[Tee]

Hello! There is a lot of text here.

Here is some advice on how to improve yourself as a roleplayer. It's okay to want to improve! Everyone can do it and should want to. A truly satisfying RP experience involves as many aspects of the game as you can personally handle -- mechanics, roleplay, events; it's a package deal.

Most of these things involve plain old experience. You find someone who's done it, and emulate them, or follow established templates. Roleplay itself though is a little trickier, and improving it can sometimes need more of a change of thought patterns than mere eye-hand coordination.

Roleplaying is definitely a skill, just like any other, and needs practice! And anyone can absolutely improve in it. I'm going to describe some of the techniques I use in the hopes that it helps other people to really push their own narratives.

* The #1 most important thing is the character hook. There is literally nothing that comes above this. A character hook is crucial to expanding your horizons and staying interested in playing the character. The benefits of having a strong character hook are so numerous it's hard to list them all.

What exactly IS a character hook (sometimes called an RP hook), you ask, somehow assuming I can hear you in your room. Essentially, it's a way for other people to be directly interested in your character. It's how you LURE RP towards you without even having to do anything.

A hook is something generally unique, something you've never played before. Maybe it's a disability (like muteness!), maybe it's playing some bizarre concept piece (Sentinel, trapped for 20 years in a suit of armor she helped build), maybe it's a public entertainer like a busker or musician. Maybe it's someone with a hot dog cart. These things turn a basic humdrum "I want to get strong" Naruto von Goku into an actual, tangible character.

The Hook is your entry point into RP beyond your small circle of friends. This is your way to interact with others in an easy and nonconfrontational (or confrontational! ICly..) way. Sentinel for instance was some dumb character idea I didn't think would keep my interest for more than a day; but people kept RPing with her basically whenever she appeared. I didn't give Sentinel the time the character could have used to really be someone relevent, but the important part was the RP.

Think of a hook! Wield it like a club sometimes if you are getting bored! You never know what you might shake up. Shyness is a curse! GET OVER IT! Punch someone in the snoot!

* Expansion! You must, must, must expand your circle of RP continuously. You must always be on the lookout for new and interesting people. It can be hard, I know. Cliques are an easy thing to get into sometimes, but that leads down the wrong road!

A clique becomes over time something of an echo chamber, a "mini game" within a game of people who rarely, if ever, RP outside their own group. Friends RPing together is fine, of course! Creating characters together with a shared purpose can be a fantastic motivator.

However, it becomes a problem when people feel repulsed in RPing with others outside their group. Not only that, but people outside their 'development' -- RPing purely for the sake of RPing, no matter with whom.

The main tactics I use to deal with cliquism are never asking or even wondering who the byond or discord player is when I meet a new character. Some people have 'tells' and are easy to spot, yes, but many have good enough and interesting enough RP to approach randomly if they're in public, and there should be no stigma against doing so.

Especally if they have a great hook!

Public, spontaneous RP is the #1 way to expand your horizons in terms of RP partners. Sometimes someone you hate in Discord and argue with all the time actually ends up being someone you really mesh with in RP, much to either of your surprise when you find out who the other actually is.

This is a GOOD thing. Your goal is lots of quality RP, not to win internet arguments on Discord.

* More expansion! The main philosophy I always try to push is that it's always better to include more people in what you're doing, or trying to do. Always! Guilds/factions are an excellent way to do this. Why go on a solo adventure when you can hire a mercenary company?

The more people you involve in your RP the less it's focused on YOU. You might think this is a bit counterintuitive, but that's one of the ways you might have to remap your thinking. You are not the main character, sorry. Nobody is. It's a collaborative effort, and one that everyone has a part to play as the bricks and mortar that build up the story. The game itself is the main character.

A thought process of 'how can I spin this into dev' is therefore not a way a good roleplayer should be thinking, but rather, 'how can I generate more RP out of this, whether for me or others?'. With the RP, comes the dev naturally. 'How can I involve more people in this' is what I try to ask myself before attempting virtually anything.

* And finally, don't lose heart. Sometimes your efforts are fruitless and nobody's interested in what you're selling. That totally happens and it can be a mood killer for sure. But you can't let it get you down - think of it as an experiment. Experiments that fail are just as valid as the successful ones. Think of a new hook, branch out your RP clique, and move on.

Making a new character (via death or RB) doesn't have to be traumatic and it doesn't have to be flippant. Once you get good at creating character hooks that interest you, there will always be more down the line in the back of your head, just waiting to get dusted off and thrown into play. This is a great opportunity to again expand your RP base -- the players you met will still be around.

