Gwennie's Handy-Dandy RP Guide

[Gwenetta]

Welcome, one and all, to Gwennie's Handy Dandy Role-Play Guide!

Today, I will be teaching you both the basics of RPing and the specifics of how it will be done on DnM!

1. Your Character and You

When you roleplay, it must be in 3rd person and past-tense.

Good Example:

Mr. Jatho was shaken. Quite literally. Quite so shaken, in fact, that as soon as Gardner released him, he teetered over, completely off balance, and fell forward. He sprawled in a tangled heap, his long, black hair fanned around him. Meanwhile, his forehead had smacked one of the white tiles on his floor, and the impact made his teeth rattle, his heart shudder, and his brain quake. To say the least, he was not pleased. Not in the slightest. Not even a smidgen.

Bad- _{terrible, horrible}- Example:

I see Mr. Jatho fall down and I worry! OMG, why is he on the ground? this makes me think about when i was little and my mom fell off that cliff. Anyway, OMG mr jatho!! So, I go over to him, and i'm like are you okay Jatho?! and he's like I hate you bitch go get run over by a car RaaaaaWWWRRR!!! I'mma crazy demon!

Each time you post as a character, you must write AT LEAST 7 sentences.

Good Example:

Mr. Jatho eyes crinkled imperceptibly in a smile behind his pale mask. Really, what was the point of making the characters feel as if they had never moved? Knowledge for knowledge's sake? The Doctor obviously was forgetting the most integral part of the plan: time. But maybe he didn't know that time was most important. Better not to question the old loon. There was nothing in it for Mr. Jatho to do so, in fact, perhaps there was more in it for him if he simply feigned ignorance.

His grin vanished and he snapped his attention to the doorway where the two strong-men lurked. "Come back in here and get this girl away from my presence, immediately. Hurry and gag and blindfold her!" his voice was as dry as a desert. He looked at Dr. Man. "No business, Doctor. Frankly, her body repulses me- as every human does, and I see no reason to extend its stay in my presence. As for my perfection- its perfect. So, my perfection need not be perfected, thank you."

The men, for their sake, hustled in and quickly did as they were bid. Megumi gave no apparent struggle. She was whisked away out of the room. Mr. Jatho looked away and shook his head slightly, then turned to the Doctor. He clasped his hands together, fingers interlaced, and rested his cheek against them, head titled to the left side, shoulders shrugged toward the ceiling. His lips pursed out under the white cloth of his mask, causing an odd bulge in the texture of the mask. He replied to the doctor's previous statement directed at him in a voice sticky sweet as honey, so sticky that any fly caught in it was sure to be trapped till it's dying day, and so sweet that it would give you cavities, "Ooo, so, another experiment, Doccy-pie~? Sounds like fuuun!"

As his fingers gripped under the rim of the mask, he pulled it up over his face and skipped to his suitcase. He delicately folded it up, likewise with his gloves, then put them away. His fingers skimmed over the weaponry, then lifted them up one at a time and set them in their appropriate settings. He closed the lid and latched it. Then, he yoinked the rubber-band from his ponytail and flipped his long, shiny, onyx hair out as if he were in a hair product commercial. His arms stretched over high above his head and his mouth roared open in a lion yawn. It clamped close with a snap. And he sang, "My, my, my, my, my... today was EAAAAAAASY~!!! I didn't even have to be ObSceNe Or VioLenT~!!!" He clapped his hands together in apparent glee, as if he had gotten a pony for his birthday with a cake on its head. A YUMMY cake on its head. With a candle on it. A HAPPY candle. A happy candle on fire. BURNY fire. HOT burny fire. Hot burny firey happy candle on a yummy cake on a pony's head on his birthday... well, maybe not ALL of that...

Bad Example:

Mr. Jatho didn't like that. He fell on the floor. Stupid Gardner. screw flanders screw flanders screw flanders

2. Your Crew-Mates and You

• Because there is an over-arching plot, all of our awesome sub-plots need to be organizable so that we can have linear time. Thus, your characters are gonna be hyper-aware of the time, date, and place they're at. And if they aren't, at least you, the writer, are.
  
  You can't have a character that is in two places at one time. It makes no sense.
  
  Therefore, if we have a dude in his room, two people on the Bridge, one in the Agricultural Center, etc, all at the same time, and one character sends out a distress call from a planet (or whatever), they can all react at the same "time."
  
  Now, there will be some threads that move quickly and some that move slowly. In fact, you can play in more than one thread at a time, so long as those threads take place at different times.
  
  For instance, one thread is on February 3 (Day 1) starting a 8AM. Your character is talking to another. Another thread is on Feb 6 (Day 3) at 2PM and you character is going on an excursion down to a planet. You play these at the same time, but for your character, it is two different times.
  
  Thus, the whole crew can act as both individuals in their own little worlds, and also a society of people all living in the same world (or ship, lol).
  
  
• Also, you can't play anybody else's character. Nuh-uh, no way. You are only allowed to play from your character's perspective. Thus, you can't tell what someone else is doing, saying, or thinking.
  
  For example: you are Tom and they are Jack. Tom and Jack are arguing. You can make Tom say an insult about Jack's mother. You can say how Tom thinks that Jack will get really insulted. But you can't say that Jack actually is insulted, because Tom is not God, Tom does not know what Jack is truly feeling. Jack's writer can then respond in their own character's unique way. They write that Jack actually totally agrees and isn't insulted at all. Jack hates his mother. But Jack punches Tom anyway.
  
