Role Playing Tips

Role Playing Help Hello there! This is a blog dedicated to providing little tips to all the people who like to roleplay on Tumblr. I hope you all enjoy it! If you have a suggestion you can feel free to put it on the ask box, or even submit it! I am currently looking for a co-mod! If you're interested shoot an ask my way either at this blog or at my personal! Thank you!

[ramolli-blog1]

Okay so I really don’t know how to do this and I don’t really want to either but I really need to get help.. 

This is my precious cat Max. I found him a little over a year ago, or really he found me. He started wandering in to my mom’s garden in our backyard and I just fell in love with him. 

When I found him he was very very sick. He had an upper respiratory infection and tapeworms and was just all around in ill health, however I’ve never met a sweeter, more loyal cat. He likes to sleep on tissue paper and under the covers with me, and he likes to wait for the school bus with me in the mornings. From what I hear he has anxiety attacks when I’m not home, and honestly I get so nervous when I’m away from him too. 

I may be a little too attached to him, but that’s okay because he is basically my companion animal. I’ve had SUCH dramatic improvement in my school, anxiety, and really most aspects of my life in the time I’ve had him. However, recently we’ve been noticing that he won’t eat, and the past couple of weeks it’s gotten really bad. When we took him to the vet they said he needed some serious dental work, which will cost us anywhere between $200 and $800 to give him. I don’t know how many of you have that much money to spare but I know my family sure doesn’t.

I live in a single parent family with an autistic younger brother and a mother with sever fibromyalgia. We literally get by on food stamps and disability checks and child support, but honestly we barely make it some months. I know people say you shouldn’t get a pet if you can’t afford it but… he’s my baby, he found me, and I usually can afford him, but we just don’t have $200+ laying around. 

So what I’m asking for is a little bit of help. If every one of my followers donated a dollar I’d have enough to get his teeth cleaned and blood work done on him (Which adds up to about a $200 minimum) which is the first step to finding out exactly what’s wrong. The longer I wait to get this done the higher the chance that they’ll have to pull out his teeth is… which would be expensive and miserable for everyone involved.

Please, if you have even just a few cents to spare I’d appreciate it more than you can imagine, even if all you can do is reblog this I’d be so grateful. It breaks my heart to watch him struggle to eat, even when he’s just laying down sometimes he’ll yawn and suddenly jump up and yowl in pain. Something is really wrong with my kitty and I just can’t help him by myself…

This is the paypal donation link. I’ll be putting a button up on my page as well. I know tumblr has worked some miracles and I hope, so much, that maybe it’ll do it for me too. Please signal boost this if you can’t donate, and please think happy thoughts for my kitty. I appreciate any help I can get with this so much.

Feel free to contact me with any questions/concerns!

[rjestudio]

signal boost!

[lemonpixycat]

i’m gonna go donate some money right now

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((ooc: I don't know how to state my character's weakness anything else than OOC. Do you have suggestions on how to do it IC?))

Oh gosh I've been so inactive on this blog lately, I'll try and start it back up again soon!

My best advice would be to try and slip subtle tells into them- they way they talk, act, their hobbies and interests, it all reflects on them. I suppose it depends on what the weakness is though!

Say if you had a character that was uncomfortable with the sex they were born as but didn't really want to say anything: They may show it in other ways. They may be unwilling to form close bonds or relationships with other people, they may have things in their home or room that reflect interests typical of the gender they want to identify as, they may not want sex or something like that!

It's really hard to give you any specific examples without knowing exactly what weakness you're talking about, but if you send another ask with more information I'd be happy to try and help more! If you send a non-anon message I'd be happy to answer privately as well. 

I hope this helped!

[letzterkoenig-deactivated201407]

Roleplayer Tips:

Read a roleplayers OOC page if they have one, to see what genres are okay to roleplay with them.

Read their headcanons.

Read their disclaimers.

Read everything important specified on their page before roleplaying with them.

It’s common courtesy and hey, not everyone plays their characters the same way as they are portrayed in canon.

People spend their time writing these things out so that you understand their character better.

And, it is useful to read what it is they don’t want to roleplay and such.

[thedoomtrout]

Alternate title: Things I don’t do because WHEEEEEEE

[silentmessiah-deavtivated235667]

Carly's ridiculous guide to tumblr roleplay!

