Forum Role-Play Tips

Introduction

The following are tips and guidelines for engaging with role-play on the Shadow Accord forums. The official rules for the roleplay forums are the correct reference if you find something that you feel is contradictory between these guidelines and the Role-Play Forum Rules.

A Note about Reality in Forum Land

The roleplay forums are an extension of the environment of our live-action events. As such, treat the forums as you would a live-action event, with exceptions such as using animal forms, or more elaborate descriptions of powers. Text is a fantastic medium that can describe ANYTHING. Our story, however, is structured around the rules of the game, as well as pesky constants like physics. Keep these things in mind when crafting a post. In general, if it cannot be done at event, it should not be included in play on the forums.

You are entirely and solely responsible for the amount of information contained in your own forum posts. Every action, thought, and spoken word that you describe while in a thread should be considered public knowledge for those present in the thread. By posting where someone else may read (even one person), you are deliberately inviting your readers to have this knowledge. This knowledge may later be used by other characters/players that were in the thread, either intentionally or unintentionally. Take care in selecting what you would and would not like known about what your character is doing, why they are doing it, and how they feel about it.

Players, on the whole, are going to be good sports and try to limit their character's knowledge to what was visibly or audibly expressed in their forum scenes. However, much like accidental mixing of out-of-game conversation (such as event stories) with in-game knowledge, mistakes can and do happen. If you do not wish something to be known about why your character is doing something, or how they feel about a situation or another character, do not write it in your post.

Scene Presence

Your character MUST be present in a thread in order to witness or participate in the action of that scene. Even if your character is hiding, by normal or supernatural means, you must post so that others are aware out-of-game that your character has entered the scene. Per forum rules (and due to those pesky physics), your character may only participate in ONE thread at a time.

What does this mean, practically? Just as with event, we may only be present in one place at a time. When we decide to go elsewhere, we are no longer participating in or aware of the scene we have left. Be courteous to your fellow players and be clear about when your character enters and exits a thread. Entrances are self-evident, and a simple [exit] at the end of your final post is sufficient to note when your character departs. Ensure that you have posted your exit from one scene before you enter another.

Also, it takes time to get from place to place around town. Though Seaton Carew is not vast, there is no such thing as teleportation, and therefore no such thing as instantaneous travel across the village. If you take the time to post to a scene, stay a while, as is appropriate for your character. Give the scene a chance to unfold or to attract participants. If your character constantly bounces from thread to thread, you deny yourself and others the opportunity for more in-depth interaction. Not everyone will have the same response time (owing to typing speed, internet availability, and so forth), so you will at times need to be patient while waiting for a reply.

Bear in mind, even though each thread is its own distinct environment, many of them are near to one another or set outdoors. For instance, if you are passing from one thread to another located across town, your character would likely be seen traveling.

Example One

King's Trust	John picks up his pack from the couch and heads out the door, his eyes intent on the path to the lake. [exit]
Outside the Tavern	John shrugs his pack onto his shoulders as he walks past the tavern in the direction of the lake. [exit]
At the Lake	John walks down the gravel path and stops beside the fence, setting his pack on the ground.

A loud shout or noise from one scene might be heard in another part of town. It is not uncommon to place corresponding informational posts in adjacent threads. Because you are providing perceivable environmental information to other players in other scenes, but your character is not actually coming and going, you do not need to post an [exit].

Example Two

At the Lake	A lone gray wolf trots to the far edge of the lake and lifts its head in a long, loud howl.
Outside the Tavern	A long howl echoes up from the lake.

Both of these approaches afford your character a greater chance to interact with others, as well as more believably represent their physical presence in text format.

Clarity

A post does not have to be letter-perfect, with beautiful composition and punctuation, to be understood. What matters is clarity and consistency. These two qualities will carry your writing far, and make your narrative easily comprehensible, thus easy to interact with.

Distinguish between when your character is speaking and when your character is acting. If it is unclear which is which, other players will not know how to react to your character. The most best way to differentiate between speech and action is to post as if you are writing a book. Characters speak in quotation marks, and all words outside the quotation marks are description or action.

Example Three

Mary	"How now, brown cow?" Mary asks the animal standing beside the road. Mary laughs and makes shooing motions at the cow. "You need to go back home to the barn!"

Another option is to enclose actions within some kind of bracket or set of symbols, and all words outside of those symbols are viewed as spoken by the character.

Other options, such as to using text elements like italics or bold font to distinguish between speech and action or offsetting actions with symbols or brackets can be difficult to read or interpret, particularly in unusual or small fonts. Bold and italics are better used as emphasis rather than distinction.

It is common to note power usage or realm designation by offsetting it with symbols similar to the exit note. For example:

• ~Cloak~
• -Umbra-
• <Sense Taint>
• [Telepathy]

The symbols used are not particularly important as long as you remember to be consistent. You are just making it clear that something is going and that people should act accordingly.

