Ah congratulations on the sticky, Illusionary. And speaking of a guide to Rp creation, I wouldn't mind getting started on a guide for that. Sure my Rp's weren't everlasting, though I bet my experience will prove useful for newer Rp'ers to come, and it'll give me something to do.

About Ninjas, not every ninja is uberskilled, also. So idf someone was playing a realistic ninja, he/she would probably be one who was not a master of shadows and blades, but in fact someone who was maybe exellent at hiding in the shadows but was no good at fighting when it came down to it?

Just throwing it out to bring up this point:

There are a lot of classes that could fall into the "uber-awexome" category we all hate. Loads of noobs could play a samurai with the (wrong) idea that they are totally perfect, unbeatable warriors. same with assassins, battlemages, and the like.

Here's somethign I know from experience: Vampires and werewolves must have reasonab;le plot hooks. Example: If you play a vampire, you damn well better have a good story for him because if you don't then you'll look like you just did it because vampires are powerful. Especially cyro-vamps, since they don't have the same handicaps. Werewolves are simpler because of the whole "once a motnth" buisness but there should still be a good reason.

I would beg to differ, though I see what you are trying to say.

A ninja is, at it's core, a super-agile assassin who is good with blades. More often than not, that is added to an ability to manipulate shadow.

If someone were to play an assassin-type character, who was good with blades and used ninja-style fighting, chances are they would still be uber, and at any rate, I am not protesting against that, but against the stereo-typical ninja. A ninja is by vocation, very good at what they do. It's just how they are.

I doubt I'm explaining this right, but I really don't feel there is much more to say on the subject beyond that. I have covered uberness in other characters, so please don't feel I am neglecting to mention uberness in relation to others.

However, the point about werewolves and vampires is a good one, and I will thus edit to include over-powering in such cases. Thank you for your input.

I don't mean tyou were excluding, sorry if I implied that, I was just saying that even for characters that aren't often played as Uber, you should watch it and make sure you don't by accident and that it is possible to be non-uber while playing an uber-type character, I merely used Ninja as the example.

Should there be a section for join cutoffs? I know in general people don't put them if they start the RPs but as a rule unless it looks very good I almost never join an RP if it's hit three pages.

Um... what? :huh: I feel like you are speaking a different language here... elaborate, please?

sorry. I mean that some RP creators have a time after which they won't let people join unless they have a good enough character or somesuch. That dosen't seem to happen much here, but is there a rule of thumb about join cutoff times?

Not really. A good many RPs will allow new characters all the way through until the end. That is very specific to RP, and also is not specific to how someone would RP.

Hmm... it might be worth mentioning to Argente though, as it seems more about the RP itself than the characters. He made a guide on RP creation.

I have been away from these forums for far too long. I regret that I never got around to finishing up a few RP's in the past such as The Sleeper Has Fallen: Bloodtide (a Morrowind RP made before Oblivion was released). However, I digress.

I'm glad that someone in the community decided to make a Role Playing for dummies guide and that it actually is stickied. I take this thread, this very topic, as a good sign for my return. To all the RPers out there who have been doing this since day one (or day 20... we were all new at forum RP once ) you have my thanks for setting the bar for good RP.

Have a goodnight, I'm going to bed.

Why has Rping become so elitist?

Rping, to me is a game. A game which everyone I know who plays it; Enjoys it. Those that don't, tend to not play it really. Those that are good at it, are looked at as if they're some sort of Gaming Masters. And apparently, the gaming masters have to create an Rping Guide to suite them. To make them enjoy the game more, to make them stop getting so annoyed at the new gamers.

A guide like this... It's so strict. Why? Why stomp down peoples creativity, just because the Gaming Masters feel that this ruins their experience. What's a name got to do with anything? It's their character, not yours. I know that they might not be the most amazing names. But who really gives a [censored]? What does it mean to you? Do you look at one of the names and anger boils through your veins? (Note I'm presenting this post to all the members of the Rping community.) Because if so. Get a grip! It's a name! I've never had one, but that's because I don't want to have my character with one. But, that doesn't mean that I will get all angry at someone who has what.. Death Dealer for instance. I wont go; OMG! WH4T Is Th4t naM3?! It's Death Dealer! Get angry in it via Rp, don't make the gamer get flamed because of his imagination. It's not fair.

