learntorp

This week I want to talk about everyone's personal judgement regarding the characters they play.

One of the fun things about roleplaying is that we get to play more than one character. We can play a stoic bodyguard, a shy child, and a weepy teenager all at the same time. We don't have to choose just one thing, we can choose everything.

But as much as we might like playing all sorts of different characters, we all have limits. Maybe we can only handle playing a few characters at once, or maybe we can handle many characters, but only in one game. No matter what those limits are, at some point we all reach them.

The mistake many players make is in ignoring these limits. It's true, it can be hard to accept your own limits. When I first started roleplaying, I grabbed up every character I could in five different games. It was amazingly fun and easily one of greatest summers I ever had roleplaying. But within three months it all crapped out on me, because I had stretched myself too thin. Trying to play 20 characters at once burned me out, and by the end of that September I had to drop most of them.

Now I know my limits. I can handle five characters in two games, and no more than that. It's kind of sad, since I would love to play more sometimes, but I know that if I pick up that sixth character then I slow down with all of them and just fall apart. Five is my personal limit, and I have to remember that.

If you know how many characters you can handle, then roleplaying becomes much easier. You can balance your real life with recreation without constantly worrying about all the tags you have to make and all the threads you have to finish. Roleplaying becomes a lot less stressful if you respect your personal limits.

There's not much to practice here, so instead I want you to focus on finding your limits as far as roleplaying goes. Figure out how many characters and games you can handle without getting overloaded, and try to stay at or below that number.

As a preface, the majority of the real-life experiences I'm using for this post are tabletop-based, but the idea still applies to other mediums of roleplaying.

When I was in college, I used to run tabletop games for my friends. One of these games occurred my junior year, with a group of five players. There was a guy in the group, who we shall call J, and he played a paladin. This paladin was pretty blatantly just a copy of himself. J made no effort to make his character different and unique, and even the description of the character sounded exactly like an idealized version of himself. Needless to say, this caused problems whenever the paladin got into trouble. Every difficulty this paladin encountered caused J to get angry, even when those problems were a result of actions J had made his paladin do. The final night of the game ended when J's paladin failed a saving roll and was turned into stone (something that can be fixed in the world of D&D). J was so upset that he stormed out of the apartment and never came back to another game.

Because of this game, I had a rule added to all of the games I ran after that: keep In-Character and Out-of-Character separate. It seems like a pretty simple idea, I know, but you would be surprised how many people have trouble with this. I could talk all day about the number of times a problem has been brought to me that had it's roots in blurring the line between IC and OOC, and I'm sure all of you can think of a time when you heard about this as well. Hell, I could go onto any of the anon comms and pull up half-a-dozen links to wank that involves blurring the line between IC and OOC. Despite the fact that it's common knowledge to keep IC and OOC separate, it's still a very common problem.

It's interesting to note that, when going by percentages, I see this problem a lot more in tabletop gamers and people who play OCs. I think it has something to do with the fact that these characters are something we personally made, so attacks on them feel like attacks on us. That's not to say that it's entirely absent in people who play canon characters, but it happens a lot less. Still, regardless of what ind of character you're playing, you need to remember one important thing: you are not your character.

If bad things happen to your character, it's not because someone hates you and they want you to suffer. It's because their character had a beef with your character that was settled within the context of a game. Bad things can happen to your character without being a personal attack against you. If another character hates your character, it does not mean that the player hates you.

I think most people understand this idea, though. There may be a few players that let IC actions bother them OOC, but the majority of players know that IC problems should not bleed into OOC. That said, most people who have a problem with this do forget the inverse: OOC problems should not bleed into IC.

You should not let your OOC problems affect how you play a character. If you've just broken up, you shouldn't have your character suddenly break up and hate dating. If you're feeling sick, it's probably not a good idea to have your character develop a case of the sniffles. Most importantly, if you have problems with another player, problems that make it impossible for you to even communicate with that player, you should never let those problems show up in how you play ICly. Just because you have a problem with Player A does not mean your character should go around saying Characters A1, A2, and A3 are horrible people.

Whenever you are having trouble defining the line between IC and OOC, just remember that you are not your character. Your issues should not reflect on your character, and your character's problems should not reflect on you. Don't take things personally; we're all just trying to have fun, after all.

