#rping tips

[druidess-kiefie]

Rping with Anxiety

Hi!~ After a long time battle with an online bully, I become incredibly anxious to rp. I’m doing my best to heal from it and move on. So here’s some tips I think might help myself and some others.

❦ Don’t be afraid to tell your rp partners what’s on your mind and discuss what would be more comfortable for you, starting out with smaller paragraphs helps to make things less overbearing.

❦ Don’t jump into large rp events with no buddy, always have a buddy to go to rp events with, follow them around the whole time if you want!

❦ If something happens in rp to leave you anxious (bullies, bad experience, guild breakup, etc.) don’t overthink on when you did have an amazing time and try to go back to that. Nothing will be exactly like “the good times”, look forward for new adventures.

❦ If there’s something affecting you that makes it hard to rp your happy-go-lucky character switch to a character that matches how you feel, that way your feelings are completely IC and you don’t feel like you’re playing your oc wrong.

❦ Take a break. Instead of rp watch movies and see what characters remind you of your ocs, write short stories, draw them, pretend they’re your stuffed animals and make them kiss.

❦ Remember things get easier with time, always. Whether it’s a break or practice both will help depending on the circumstances.

[millin21]

The reason I RP is because I want to be a writer. I want to create plots for stories, and especially great characters. Thus I’ve joined the RP community and have since branched off different RP blogs. Exploring different types of plots and interactions, branching off and exploring different characteristics and development. both character wise and story wise. And something to keep in mind when writing is this...

Each line must produce one of the following when progressing the story:

Show character development.

Show new things about the character, maybe explore a certain thing of their perspective and how they view things.

advance the plot forward.

detail something important to either characters or plot.

what you shouldn’t do:

Have one liners or simple answers after one or more paragraphs that give out PLENTY of opportunity for the RP partner to explore. 

Example:

They entered a beautiful valley with many variety of flowers, at least one familiar with each member that entered. The center of the valley holding something similar to what the mysterious traveler had talked about, one that had both good and bad rumors of such an item. The jacket wearing traveler stepped forward and had a desire to reach out, only to stop at the last minute by their brother who called out for them to stop before turning to their leader. “What do you think? Should we head that travelers warnings or should we be impatient and touch the foreign artifact?”

“Sure.”

(example somewhat based on own experience and from a Pet Peeve rant I came across)

[gatecoeur]

Repeat after me (because apparently some people think otherwise):

JUST BECAUSE YOU USE AN PoC TO PORTRAY A CRIMINAL, BE IT AN FC OR THE CHARACTER’S CANON ETHNICITY, DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE A RACIST OR WHATEVER THE FUCK.

USING THEIR RACE AS A DEFINING REASON TO BE A CRIMINAL MAKES YOU RACIST.

Trust me, as a half-Serbian kid, nothing had been more infuriating growing up than the media mentioning that the bad guys were Serbians. They added no dimensions to the criminals either; they just slapped a label on them, as if to force the audience to make the distinct connection that all Serbians to some capacity are criminals.

And before anyone dares to fucking tell me that I can’t use a white ethnicity as an example, you can fuck right off because yes, former-Yugoslavs don’t experience nearly as much racism as actual PoCs, but we’re still demonized by Western societies too. Also, I’m half-Vietnamese, so trust me when I say that I have a decent amount of experience with racism.

My point is, you need to ask yourself this before you start running around calling other rpers racists; it possible that you could run into a PoC criminal? Of course it fucking is. 

We need to recognize that representing a PoC criminal isn’t the problem. It’s HOW the criminal is portrayed that determines whether or not the portrayal is racist. 

How in-depth is the character? Were they driven to a life of crime because of circumstances out of their control, or did they chose crime as a lifestyle? What are their motivations for committing crimes? Are you using a specific PoC ethnicity to justify making a horrible criminal who has no life motivation other than to make others suffer for their own benefit?

If you answered yes to that last question, then congratulations! You’re a racist!

TL;DR If you’re worried about whether or not your PoC criminal muse is a racist portrayal or not, check and see where they stand on a moral scale. If they’re not somehow within the moral grey, then you fucked up.

[steelbluecrises]

How to Help Out an RPer on Mobile Mode

Hey there, everyone!

Now, I know that some of you RPers out there (myself included) are mobile users, and it's always a challenge to read pages and the like when we're on a mobile device.

While it's understandable that you want your blog to be on its best appearance at all times, sometimes aesthetic sacrifices have to be made in the name of readability and accessibility.

So here's some ways you can help us out!

Activating your mobile theme; and

Linking your pages in the mobile theme.

Ready?  Let's go!

Firstly, let's activate your mobile theme.

Go to Customize, and under + Add a Page, there's a selection that says Advanced options.  

Click that, and the following will appear:

Activate Use default mobile theme.  It's very simplistic and barebone, but that's what mobile devices work best with!

Once we've got that done, it's time to make sure all your pages show up on your theme.

Under Customize, go to any one of your pages.

Activate the button that's next to 'Show a link to this page.'

Once it's blue and activated, put in a title for the page!  (It's going to show up as the title of the page in the mobile theme menu, so name it well!)

Hit Update Preview, followed by Save.

