#starter help

[heiheiofrp-blog]

Would you be able to do a list of good starters for just a basic town rp? I feel like I always use the same thing.

How to Write Your Own Starters:

Starter Help

Guide to Open Starters

Tags:

Here

Here

Quick Gif Starter Masterlist

Starter Masterlists

Gif Chat Masterlist

Starters Masterlist

Text Starters

Starter Texts

I hope you find this helpful.

[blossomedhoney]

Does anyone have tips for writing open starters that people will reply to?

[dear-indies]

this is probably a very stupid question and it probably has been answered before but i want to interact with more people on my rp blog but everytime i place up a starter call, i barely get any responses. what am i doing wrong? is there a trick to it that i don't understand. please help a girl out!

It’s not a stupid question, anon! Whenever someone asks me about starters I always say make sure that they’re roleplayable - ask yourself can people reply to this? how can they reply to this and who can reply to this? If you can think of several scenarios then go ahead and post it. Secondly I think tags and time of posting make a significant difference, make sure you post it when the dashboard isn’t quiet and make sure to tag starters appropriately - another tip is that if you’re open to crossovers feel free to tag other fandoms too as well as the standard “indie rp” and “open rp” tags! Also never be ashamed to reblog your starter calls just in case some followers didn’t see the post before. Thirdly, perhaps you’d have better success with “like for me to reply to one of your starters” or “like for me to send you memes” posts.  You can tag them the same way as starters. 

Also, don’t be afraid to reblog meme posts and send other people memes! They’re a great way to start off interactions. Some people only accept them from mutuals though so I’d advice you to go through their page and see if you can find any information.

Follow people! 

I’m not going to lie the community can be a wild place, faceclaims and fandoms also matter when seeking out interactions. Some people only seek out interactions with certain faceclaims and fandoms or alternatively don’t roleplay with certain faceclaims or fandoms which is totally ok if the faceclaim or fandom makes them uncomfortable. Another thing would be “aesthetic” formats such as icons and such but there are plenty of people in this community who would love to roleplay with you regardless of your roleplaying style - you just need to find them! 

I’ll link some helpful things below for you to go through too: 

this ask we answered before with several guides and things about how to write starters and inspiration for starters. 

independent roleplay tags

#INDIESOFCOLOR - a tag specifically for characters of colour only.

Best of wishes and feel free to message us (even privately!) if you’d like to talk more. 

-C

[straydogsatan]

I'm gonna make starter babies if anyone wants some. I have all 3 the only think I ask in return is just random pokemon. I ain't gonna be a prick and ask for legandary pkmn. So yea if you want one hit me up!

[shrpghq]

Starter help!

So a roleplay “starter” is basically the first post in a roleplay thread or the first approach of two characters. This is sometimes known as a prompt. Moving on. There are two main types of roleplay starters, one of which is absolute gold, the other of which should be avoided at all costs. 

Passive and active starters.

What the hell do this fancy terms mean, you may ask? Well it’s not something a lot of people put a name to, but it’s very important when creating starters. While active starters are almost always thought-provoking and interesting, passive starters are often boring and absolutely useless.

Here is an example of a passive starter.

Mary was simply walking down the street when she noticed Sam. “Hi there!” She said.

That. That is literally the bane of my existence. Now, not all passive starters are simple “hello”s. In my own terms, a passive starter is any starter that requires more thought on the receiving party’s end than the giving party’s. Yes, a passive starter could possibly be worked with for a few replies, but the two characters quickly run out of things to talk about. But you see, the person dishing out the starter should be igniting something, giving them receiving person something to talk about. That, in essence, is what roleplaying is all about. That’s why you would want an active starter. For example: 

Mary was strolling casually down the road when suddenly, she tripped. As she fell, she heard a clanking noise, and upon recovery realized that she had dropped something important out of her pocket, and it had fallen into a drainage vent. Eyes wide, she jumped up from the ground and tapped a stranger on the shoulder, “Uh, excuse me, sir! I’ve dropped something down that grate over there… would you please help me get it out?”

Now, obviously that’s not the best starter in the world, but it gives a motive. It’s thought-provoking. It gives the receiving end of the RP more to think about, and therefore, propels the RP forward.

Does this make any sense? If so, just keep this in mind. For future reference, some of the most common passive starters are:

Simple greetings

Having your character be meandering about, expecting the other character to approach them. No, you’re starting it, you’re supposed to lead.