For your practice, I want you to do some self-reflection. Where do you have problems keeping IC and OOC divided? What issues tend to leak over into roleplay? The first step to keeping IC and OOC separate is to identify the problem, so try to keep the phrase "You are not your character" in mind when you roleplay.

This is a topic near and dear to my heart, because I personally struggled with it for at least the first year I spent on LJRP, if not longer. I will say it upfront: it's hard to write a post that gets lots of responses. Even with practice it can still be hard to do, mostly because so many different factors go into what makes a post successful. Some of these factors are things I can't help you with, such as the popularity of your character or how active other players are when you make your post. But there is one thing I can advise you on, and that is the content of your post itself.

The first thing you need to know is that a great post always has a hook. It's usually near the end of the post, and it is the thing about your post that catches everyone's attention. A good way to imagine a hook is as the eye-catching detail that nobody can ignore. It could be something as simple as bumping into a person (which is hard to ignore because it's a physical action against their character) or as complicated as riding down the street in a flaming rowboat that is being pulled by two polar bears (which is hard to ignore for obvious reasons). But regardless of how flashy that action is, it has to be a direct action that other players can easily respond to.

Before I continue, I would like to take a moment here to talk about the difference between passive roleplaying and active roleplaying. Passive roleplaying is when a player makes most of their posts as responses to what another player is doing, whereas active roleplaying is where a player has most of their responses being direct actions, usually done in response to a passive player's responses. A perfect example of this is the all-too-familiar "reading in the library" post: the character reading the book is being passive, while the character who walks up and starts the conversation is being active.

Ideally, when you're roleplaying a thread, no one character should be entirely active or entirely passive for the whole thread. Each character should be doing some of the actions, and they should also be responding to what the other character does. The reason for this is that active roleplaying takes a lot more effort than passive roleplaying, and it is really easy to get tired of a thread if you are constantly responsible for moving the action along.

Coming back to the original topic at hand, the reason most posts fail is that they were written to be passive roleplaying, which puts all of the effort of the thread onto whoever is tagging into the thread. The fact of the matter is, when you are making a post, you have to put the effort into that post. Passive starting posts are very easy to make, so they are a dime a dozen. Why should any character tag your specific "sitting in a library" post when there are five other "sitting in a library" posts right there alongside yours?

To sum it up, for your posts to get lots of responses, you need to have your characters commit some kind of action that other characters can easily respond to. Instead of sitting in the library and reading a book, have your character knock over a bookshelf while trying to get a book to read. Or have them be chased out of the library for being too loud. Or have them approach everyone else and say "hey, what are you reading?"

Practice:

For practice, go to the main community for the game you are in and look at the last page or so of posts. Look for posts that have significantly more replies than others. Did that post have a good hook? What made that post interesting to respond to? Obviously other factors may affect this, but try to look for examples of active roleplaying versus passive roleplaying.

When I made this blog, applications were one of the main topics I wanted to talk about. Applications are something a lot of roleplayers struggle with, and yet it's one of the very few parts of roleplaying that you can't really get rid of. A lot of it boils down to patience and not really understanding the true purpose of an application, so I wanted to clear that up.

Before I get the to the subject at hand, I want to take a moment to remind everyone that this blog is full of my personal opinions. These are what I look for when I roleplay and mod. I do not speak for all players or mods, and it is entirely possible that your particular mods will want something entirely different from you. As with everything I say, use this post as more of a guideline than a set of rules.

To start with, you need to remember that an application is vital to playing in a game for one simple reason: it helps the mods understand your character. You need to go into this assuming that the mods are canon-blind (IE they don't know anything about your canon and everything you say is the only thing they know about it) and that you have to spell out all the important parts of both the canon and the character for them. Use your judgement for what is and isn't needed, but it's a good idea to err on the side of caution with an application. An application is literally you telling the mods "I would be good at roleplaying this character, and these are the reasons why." Take your time, and make your app shine.