Repeat for as many pages as you would like to show on your mobile theme.

Exit the Customize page, and you're done! 

It'll look like this on a mobile device:

Readme, alongside all my other pages that I want to show, are all there for a mobile mode RPer to read!

Congratulations, and good job helping out a fellow RPer!

Thank you for taking your time to read this, and happy RPing!

[mauerfrau]

((I just remembered a little tip: If you're ever typing a reply and accidentally delete a big chunk and need it to be back the way it was, do ctrl+z (or whatever your version of "undo" is), and it'll fix it, just like in other programs, like Word. :) ))

[whitefireassassin]

Oh, tip time! I figured this out on my own, um.. if you're on mobile and you want to do a read more, just put [[ MORE ]] (without spaces) before the part you want to cut off. You're welcome!

[whitefireassassin]

Tumblr RolePlaying for Beginners

I typed this up for a buddy of mine starting off on rping on tumblr, but it looked so good and informative I decided to make a separate post for anyone else that may need it. Enjoy~!

One of the most important things to use in a tumblr rp is tags. Tags usually requires the usernames, events title, and you can even talk through them to make a comment on the rp. The tags are located on the bottom of the post and are an easy way to find the post in a specific manner.

Ex. #ban23 #angel m!a #poor baby can’t fly~

Muse and Mun are terms for the character and the one playing the character.

Muse = Character

Mun = The person controlling the character

Hiatus means taking a break. You usually announce this through a text post. You may specify what level of hiatus you’re taking on, from rps, to just being on tumblr. Be sure to make another text post when you come back to announce the end of your hiatus.

Ex. Hiatus

Going to take the rest of the day off from (rps/tumblr) to (insert excuse)! Be back (guess estimated time frame)

M!As (Magic!Anons) are a good way of spicing things up in an rp. It’s like the 10%-of-the-world happening-to-you thing. They are fun but remember, you have control over the time span if it’s too long or if there isn’t one specified, and you can reject them as well. You have a choice in the matter.

How do you get M!As? You ask for them. M!A lists are recommended and can be found on other rp blogs or you can search for some on here.

How do you activate them? Either post the ask (the way to give an m!a through anonymous) or make a starter for the event.

Ex. M!A: Muse is a dog for 3 days!

(Muse/character) was (doing something) when (chosen sequence of how they transform: poof, feeling/pain [followed by black out], just black out, shape shifting. Be as creative as you want~!). (How they realize and/or react)

Starters are just a text post for people to use as a start off for an rp. It can be open to anyone or closed to specific people or just one person. If you're doing an rp that has more than two rpers, discuss the order of turns in the rp before doing it and make sure they know that they're going to be in the rp if another rper is jumping in the rp in the middle of it, otherwise it gets confusing and frustrating.

Ex. [Title] [(closed rp with (insert username(s))]

(Muse) was walking down the street (other details you want to put in) when they bumped into someone. (Brief reaction)

[littlesistersammy]

Tips for first time tumblr role players?

"Woah! Someone’s looking to me for advice! I’m… I have no words… but I’ll give the best advice I can."

"I wish I had someone to ask about these things when I first started out RPing back in my junior year of highschool…"

Tips on RPing (things I think are important):

    1. Tag most everything. Even if you’re mobile. It helps you and your RP partner to find your threads if you or they miss a reply. It also helps you organize your blog in case you want to link a certain tag on your blog. (finding a tag and linking on your page is easy when you are on you blog you just add /tagged/[insert tag here] {without the brackets} and there you have it.

    2. If you’re starting a new blog which I assume you are. You may want to start out making a few starter/welcoming posts that they can reply to. And most people track their url in the tags. For example: I track sammiwinchesterlittlesis and then when someone wants to have me see a post it lets me know in my tag.

    3. Install xkit 7 it helps you with little hacks such as putting a tagging option already in your ask so it alerts the person in their tracked tag so they know you replied. And other things… If you want to know more check out exit-extention or ask me about things your curious about it.

    4. Always make an info page even if you’re a canon character you may have different headcanons, or thoeries about your character that make your canon character a little different than others. You should also make other pages pertaining to your character. Such as a relationships page (where you add characters and rpers that are very close to your muse), a headcanon page, a bio page, and anything else you see fit to add. (As I keep saying in asks like these feel free to ask specific questions on your RPing concerns or just curious about other things in the RPing realm.)

    5. It’s always nice to make a page about yourself. Nothing too specific if talking about yourself makes you uncomfortable… just something your followers and fellow RPers can read to get to know you a little better and feel a little more comfortable about talking to you.

   6. If there is anything you’d rather not RP or if there are things you want to RP make a rules page that your followers can read so they know what they can and can’t RP with you. And if they don’t respect your rules, feel free to block them. This is your blog and you do what you want to do with it.

   7. Maybe set a certain tag and way you type to let others know you are talking out of character. For example: I write in italics and tag my out of character posts with outofsass.

   8. And never be afraid to ask for an RP or remind someone about their reply. Most RPers are very kind and even if they decline they’ll usually be very nice about it because we’re all here to have fun and if you’re not having fun what’s the point of doing it, ya know?

"I can’t think of anything else… so feel free if I didn’t address any concerns about starting out RPing for the first time."