Can someone explain to me what a RP is?

[Kitty Cat Moonshire 629]

I see it all over, and I think I understand more or less what it is, but...

What in the hell is a RolePlay? And how do you do it?

 

I don't think I'm the only one with this question. Can someone help?

[Sky Warden 2,243]

Role play, just like what it's called, is a play of roles. You play a certain role with some people in a story. It literally means like that. In the easier and simpler meaning, it's like writing a story with a group of people.

 

Just say, there's a story. You play a role as an earth pony in Ponyville, and I play a role as a pegasus who just came to the happy little town. You do an action to me (talk or whatever). I react. You react to my reaction.

 

The difference between writing a story is that you don't forge the story by yourself, but together with other people. It's like all the characters in the story are alive, and because of that, they are random. You can't arrange "Pony A will slap pony B and pony B will laugh to the slap" as if you're writing your own story. In a role play, (just assume that you're playing as pony A) pony B can react to your slap in the way they like. They may slap you back or kiss you. There's nothing wrong with that, but you still can provoke them to do things. That's the fun.

 

Simply, role play is like:

 

You post your action -> People related to your action react -> You react to their reaction.

 

You will form the story with other players. It's just like a random drama.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Sky Warden

[Pinkazoid 3,493]

You play the role of whoever you want.

 

 

Yep that's pretty much it.

 

 

besides, google is your friend as long as you have safe search off

[Kitty Cat Moonshire 629]

You play the role of whoever you want.

 

 

Yep that's pretty much it.

 

 

besides, google is your friend as long as you have safe search off

That's the thing! I tried googling it, but all of the answers were vague and confusing!

 

Maybe I should turn safe search off. More results, more answers ;D

[Mightymags 1,053]

It's like doing improv. Someone gives a prompt and all the "actors" have to do something based off of that. Except the actors are characters you create in your head usually and there's a person who keeps the action going so it doesn't get stuck. So like a lot of little prompts. It's also easier than improv because you get a chance to think about what you're going to say/do. 

 

It's kind of hard to completely understand until you actually do one.

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,824]

Okay, here's how it works. Roleplaying is where you basically play the role as a certain character in a story formed by a group. 

 

Here's an example

 

Poster 1: Storm Rush was flying above Blitz's house happily whisling a tune

Poster 2: Blitz noticed Storm Rush and called his name

Poster 1: Storm Rush flew towards Blitz to see what he wanted

and so forth

 

It is a back and forth exchange between posters. Once you post, the poster after you will react to you depending on how you act, which is what Sky Warden said. 

 

In order to create your own roleplay, you must start with a basic idea. There is a roleplay planning section on this forum. Once you have your idea, people may respond to your idea by critiquing it. Once your idea has been expanded, it's time to start the sign ups. For signups, make the plot understandable. Also you want to add rules to your roleplays, or else they will become very unorganized. 

 

There are several different types of roleplays

 

Open: These roleplays have plots in which there is no set goals. Types of roleplays that go here are Slice of Life roleplays, in which you play out the daily life of a character in a certain situation decided by the roleplay leader (i.e. Canterlot Highschool, Life in Ponyville etc.) They are open to anyone and everyone. Just provide your original character and the proper sign up

Private: These roleplays are special because they are limited to a number of players. These roleplays have more adventure-based plots and more developed situations. Be sure to follow the specifications of these roleplays' sign up forms

One-to-One: Title explains it. It is for two people and it involves highly developed plots

 

In order to roleplay, you must enter your Original Character or OC, in the Character Database found here: http://mlpforums.com/page/roleplay-characters

 

And that's what roleplaying is all about. 

[Fluttermena 1,223]

 

It's kind of hard to completely understand until you actually do one.

 

That's the problem! I'm not comfortable RPing until I know exactly what I'm doing, but I won't understand how unless I do it, but I can't because I'm not comfortable RPing until I know exactly what I'm doing!!

 

 

 

[Mightymags 1,053]

 

That's the problem! I'm not comfortable RPing until I know exactly what I'm doing, but I won't understand how unless I do it, but I can't because I'm not comfortable RPing until I know exactly what I'm doing!!