On skills, I disagree with you here, I believe that you can infact learn many types of skills, take Nightblades for instance or Battle mages. Seriously, who are we to say that a Khajiit wont be able to learn how to sneak, use a blade and fire balls of flame aswell? And age.. What? Elves can live to what.. 600 years old? And vampires are immortal save for death via pain/wound/illness. I don't get it, why create these rules, when you could simply outline all the possible outcomes. E.g. Instead of putting, "You can't be over 400, because that's just stupid" (Which I feel is a stupid comment in the first place.) but you could put up a list of races and their average life expectancies. Why try to dampen peoples Imagination with strict rules, when you could instead give them a list of things which would be more acceptable?

Uber, a topic which I have thought about more and more lately. Define it? I would define it as; The lack of ability to make a character reasonable in the eyes of the other gamers or the Rp Moderator. That is about as good as I'm going to get at defining it. And yes, I believe that to be true. One mans idea of Uber could be another mans idea of pretty noobish. I think everyone here, knows how to deal with Uber players, and on some occasions, they have been dealt with a kindness and the like. But sometimes, (I give you Kvatch Guardian) They were flamed by people who I respected on this forum, they were chastised and made fun out of. Kvatch Guardian left the forums if I am not mistaken. Something which I am deeply disappointed in. Why? Well.. Those who flamed him, thought themselves the Gaming Masters. When in reality.. They just made themselves look like idiots, damned fools who believe that because they can write better, post better or even make people like them better they have the power to tell others what to do, and how to do it.

Let me get back onto the thread before I trail off down a road that will only get me hated. This thread, I believe it's soul purpose is to try and change the Rping community, to make the community less "Noobish". But, all I see is a load of rules which are here to make peoples lives easier. Instead of trying to change the community to make it more varied and more entertaining we're restricting peoples imaginations to make it less varied and more strict. It's like frigging school! Now.. I for one hate school. Mainly because I dislike being told what to do but also because any form of Imagination is restricted to a few classes, and even then; you go overboard and people start marking you down.

So, what I'm reading from this is; "Follow these rules, and the Gaming Masters wont get angry at you!" well.. I for one feel this is just terrible. I am disgusted by this thread, it really is degrading to see a thread that tries to diminish peoples imagination by setting a load of rules.

On relationships. I have learnt a fair amount about them while being on this forum; I've been in a few that have only made me laugh and go, "Why?". Mainly because I don't really like Rping them, and because I'm really bad at Rping them. They always seem to end up going something like. *Have in depth discussion* *Have six* *Decide that my dude loves the woman* Which sure.. It can happen. But when it does, don't expect everyone to be all. *Thumbs up* about it.

But, to say that relationships shouldn't just spring up from alot of six is wrong. Some do, of course, these are much more lustful and often take place between two people who are rather horny or just enjoy six. Why should we say; NO!! HOW DARE YOU PORTRAY YOUR CHARACTER AS A [censored]! Yeah.. To think that someone can make the character they created a [censored].. That's just silly. :rolleyes:

And I believe you are making relationships out to be something epic. An Rp takes what.. Several months to finish? (Rp months) I think BoTA took about 8 months? (Real Life time) This made about 6 months Rping time maybe. And that was the longest Rp I've seen going for really. Other then Lorannas which I have no idea about. So, really, relationships in Rps don't need to be filled with arguments, because they don't take very long until the Rp has finished.

On spelling, something which many people seem to get peeved off with. There are rather good spellcheckers that are free and are simply an addon for both Firefox and Internet Explorer. These simply add a spellchecker to a few input boxes within the webpage. And can do many languages. This will help people to correct their spelling and in the long run they will evidently stop spelling the words wrong. Here are the two links;

http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/


http://www.iespell.com/


Sadly I feel that I should stop there, mainly because I don't want people hating me too much. I have probably lost alot of respect posting this, but I wasn't going to sit around and see this forum become elitist. I hope one day it wont be like that, and people will accept peoples imagination instead of trying to dumb it down.

That's my rant for now, perhaps soon I shall pick up on topics I have not posted about. I would also like to add I would of done a rant on Half Tooths Rping Guide but I didn't really have the guts back then. =/

Sorry Illusionary if this insults you, I have no real intention of doing so.

:bowdown:

Agreed

Alas, I was one of the people who flamed Kvatch Guardian. I tried helping him several times, but in the end I lost my patience. Otherwise, I'm all for this, Craig. Good job on the rant.

EDIT:
Another thing; Rules, and the insane amount of them. I don't like them, and think you should be alright as long as you use common sense instead. Which is why I don't read the rules of an RP.

Uglius, you are right on some points, and I must say that I disagree on other points. Yes, a person should be creative. Yes, RP'ing is just a game. Yes, it should be fun for all those involved. (Key sentance right there.)

