Rules - RP Sector

Ok, you've managed to get to the RP section. Now the tough decision of where to start. Do you rush head first into a RP that takes your fancy or do you create your own story? I have written this in order to help people and also to get some order back into this section.

Here's the basics;
What is an RP?

Well the easiest way to describe an RP is a sort of story which is made by multiple members. You take the role of your own character and create a sort of story following a plot given to you by the starter of the RP, your characters develop through the game and interact with each other to make one big fan fiction. This is the best way to describe an RP.

RP Plot

Like any story, you have to have an idea before you can make the story, and this is exactly what a plot is. A plot is a sort of idea given to the members so as they can build on it. Without a plot you cannot produce an RP. For example, at the start of a game or some stories, you normally have a prologue or summery of what the game or book is about, this is a plot.

Three main things are needed in a plot:

Originality: Which will draw members to the RP, the last thing you want to do is a have a plot about the run of the mill good vs evil but it would be an idea to add a few plot twists and some adventure, this is what draws members to your RP.

Detail: Description, History and emotions all come into the detail of a Plot; without detail the plot will have no feel and therefore not attract members or will grind to a halt. We're not saying it has to be a 14 page essay, but make it more than 2 lines and add some description into it to allow members to have the idea of what the plot is about, and also be able to write an interesting post in response.

Interest: Originality and Detail all come into the interest of the plot. You want to draw members to the RP so make it interesting by adding a few plot twists and furthermore, just making up your own story.

Posting Length/Time

Alright, we've all been involved in an RP that's very interesting and fun (hopefully). That's great! However, please wait a little while in between posts. For example, if you and your friend are online at the same time and you two are loving the RP you're in, you may feel tempted to post every 2 minutes with them. There are quite a few problems with this.

- If you post too quickly one after another, chances are that the quality of your posts will deteriorate. It's great that you're having fun, but please take your time when it comes to posting so you can make it the best of your ability.

- If you go on a posting spree the other people in the RP that are not online get drowned in posts. This often causes the death of RP’s, and it's a shame to lose an RP that you really like because of a silly reason like that.

- Minimum length of 4 lines per post. This is to keep quality up, as short posts are usually not detailed enough. We realize that some people prefer to post in only a few paragraphs and others prefer enormous novel posts.

In addition to the length requirement, all posts are expected to have near-perfect grammar, spelling and punctuation.

So, please take your time when it comes to posting. We've all been excited, but remember what you may be doing to the other people in the RP.

OOC Posts

Please keep Out of Character only posts to the minimum! Why? It floods the thread and it's much neater. It's rather irritating to swim though OOC posts trying to find the actual story. Instead of OOC posts try PM’ing another person! It's almost exactly the same thing except it makes your thread so much cleaner. Short OOC posts at the top of an In Character Post are ok, though. For example,
((OOC: I'm going to do a bit of character control here, if that's not ok, PM me and I will edit my post))

Character Control

Character control is...well I wouldn't say it's not allowed, but you cannot take complete control of a person's character without permission.

Taking control of another members character just a little is acceptable, but taking complete control of another members character is not, please look out for what you do with other members characters.

Others

-Absolutely NO GODMODDING. This is not Quake or Half-Life where you press the console button and type GOD to turn on invincibility. GODMODDING is making your character super powerful or something like that. Not only is this illiterate, but it's completely unrealistic. Everyone has flaws and it would be really boring if all the characters were immortal superbeings, throw a couple of weaknesses into the mix to make the story interesting.

-Waiting for an RP to start: Please, I'm begging you, don't nag the RP starter on when the RP will start, be patient as the person may not be online or may no want to come online at any particular moment, the RP will start when it starts so please, do not nag with posts such as:

"Can we start now!" or "When will this RPG start!"

Because it's rude.

-Know your limits -- do not juggle too many roleplays at once.
Try not to post too many new threads or join too many roleplays in any small amount of time. You should decide on a realistic limit to how many roleplays you can handle at once and stick to it.

-Remove your signatures when posting. It's not hard to do and you are all big boys and girls, so this rules shouldn't be hard to follow. The reason for this rule is to keep the RPs clean and tidy, no-one wants to scroll down fifty million signatures to find some new post in a RP. Also you have to remember some people don't have extremely fast internet connection so therefore with lots of sigs the loading time would be extremely long and boring.
Cancelling the signature is easy - scroll down to the options menu and there are four tick boxes. Just leave the "Attach Signature" blank.

One more thing: The RP is good for your language skills. And while posting in the RP, make sure that your grammar and punctuation is 100% correct! Therefore...
WHEN YOU DECIDE TO TYPE ON THE RP, TYPE IT ON MICROSOFT WORD, WORDPERFECT OR YOUR WORD SOFTWARE FIRST AND THEN COPY IT OVER TO POST IT. IT WILL REDUCE GRAMMATICAL ERRORS AND INCREASE ACCURACY

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