Livejournal Roleplay FAQ: netherworld

the_nether_mods in netherworld_rpg

Livejournal Roleplay FAQ

Jun 27, 2009 21:08

Since I haven't seen anything like this anywhere on Livejournal, I thought it would be nice and convenient to put together a general, all-purpose Livejournal Roleplaying FAQ of sorts. This is NOT just for netherworld_rpg; I posted this there because, well, I mod there and I felt that was the most appropriate place for it. This is for LJ RPing in general, so even people outside of Netherworld RPG can use, read, and comment to this.

This is the sort of thing I would have liked to have seen when I started roleplaying, so I hope other people find it useful as well. Since I'll be referring to this as a FAQ despite not listing it in a question/answer format, feel free to ask questions here and I'll add or amend this post. I want this to be as helpful and useful as possible!

While a good portion of this is directed towards people new to LJ RPing, I would also like to incorporate things that even experienced RPers may find useful, so if there's anything you believe should be added (whether tips, vocabulary, or communities), go right ahead and suggest it.

The Basics

Ask questions! Really, this is the most important part. Do not be afraid to ask moderators or other players questions. No matter what the question may be, do not be afraid to ask it. While, yes, there are jerks out there, most people will help you by answering your questions.

Don't be intimidated by moderators! Many people feel intimidated by mods, whether this be talking to them directly or interacting with their characters; though they may be running the roleplay you're in, when it comes down to it, they're players and people just like yourself, so there's no need to be intimidated.

Try your hardest to write well! We all make mistakes: you, me, the guy proofreading the 2010 Webster's dictionary--we all make typos, miss a piece of punctuation, or just flat out screw up. However, this is no reason to forgo putting effort into TRYING to get things right. Remember, roleplaying is a game of WRITING. Doing your best to use proper punctuation, spelling, and grammar is incredibly, INCREDIBLY important. Considering the game revolves entirely around writing, it is important to write well, otherwise other people may not understand what is going on and may be put-off by the writing if it's strewn with errors. I'll have a section dedicated to this specifically later on.

Comment in the Right Place! This might sound a bit silly, but it's a common mistake. When a thread between yourself and another person or a thread between two characters is going on, be sure to reply to the CURRENT THREAD, meaning replying to the other person's most recent comment, rather than replying to the entry separately, which starts a new thread; this can make things messy and very, very, very difficult to follow.

Roleplay Vocabulary

Roleplay has a large number of words, phrases, and abbreviations unique to the hobby. Here is a concise but in no way complete list of common terms you will likely stumble across:

Activity: This refers to posting, commenting, and generally playing with your character in the game you joined. Most games have activity requirements to prevent people from 'character sitting', so be sure to read the rules and activity requirements for any game before joining it.

App Short for 'application' and also used as a verb to mean 'apply for'. Most roleplays require an application before you can join. The contents of applications vary between games, but often they contain sections for 'character background', 'character personality', 'sample entry', and the player's contact information.

AU: Stands for 'alternate universe'. This refers to characters from series whose canon, official background has been edited in some sort of way to fit a roleplay.

Canon: All of the official events and information concerning a character and his/her/its series. What constitutes 'canon' differs between person-to-person and is often influenced by opinion, but it's usually best to restrict 'canon' to whatever is absolutely definite.

Character Sitting: This refers to a person who applied for a character and either does not play them after acceptance or does plays enough so that they just meet the bare minimum activity requirements. People tend to find this annoying as there's little reason to interact with a character that won't return the favor or participate in RP events or activities. The term refers to how a person 'sits' on a character, preventing other people from playing them.

Concrit: A combination of the words 'constructive criticism'. This refers to people telling you what you are doing well and what you may need work on; none of us are perfect, so always be open and accepting of concrit. At the same time, there are jerks out there, so sometimes concrit can be completely invalid. Balance both skepticism and acceptance in regards to receiving concrit. There are places, such as hmd_meme, where people can go for concrit.