If everybody in the RP, save one, finds that the name 'Death Dealer' ruins the immersion of the RP and thus their fun, who is that one player to come in and ruin things? I suppose what I mean is A player should have all the creativity he or she wants, but not at the expense of the other players.

What this guide reflects it the majority view on roleplaying. Most players agree with this.

Why should a name make any difference? Are you really that sensitive that a name makes the Rp seem crap? Or is the Rp really that bad that a name makes it seem worthless to join in?

if we are able to find out if everyone in one RP thinks Death Dealer ruins the immersion of an RP, then I'm sure most people would agree on it, but right now we're just thinking we know it because many of us are good and respected as RPers. And should we all agree on that point, then we could send the RPer a friendly PM telling him many of us thinks he's got a bad name there and ask if he could do something about it. That's the major point of being a good RPer. Even if we're sitting on top of our bright steeds, our primary duty should be to help new RPers.

EDIT: Right, thanks everybody for their input.

I was as well, Though I had never intended to do so, but apparently I came off as flaming nonetheless.

However, don't really think of this as all set rules. Its not set in stone, as Illusionary's edits will tell you. And many characters can break the rules, yet still be good. Its really a set of standard guidelines, hence why it is called a guide. It gives new players something to look at and go, 'ok, so this is probably the best way to start off in rping.' From there, the players can deviate from these guidelines, creating characters that, if made well, can break many of these guidelines yet still be good.

In other words, this is just a beginner guide, not a set standard. Intended to aid in getting into rping, not dictating how all people should rp. Least, thats what I think.

Don't act like that. Everybody but Uglius has been practically worshipping your guide.

Aka... this is in no way THE authority on how to rp.

In other words, the rules are set in stone.

Think of it this way. Without some kind of guideline or rule, a game would deteriorate into chaos. Football has rules, and yet people still come up with creative plays for the game. A Trading Card Game, such as Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic: The Gathering, has rules. And yet, no two people have the same deck of cards, and even if they do, they don't play it the same way.

These guidelines are put up to help make sure that chaos doesn't ensue during rping. To make sure that everyone can enjoy themselves, without having to whine to each other about how to do this or that. Consider this An 'Rping 101' course, so to speak. An introduction, if you will. The purpose is to introduce people to rping, not lock them into a certain standard.

and now.. I should probably shut up...

I assumed as such, but that doesn't mean that people wont take it as that way, for the thread was stickied and contains several rules by one of the best Rpers on the board. New people will come and follow said rules, probably knowing no better.

Each thread has it's own set of rules. Is that not enough? An introduction? And yet we're saying to people not to bother with the "Dorky" names and the class of Ninja? An introduction would tell you of what things are acceptable, not tell you what not to do.

Gah, edited.

What the hell was I on to? Of course I liked this guide. You have clearly put alot of thought and work into this, but I didn't very much like the attitude of the guide. But, if I look past that, this can clearly be helpful.

If they do take it the way of being "Da Rules" then we can help them by saying it isn't. As it's said, every thread has it's own rules, but there are some other "unwritten rules" that people should keep in mind. This helps with those who aren't entirely aware of those.

For the sake of argument, let's say that this guide is like a 'strategy guide', much like you would find for an RTS game, only this is for RPing. In a strategy guide, you find general tactics and ideas used by the writer, with specific applications and examples. Thus, this guide is more or less the opinion of one RPer, Illusionary, on the subject of roleplaying. (Who, from what I've seen, is an experienced and well respected member of these forums)

That being said, it is one opinion, one strategy. Anybody could write a RPing guide, expressing their own thoughts and opinions, and it would undoubtedly differ from this one, either in a small or large way. Does that make either wrong or bad? Of course not, as long as they are both attempting to be constructive. This guide is Illusionary's strategy guide to RPing, and I remember not once her saying they were the rules to RPing.

The point is, in the end, people have choices. Some will look at this guide and say "hey, let's try it this way." Others will undoubtedly go off on their own, and develop their own ideas on how to RP. Like playing a good RTS, there's many ways roleplaying can be done. It's all about diversity, people.

Wow. Over the past four days I have been gone, a lot has happened. Now I'm not going to continue the argument that I hope has ended but I would like to point out that I just about fully agree with what Uglius first stated. I also like to add that I will be editing and re-editing my guide to make its appearance be more appropriate. Mostly because I feel like I made a fool of myself for trying to be funny on my guide and hardly serious.

One more thing I would like to add is that I hope that when I stated how Illusionary's guide was too strict (in my guide), I would just like to say that I was only teasing and that I hope no one took me dead on serious with that and used it against hers.

With that said, I'll now be getting to work on editing mine.

EDIT: Done, for now.