Moving on to the app itself, there are a few general things that fit into most of the sections of an application. The biggest one is how well the app fits together. Make sure your sample touches on what is mentioned in your personality. Make sure to mention how your character's strengths and weaknesses affect their personality. Most importantly, if any changes have to be made for the game (IE aging up, being stuck somewhere for a set amount of time, power limitations, etc.), come out and say how they affect your character's personality, and show those changes in the sample. Go ahead and list power restrictions in the strengths and weaknesses section. These are just some examples, but you get the idea. The more your app agrees with itself, the better it looks, and the more likely it is to be accepted.

Another point I can't stress enough is to read the game information. Read it, and keep it open in tabs while you write your app. No two games are the same, and faqs will often address questions you have while writing an app. I remember once I had an app sent back for revisions because I forgot to mention one important detail in the sample. It was a very silly mistake, and if I had kept the faq open and double-checked my app I would have caught it.

Now, let's get into the individual sections.

Basic information:

This includes things like player information and character information. This is usually a small block of a few questions that can be answered in a few words each. I highly doubt any of you need help with this part, but here's a couple small things that really help. If your canon has multiple names, either list them all or go with the one the canon is known the best by. It needs to be something I can google to find more information on. If it's a series, list the general name of the series, or the name of the first book/movie/whatever in the series.

History:

In the game I mod at, we only ask for a history link. Truthfully, I only skim this part most of the time. The only time I really do in-depth reading is when it's a canon without a resource to link to (a really small fandom with no wiki page, OC apps, etc.) or when I have questions about the canon itself that the other sections don't answer. Your goal should be to fill out the other sections thoroughly enough that I shouldn't have to read this section.

If you do have to write out your history section, try to limit the history information to things directly related to your character. This section isn't as important as others, so keep it to things that are absolutely needed for your character. General world information is good if it's important to your character. Also, filling it out in chronological order helps.

Personality:

Do NOT skimp on this section. This is one of the two I judge the most, and a decently-written personality section can be the different between an acceptance and a revision request. Calling back to my previous post, make this section as long as necessary to convey the important parts of your character. Too long, and it's hard to get through. Too short, and it's hard to tell if you have a grasp on your character.

Also, when writing the personality section, be sure to show, not tell. I've had many players write out a comprehensive guide of what happened to their character, stopping every so often to say "this shows that my character is [insert trait here]." This is a very messy way to write it, and I will usually ask for a revision if a player writes an app this way. Instead of writing this section chronologically, group it so that each paragraph covers a different part of the character's personality. Say "My character is [insert trait here]. He shows this in canon by [inset examples here]." Remember that the focus is on who the character is, not what they have done in canon.

Powers/strengths/weaknesses:

This section is pretty easy to do. I can count on one hand the number of apps I have rejected based on this section. In general, just remember to write this part out in paragraphs, not as a list. Be thorough when listing powers, and give explanations of what those powers do.

For weaknesses, be sure to include real weaknesses, not strengths-disguised-as-weaknesses. A good baseline is if the weakness is likely to be exploited within the game, mention it. If not, then it's not really a weakness worth mentioning. A perfect example of this is "My character trusts everyone so he is easily taken advantage of." It sounds like a weakness, sure, but in reality it will probably not be exploited in most RPs. Even though your character is trusting to a fault, he or she will likely have other people watching out for their best interests, so exploiting their tendency to trust everyone is hard to do. Likewise, something like "he is a really bad driver" for a game with no cars is not a good weakness to list, since it will never come up.

Sample:

Now, my game only requires one prose sample, but I know other games require a network sample too. Regardless of how many samples you have to write, keep this golden rule in mind: display the traits you described in the personality section. If your character is a very charitable person, write a sample showing how they helped other people. If your character likes to laugh at the pain of others, show that. If they're sarcastic, show that.

Now, obviously you won't be able to cover everything you list in the personality section. It's very rare for a sample to be able to touch on all the emotions of one person in one moment. Just try to focus on the most important and most readily visible traits you can. Remember that the people who are reading your app will probably be canon-blind, so they are really relying on the personality section to get a feel for the character. If your sample directly contradicts what is in the personality section, it will be rejected. This goes doubly so for OCs, since we don't have any canon to check if we are unsure.