Right so sometimes I see people make guides on how to roleplay, and I’m like “Yeah!” but then stuff is left out that other guides cover and I’m like “Yeah!” and then it gets me thinking: Why not just make a giant catchall?

Yes! Perfect!

So here we are, my guide to roleplaying!

Read More

[moved-voodooleviathan-blog]

I may as well reblog this, all things considering.

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'Meet the Role Player' Pages

'Meet the Mun' or 'Meet the Role Player' pages can be lots of fun, but don't feel that they're necessary! Sometimes you want to RP to get away from the real world, and if that includes wanteing to get away from people knowing you then that's okay!

However, if you do want to put one of those pages on there some things you might think about adding are:

Your name

Your preferred gender/pronouns

A picture

Your Skype

Personal Blog URL

Email

You don't have to put anything on there, but those are some things that people might like to know!

It's also nice to have a little 'about me' paragraph, it's always good to have your followers feel a little less intimidated by you. 

Or, if you have all of that stuff on your personal blog, you could always just link to that blog instead! That's what I always do!

[ascendedprotege]

Roleplaying Relationships: A Guide

The fact is that almost everyone roleplays relationships, nearly every character on here has shown some romantic interest, and will at one point involve their character in some kind of romance, whether reciprocated or not. These things are usually very important to the characters and players, and thus prone to quite a bit of drama!

Here are the main focuses that have lead to drama, and a few pointers to make your roleplaying experience involving these topics a little more pleasant!

Some topics will cover your treatment of other people, which I think is the MOST IMPORTANT. How you treat other people in regards to relationships will effect how people treat you! I have abstained from talking to people, even with the mun’s other characters, because of how the mun treated IC relationships.

I’ve divided this into three parts, SHIP FOCUS, CHARACTER FOCUS, and MUN FOCUS

Ship Focus

I’ve seen a lot of people lately who have a very limited idea of who they want to have their character in a relationship with. They want to play out THIS OTP and won’t take any other.

Usually the best way I’ve seen this done is if you have a friend who ships the same pairing, and the two of your create characters to play your ship.

However, I’ve found that it will prove rather limiting, especially if you don’t have a friend in cohoots with you. There are dozens of Homestuck characters, of various quality, and various romantic availability. The odds of you finding that one character, who’s open, available, and of good quality is pretty low!  And after that, you have to take into account that everybody plays their characters differently, some to a severe degree. Your character may not have the chemistry with that particular character that attracts you to that ship.

This isn’t a NEVER DO THIS IT’S WRONG AND HORRIBLE YOU’RE A TERRIBLE RPER thing.

If you are bound and determined to rp this ship and won’t take any other, then that’s your decision (as long as you’re not forcing it on anyone). In the end, you’re really only effecting yourself in that decision.

However, I think that you are really limiting yourself when you do this! There might be other characters, maybe not even within your fandom, that suits your character just as well, if not better!

I had made Terezi with the intention for her to be paired <3 with Karkat, and was heavily leaning towards <3< with Vriska. In the end, I didn’t end up with anything resembling that, and I’m just fine with that outcome. Have you seen Terezi and Tavros together? They’re basically the most adorable couple ever. SP has told me that Broderick was intended for someone completely different than Droog, but he kept his mind open, and look how well they worked together (Droog’s sudden fucking off to China notwithstanding). 

There are probably tons of other examples out there. You just need to keep an open mind, and you could end up with an OTP you never expected!

CHARACTER FOCUS

 This portion involves when you think you have found the perfect character for yours. This specific person, with this url, this is the one that is perfect for your character. You think they have great chemistry, they work really nicely together, they’re a perfect pairing.

That’s great! However.

There are a few things to remember while you try to pursue this relationship for your character. This is much stricter, because it involves other people, and not being a douchebag to them. This is definitely the part that people will harshly judge you for if you fuck up.

Their character does not belong to yours. Ever. Even if they’re in a relationship, but especially if they haven’t even started dating, or anything remotely official! Therefore, you have no right to get mad when their character interacts with other people, and spends time with them, especially if they haven’t made any romantic moves on the other.

If your character is creepy and possessive, and would openly act so, that’s one thing. However! This is the part where I tattoo on your face SEPARATE IC FROM OOC.