Show, Don't Tell

Stories are most interesting when there is mystery involved. What is the point of reading a story where you have been given all the answers? A story loses value and interest when the plot is revealed in the first few sentences. Characters become less engaging when their motivations are laid bare by simple autobiographical description. LARP is a game of interactions, and characters develop more meaningfully when action, rather than description, reveals (or conceals) motivations, personalities, biases, and many other elements. This holds true at event as well as on the forums.

A good rule of thumb for writing is: Show, Don't Tell. Show what your character is doing and saying. Don't tell your readers why they are doing it, unless your character would make such known by speaking it aloud. Though our game play may sometimes involve the Telepathy power, we are not mind-readers, and cannot "hear" a character's motivations. If something cannot be perceived, it is usually better left unwritten.

Example Four

Show	Mary sits on a bench outside the tavern, her hand clasped over her mouth and tears leaking from her eyes.

In this example, Mary's player is providing an opportunity for other characters to interact with Mary and find out why she is crying. Not only might they learn interesting things about Mary by interacting with her to try to discover her motivations and feelings, they may reveal things about their own character by how they connect with, or even avoid, a weeping woman. One character's reactions to another can illuminate just as much, if not more, than action alone.

Example Five

Tell	Mary sits on a bench outside the tavern and cries bitterly at the unfairness of the world, after finding out her true love is really a vampire.

The way this example is written defeats much of the purpose of describing Mary's action. Mary is not standing on the bench, saying for all to hear, "My love is a vampire! The world is unfair!", though she is perfectly welcome to do just that. By putting additional information into the description of Mary crying, we have already been told why she is sitting at the tavern and crying, and have been denied the opportunity to discover this, or whatever version of the truth Mary's character would choose to share. Mary's player has also written herself into a corner where she cannot conceal her character's motivations. Writing from an omniscient (all-knowing) point of view means that all information given in the description is fact, and because it was posted in a thread that fact is offered as public knowledge.

Another instance of "Show, Don't Tell" is the inner monologue. An inner monologue is the conversational thought process within a character’s own mind, one they do not share aloud. It may be a character reasoning through a puzzle, recalling a wrong done to them, remembering a grocery list, or expressing how they really feel about another character with whom they interact. Think of such a monologue as an “inside, private voice” rather than an “outside, out-loud voice”.

Inner monologues are interesting to read when we are enjoying a book, or even an event story. Despite the fact that the forums are cooperatively written fiction, threads are not books. Inner monologues should be kept to a minimum in this type of descriptive writing, because unless the thoughts in a character's inner monologue are spoken aloud, they would not otherwise be perceived. Remember that the forums are just like an actual live-action game. Were the same thoughts to take place during an event, only the character's player would be aware of them.

To provide an inner monologue for others to read again defeats much of the purpose of describing a character's action, and removes any mystery about the character's feelings and motivations.

Example Six

Show	John shakes hands politely with Mary. His eyes narrow and his mouth flattens into a tight line. "How lovely to see you," he says quietly.

In this example, we are only told what John is doing and what he is saying, precisely as if this interaction were taking place at an event. The character Mary (as well as the reader) is left to wonder; why is John’s body language in conflict with his polite gesture and words? What are John’s feelings toward Mary, or toward the situation? Why would John show a face contrary to his actions and/or feelings? In other words, by only describing John’s actions, his player has left open many different opportunities to advance the scene and his interaction with all other participating characters.

Example Seven

Tell	John shakes hands politely with Mary. He can't believe he's actually touching her hand, as the contact is so repulsive to him. He forces his face into a more neutral expression to hide his disgust. "How lovely to see you," he lies.

Here John's feelings and motivations have been described explicitly, rather than being alluded to. Now Mary's player and anyone in the scene who reads the post are aware that John thinks touching Mary is disgusting, and that John is lying when he speaks to Mary. If John's inner monologue had been left out of the scene, more possibilities would exist for roleplay-building in-game misconception, deception, dramatic tension, curiosity, etc. Also, the possibility of metagaming is vastly reduced; no one that participated in the scene may accuse John of lying to Mary based on an out-of-game description if that description is never written as such.

Ultimately what you describe in your posts is your own choice, and most players find a balance between degrees of Show versus Tell. Flavor text and the occasional internal mental machination can be an effective mood-setting tool as long as it does not overwhelm the description of action and dialogue. Use your best judgment on whether or not a particular piece of information would be discernable by other characters in a scene, and err on the side of Show if you are uncertain.

Cooperative Play

The only character(s) whose actions you may directly control are your own. When you are writing a post, you should never dictate any thought, speech, or action for another character. A character's player is the only person capable of knowing precisely what that character will or will not do (and sometimes even that is a surprise to the player!). A best practice is to limit your post's descriptions to your own character and the environment he/she is immediately affecting.

An additional consideration is to make sure your posts come in small enough installments that all others within the scene have a chance to react or speak. If you wish to write a novel, do so, but do it elsewhere. Forum roleplay is a collaborative effort. You can't collaborate if you can't get a word or deed in edgewise.

Collaboration means interaction, and not all interaction is passive. Characters may become aggressive or belligerent, react in a panic, take poorly to a piece of news and try something rash, and so forth. Other participants in the scene may attempt to take action to prevent or alter the actions of others. This is where open-ended phrasing and cooperation and compromise become essential to the flow of a scene.