  There is an exception, however, for shared minor characters. For instance, two main characters walk into a bar. They interact with each other. There is a bartender. Both RPers may play that bartender. He is a bit character. We're not really gonna see him again and neither RPer is going to write what he thinks. They can make him talk and act. IE: The bartender sets two beers in front of them and gruffly grunts "Drink up, kids."

3. The Story and You

Threads are 2+ RPers. You and your fellow RPers can plan the thread out before-hand in the RP-Planning Board, if they wish to, or just wing it. Whatever floats your boat. It depends on how important the thread is in light of the overarching plot. If you want to join an already-started thread, you must read the entire thing (so that you know what's going on) and pm/chatbox those members asking if it is alright. They might have a specific plan for the story that they don't want interrupted.

Do NOT suddenly make a huge change in the plot/ in something that will affect the plot without consulting Box-Inc about it. IE: Don't say that the ship has suddenly arrived at a PRT base and bombed them and now they're dead and we win, yay. No. Bad. Consult Box first. However, if you wanna say that your character went down to a planet and was captured by PRT members, that's chill.

Do NOT suddenly end a thread. If it seems like the little story is coming to an end (ie, the characters are all leaving and going to bed), and all the RPers in that thread agree (aka Group Consensus), then and ONLY then may you close the thread.

Do NOT kill off other characters (minor, shared characters excepted) without permission from the RPer of that character. They are not your personal red-shirts, okay? Jeez. If you guys plan it, sure. If an RPer here is willing to write a death scene, sure. But you can't just walk in, phaser the Captain in the face, then peace out, m'kay?

4. Vocabulary and You

RP and rp will always, ALWAYS stand for Role-Play (or role-play, roleplay, etc).

Thus: RPing = Roleplaying
RPer = Roleplayer
RPed = Roleplayed
etc

DnM stands for Doctors Not Morticians, the name of the Forum.

A Forum is a meeting place (ie: on the internet) for people (ie: us) to meet (ie: roleplay). All forum vocab (such as thread, boards, category, post, poll, etc) will be explained by Box in another place. He'll link it.

Chara = Character

5. Questions and You
Still confused? Respond with your question/ confusion/ complication and we (Box and I) will answer/ clarify/ simplify.

Cool? Cool.

Also, you can see an example of what RPing looks like right HERE.

_{In the USSC, you don't ask questions,
questions ask you.}

[Glow]

question.if we have created two characters, can those characters then react, and communicate within the same post?

[Gwenetta]

Yeppers. In fact that is the exact correct thing to do.

If you have multiple characters, separate their entries with some type of hyphen, and keep 'em in the same post.

For Example:

Mister Jatho replied only with a smile, imperceivable behind his white cloth mask. His fingers twitched in anticipation as they slid over the latches of the case and silently unhooked them. Leaving the case closed, yet unlatched, he paced toward the Chair. It was rigid and uncomfortable, with titanium straps to hold the receiver in place by his or her wrists, ankles, knees, waist, elbows, and neck. He ran his fingers over it, feeling the power seep through his glove and up his arm. He snapped his attention away and lifted his coat off the rack. It would protect his clothes from... anything... that might happen to chance a stain on them.

~*~


DAMMIT! That ASSHOLE, PSYCHO doctor-- or whatever the heck he was-- had locked her up! Megumi vigorously yanked on her handcuffs, but the chains were-- of course-- too strong for her to break. --Ow! Her wrists hurt! All the yanking and tugging which had gone on for... she didn't know how long, had made her skin around the cuffs red and swollen... Megumi slumped, body limp, and gasped precious air into her lungs. If she escaped, she'd pound that doctor to a--! Oh no. What if she never escaped?! What if he kept her trapped in here forever? She would never be able to protect herself if one of the guards... She gasped and went pale, her phobia of men looming over her head. NO NO NO! She shook her head side to side, trying to dissipate those kinds of thoughts. I have to get out of here! She huddled into a ball, shivering and crying.
Clic-kink! The cell door opened, and the two hulks walked in, one after the other, and stood on either side of her. Megumi looked up at them in terror.

~*~


Jatho turned his attention toward the door as it opened, revealing two large, rather ugly, beefy men. Held between them was a girl, tied at the ankles, knees, and wrists, blindfolded, and gagged. They held her up like an offering to Jatho.
"Please remove her restraints and secure her into the Chair. But do not, I tell you, remove her gag or blindfold. They are quite important," then, he turned toward the doctor, "please do take a seat, and I implore you, you must not disturb me once I begin."
"Leave us!" he ordered the beefs, watching them go until the door closed behind them. "Good evening Princess," it was only 11:00 AM, "how are you?" His heels clicked ominously on the concrete floor as he approached...

Do NOT double-post, even if it is with two separate characters.

However, this doesn't mean that if you have two characters, they HAVE to post one after the other. You could have an order like follows:

You: first chara
RPer A
You: second chara
RPer B
etc

ALSO, if you and your fellow RPers make a looping order (ie: RPer 1, 2, 3, then 1, 2, 3, etc) do NOT violate that and post out of turn UNLESS:

• The next RPer is away.
• That RPer's chara has left the thread.
• Your character MUST react first AND you have group consensus.

Of course, looping orders are not required, just convenient sometimes. They also give all the characters a chance to act/ react to the situation before it changes again.

[Glow]

okay thanks <3