You, the mun, should not pout at the other mun, should not be passive aggressive, or threaten to abandon your character. That is pressuring, creepy as fuck, and wrong. Don’t fucking do it.

It makes things uncomfortable for the other character’s mun, and quite frankly, the muns of anyone involved. Other people will be watching, and will remember this if your character tries anything with any of theirs.

For that matter, don’t do any of the above if your character does enter a relationship, and it doesn’t work out. It’s alright to be disappointed, because hey, it was fun roleplaying that, you’re going to miss it. It’s not alright to barrage your blog with posts about how fucking disasterous this is, how you’re screaming and crying IRL, and threatening deletion or permanent hiatus.

Creepy. Pressuring. Wrong.

And for goodness sale, don’t feel the need to delete or restart your character after the break up because OMG THEY WILL NEVER GET OVER IT. People survive that shit every day, your character can too, and even come out stronger for it. People are not defined by their relationships! Neither should your character be.

Know when to move on. It’s alright if it doesn’t work out. Your character will survive the ordeal of being single. As long as you keep an open mind, and you take some time, your character might even find another partner, even better suited to them!

MUN FOCUS

From what I’ve seen, this mostly happens with people who are dating. Because they are in a relationship, they feel as thought their characters need to be in a relationship. Honestly? I recommend against this. I have seen it consistently in the many years I’ve been RPing, and 90% of the time, it ends badly. It’s like working with your SO, eventually one side will pollute the other.

What I usually see happen is:

A) The characters break up, and put a strain on the mun’s relationship

B) The muns break up, and put a strain on the character’s relationship

There is another potential flaw, and while it doesn’t hurt the relationships involved, it’s still a pretty sad sight to see.

C) The characters have absolutely no chemistry, and are basically only together because the muns have put them together so they can RP a relationship.

I have seen plenty of characters where the relationships have no chemistry, and obviously if they were on their own, the two would not be nearly as involved.

If you are dating, and your character just happens to go nicely with your SO’s character, and you guys think that it would be IC to go ahead and go with it, then go ahead. Just remember! Keep IC relationships out of your OOC relationship, and make sure that you both can keep the relationships separate.

TL;DR

Keep an open mind

Don’t be a douchebag

The end of your ship is not the end of the world

Separate IC from OOC

SEPARATE IC FROM OOC

I AM SO SERIOUS SEPARATE IC FROM OOC IT’S SKETCHY AS FUCK 

Have fun!

[rpprotips]

RP Pro Tip 7:

Shorthand is the format of writing speech and enclosing physical action within asterisks *, brackets [], parenthesis (), dashes -, slashes /, or anything else. Shorthand is most appropriate for dialogue heavy interaction.

Prose is written like a book, with actions described in the first or third person and speech enclosed within quotation marks. Prose is appropriate for all situations, but should especially be used in situations heavy on action. 

It’s like this— if you’re going to go to the trouble of using a lot of asterisks to differentiate action and speech, why not save yourself the trouble and just use quotation marks instead? Oddly enough, that’s what they’re for, and most players won’t mind if you transition to prose in the middle of an existing thread.

[timaeusdeclaro-deactivated20120]

A Guide to Constructive Criticism of a Roleplayer's Depiction of a Specific Canon Character

First, you want to ask yourself a couple of questions.

Are they AU? If yes, STOP. Stop what you are doing right now and think about what you want to criticize. If they are doing something that is impossible in canon, turn and walk away. They’re AU. Alternate Universe. Whatever they do is none of your business. A lot of people who RP here have already broken canon from the moment they made their RP blog, because they’ve aged them up to young adults, or even further. That automatically makes it hypocritical for you to run around and bitch at people for doing something in AU, like pregnant trolls. They’ve altered the universe to allow troll pregnancies, just as you’ve altered the universe to allow for smut, or whatever other reasons you may have for aging up your character.

Second, take a minute to go over what’s canon and what isn’t. This shouldn’t even need to be said, but unfortunately, it does. Take for example, Beta!Bro Strider. We do not know a single damned thing about his personality. All we saw him do in canon was take care of Dave and kick ass. He never spoke. Dave didn’t talk much about him.

Pretty much every Bro Strider RPer will be going off their own personal headcanons, or a variation of Dirk’s personality.

There is nothing wrong with that, nothing at all. If you don’t like the way one person portrays a character with little to no canon information, you can just as easily find another that will fit your headcanons.

