Heavy RP Rules and Tips (READ THIS FIRST)

[Yitik]

What is Heavy RP? Heavy RP, or heavy role-play, can be described as an art. It is a form of collaborative writing in which each of the authors takes the role of a single character in the role play, and the part of fate and the environment is played by each of the participants equally. What sets Heavy apart from other forms of role-play is the goal: when an RP is finished, it is expected that something of real literary quality is produced, something that could easily be mistaken for a novel, or at least a good piece of fan fiction. Because this goal is universal, heavy RP has a completely different set of rules in addition to the normal rules of WMB that must be followed that are nonetheless just as solid and strict.

These rules are:

1) To participate in the Heavy RP board, you must be cleared by a moderator of the board. These include administrators and global moderators, as well as potentially, in the future, moderators dedicated to this board or category. In order to be cleared, you must head to THIS THREAD in the Announcements board and submit an application including these things:

-The profile of your first character: there are no strict guidelines that need to be followed when it comes to your charpro, but the more descriptive and fluent it is, as well as how organized it is, the better. Some things you would probably want to include by default are a healthy physical description of a character, their past, their outward personality, and perhaps how their inner mind works as well. If they have skills or exceptional attributes, you'll want to make note of those as well. Another thing you will want to know about your char and keep updated constantly is their equipment. A character is often part of more than one RP, and if they gain access to an item, or are altered significantly by an experience in a past RP, you may want that to carry over into the future.

-A story involving said character. Make this as good as possible, because it reflects your ability to role-play seriously. Unlike your charpro, this will have a loose guideline that must be followed, which will be noted in the first post of said registration thread. It will generally be something involving what sort of situation you should be portraying (for example, writing a plot that involves some form of betrayal). It will be pretty generic, but it’s set in place to ensure that we get writers who are both talented and flexible. If I were to ballpark the length, I'd probably say a minimum of 750 words.

-Agreement to the terms in this thread.

2) Never converse casually in an RP. The only way OOC (Out Of Character) should be used is to comment on the RP itself, keeping it positive or neutral, at any rate constructive. For instance, you may want to comment on a particularly well-done addition of another member publicly, or let everyone know that you are delegating your character to someone else for a time (covered later). That having been said, OOC is the only way you should be speaking, well, out of character, in an RP. Anything outside of the format “(OOC: {text})” can get confused with the story.

3) Keep it 14A. Swearing and violence is fine, but use discretion. There is a fine line between acceptable (i.e. Hostage) and over-the-top (i.e. Saw). Sex also doesn't happen here. Be as innuendous as you want - you'd be amazed at the stories meant even for kids that hint at sexual situations - but keep your pants on, so to speak.

4) You must respect other members to a T. I know this seems pretty obvious, but it must be followed as much here as Serious Discussion, possibly more. This is to avoid derailing a story. For instance, if you dislike the way a certain situation played out, or was portrayed by a member, do not type “(OOC: That really sucked btw. Next time do something more canonical.)” If you think someone’s writing is beneath the level that should be admitted to Heavy RP, PM someone with the authority to moderate the section and we will look into it, in order to keep quality here as high as possible. Additionally, do not tell other members what to do with their characters. At least not publicly. For instance, don’t go “(OOC: OK, now someone dash in front of the arrow I just shot.)” The beauty of an RP is that it is collaborative, and not run by a single person. Communism at its best.

5) Killing another character is forbidden, unless the mod is informed by the owner of the character that so-and-so has been given permission to kill said character. Often, people want to reuse some of their better characters over and over, in more than one RP, and waking up one morning to find him or her dead will probably not make their day.

6) If you’re going on vacation, or just otherwise cannot or don’t want to play a character in an RP you’ve already participated in, either indefinitely or for an amount of time, you can (see: must) either take your bow out of the RP in an acceptable fashion that will coincide with the story, or else delegate your character(s) to another consenting member. If you do this, on your last addition to the RP you are leaving you must leave an OOC note somewhere in there that so-and-so is playing this character from here until whenever.

7) A heavy RP is ended by the topic creator. If the creator’s char took his/her leave from the RP, it can be ended by whoever, but either way it obviously should be ended in an acceptable way (for example, the universe blowing up doesn’t work). The same goes with everything else - godmodding, lit. RP in a godlike fashion, pulling around highly unlikely or otherwise childish plot points, including most deux ex machina, should be avoided for quality control.

8) It's fine to limit RPs to certain people. However, this must be specified in the introductory post.

9) I can't believe I have to point this out, but when you role-play, you play a role. A single role. You do not do anything for characters that you do not own in your post. This is crucial.


The consequence for a failure to comply with any of these rules is at the discrimination of the mods, but if any of it is outright you will have your access privileges to Heavy RP removed. I don’t think any of these are harsh at all - including the given that you must continue to show quality worth posting here, they’re all fairly simple and straightforward in order to ensure that role-playing is both fun and yields the best possible results.