CR: Abbreviation for 'character relationships'. This refers to anything: developing rivalries, making enemies, making friends, or developing romantic relationships. These are important since the vast majority of fun from RPing can be found from making CR and the things it can produce.

Dressing Room: A dressing room is a roleplay that has minimal rules, minimal moderator involvement, and never require applications--you make a journal and can post immediately. Dressing rooms can be for any and all characters while some are for specific series. While playing in these are very easy to do and can allow you to play characters that wouldn't fit elsewhere, the lack of applications can also mean a low standard of quality.

Drop: To 'drop' a character from a RP means you stop playing them in that RP. You can no longer reply to other characters' entries or logs with the character, other characters can't reply to the character's entries, and another player is (generally) allowed to apply for and play the character you dropped.

Fade-To-Black: Refers to suggesting strongly that something will happen without actually writing it out. Often used to avoid writing out sex or severe violence.

Femmeslash: Synonymous with yuri. Refers to a romantic relationship between two females.

Fourth Wall: This is an old, old term originally used in regards to plays. It refers to the 'fourth wall' of the stage: the invisible one between the audience and the characters and is just as applicable to TV, movie, video game, or RP characters. To 'break' the fourth wall is, more or less, to have a character show conscious awareness that they are fictional, that there is an audience, or being aware that ANOTHER character is fictional.

Godmodding/Godmoding: As the 'God' in 'Godmodding' or 'Godmoding' may suggest, this relates to giving your character seemingly God-like power; examples include: having characters know things they shouldn't; asserting a character is stronger than he/she is; asserting a character is smarter or more skilled than he/she is. Godmodding/Godmoding can also include controlling the actions of characters that are NOT yours: such as making an action post and saying the other character DID get hit and, say, fell down. Gomodding/Godmoding is never tolerated. Sometimes people DO put the actions of other characters into their comments/posts, but this is not Gomodding/Godmoding if and ONLY if they have the permission of the other character's player. Also, note: Originally, Godmoding and Godmodding were two separate terms, but have become nearly synonymous in regards to Livejournal roleplay, so knowing the differing meanings isn't usually necessary from what I've seen.

Het: Stands for 'heterosexual' and used to refer to couples, pairings, or ships that involve a male and a female.

Hiatus: This is an announcement one makes when one will be away from a computer or unable to play for a period of time for whatever reason. These are VERY IMPORTANT as real life has a tendency to interrupt your fun and posting a hiatus will prevent you from being punished for being inactive. Rules concerning hiatuses vary between RPs, so be sure to read the rules of any game before you join!

IC: Abbreviation for 'in character'. This can refer to doing something 'in character', referring to an action in the game; this can also refer to 'being in character', which means playing your character accurately.

Log: Logs are sometimes used synonymously with 'thread', but is often used to refer specifically to third-person prose writing used in a journal-based RP.

Lurk: This generally means to look around an RP--generally watching what the other characters/players are doing--before joining/commenting/posting yourself. This is actually an incredibly good thing to do! It allows you to get a feel for how a game works before flying head-first into it.

Metagaming: This is a specific type of Godmoding/Godmodding defined roughly as 'using information found or known outside of the confines of the game itself to affect the game itself'. It refers to having your character know things they shouldn't know, such as out-of-character information you as the PLAYER know. For example: having your character know the weakness of another character without having been given any sort of information within the game which would explain WHY they know it; for a more specific example: A character who has never met, heard of, or been told of Superman or Kryptonians knowing that Superman's weakness is Kryptonite. This, like Godmoding/Godmodding in general, should be absolutely avoided.

Multi-fandom: Refers to RPs that allow characters from more than one series or media. Sometimes used synonymously with panfandom or used to denote an RP more restrictive.

Mun: Short for 'mundane'. Used to refer to a character's player: 'Batman's mun' or 'Batman-mun' both refer to the person playing Batman. This isn't a universal term and many people simply use 'player'.