You don't have to even know the keys of everyone you RP with. Or anyone! Judge the character if you must, and RP with people you deem are up to your standards, but don't judge them based on past characters or hangups you have.

If it were up to me, all keys would be secret and there would be a game culture of peole preferring not to know who the player is behind specific characters. In that way you get much more relaxed freedom to mingle with people you otherwise might avoid based on OOC pretensions. Don't say it doesn't happen.



I hope this helps! RP has a different meaning for everyone and your mileage may vary, but I think everyone (including myself) can always use some help in getting out of unhealthy RP habits.

[GrayHood]

This guide may be helpful too, I think: https://wow.gamepedia.com/Guide_to_roleplaying

I can also give a link to similar SS13-related guide, but it is not completely relevant to this server.

[Tee]

After a few DMs about this guide I thought I'd further elaborate on the use of the character hook, mainly because it's so dang important, and it takes practice to get right. I can't even count over the years how many character ideas I've gone through. I mean, literally, the number is probably astronomical.

Bullet point format GO:


A good character hook:

* Includes strong motivation for your character's behavior. Having an interesting trait means nothing if it doesn't encourage you to go out and do things. It's particularly important for first initiating RP with strangers, as it gives a solid first impression of what your character is about and gives you something to talk about.

* Isn't the be-all and end-all of your character. They should have more (but lesser) traits and attributes and goals; this is how you have a well-rounded character instead of a caricature or a one-trick pony. Everyone has feelings and emotions and can always judge their situation accordingly.

* Isn't used as a crutch. Sort of the same as the above -- it's something to fall back on for easy RP and character depth but it shouldn't be the only thing your character is about. That's boring and eventually even the most interesting concept gets old. This is where the Naruto von Goku syndrome comes from; people who aren't creative enough to think of more than one goal. Getting stronger for a reason is fine. The more interesting the reason, the better. 

* Is mostly independent from game mechanics.. but a little bit is fine. A hook can (and should!) tie in with your spells the same as your background and dev, but not necessarily be beholden to it. Sometimes the best RP is grown organically from a few roots; the hook should be your root to grow into something better than you originally started with. To do that you need to envision a clear path to an end goal, and one that's not dependent on anything but your own drive to get there. 

This is especially important for if you base your hook on something like blacksmithing or alchemy. It's boring for your hook to be "alchemist", even if it's "the best alchemist!". Better and more interesting to go a tier more complex than that, even if, mechanically speaking, there's nothing that exists to prove it. Here's what I mean--- a blacksmith is a mechanical job you can acquire, whereas a "weaponsmith", "armorsmith", "mad scientist", "forgemaster", "prosthetic designer", none of those exist in game. But using them as a hook allows you clear progress through specific and interesting dev, most of which you can make up on the spot thanks to not needing to care about mechanics.

"Alchemist" == "witchdoctor", "herbalist", "mad scientist", and so on. Way more interesting.
"Holy mage" == "Paladin", "star shaman", etc.

These are great 'secondary' hooks that basically take very little work to get good results from.

* Should involve other people. A hook works the best the more people it's able to easily involve. A busker or high-energy bardic character (jesters are popular these days) makes a great hook to allow you to get in the face of people right away, even if it annoys them. People that just straight ignore you (as in, not even any kind of reply to a redtext) if you play an obnoxious character.. well, those are probably shitty people to begin with and aren't worth your time anyway. Learn to separate IC and OOC, you bums. 

A good hook can be used to flavor your character, to attract eyes, to give yourself motivation, but most importantly, it's the best tool to hook people in like a fishing rod. Sometimes in public you hook people you really don't like, well. Them's the breaks. Gracefully detach yourself and move on until you find people who you mesh with, don't just sit there like a lump waiting for RP to fall into your lap.

And finally,
* Should be easy to discard if you need to. Sometimes a hook has run its course. Sometimes it's just not fun anymore, but you're still having a good time with the character. How and when to drop a hook are not easy decisions; sometimes it's jarring if a major character attribute disappears overnight. The easiest solution is the fun factor -- if using the hook isn't having the results you expect or you're just not enjoying it, don't do it. Transition it to something else, or if you have some far better idea, wind down the story and try something new. A lot of the time, instead that initial hook morphs and evolves over time into something great and leads to RP that otherwise never would have happened. It's moments like that that make the frustrating RP deserts more worth it.