Approaching and not saying anything.

Any of those should be avoided, and anything else that seems passive to you. I hope that now, with this whole passive/active system in mind, you can write better starters and have better rps! Peace be with you. Any questions? Feel free to ask me!

Feel free to reblog if you learned something or think this might be helpful to others!

For whatever reason we are unable to reblog the original post above while also having the text show up-- ALL credit goes to forchristmasbutter!

As per our anon yesterday, felt like this may be of some help! Also adding these 3 links....

How to: Create an interesting starter

How to: Make an Interesting Starter

Interesting Gif Convesation Starters

Hope this helps! 

-Admins

[nphofrph]

Guide to Open Starters

At first glance, starters seem like one of the easiest parts of group roleplaying. All you’re doing is starting a conversation, right? You can’t possibly have any trouble with that, right?

Wrong. Starters can be deceptively tricky little critters, and there are a few common pitfalls that can make starters awfully difficult for others to reply to. Under the cut, I’m going to go over some of them, and give you some tips on how to avoid them and make some starters people can roll with.

Pitfall #1: Assuming too close a relationship

The thing about open starters is that, well, they’re open. They should be able to be answered by anyone in the group - or, at least, the majority of the group. So it’s probably not a good idea to start off the conversation in a way that you’d only speak to someone who’s close to you.

Examples:

“Man, can you believe I got Mary Sue to sleep with me last night? Pound it!”

“Sorry I’m late. I was up until four last night fighting with my brother.”

Whoa there, cowboy. Unless part of your muse’s characterization is poor social skills and painfully blunt honesty, an open starter isn’t the place to open those floodgates. Sure, characters who know yours well will be able to respond, but anyone else? They’ll have no clue what to do for you, and so you’re excluding them from the conversation.

Pitfall #2: Putting the responder into a convoluted circumstance

While it’s good to give your starter a context and somewhere to go, it’s a common mistake to take this too far and end up with very specific scenarios. Then, it becomes the responder’s job to try and figure out how their character got into that scenario in the first place.

Examples:

“It’s three in the morning. What are you doing at my house?”

“Dude! I can’t believe you just said that!”

The first example raises difficult questions that the responder has to answer: What is their muse doing out and about at three in the morning? Why did they choose to go to your muse’s house? If their muse isn’t the type to go galavanting about the neighborhood in nightly TP raids, it’s gonna be hard to try and come up with a valid reason for their muse being there.

The second example puts a lot of pressure on the responder. Their muse just said something that evoked an extreme reaction from yours. All you had to do was react, and now they’re left with the heavy lifting, having to figure out their muse said or did to get that reaction.

Pitfall #3: Being too vague

On the other end of the sliding scale of vagueness vs. specificity is another problem that often crops up in starters. You don’t want to make your starter too specific, but you also want to give the responder something to go off of.

For this example, I’m going to use the most common starter I see in every roleplay ever:

“I’m sorry, did you say something?”

This is not a good starter. This does not give anyone anything to go off of. Where are they? I don’t know. What mood are they in? Your guess is as good as mine. What are they doing? Beats the hell out of me.

Fortunately, this is one pitfall that can be mended pretty easily, as I’ll explain in part two of the guide:

Pitfall No More!

Fix-It #1: Give your vague starter context

There is a happy medium between too specific and not specific enough, and adding a dash of context can make all the difference. See the questions I listed in the above pitfall description? Try to answer at least one of them in your starter.

Where are they?

What mood are they in?

What are they doing?

Examples:

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” Neil asked, turning away from the football game he’d been focused on and glancing at the person on the bar stool next to his.

Ah, there we go! They’re at a public eatery of some sort, maybe a bar or diner. If this is, say, a town roleplay, then that’s a very reasonable place to assume your muse might be passing some time.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” Neil asked through a yawn as he rubbed his eyes.

Now your muse can see that mine is tired. They could ask mine if he’s gotten any sleep, or maybe make fun of the bags under his eyes, or offer him some of their coffee. Whichever they pick, it’s a direction.

“I’m sorry, did you say something? I’m kind of busy reading here.”

This also gives your muse something to respond to. Maybe they could ask what book he’s reading, or say they’ve read that book, and can you believe the step-sister was the murderer? Or perhaps they could tell him to put the book down and have some real fun for once. But they have a context to respond to.

Fix-It #2: Play with what’s established in the roleplay

There are going to be events, locations, and lore that are specific to your roleplay, but that all or most of the characters are familiar with.

