Introduction to Roleplay

You might remember when you were a child playing games where you pretended to be a different person. Maybe a princess, a pirate or even a pony.

Roleplaying is similar, but when undertaken on a forum (called "play by post rp") we use writing to describe what our characters do, and we have standards of behaviour to keep everything running smoothly.



Each roleplay forum you visit will have its own house rules. However, there are some rules or standards of behaviour that are universal across almost all play by post roleplays. As you read, you will see how these standards ensure that everyone playing on the site is treated fairly.

The three following behaviours are discouraged on most play by post rps you will come across.

1. Godmodding
   
   This is when you control another player's character without their permission. By doing this, you gain godlike powers over the other character, which is where the word comes from.
   
   There are two types of godmodding: active, or personal and passive, or general. Active/Personal godmodding is when you state what a specific character did. Passive/General godmodding is when you godmod a group of people all at once. It's passive because it often occurs in character bios in the form of "everyone loves Harry."
   
   In character opinions are not godmodding. For example, Jessica can write in her post about how much care she took getting ready and how pretty she looks at the end of it. It is not godmodding for Hayley to then write in her post that Jessica has awful taste and looks terrible. That is Hayley's in character opinion, and she is not controlling Jessica.
   
2. Powerplaying
   
   This is when you try to make your character invincible.
   
   There are many ways that powerplaying can come about. It could be through loading up a character with as many powerful skills and abilities as possible. It could be through the character having lots of unique items that they use whenever they get into trouble. It can also be as simple as creating a character who is the best as everything.
   
   Powerplaying is often confused for godmodding. The difference is that godmodders try to control the RP through other people's characters, whereas powerplayers try to control the RP through their own characters.
   
3. Metagaming
   
   Metagaming is when you use knowledge from outside your character's experience to influence their actions.
   
   You can read all the threads on the board, but your character can only use knowledge from their interactions with other characters, or that are general knowledge.
   

These standards are not necessarily upheld on all sites, but they are important here and can serve you well elsewhere.



Many sites do not allow "dark themes" such as death, violence, suicide, abuse and even disability (don't even get me started on disability being a dark theme). However, this site does.

These issues should not be glorified to make your character seem more tragic or dramatic. This kind of behaviour is not only offensive, but also unrealistic.



This is when you try to live vicariously through your characters. There is nothing wrong with making your characters a little bit like yourself, but when your characters are exactly like you it can cause you to become too attached to them, leading to powerplaying and unnecessary out of character conflict.



Lots of people think they can use the anti godmodding rules as an excuse for their character to get away with everything they try. If there are no consequences for what your character does, you may as well not roleplay at all, so don't try it.



Both in threads and out, in order to be successful you need to give in order to get. You can post in the plot area and make your own open threads, but that won't work unless you also answer other people's requests and open therads. Likewise, in threads it's great to have the attention on your character, but you should also allow other characters to take the spotlight sometimes.