Welcome to Anime Red's School of RP Aptitude.

Today we will be discussing your potential as a contributing member of our vast and glorious realm. Before you take your first steps into the unknown, please take a moment to educate yourself on the basics. Today we will be covering the following topics:

-The Layout of the Role Playing forums
-Where and How to actually role play
-Specific Pointers
-The Random RP

So maintain some good posture, get your notebooks out, and let us begin. It may be helpful to open a new browser window to the Anime Red homepage so that you can follow along.

The following three topics will relate to our three main Role Playing Forums (One Piece, FInalFantasy7, and Rurouni Kenshin). After that we will have a bonus round dedicated to our Random RP section.

THE LAYOUT OF THE ROLE PLAYING FORUMS

Each of the three main forums has its own set of sub-forums. Once you click on the hyperlink of the main forum, you will see that you have two distinct sections. The lower section contains places to actually role play. We will explore this section in a moment. Up top there will be a sub-forum with a unique title for each RP. The names are as follows:

RurouniKenshin RP: The Post
OnePiece RP: IslandMap
FF7 RP: The Subforum

These sections each contain RP specific rules, a place to add character profiles and other goodies. Enter the upper section now, please.
OK... Now you see sections for rules. Go read them. Don't worry, I'll wait here...

Welcome back. There is also a section for creating a character. If you go there you will find that the very first post in that thread gives you a layout of the character profile and what sort of information is needed to complete a character sheet. Take some time to read through the profiles of other people to get a feel for what sorts of characters exist in the game. Try to find a niche for your character. When you are ready to make a character, copy the blank character sheet from the beginning of the thread and make a new post in the character profile thread and fill the sheet out.... before you do that, though, read the rest of the threads that contain nifty notes and background story if available. It will help you make a better character.

Alright... now we're going up a level to the talk about the lower section of the main RP forum. You should be looking at a list of a bunch of threads that are named after places such as Tea Shop, Street, Bridge, Forest, etc. These are the actual locations that exist in this RP. To play, your character will have to be in one of those threads. How do you get into one of the threads? Read on!

WHERE AND HOW TO ACTUALLY ROLEPLAY

How do you get into one of the threads? Post there. Keep in mind that you can only be in one place at a time. It is also a good idea to note when you enter or exit a new place. Here is an example of a brief post that someone could make:

After that post, the character could then go post in the street area. Just look around at some other people's posts to get a feel for how this works. Be sure to look through the lists of different locations that exist before you post. Each location thread has a brief description of the location as the very first post. Pick an accurate location for what you are doing. Don't see a place that you want you want to be on the list? Feel free to make a new place within reason. It is ok to make a new thread if you are hanging out in the woods or a field somewhere. It is not ok to make a new thread that is a sub location of another place. For instance, don't make a thread called "Corner of the Tea Shop"... just post in the Tea Shop and write that you are sitting in the corner in your post. Also, get permission from an Administrator before creating new buildings, hideouts, or other large places that could have a large impact on the RP.

So you are in a thread that fits what your character wants to be doing... Now you want to interact with other characters. There are a few ways to do this. You can jump in on the action that is going on already in your location or you can AIM someone and ask them to meet you in a specific thread to RP. Either way, you will now begin to take turns posting some actions and dialogue. As a general rule, each person will post a minimum of five good lines per post. As you may have noticed, some people will post much more than that. Each post should cover the events of a one to three minute time frame unless you are fighting... then each post will be about 15-30 seconds worth of events. If you are playing alone then you can cover as much time as you please in a post.

What are the limits of things that can be done in these posts? Well, you can successfully do anything you want as long as it is not to another character. This means that if you are going to try to kick a door down, you will be able to do it if you want to. If you want to fight three ninja assassins that you decided were after you, then you get to choose how the fight goes. Just don't make yourself into a GOD... only lamerz and n00bz enjoy being all powerful all the time. Example of solo play:

OK... so what if you want to fight another character? This is where we all have to be a bit mature. You can attempt to do anything that you want to the other person and THEY get to decide if it is successful. The key to making this work is that the other person SHOULD allow you to succeed at some level and that you will allow them to also succeed at some level

That is a sample... notice how each side tried to do something and met with limited success. You can on occasion allow your opponent to fully succeed or even to completely miss.... but if you have them failing every time then nobody will want to play with you. They key is to balance the fighting so that it is interesting for both people.

Other than combat, your character can wander through locations, sing songs, get drunk, climb trees, or do anything they want. The most important thing is to be descriptive. Talk about how they look, how they are walking (are they dragging their feet in exhaustion or skipping merrily), what they are thinking... a forum based RP is like a fantasy novel where everyone has a chance to be a main character. Write your character well and they will be well known and people will play with you. Make your character a complete enigma that has no identifiable personality and nobody will care if you live or die.

SPECIFIC POINTERS

For the Main three RPs:
-All characters are human
-None of the characters from the anime will be in the RP... events and characters fromt the RP are background to the anime's characters and events
For all of the RPs:
-Don't be power gamer or godmoder... take some hits and fail at what you are doing from time to time... it helps make a well rounded character.
-Read the profiles of those that you are RPing with. It will help you gauge their motivations and needs. They will do the same for you.
-Fill a niche that may have been overlooked. Every game has more than enough blacksmiths, bounty hunters, and outlaws. While you can play any of these characters it could be more interesting to be a circus performer or even an acupuncture specialist. If a character with a unique skill comes along, people will naturally want to play with them.
-Remember that everyone's character is important to them. Treat them with the respect that you would like to be afforded.
-Play one character per game. Exceptions will be made on limited basis with much grand justification to one of the Admins.
-AIM people that you want to play with. Most people have their AIM listed in their profiles... but don't bug the same person every hour if they turn you down. Sometimes people need some time off.
-Keep it PG. While we may curse from time to time or cause some graphic violence, leave the sexualy explicit content out of your posts.

THE RANDOM RP

The Random RP thread is a place where ANYONE can make a new RP. These RPs have the potential to become members of the main RP section if they do well. Before that though, they have to be popular. The main difference between the main RPs and the Random RPs is that Random RPs are contained within a single thread. Each thread will begin with a background of the world in which you will be RPing. There will also be character sheet examples. To create a character, just add a new post to the end of the thread with your character's information in it. Since the Random RPs do not have individual threads for separate areas it is important to think about where each of the other players in the game are at. Quite often you will find that due to the small sized of these games that everyone is in the same place. If, however, they are begining to spread out, it may be helpful to place a note at the beginning of your post that looks something like this:

Pretty basic, ne? As with any of the other RPs, it is important to read some posts to get the feel for the new game. Some RPs in the Random section will require you to contact the game creator before playing. Please respect this desire. You never know, they may want you to play a specific character that they have already created for a newcomer.

Well, kiddies, that's the lesson for today. Your homework is to go and find a RP to become a productive member of. Dismissed!

This thread is approved by KK

On the by,

For updates or special notices concerning all the rp's or something important concerning such, make sure to check out the first forum in the RPage part of AR called RP News. If you rp in AR and something new is posted there, you NEED to check it out because it could be a notice to all rp'ers, a change in rules, or something new and cool that may come out soon.