One of the best apps I ever read was for an energetic, sporty girl whose sample was entirely focused on trying to get the NPCs of the game to do morning exercises. It did an amazing job of showing how energetic she was and how she just rolled with the punches, which were both things the apper had mentioned in the personality section. Even better, the apper had used information from the setting of the game in her sample, which showed us that she had done her homework and read all the game info before apping. While that is in no way required in most games, it certainly makes you look like you know what you are doing.

Other sections:

Some games require things that I've never seen before, so this is a catch-all section for everything I haven't covered yet. Whatever the game might ask of you, try to look at examples of apps if you can and fill out those sections how the mods want you to. Ultimately the app is meant to make them feel satisfied that you know what you're doing, so just go with what they want. Most apps will directly state what they want, and if you have questions you can always go ask the mods too.

Post-app-writing:

When you have finished writing your app, and everything is filled in, you need to go back and re-read everything you've written. Make sure the sections all agree with each other. Spell-check and grammar-check your app. I'm going to do another post about this later, so I'll be brief here, but I can say that I have rejected apps for being impossible to read. Check your homonyms, check for words that are misspelled into other words (so you don't end up writing an app about the angle Castiel, for example) make sure you don't have sentence fragments or grammar issues that make your app hard to read, and so forth. Take your time to polish and app and make it something you are proud of. And if you're not sure of you can catch your own mistakes, or if you have an issue that makes it difficult to do so, ask around for someone to give it a once-over for you and help you with that part.

This is an especially important step to me, because it shows how much dedication you have to both your character and roleplaying as a craft. It takes time and effort to write an app, and if you're willing to take your time to make it impeccable then that shows me that you have the patience to do something right the first time. Turning in an app full of spelling errors, tense changes, and confusing sentences just tells me you're not willing to put in the effort, which doesn't convince me that you'll do well in my game.

Just be smart about your app. Read the resources offered to you, and ask questions if you're not sure. Take your time, and you'll do fine.

Practice:

For practice today, go read the application faq and general faq for whatever game you're in. Re-familiarize yourself with information you might not have read since you apped in the first time. Now go look at one of your apps and see how well your application followed those guidelines.

1: What kind of experience do you have with roleplaying?

Well, I started off with tabletop gaming when I was twelve, and I played that through my college years. About ten years ago I picked up message board RPing, and five years ago I moved to LJRP. I've been in five different games, and I became a mod in the most recent one about a year ago. Last January I migrated to Dreamwidth along with the rest of my game, and I have been consistently on Dreamwidth since then. overall, that's nearly fifteen years of roleplaying across three different styles of roleplay.

2: So what are you going to discuss?

I'm going to assume most of my readers know the basics of roleplaying, so I'm going to skip over the simple things, like how to make a character, how to find a game, and so forth. I'm going to focus mainly on way to improve your skill at roleplaying. I will focus mainly on DWRP and tabletop, since those are the methods I know best, but occasionally I will include things from other styles of roleplay I have tried.

3: I have an idea for something you could write about.

Great! I'm always open to suggestions. Just leave me a note on this post here, and I will either work it into an upcoming post or make a post specifically about it.

4: Are you really going to update once a week?

Unfortunately, I am very busy with both work and modding my game, so I can only do one post a week right now. If things change I might do it more often, but for now just come looking for a post every Friday. I can't guarantee a time, but look for it sometime between 9 and 11 pm EST.

5: How do you decide what to post every week?

It goes mainly off of my own experiences, though if anything big has happened recently as far as roleplaying goes then I will focus on that.

6: What is your personal tumblr/email/the game you run?

Sorry, but I'm not giving out that information at this time. Since I am a mod, there are things I wouldn't be able to discuss if my identity was known. You'll have to survive without knowing who I am.

7: I want to submit posts for this tumblr.

That's very sweet of you! If I get busy and find it hard to do one post a week, I will look into getting a second person to do posts with me, but for now I'll be doing all the posts on this tumblr.

8: I have something to say to you that won't fit in the ask box.

Feel free to email me at learntorp at gmail dot com. I'll be checking that email regularly, so I will get your message.

9: This didn't answer my questions.

Go ahead and ask a question here, and I will answer it for you. Anonymous commenting is on, and I turned IP logging off.