Muse:Generally used to refer to a person's character. Synonymous with 'muse'. More widely-used than 'pup' from what I've seen.

OC: Abbreviation for 'original character'. This refers to a character you yourself created and (as a result) exists in no official media. Some games accept only OCs, some games allow OCs and non-OCs, and some ban OCs. If you want to play an original character somewhere, be sure to read any game's rules before you try joining with an OC.

OoC: Abbreviation for 'out of character'. This can refer to 'out of character' interactions, which are generally conversations between the players themselves. It can also be used to a character being 'out of character', as in saying, doing, feeling, or thinking things that they would not, meaning the character is not being played accurately.

Panfandom: A roleplay that allows characters from all or nearly all series or media.

Pair/Pairings: More-or-less synonymous with 'ship/shipping'. Refers to characters in romantic relationships or the act of putting them into romantic relationships.

Playercest: Combination of 'player' and 'incest', since it refers to a player having two of their own characters interact with each other. Some games ban this (though I'm not sure why), while some games allow it. Sometimes it's necessary for one reason or another, but should be avoided since, well, what's so much fun about interacting with yourself? I personally prefer my personal term 'munsturbation', since this is all about playing with yourself. www.instantrimshot.com.

Pup: Stands for 'puppet' or something else. Generally used to refer to a person's character. Synonymous with 'muse'. Not as widely-used as 'muse' from what I have personally seen.

Reserve: To reserve a character at a game allows you time to write an application without another player applying for them and taking them before you have the chance to do so yourself. Reservation rules vary between RPs, so be sure to read the rules before reserving a character.

RP: Abbreviation for 'roleplay'. I'll go out on a limb and assume you knew this if you found this FAQ in the first place.

Slash: Synonymous with yaoi. Refers to a romantic relationship between two males.

Ship/Shipping: More-or-less synonymous with 'pair/pairings'. Refers to characters in romantic relationships or the act of putting them into romantic relationships.

Single-fandom: Refers to RPs that allow characters only from one series.

Smut: Put simply: sex. Some games ban it, others allow, it some are based around nothing BUT it. Be sure to read the rules of the game you're in before writing out smut.

Tag: (1)This refers to 'tagging' or, more specifically, replying to someone else's comment or entry. People will often say 'I tagged so-and-so's comment/post' or 'I need you to tag so-and-so's whatever', so this is a very important term to familiarize yourself with.
(2) Tag can also refer to the 'entry tags' you can use for various things, such as keeping track of the contents of the entry or keeping track of what characters replied to it.

Thread: A connected series of comments. Livejournal itself refers to them as 'threads'.

Threadhop: This means to reply to a thread between two other characters with your own. I go into more detail about this later.

Wank: This generally refers to gossip, insults, arguments, or negative tabloid-like news concerning games or specific players. Wank is bad and best avoided. Try to remember to not do or say anything you wouldn't want done or said to you; if you have a genuine issue with a particular player or group, go to them about it politely.

Yaoi: Synonymous with slash. Refers to romantic relationships involving two males.

Yuri Synonymous with femmeslash. Refers to romantic relationships involving two females.

Putting Together a Journal

Character journals: Since we're pretending to be fake people on a journal website, we need fake journals, right? A character journal is the most basic and necessary tool when roleplaying on Livejournal, especially since you CANNOT use your personal journals in public roleplays.

Usernames! It's good to make usernames relevant to your character in some way, whether this be an inside joke, a clever pun, a quote, or something descriptive. It's best to keep them PG-13 and easier to remember the better.

Icons! Icons are actually quite important. They're an easy way to depict how your character feels or appears without needing tedious, redundant descriptions. You can make icons yourself (LJ's icons are 100x100 pixels) or go to various communities and find icons for your character there. The best way to do this is search Livejournal for the series your character is from and find communities dedicated to it; if you do use other people's icons, try to remember to put the maker's journalname in the 'comment' section underneath the icon's keyword to credit the maker.