Example of Heavy RP

MidnaFan001:Sharnis rested his head on his knee, letting his eyes droop, listening to the blood pound in his ears. It had been a tough day - a tough month, really, and right now all he wanted to do was to watch the red sun set over Mt. Dayo. He didn’t want to pay attention to his work or class, and most of all he did not want to think anything about the letter that lay on the desk behind him. It was too much for this evening; he didn’t want to think about just how much his life would change after today.

MidnaFan002:Rayaan crept up the stairs, not wanting to disturb her brother. She had seen the look in his eyes as he entered the front door, and how white his knuckles were as he clenched the parchment and ascended to his room without even glancing at her. Something was up, and she had to know what. Softly, slowly, she pushed open the door, and through the crack she had made, saw the handwritten note on a desk just a few meters away. Unable to explain the forbidding fear that gripped her, she reached out a trembling hand for it. She bit her tongue as the door creaked.

MidnaFan001:Sharnis gave a start as he heard the creak of the door behind him. “Rayaan! What are you- out. Out! Get the fuck out of my room!” He lunged from his perch by the window, barreling to the door.

awwww. no dice involved?

[Yitik]

Dice is in light RP .

How to start an RP

Added this, because I see a lot of people want to get up and do their own thing before actually getting the hang of role-playing in someone else's RP. That's cool, although I definitely don't recommend it, and I guess everyone's a beginner at some point. So this goes here, until perhaps someone with a better explanation comes in to replace it.

First of all, it's not really recommended that you start an RP unless you know how to write, and write well. If you can't, chances are your intro will be crap, and no one will want to join. It's a tough truth; that's why you want to get used to RPing before you try and start one.

The start of what we call here at WMB a heavy RP looks aesthetically similar to a regular RP post, except they tend to be a bit longer. Why? Well, not only does the original poster need to introduce his/her character (which tends to make someone's first post in an RP longer on its own) but they also need to introduce the setting, and give the story some initial direction. Simply by reading the intro, potential RPers in your thread should understand both the sort of character they should choose or create to play, and how they should play them.

An important thing to remember about RPs at all times, not just (but especially) when starting one, is that they don't all need to be angel vs demon, epic bloodfest of universal proportions. In fact, just like a story, it's best to have more humble beginnings to your RP. That doesn't mean that you should never start one off with a fight...fights are nice, but you needn't introduce the all-powerful antagonist and note that the world is in peril. Not only does it ruin the suspense of the story, but it also leaves very little for your fellow RPers to inject into the RP. Remember that just because you're starting it doesn't mean you're suddenly the playwright. You should leave as much up to your friends as possible, progression-wise.

Finally, and I know I'm kicking myself in the teeth saying this, but any restrictions you want to place on players should be noted in a brief statement before or after the actual intro. I'm going to tell you right now that saying "FURRIES ONLY" will make your RP suck, and very few people will be interested in it. If you're in a universe where furries are prevalent, then that should be made obvious enough in your intro, and you should have no need to tell people what to do so bluntly. I may go so far as to say that you should never do it, but, well, some people do, and I don't control the laws of what constitutes a heavy RP. More often, you'll see these little side-notes noting that the RP is only between a select group of people. Maybe if I just wanted to RP with Emkay I'd note that, for instance, and it'd just be between us two. Or else if the author wanted to keep the RP light-hearted, they'd say to keep the language down and, well, keep it light-hearted. But the fewer restrictions, obviously, the better. This is creativity at its most cooperative, and you can't pin down art.

I'll jot down a good example sometime soon, probably. For now, this is a placeholder.

[Yitik]

How to create a character

I held off on writing something like this because it makes me look like a massive douche, but it seems that the vast majority of the community is unaccustomed to RPing in any viable form, so douchiness seems to unfortunately be a necessity in this case. Hopefully people can make use of this bit of info.

First of all, a character should be more than the sum of his or her parts. That is, they should not be defined by their abilities and equipment. Role-playing is not a video game. The goal is not to create the most awesome character. Often, in fact, playing a physically weak and emotionally unstable character can be much more fun than playing one with three swords and a gun and logical skills generally reserved only for high-functioning autistic people. Not only does making such a character mean that you'll be spending more time thinking about what the most badass way is for him to get into and then out of a tight situation than you will on his mental and emotional processes and relationships with the other characters and the plot as a whole, but it also means you're one step closer to being accused of godmodding. "Just because he has it doesn't mean he'll use it, he's actually humble, you'll see," doesn't cut it, because experienced RPers know that if you're the sort of person to create a character who carries his body mass in a lethal arsenal, you're not the sort of person to let such petty things as meekness get in the way of looking epic.