When characters in a thread take potentially contested actions (trying to reach an object first, striking another character, throwing themselves off the dock while others are nearby, etc), all players involved should carefully word their posts so as to leave the opportunity for others to alter the outcome of those actions. Rather than the instigator of the action being solely responsible for its resolution, the other characters in the scene are then given the chance to choose the outcome as they move the action forward. They key to successfully using this technique is expressing your character's intent, rather than describing an outcome before any other participant in the scene can give their input.

For instance, let us say that John just insulted Mary rather harshly, and Mary is not the kind to turn the other cheek. She's livid, and wants to stab John with her dagger. At event, this would simply be acted out with the boffer strike either connecting or missing, but on the forums we cannot know whether or not Mary's assault would succeed. This is because two different people are purposefully constructing every aspect of the scene while not in the same room at the same time.

As a rule of thumb, the character committing the aggressive action should be the one whose actions are phrased most openly.

Example Eight

John	John points and laughs at Mary, rocking in his seat with mirth. His eyes close tightly around amused tears.
Mary	Mary growls furiously and stands, shoving her bench back and leaning across the table. With a malicious glint in her eye, she pulls her dagger from her belt and jabs it toward John's chest.

Notice that Mary's post does not say she does stab John, only that she is going to. John's player still has the opportunity to have his character realize he is about to be hit and to dodge, but he also has the option for his character to remain ignorant and be hit, or to allow Mary to strike him, or many other possible actions. Ultimately, whether or not (and in what manner) the hit lands is up to John's player, not Mary's.

Example Nine

John	Catching the glint of metal out of the corner of his eye, John jerks upright just in time to avoid being skewered. His tunic is not so lucky, however, as the dagger rips a large hole in it.

This reaction represents a compromise. Mary does succeed to a degree, and John is able to defend to a degree. Be flexible and willing to meet in the middle when dealing with contested actions; rarely do things go precisely as we intend! Also, no one appreciates it when a player determines on their own that they win  all the time.

Utilize forum PMs or email if you want to clarify an action with another player in a contested scene before you post. For instance, it is polite to ask permission before your character takes an aggressive action toward another character that could result in significant conflict (such as Mary trying to stab John). Establishing that John's player is amenable to a fight scene, or plotting out how the two characters would likely react to one another ahead of time, will help keep the thread's progress smooth and everyone happy with the interaction.

Example Ten

Coordination	In PMs, the players of John and Mary discuss the scene following the attempted stabbing. Mary's player relates that Mary is likely to run, and believes she is the swifter of them. John's player agrees, and informs Mary's player that John is likely to give chase, but will be winded long before he can catch Mary. With this knowledge, they continue the scene.
Mary	Horrified at her fit of temper, Mary drops her dagger to the table and bolts for the door. She runs without looking back, hoping to get outside before John recovers from his shock.
John	It only takes the blink of an eye for John's anger to seize him. He leaps up and runs after Mary. "Come back here, wench!" he yells.
Mary	Not bothering to answer, Mary reaches the tavern door and slams it open, dashing out into the lawn. [exit]
John	Winded even from that small exertion, John stops at the door as it swings shut in his face. He curses and slaps the window in frustration, then leans on the door frame to catch his breath. He watches Mary's retreat through the glass, wearing a scowl.

Through PMs it was already established that Mary would likely get away, and the players used this as an outline to craft their respective posts to resolve the scene. Because the outcome was discussed between both participants, the resolution is agreeable and believable to all players involved. Though this deliberate crafting of outcomes is somewhat contrary to the live-action game concept, it is a necessary compromise when participating in a text adaption of that environment.

Suggestions

Some uncategorized general advice for roleplay posting:

• Write in present tense. The roleplay forums are emulating a live-action game, where actions and speech happen in the moment rather than being described afterward.
• Use special font effects sparingly (italics, bold) in your posts, unless they represent a specific action or power (and if they do, be consistent with how you represent this). They are meant to emphasize, and when used too frequently, lose their significance.
• Writing in all capital letters should also be done with extreme moderation. THIS REPRESENTS SHOUTING AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS; caps should only be used when you want the greatest emphasis possible. Think of caps as a last resort.
• In most cases, less really is more. If your descriptions become too wordy and your adjectives and adverbs too excessive, you are likely to lose the interest of your readers. Huge blocks of text and long, novel-like posts should be reserved for event stories. In the forums they are generally a turn-off for role-play interaction.
• The less effort your readers must go through to understand your post, the better, and the more likely you are to attract interaction. Re-read your posts before you send them. Use a spelling checker if you can. Also, don't sweat the little stuff!
• Post only when it furthers a scene's action, or you need to clarify your character's position within a scene. Posts that lack story substance only serve to unnecessarily lengthen a thread and make it harder for everyone to read. Remember that, in general, only those things that can be perceived by and affect other characters are relevant.
• Read books by authors you admire, and examine their writing style. If you are unsure how you might improve your prose, begin by emulating a published writer. The more you read, the more examples of good writing you have available to you, and the better your writing will become.