Finding Somewhere to Play

There are a lot of different ways to find places to play! It's actually quite easy to find places to play, in fact. There are several communities dedicated to helping you find a place of your own. Be sure to read all the rules for each community before using them.

rpg_listing has a list of nearly all the games on Livejournal with descriptions of them.

char_pimp_rp and rp_want_ads are communities that allow you to post asking for other characters in games you're already in or posting characters you'd like to play, asking for game recommendations. If someone sees someone else wanting to play a character their game would like, you can bet they'll reply to you!

dear_mun: If you join this community with your character journal and ask for game recommendations, you're quite likely to get some. If you don't, wait a little while and try again.

app-this-plz: This is a journal which posts every month or so where people go to search for players and characters. You can either make a post with a list of characters you'd like to play and see if anyone is interested in offering an RP for you to play in or you can look at the many, many requests other people are making and see if you're interested in playing any of the characters they're looking for.

Community-Based vs. Journal-Based! What are the differences? A community-based roleplay uses a single community as a central hub; here, all characters post entries which are replied to. Journal-based roleplays are different in that they use the journals themselves for characters to post entries, just like a real person would use their own LJ account to post; characters then comment on the entries in the journals themselves. Whether you prefer one over the other or are indifferent about the differences is all up to personal preference and experience.

Log Roleplaying vs Journal Roleplaying! What's the difference? Logs are typically prose: meaning written in paragraph format with dialogue encased in quotation marks; in other words, like any book you have read ever. Journal roleplaying is generally first person and dialogue-heavy, with thoughts (show in italics or using strike-through) and actions (usually designated in brackets, asterisks, or parentheses); this form is the most common on LJ RP. Unlike community-based vs journal-based RPing where the differences are minute, there are some distinct pros and cons to both log and journal roleplay. Often, journal roleplays have a log community where prose-based writing can go in.

Log Roleplaying!

Journal Roleplaying! PROS! Allows for quick, easy interactions and the majority of journal-based RPs DO have a log-based community to along with it. CONS! More difficult to describe thoughts, feelings, and scenery, and can be INCREDIBLY tedious to use with large amounts of action.

Which do I pick? I personally go with journal-based so long as there's a logs community. I also use log roleplaying in my journal-roleplying journals sometimes! So long as it's not against the rules of the game, you can write in prose even if the rest of the game doesn't; it might be best to keep that to special occasions, though: the type that benefit from lots of descriptions and a lot of actions. Journal-based allows for much faster-paced interactions. Basically, it comes down to two things: personal preference and what the particular situation calls for.

Single-Fandom vs. Multi/Pan-Fandom As with the different methods of RPing, single-fandom and pan-fandom have their pros and cons. The main pros to single-fandom RPs are the following: you are assured to have castmates; you're less likely to have a character experience something you don't know how they'd react to. Cons to single-fandom RPs include: the overall cast will be small and, since there's a limited number of characters, there'll be a limited number of choices; another con--which was one of the pros as well--is the limited potential for unique interactions. The Pros and Cons of multi/panfandom are the opposite, as you may expect: larger number of choices, larger number of characters, higher chances of unique situations and interactions; but at the same time, the chances of having castmates from the same series is lower and sometimes unique situations not touched upon in canon can be hard to work with.

LURKING! This is likely the most important tool you can use. 'Lurking', as I mentioned in the vocabulary section, is to look around an RP--mainly looking at actual character entries and threads--before joining/commenting/posting yourself. THIS IS VERY GOOD. Look around an RP to see how the other people play and how things work so you get a feel for the setting and how things work before jumping head-first into it. I strongly suggest always lurking around a place for a little bit (depending on how confident one feels, it could be a few hours, a day, or a week) before joining or posting.

Roleplay Etiquette

Be Easy to contact! Be sure to have some sort of way for other players to contact you: this can include AIM screennames, an email address, or just allowing people to private message you via Livejournal.