Keep track of what’s happening in your roleplay’s universe, and when something occurs, let your character respond to it.

“Did you hear the mayor died last night? Good riddance, I say.”

And there may be places in town that are common places to gather or to discuss.

“You know, I’ve heard this library’s haunted. Might wanna be careful about walking around these bookshelves alone.”

Not to mention the sort of actions or situations that would be common in your roleplay’s setting, even if the same wouldn’t be said for the real world.

“All right, the zombies are really starting to crowd the front gates. I’m gonna go see if I can pick some of them off. Anyone want to come along?”

Fix-It #3: Find something specific to your character

A big one for this is your character’s job. If you play a store clerk, use your starter to see if your customer needs any help. If you play a cop, ask if they know why you pulled them over. If you’re a high school student, ask if they know anything about trigonometry. If you work at a piano bar, request a tip and ask if they have any requests.

“Feel free to leave a tip in the jar. Have any requests?”

You could also take a look through the gifs you have of your FC, and focus on finding ones of them in action. If you’ve got a gif of your faceclaim doing/wearing/eating/being/making something that could be an icebreaker, and seems like something your character might do/wear/eat/be/make, use it. With starters like these, you instantly answer the “What are they doing?” question, giving something for the other player to respond to, without getting too specific with other things like setting.

“See? Magic! Is your mind blown, or is your mind blown?”

“I found this little guy out behind the building all alone. You haven’t lost a dog, have you?”

“I need an opinion. Does the mustache make me look more sophisticated, or just goofy?”

Well, what about Para RPs?

“That’s all fine and dandy, Neil,” you say to me, because you’re a cool person who uses phrases like ‘fine and dandy’. “But what about roleplays that encourage para starters? How can we find that balance between vagueness and specificity if we need to put paragraphs’ worth of detail into the starter?”

To this I answer: the same guidelines still apply.

When you’re adding the detail and context to your para starter, avoid getting too specific about the other player’s muse. Instead, put your word count energy into digging further into your muse. You can still have a very open-ended starter at a public place where your muse is making small talk. That fact that you may now preface it with a description of how your muse got there and where their mind is doesn’t change that end result.

It had been another long day in front of the word processor that had stretched into a long night. Neil hadn’t even noticed until nearly four in the morning what the hour was, and, between the time he’d finally fallen into the Land of Nod and the moment his alarm clock sounded, he accumulated no more than an hour of sleep.

Still, he had to get up and start the day, and it was with the heavy weight of frustration over how little progress he’d made on his manuscript that night that he trudged into the coffee shop that morning, brusquely demanding a double espresso to try to get his energy up again.

Once he’d received his drink, he took a seat at one of the single tables and intermittently either sipped from the cup, or simply stared at it, letting the din of the coffee shop buzz in his ear. That is, until he realized that the person at the next table was looking at him expectantly.  “I’m sorry, did you say something?” Neil asked through a yawn as he rubbed his eyes.

And there you have it. I hope this little guide gave you something of a baseline for making good, easy-to-answer starters in the future. Remember, of course, that like any rules of writing, these aren’t set in stone. These are just tips and tricks that I found helpful, and that, perhaps, others could benefit from as well.

[musesgalore-blog]

This is a thread I want!! 

Muse A cheated on Muse B, Muse A is trying to get Muse B’s trust back, so they a half kind of couple. They both act like a couple but don’t, kiss or have sex or anything because Muse B wants to gain their trust back into Muse A. They go out to a party Muse B gets drunk and a sober Muse A puts them to bed, Muse B tries to seduce and confesses they want them back as their significant other again. Muse A shuts down the sex because they’re drunk, but they cuddle all night. 

Like if you want this too! 

[nphofrph]

mitochondriahelps replied to your post: Whats your opinion of starts that are mid sentence...

I would also say there are some settings (ex-hogwarts) that it’s almost stranger not to assume relationships. Like yes, limited starters aren’t good still, but there’s only so much your two seventh years can be strangers

True, I’m not going to claim that there’s no wiggle room here. But even in that context, there are limits to how far you can take it. “Did you happen to take notes in Charms yesterday?” only assumes that they’re classmates, so it’s no big deal; “Hey, how did you get into this dorm?!” assumes that the responder is a classmate who also is in a different house from the OP, is capable of getting into a dorm where they’re not allowed, and has a good reason for going to all the trouble to do so.