Third, ask yourself why you give a shit. Are you annoyed, or do you want to actually help out? If you’re annoyed, stop. Right there. Dead in your tracks. Drop it, hit unfollow, tumblrsavior their url if they have to. There’s no need to potentially stir up drama. If you’re annoyed, you’re going to come off annoyed. They’re going to get annoyed. Vicious cycle.

Don’t send them an ask. Don’t post anything. Don’t submit anything.

And please, for the love of christ— DO. NOT. VAGUEBLOG.

Insert huge section repeating those words over and over to a point of being obnoxious with alternating styles of text being the only variation from one line to another.

Vagueblogging is, for one, incredibly rude. Two, it will either be specific enough that your passive aggression will be obvious to your “target” OR if you’re going to argue “it wasn’t to anyone specific” you’re going to end up with several people thinking you’re targeting them.

I can’t stand going through my dash and seing vagueblogging. It’s inconsiderate, it doesn’t help anyone, and it only adds to irritation.

Don’t vagueblog.

Now. If you genuinely want to be helpful, here’s what you need to do.

After separating canon from headcanon, go to their inbox and message them— OFF anon— and ask if they’d like some constructive criticism.

Here’s why I say OFF anon.

Being embarrassed in a public forum because you’ve been doing a character wrong for an extensive amount of time is, to be blunt, really shitty. It sucks, and it leads to people being defensive to save face.

Give them the option of talking this out PRIVATELY.

DON’T BE RUDE.

Don’t say you suck, you’re shitty, wow you’re bad, you’re awful— STOP. No.

Noone is going to listen to you if you start off that way.

You might want to work on this, this isn’t canon, I feel like you could do less of this, so on, so forth.

Criticize them in a way that is respectable and friendly. The point is to help them improve, not make them feel embarrassed.

If you cannot be respectable—

Unfollow. Tumblrsavior. Ignore.

There are probably a dozen other things in your life you could be wasting negative energy on besides how someone RPs a goddamned character with a canon as twisted and loopy as a fucking silly straw. 

[trickyannihilation]

Read More

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This isn't a roleplaying tip, more like a rant from my roleplaying blog. But I felt like it should be posted here too, read or do not, it's up to you. 

[roleplayinghelp-blog]

Using the draft function

The draft function is a super easy way to save posts for later, so you don't have to go searching through your dash to find the post you were supposed to reply to, or to save that long post for when you're ready to work on it again. 

The draft button is right up in the upper right hand corner of your posting area, just click the little drop down menu and click 'save as draft'! Missing E also has an option to give you easier to reach Save buttons. 

If you have this enabled, just hover your mouse over the post button until the little menu appears, and click the Save Draft button!

Drafts are great for saving all sorts of things, I usually use them to:

Save RP replies until later

Store half written Open RP posts

Make lists for myself

Keep OOC posts until the date I want to post them

Organize my queue

But there are tons of uses for it!

For example, on this blog, I use it to keep track of all the things I want to write about!

That's only a small chunk, but it's a pretty good example. You can have a lot of things in your drafts too, so don't worry about running out of room!

[roleplayinghelp-blog]

Ahaha I have twenty things in the drafts.

Does anyone want to help me out with some of these?

Yes?

No?

[roleplayinghelp-blog]

Reblogging because wow I really could use a hand here!

[roleplayinghelp-blog]

Ahaha I have twenty things in the drafts.

Does anyone want to help me out with some of these?

Yes?

No?

[roleplayinghelp-blog]

Tumblr Extensions - Unfollower Hater

The Tumblr Unfollower Hater can be very useful! Although you have to be careful not to get upset when someone unfollows you. This way you can keep track of any blogs that changed their URLS, unfollowed you, or totally deactivated!

It will have a little notification pop up with the number of people who have unfollowed you since it was last clicked on, some stats, and a link to each URL that has popped up. You can also click on the 'Old Unfollowers' link to see everyone who has unfollowed you since you installed Unfollower Hater. 

This is not an excuse to go and yell at people that unfollow you. This is so you can either unfollow them back, see who deactivated, or maybe just ask them nicely why they are no longer following you. Do not use this for hate. 