Sticky Posts! These are posts that permanently stay at a top of a journal. You do this by going to make a post, clicking 'edit' next to the date, changing the date to something far in the future (it doesn't matter what date; picking 2020 works fine), and be sure to click the Date Out of Order box, otherwise it'll be messed up. What use do these posts have? People tend to use these to post contact information, description of their characters, a list of relationships between the character and others, or anything else they feel may be important.

Threadhopping! This means commenting on a thread going on between two other characters with your own character. One on hand, this can lead to more interesting interactions, but on the other it could effectively interrupt something important between the other characters. Also, it's more difficult for more than two characters to interact with each other at once; this is a problem integral to LJ RP itself and is difficult to circumvent. Things to think about before threadhopping: always, ALWAYS ask yourself it doing so will interrupt something the other players are working on. The very best and most polite way of going about threadhopping is to contact the players themselves. An IM or a LJ private message work fine.

Threads between more than two characters! This goes along with threadhopping. As I said in the Threadhopping section, it's far more difficult to make threads between more than two characters, but it's not impossible; the best way to go about this is to determine with the other players a posting order: Character A goes first, then Character B, then Character C, and repeat. A -> B -> C -> A -> B -> C -> et cetera. Be sure all people involved know what's going on!

Ending Threads! How do you know when a thread is done with? Personal choice! If you think you can get something interesting out of a thread which appears finished, go ahead and reply. However, commenting solely for the sake of dragging out a thread with nothing happening in it can be agonizingly boring for everyone involved plus a waste of time. If you think a thread is done and can think of nothing else, go ahead and leave it as it is. If you think there might be more that could happen but don't want to drag out a dead thread, ask the other player if they think it's done or if they think the thread could lead to something else interesting.

Breaking the Fourth Wall! Some characters--and entire series, in fact--canonically break the fourth wall; one well-known and sometimes notorious example is the Disgaea series, wherein nearly--if not all--characters are aware they're fictional and in a video game. To break the fourth wall in RP takes a certain amount of finesse: It's possible to make a character do/say something that suggests to the OBSERVER that the character is aware that HERSELF/HIMSELF is fictional without the other character catching on to this. Some games ban even this, which I personally don't see why; this can be done in even the most serious of settings without harming anything. Even so, it's best to follow the rules. One thing that is nearly unanimously considered a no-no is telling ANOTHER character that he or she is fictional. Although sometimes the other character will write off the original as being insane, this can be annoying and is, frankly, no where near as funny as being as subtle as possible. Of course, this rule-of-thumb doesn't apply to two characters (Such as two from Disgaea or a similar fourth-wall-breaking series) who are both consciously aware of the fourth wall. If you ever have any doubt about breaking the fourth wall around another character, it's best to contact that character's player as a courtesy.

Writing Tips!

DISCLAIMER! Before I start on anything in regards to writing, I want to say I AM IN NO WAY PERFECT nor am I trying to suggest I am by giving advice or tips like this. In fact, if you've read through the entirety of this FAQ to this point, you've probably seen typos, misspelled/misused words, and oddly-worded sentences.

Why We Should Care! Like I said before, roleplaying at heart is a writing game. It's based entirely on communication via text so it's best to do our best to write clearly, correctly, and coherently, otherwise other people...well, won't understand what we're doing or will be put off by poor writing. No, it doesn't make anyone 'elitest' or arrogant to feel that way: like I said, RPing is a game and like all games, people, by nature, tend to shy away from those who don't appear to be taking it seriously or seem to be making more mistakes than most. Think of it as being the bookworm waiting to be picked for a kickball/football/[insert team sport here] game. Some people are far too uptight about writing properly--this is true; however, even the average writer can become exasperated by too many errors.

Reread what you write! This can usually catch 90% of all errors: typos, improperly capitalized words, missing punctuation, and the like. It's not infallible by any meaning of the word, but ALWAYS REREAD WHAT YOU WRITE. This is typically very easy to do with LJRP since most comments are not novel-length; a quick re-read before or after posting a comment (re-reading after is sometimes more helpful, since you can immediately see if you messed up some HTML) will only take a couple seconds. When I reread my journal entries for characters, I usually find four or five things needing fixing. If you post a comment and then notice an error, copy what you wrote, delete the comment, paste into a new reply, fix the error(s), and re-comment.

