#admin tip

I’m not 100% sure, tbh.

I’d personally recommend finding drinks that already have the color or adding something to get a red color to water {whether you use food dyes or natural coloring is up to you} and then find iron supplements to add for a metallic flavor.

If you’re referring to IMP’s application format, thank you very much for the compliment! Now, as for your question however, the last several roleplays I’ve started with the same basic premise for an application format, and its evolved from each group to the next, so here are a couple tips in regards to how to make a good application. 

And actually, before you even get started on the application form, I suggest that you do the following. 

Know the inner workings of your game. Know the plot, the setting, and other various parameters that could be relevant to the lives of characters. Are there key figures of importance for the skeletons to be familiar with? Are there places they might frequent? What are some of the most pertinent parts of your premise that will affect the lives of these characters? 

Know what your skeletons will contain content-wise. Or, simply, what are you giving your applicants to work with? Are you giving buzz words? Are you giving them archetypes? Are you giving a few bullet points about them? Do you set a personality type? How much of your skeletons do you leave up to the applicants? Are you leaving 50% up to the player? Are you leaving 30% up to the player? Or are you leaving 80% up to the player? 

What are your expectations? What are you looking for in your skeletons? Are you trying to attract people that will give you characters that will remain stagnant in their progression, but will give you lots of activity? Or are you looking for people who will be less than desired on activity, but will give you amazing character development? Or are you looking for that perfect mixture of both? What are your activity expectations going to be? Will your group be a para-heavy group? Or a gif-heavy group? 

All in all, know what you have to offer and what you’re looking to gain. Once you know those basic facts, I think its time that you start to think on what you’re asking for in your potential players. 

Normally, you want to start out with the section about the player. Here are some good things to ask for:

Their name

Their timezone

Their age

Their preferred pronouns

Their experience as a roleplayer

What you can expect out of them activity wise. Are their certain days of the week that they’ll be more active on than others? 

Their triggers (if any)

A section for them to list anything else that may be a concern for them.

A clause that you have them copy over to make sure that they’ll do their best to follow the rules that you set forth.

ALWAYS make sure they know they have the option to have any section of any personal information removed. 

Now, as for the character section, this is where its important to know about what the premise is, and what you put forth in your skeletons. 

As far as basics go, you’ll want to have sections for:

The character’s name

The character’s age

The character’s faceclaim (if you leave it up to player, or present faceclaim options)

The character’s preferred pronouns

Any demographics specific to your game (species, blood status, group affiliations, etc.)

A biography

Now, for biographies - that can be a tricky section. Sometimes people feel like they have to fit some cookie cutter amount of word count, or that they have to include x, y, and z. If you want to make sure that they have the most room to grow, I feel that the best thing you can do, is to simply give them that. Assign a minimum word, or paragraph, count. Don’t give them a limit line. Let their creativity shine. 

However, of course, this may not work for all. If you’re a game that gives them 70% upwards of information about the character on the skeleton? Give them a word cap. You’ll end up getting a lot of the same material given back to you in different phrasing. If you given less than 70%, I say leave it open ended. 

But, I do feel that you should mention to the players that what you want in a biography. Make sure they know that what you want to know is all pertinent to the character. It should be a summation of who they are, but we don’t need to know what their favorite ingredient is in their favorite cookie recipe or what phone carrier they use. The biography shouldn’t contain information that can be later saved for a headcanon or fact post. Make sure they know what you’re looking for in an application. 

Also make sure that they know to cover what you give them in the skeleton information, as that’s rather important. 

A personality section (if not covered in what you decide constitutes for a biography)

If you decide to give word caps - I advise that you split up the biography section into two parts: their history, and their personality. It’ll still give them the time to explore both aspects, but it’ll also be more streamlined and to the point. 

Now, after that I normally advise that one has a couple in character questions, security questions, and a writing sample. 

For the in character questions, you’ll usually want these responses to come from the character, in first person. You can ask for a string of dialogue, or something written in third person for each one. Fact of the matter is, this is where you get to know the character’s voice. Its quite different from reading a biography, and it’s a good way to get a view of the character from, well, the character themselves and not the writer. For the content of the questions, try to have it reflect on the plot and current events on the goings-ons of the game. You can have some of these questions in character responses, or situation responses that the player answers. 

For security questions, this is where you can test the knowledge and how much the player has read into the information you’ve provided about your world. Is there information that’s absolutely crucial to the plot that everyone needs to know? Ask about that! Is there rule that everyone needs to be aware of and that you want to make sure doesn’t get thrown under the rug? Ask about that! Typically I suggest that you have around three security questions. 

And now for the writing sample! Depending on how much you ask of your potential players, you can choose to make this section optional. The above sections, if written well, can typically be a good enough way to get to know the character the player has in mind, which is plenty enough in my opinion. If people want to go above and beyond, encourage them to do a writing sample. After the player has done all this work to show above, knowing that the writing sample is an option can be quite the stress reliever. And on top of that, the people that turn in a writing sample - their writing sample will be the product of them wanting to do it, not because they have to.Its a whole different experience when it comes to reviewing people’s applications. I highly recommend doing an optional writing sample. 

Okay. I think that about does it. Sorry for the delay in getting this to you! (Also - feel free to check out this admin tip I wrote a while back. I would’ve linked you it to you before, but frankly, its over a year old and I A: had more to say and B: forgot about it.)

Let me know if you have any questions! (:

—James.

I see many admins no longer organize their character by genders which is great! And yet in the same roleplay they will divide the applications by girls and guys! And that may be because it's how it's always been done, but here are some other possibilities:

Prewritten Characters and OC character

For Hogwarts roleplays by house

For supernatural ones by species

For mob ones by the families

ONE of MANY

There's a chance the reason they didn't see what the main said was because the main doesn't have a tag for it. All main RP pages should have a tag for important information so its an easy click to check if something new has happened instead of having to sort through acceptance of apps, follow and unfollow posts, along with promos. 

And even if you DO have a tag, don't call someone out for it. Don't tell them they need to check it, don't shade a person by making an admin post about needing to check. Just politely reblog the important post even tag it with 'reminder for those not on when we posted it last!' or something. It both accomplishes the "check the main" AND helps the player find said post without having to wade through things to find it. It's a win-win.