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Hawthorne Roleplaying Guide
Roleplaying in Hawthorne may seem to be different from what many of you are used to, but if you take a look at this guide, you can find many helpful suggestions as to our style of roleplay. We ask that everyone who roleplays in our room adhere to this style. This is also a good explanation of how beginners may roleplay.
Our roleplay style depends on good narrative skills and not so much as detailing action of a character, but action, as well as emotions, thoughts, etc. that help you form a better idea of who your character is.
Tip #1 Character Development. A character is more than a cool name, picture and tagline. If you have those things, you have a start but you need more. You need to give your character a background, a history. How old is your character? Where is he/she from? What kind of family does he/she come from? What kind of work does he/she do? These are the kinds of basic questions you need to have answers to. Once you have the basics down, you can start adding details. Give your character a talent, an accent, some quirks and habits that will distinguish them from other characters. To demonstrate this, let's use an example and go step by step.
Jennifer is new to roleplaying. She wants to join in, but needs a character. She's quick to find a picture and set up a handle for "Penelope Cates" but she soon realizes she needs more. So Jennifer sits down with a pen and makes a list that might look something like this:
Penelope Cates
23 years old
born in Philadelphia
a middle class family
currently a student at a university in Paris
speaks fluent French
excels at science
bites fingernails
wears glasses and tends to fiddle with them
So far, so good! Jennifer is off to a good start. But remember, the more details you fill in about your character, the more interesting and complex he/she will be. Give your character a philosophy, a motivation, an outlook on life. Give him/her flaws, perfect people are dull and uninteresting. You will need to take into account the room's setting. Make sure your character is appropriate. Hawthorne Manor is a place where all things supernatural dwell. What is your character doing there? With these things in mind, Jennifer might now add some things to Penelope's list.
is an optimist
very outgoing and curious
believes that everything can be explained through science
is at Hawthorne doing an independent study on paranormal phenomenon
It is not necessary to have a complete biography of your character. It's important to leave room for creativity and spontaneity. That's a major part of the fun in roleplaying. For instance, Jennifer doesn't need to know ahead of time how Penelope would react to a mugging but she should know her character well enough to improvise such a scene realistically, in detail.
Tip #2 Use correct grammar. This cannot be stressed enough. Before you begin role playing you should have a firm grasp of grammar basics. No one is going to hound you to death if you end your sentence with a preposition, but if you want to be a good roleplayer always, always, always have these things in mind. Engrave them into your brain, tattoo them on your hands, whatever it takes.
- The first word in a sentence MUST ALWAYS be capitalized. The shift key can be found to the right AND left of your keyboard. Use it.
- The pronoun "I" is ALWAYS capitalized, unless you are e.e. cummings, which you are not, so for the love of all that is good and decent, CAPITALIZE IT!
- Proper nouns are also ALWAYS capitalized.
- The end of a sentence is signified by a period, exclamation point or question mark. There are no other options. One of those things must be used. Do not leave a sentence hanging with no punctuation.
- The rule is: "I" before "E" except after "C" and words like neighbor and weigh.
- Watch out for homonyms. Words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have completely different meanings. For instance: they're, their and there or you/re and your.
You're only human and roleplaying tends to move quickly, forcing a person to write without proofreading. It's ok to make mistakes. No one expects every word of every post to be spelled correctly, or to never mess up on one of the things listed above. But we do expect you to pay attention to grammar and punctuation and use it correctly on a consistent basis. Mistakes should be the exception, not the rule.
Tip #3 Writing style. Roleplaying is writing a story. It means, as mentioned in the previous tip, using correct grammar and punctuation. Although many prefer to use asterisks (*) or tildes (~) to show action, we prefer the proper writing of a narrative style. Instead, try to use quotation marks ("") to surround speech. We'll give two examples:
Example: *I enter the Manor cautiously.* Hello, is anyone here? *I call to what seems to be an empty house.* I'd like to rent a room. *I call out again to the stillness, but only a small echo responds.
The Preferred Way: I enter the Manor cautiously, "Hello, is anyone here?" I call to what seems to be an empty house. "I'd like to rent a room," I call out again to the stillness but only a small echo responds.
We prefer that nothing replaces quotation marks around speech. You do not need anything around action sentences. This includes *, ~, ( ), { } and [ ]. If you're accustomed to playing with asterisks or other symbols, the transition to quotation marks may be awkward at first. Just remember that practice makes perfect and in the end you'll have mastered a skill that makes your writing easier to read.
Write in complete sentences!!! This is so important it cannot be over-emphasized. Very few things make veteran players cringe like seeing a post like this: *smiles*. Other than the fact that the post uses the dreaded asterisks, it's not even a sentence! It's basic but crucial things like this that mark the difference between a good player and a mediocre/bad one.
Do not abbreviate words or spell them wrong deliberately. This means that *s* instead of "I smile" is unacceptable, as is, "thanx" instead of "thanks." It doesn't take that much more time to type in the few extra letters. Do it. The end.
Do not place your entire post in italics. Italics are generally used to highlight a certain word or sentence to heighten it's impact and stress it's importance. Placing entire posts in italics makes them hard to read. Remember, you're not going for fancy font appearance, you're going for readability.
Your tagline should not contain more information or detail than your posts. Taglines are generally used to display a line of poetry or music that describes your character. Generally, you do not need to make your tagline a physical description, because your picture will show people your character's appearance. Personality traits, weaknesses, strengths, disabilities and the like are acceptable as brief taglines, the key word being brief, but it's far better to show those things by playing them instead.
Tip #4 Character choice. One of the reasons people roleplay is, it's a form of escapism. It allows people to become someone else for a while. To experience lives outside our own. It's fun to play the suave hero who always saves the day and gets the girl. Or the beautiful seductress who always knows exactly what to say and never has a bad hair day. It's exciting to play the badass, superpowerful villain who never gets caught. That's all well and good up to a point. Eventually, it gets boring. Perfect characters who never experience trauma or embarrassment or despair are boring. Be inventive, dare to let your character fail. Dare to play someone who's not the most beautiful or most powerful. Make your character complex instead of perfect. You'll find it's more challenging and more rewarding in the end.
For more on Good RPG Writing, please read the section on this site regarding writing. This will help you with what is expected when you RP at Hawthorne.