Spellcheck! I know for sure Firefox has a built-in spellcheck; it's rudimentary in that its vocabulary is a bit...small, but it can help point out typos, improperly-capitalized words, and misused or missing punctuation. I strongly suggest everyone use this; it's not something that'll prevent all mistakes or do all your work for you, but it's a very helpful tool! I think Internet Explorer may now have a spellchecker as well, but it's been years since I've used IE.

Remember the basics! Most of us are not novelists, so we shouldn't expect perfection and ground-breaking writing from everyone else. As a result, the best things to keep in mind when writing are the basics we learned in school: avoid run-on sentences and fragments, capitalize proper nouns and the words at the start of a sentence, and how to use commas and periods. SSince a lot of LJRP is dialogue, the run-on sentences and fragments may actually be IC since people often SPEAK in fragments and, depending on the character and situation, run-on sentences. Still, remember the basics.

Paragraphs! Many people when first writing make the mistake of not using paragraphs; a large block of text is very difficult to read. Remember to split up your entries and comments into paragraphs. Adding an extra space between paragraphs--like how I have an extra space between the bullet points here, for example--makes things much easier to read, especially since LJ doesn't allow you to have indents.

Journal-Based Actions and Descriptions! Unlike prose where actions and descriptions are the main bulk of the writing and dialogue is denoted by quotation marks, journal-based RP is mainly dialogue interspersed with action and description; how do we denote actions and descriptions? People tend to use different methods: some use nothing but italicized text (though this is more often used to denote internal thoughts), but most use symbols (ex. *action/description*, [action/description], (action/description),-action, description-) to denote actions and descriptions; which you use is entirely up to you, but asterisks ** and brackets [] are the most common. Also, people tend to make the text for actions/descriptions either smaller-sized or italicized to further differentiate it from the dialogue (Ex. [action/description], [action/description]), but this is also up to personal preference..

Don't be afraid to make mistakes! Like I said before: we're not novelists or professional authors or anything of the like. No matter how much experience one has, one will inevitably make mistakes. Don't be afraid to make them; at the same time, be open to constructive criticism concerning your writing, just like everything else. As I said somewhere else in this thing, one should always treat concrit with both skepticism and openness: there are jerks out there who will say things just to be mean, but there are plenty--and likely many more--who give concrit because they genuinely want to help you.

Useful Tools for Everyone!

There are many tools out there that can be helpful to people whether you are just starting to roleplay or have roleplayed for years.

LJ Login! An amazing application for Firefox; this allows you to switch between LJ accounts in seconds without the need of logging out, entering passwords, and logging back in. Many, many people consider this a lifesaver. It can be found here and I strongly suggest anyone and everyone who roleplays and has the Firefox browser download this. Firefox itself can be downloaded here

Lazarus! Ever finished writing a long post or reply in Livejournal only for it to disappear for completely no reason? Well, Lazarus is a plugin for--of course--Firefox which save EVERYTHING you type, so if LJ eats it, you can get it back instead of pulling your hair out and re-writing it. Lazarus can be downloaded here for free.

Using HTML! HTML is very important and very useful! You can make your font larger, bold it, italicize it, underline it, change colors, and do any other numbers of things. A list of HTML can be found here, but there are far many other types of formatting. Used appropriately and sparingly, HTML formatting can be used to make your roleplaying more interesting and creative.

Sparkletext! This is very, VERY, VERY DANGEROUS. It can be used cleverly to make your comments and posts more interesting, but it can be get VERY, VERY annoying and is incredibly easy to overuse. So here is the list of sparkletext, but I once again warn you: USE CONSERVATIVELY. Meaning NOT in every comment, NOT in every post. Use it once in a great while and it can be helpful.

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