Since this tends to be the biggest pifall of character creation, here be a flawless method, if properly used, to get yourself going. I'll say right here that you shouldn't feel bad or anything because you have an idea of who you want the character to be before you get to the right "step". Maybe you know you want him to be a swordsman. Or you want her to be a Twili. That's fine, so long as you don't go overboard before you reach the right step.

The first thing you'll want to consider is the setting your character is in. You don't want a space pirate landing on a pirate ship in the Caribbean. If you consider this first of all, you can avoid non sequiteurs. My character, Osip was created for a fairly rigid RP site that took place in a relatively realistic world during the colonial period, with the only really fantastic element being that it takes place on a ring-shaped island whose inhabitants remain, inexplicably, at the peak of health. So obviously, this fellow or lady would have to be a human of the sort that were around the colonial period.

The second thing actually requires you to take a look around at what other people are doing. If you're just thinking up this character for lulz, not for a specific RP, then this step is a little frivolous, but otherwise you'll want to do so for multiple reasons. The first is so that you don't create anyone who's going to stick out like a sore thumb and put a wrench in everything by just being weird. I often had troubles with this, always being one to stretch the boundaries...especially when it comes to crazy characters. Take it from me: don't make them too crazy. They can be internally crazy, but when they're having psychotic episodes every other post, that's a wrench. Secondly, you'll want to see what the other characters are not. This is just so you don't end up making a duplicate of someone else's char, which will make life a little more boring for both of you. However, you'll also want to look around for the opposite reason: to see if there's anyone you could partner up with. Maybe you have a friend who you love RPing with and would want to stick close to throughout the RP, so you'll make someone who will compliment your friend's character's personality and abilities. Maybe you'll even want to PM him and ask if he wants to start that RP in the same place as you. It's great to have friends.

Once you've got that sorted out, you want to think of your character's personality. This is where you get to be creative. And yes, I did say personality first for a reason! Appearance can wait! Abilities and equipment shouldn't even cross your mind yet! Pretend that all you're doing is creating a brain, and be creative. Think about the kind of character you want to play. Think about his/her insecurities, kinks, likes, fears, wishes, speech methods, defense mechanisms, social skills, reservations...are they brave or anxious? Active or lazy? Artistic or logical? Friendly or suspicious? All these questions and more should be answered, until you feel like you've created a real person/animal/alien/monster/thing, someone who you could relate to. This is the most important part of your character, because whenever you play them you must know exactly what they would do in a given situation. Get writing.

Once you've finished that, you'll want to map out your character's biography. Their history. Nope, still no guns; sorry, guys. And the way we're going to keep from doing the whole parents-murdered-and-son-grabbed-sword-and-is-off-for-revenge thing and other such clichés is we're going to do some Freudian psychoanalysis: we know what your character is like...so why are they like that? If you've got a character who's brave and brutally sarcastic, they most likely would have had a pretty easy life with nothing coming along to dull their sick sense of humor or their self-confidence, but they may also have not had the most contact with people, which would lead to them being a little rude. Just from that, we could say that they grew up in a wealthy family, where their hyperactivity was not looked well upon by their parents and so his ventures into the eyes of other aristocrats were short-lived and those into the eyes of the lower folk were punctuated by characteristic insults, which obviously didn't need to be controlled because the rich are allowed to look down upon the poor. All that, from two personality traits! If you can keep that up with your character's entire ego, you might find yourself cutting down on writing about the more psychoanalytic stuff and simply cutting to the chase, that he grew up in a rich family that kept to themselves in an area generally populated by the poor. See how easy that is?

Thirdly in our character's actual formulation, we'll get to what the character looks like. Still no guns, just who they are physically. When working with RPs where multiple races are a possibility, I don't even think about what that'll be before I get here. You'll also want to think about their height, weight, hair color, defining features...this one, you can really go to town with, because it's tough to make a character OP this way, no matter how many scars you give him. One mistake that a lot of RPers make, however, is they think they need to have a visual representation of their character in their charpro. So you get all sorts of shitty drawings and recolors. Don't do this. It makes you look retarded. If you've got a good, original drawing, put that down if you must, but you should be able to describe your character perfectly using just text.

Finally...yes. Fine. Go for it. What can your character do? What've they got? I try to spend as little time as possible on this section, really just giving my character something that would make them useful in an RP then getting the hell out of there. Osip is an adept alchemist. That's it. Mien can play the clarinet. Sabeen is probably the most powerful character I have, being a hacker and a capoeirista, but I have confidence in my ability to undermine that with her almost neurotic personality. And that's all I recommend you do as well: give them something that makes them useful, then finish.

Now all you need to do is organize it into a charpro. And you can do that in any way, from categories with headings for Personality, History, Appearance and Abilities/Equipment, or else as just one long, fluid characterization where you just rattle on about your new character that you're oh-so-proud of until you think everything's down there. And you're done.

Good luck with your character creation, and I hope this has been of assistance.