 

Well what are you still confused about? Maybe I can help explain something to you? I know it was hard for me to decide to do an RP because I had no idea what I was doing.  

[Sky Warden 2,243]

That's the problem! I'm not comfortable RPing until I know exactly what I'm doing, but I won't understand how unless I do it, but I can't because I'm not comfortable RPing until I know exactly what I'm doing!!

RP is very simple.

 

You have a character. You know its personalities. You play the character according to the personality. That's all. It's even much easier if your character is your own ponysona.

[Fluttermena 1,223]

Well what are you still confused about? Maybe I can help explain something to you? I know it was hard for me to decide to do an RP because I had no idea what I was doing.  

I'm not so much confused as I am shy, I have no idea if I'm going to screw up and have the other players hate my guts...

The one thing I'm still confused about is how do players deal with their real life schedules (especially if they're in different time zones)? How do they keep up with the story's progression when they have to work and sleep? A physical roleplay group can plan sessions, but forum roleplays don't have that level of organisation.

[Fhaolan 4,484]

Roleplay is one of those odd things that is simple, and complex at the same time.

 

In it's most basic form: Take an actor who is portraying a character. S/he is not the character, s/he is just pretending to be that character for the purpose of the play/movie/tv show.

 

Now, normally a writer would be providing the lines and actions and the actor would be practicing and rehearsing until s/he got them right.

 

Take the writer away, however, and you have improvisational acting. The actor is the one deciding the lines and actions, resonating off of the other actors, all while still pretending to be this character. Nobody is telling what the actor to do, the actor is deciding what the character will say/do on the fly.

 

Roleplaying is, in effect, improvisational acting. The difference being that while improvisational acting is usually done for an audience, roleplaying is usually done in a group for their personal entertainment. Children usually do this a lot, pretending to be someone else for the purpose of playing.

 

There are many variations on this, including Roleplaying Games (RPGs), which attempt to put some structure to the Roleplaying via rules. The modern Roleplaying Games evolved out of tabletop wargames, as the people playing those games moved from simulating large battles, to small skirmishes where the playing pieces represented individual people, all the way to each player controlling one of the 'pieces' on the table. Once at that scale, it didn't take much for those games to adopt the Roleplaying aspects as mentioned above. However, most tabletop RPGs still retain the emphasis on combat and other artifacts of their wargame origins. Also, while there are exceptions, the majority of RPGs played in person have the players describe actions, rather than attempt to act them out. The exceptions are known as Live Action Role Play, or LARP. LARPS still have rules, but the players attempt to act out as much of the action as possible.

 

Roleplaying on forums are similar to RPGs, but the rules are usually much lighter, almost to the point of non-existence. The single most common rule in forum-based Role-play are usually just that you control only your designated character, and any effect on other characters are determined by their players, not you. Anything beyond this is usually detailed in the thread somewhere, or in a companion thread known as the OOC (out of character) thread.

 

In many cases there is a special designated person who 'runs' the game/scenario. They describe the setting, and control any characters that are not under any other player's control. Bit parts, antagonists, allies, etc. This individual may be called many things, like 'Dungeon Master', 'Game Master', 'Storyteller', etc. depending on the precise set of rules being used.

[Mightymags 1,053]

I'm not so much confused as I am shy, I have no idea if I'm going to screw up and have the other players hate my guts...

The one thing I'm still confused about is how do players deal with their real life schedules (especially if they're in different time zones)? How do they keep up with the story's progression when they have to work and sleep? A physical roleplay group can plan sessions, but forum roleplays don't have that level of organisation.

I was extremely shy too. In fact I didn't even post for a while because I was afraid it would be blatantly obvious that I was new to this and the others would get annoyed with me. The more I posted the more I got used to it. 

 

The glory of RPs on a forum is that time is not really important. The story can go as slow or as fast as needed. If you can't post for a day that's okay, not everyone has to be on at the same time for it to work. You basically just post whenever you find the time to, and even if you don't post for a day it's usually not an issue.