line, which players can use to insert their characters. (Ex: "It was a dark and smoky tavern, and in the corner sat a man waiting for his hired knights to arrive...")
- Adequately describes the scenery sufficiently that players can know where they are, without drowning them in purple prose. (Rule of thumb: If you write a paragraph that players cannot interact with in some way, delete it.)
- Introduces any important NPC's you need them to know for the role play to work. (Ex: "Beside the man hiring the knights sat a female guide and scholar, who would help them reach the castle of the evil dragon.")
#10: Deal with the fact that your RP may die. In fact, statistically speaking, it will. If it does, take the players who stayed with you to the end, and ask them if they would be interested in a remake. If they are, congratulations--you now have your first core group of players. Remake the role play, rewrite and edit anything that didn't work, wait a month or so, and then redeploy it. Or, optionally, simply continue the role play with that small core group of players! When a role play dies, that's just an opportunity to make it better and try, try again, until it works!
That's about it really. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask--it may help to make your inquiries more specific in the future, to get specific answers.