[roleplayinghelp-blog]

Writing Fight Scenes

Writing fight scenes can be very difficult, and it's hard to toe the line between being a good fighter and god modding. When done right though, they can be great to roleplay and help advance your plot a lot! They can also be lots of fun, because who doesn't like getting their character into a bit of trouble now and then?

Here are some basic things to remember during a fighting roleplay:

When someone is hit, they totally feel it. Don't forget that they are sore after a hit, they can get the wind knocked out of them or become dazed if they get hit to hard. 

Keep your characters experience in mind. If they get into lots of fights they'll most likely be more calm then a character that doesn't. Make sure that this reflects in your sentence structure as well. 

Don't use to many onomatopoeia! Although something like 'Her head hit the floor with a sickening crack' sounds good when used in moderation, to many of these can detract form your response. Try using other descriptive words instead. 

Including some of your characters thoughts and feelings can really make the roleplay come to life! This is especially useful in paragraph roleplays, when sometimes it's hard to match your partners reply length. Tell what your character is thinking, what they're feeling, maybe even what they're planning. A good partner won't let these things ruin your next move, and it can help build up the scene.  

Stay constant but interesting in your moves! Try not to develope a pattern of something like 'kick, headshot, stomach shot, kick' ect. There are lots of things you can do, but remember that if your character is a poor fighter these things might not always land correctly. 

Leave your attacks open to your partners interpretation! Don't just assume that your super hard kick to the back of the knees downed your opponent, let them decide how much damage it did. God modding can be a serious problem in fights and can ruin the experience. 

Show what happened after the fight! Did you win? Is your character happy, injured, proud, sore? Did you lose? Are you bed ridden, upset, angry? Let this effect your other roleplays for a while, you might make some new friends or push your plot somewhere interesting. 

[roleplayinghelp-blog]

Profile Layouts

Your blog's layout is so important when it comes to roleplaying! Not only should you make sure to have one that's easy to navigate; it should have some information about your character, and it usually is nice when it seems to reflect that character itself a bit!

Now let's say you're a very fun, cheerful person in real life. You enjoy bright colors and soft animals and all sorts of sweet things like that. But maybe your muse doesn't?  As tempting as it might be to give your blog a nice pretty layout, it would give off the wrong impression about your character, and that could be a bit of a turn off for people who want to roleplay with you!

In general a good theme should show off both text posts and pictures nicely, have enough links, and have room for you to write a little 'About Me' for your character. It's also nice when they layout shows your tags!

In the end you always have to go with what your gut tells you is right, but here's a few sites I like to go to for layouts!

Manatopia

Everlark

Gyapo

Labyrinthines

Cmbatman

And those are just a few! If you don't like them, why not search the Tumblr tags for 'theme blogs' and look around? There are millions of themes to be found! Just remember never to take off the credit. 

Another issue can be what you should put on the blog. Aside from a good color scheme, a picture of your character is often appreciated, along with a few links that help people navigate your blog. The most common links I've seen RP blogs having are:

Ask

Submit

Relationships

Headcannons

About

Meet the Roleplayer

And sometimes a link to their 'interests' or 'music' tag, dependsing on what type of character they play!

[roleplayinghelp-blog]

Ask Prompts

I'm sure you've seen them- things like "Magic Anon Monday!" and "Leave a word in my ask for a headcannon about it!", they flutter around RP blogs all the time. Sometimes the things people send you are great, they can be really funny or even help give your plot a push it needed. But they can also get very obnoxious.

A good general rule for reblogging ask prompts is to just send an ask to the person you want to reblog it from. It's easy! That way you've helped ensure that they got an ask, and hopefully the same is done for you. After all, no one likes reblogging something like that and then not getting anything! Especially if you're the one that's started it. Sometimes a prompt will get many notes, but the original poster didn't get a single ask!

Another good rule is to moderate yourself when it comes to posting those, you don't want to post to many in one day, even if you didn't get any thing first time. It's good to space them out a little so you don't get confused when people ask you questions, and so that the asks aren't all that's on your blog!

Sometimes it helped if you tag the ask prompt posts. Things like 'I'd really like this' can help give your followers a little nudge to actually ask you things instead of just scrolling past it. 

[roleplayinghelp-blog]

((Your blog is awesome. I'm trying it out now and it's really helpful :D))

Well I'm glad to help! More is on the way, I promise! Hehe I'm just a bit busy~