#roleplay tip

Someone at one of the boards I write at wanted to know if we had any advice or pointers about RP, and I got to thinking. I’ve been RPing fifteen years so it’s definitely a thing I have thoughts and opinions and tips on. I don’t mean to posit myself as the all-knowing expert whose standards you have to meet, but these are some things I think are genuinely helpful for a RPers to keep in mind no matter how long they’ve been writing. But also, just my opinions! SHARE THE SPOTLIGHT This is the biggest, first and foremost. RP is a two-way street, and I think the bulk of RP sins all trace back to people not understanding this and thinking that their character is the “main” character and everyone else is just an NPC in their story. This takes a ton of variations, with commonly seen ones being insisting that other characters act OOC for their sake (your character should fall in love with mine despite the fact they just met, your character should bully mine so I can be the victim in a hurt/comfort drama even if that’s totally unlike them to do that, your official-head-of-something character should bend the rules for mine because they’re just that special, etc.), needing to be the center of attention (the character who ALWAYS limps into the room having just suffered some terrible tragedy and needing immediate help, the character who always saves the day in such a way that the others weren’t even needed, etc.), or the character whose writer just can’t stop reminding everyone at all times how tragic/beautiful/powerful/helpless/witty/skilled/etc they are. This can go in opposite directions—the helpless character who always needs to be saved vs the all-powerful character who saves the day every time all on their own—but it comes from the same mentality, that their character is the star and everyone must revolve around them. This isn’t to say you can’t have RP arcs that “star” your character and are devoted to their story/development, or that your character can never be the hero, or never need to be saved, or any of that. That’s NOT what I’m saying. I’m talking about the person who does it EVERY time, often to the detriment of the story, derailing the plot, or showing up someone else’s cool moment to get the attention back on their own muse. If you’re gonna do that, just write your own fiction. DON’T DO PASSIVE STARTERS Something I see repeatedly in RP, whether it’s at a board or on Tumblr or on Discord, are starters where the character is just…sitting there. They’re studying in their room, or chilling at a coffee house, or just standing around at a party, or overlooking the ocean from a beachside balcony, or brooding silently in the corner… …and not making any move to interact with anyone around them. It’s on the shoulders of the person replying to have their character make the first move and find some reason to walk up to them and engage with them. A starter is meant to begin an interaction, so if the second person is starting that interaction, why even bother with the starter you made? Starters where your character is just passively waiting for someone are not usually good starters, and that’s a big reason, in my opinion, why people usually don’t reply to a starter, because they’re stuck looking for a reason WHY their character would just walk up to this person and begin an interaction. My solution to this is, if it’s a planned starter, talk to the person you’re starting it for and try to work something out. For instance, let’s say the starter is going to be at a party. Ask your partner “hey, could it be a costume party?” and ask if their character might be dressed as a character from a show/movie/book that your character really likes—that gives your guy a reason to walk up to theirs and begin a conversation about that thing, and there’s your first post right there! A much more active starter! If it’s an open, it can be a little more difficult, but still doable. For instance, in one open I did, I wrote that my girl walked in and spoke to whatever person was nearest; she was carrying a basket of Halloween decorations and she asked said person help her decorate the place. I did not specify who the person was, so whoever replied could decide if it was their character or not, but it was “active” in that she gave my partner something to respond and react to, rather than if she had just, say, quietly come in by herself without greeting anyone or doing anything. Obviously this might not work with characters who are shy or antisocial, but if you’re the one who decided to play that kind of character, it’s up to YOU to find ways to get them engaged; it’s not fair to make everyone else do it for you. For instance, I write a villain who is NOT a friendly person like my decorations, but I had him immediately address another person in one open by creating a situation where he’d have reason to do so, and would be stuck interacting with them for his own survival/gain. MAKE YOUR CHARACTER REALISTICALLY APPROACHABLE. This often goes hand in hand with passive starters; not only will the character not be engaging anyone around them, they will in fact be in situations giving signals that actively DISCOURAGE engagement. For instance, if someone is sitting in their bedroom, it’s entirely weird for anyone to come in that ISN’T their sibling or roommate. In a Discord college RP, one guy wrote his character going home and walking into his house and had that be an open…no one played any of his family members, so I’m not sure what he expected, that someone from school would just be waiting inside his house? There are also lots of situations where people are around, but realistically are not going to speak to you. Having your character studying in the library, sitting on the subway, or at a table in a restaurant are all common starter types I’ve seen…and all of them are situations where it’s extremely unlikely someone would engage you, unless it was an absolute emergency or they completely lacked any understanding of social norms. And if that’s the case for the character you planned it with, go ahead, you’re good. But if it’s not, or it’s an open, ask yourself—”If someone else made this open, how could my character realistically respond to it?” And if you have a hard time, change things to make it easier for the other player and their muse. This also applies to muses who are hard to approach regardless of the situation. People who are shy, or antisocial, or just for whatever reason do NOT want to engage with others. Those characters are great and I’m not saying not to play them, I play lots of people like that. But you shouldn’t expect other people to have to PRY an interaction out of them, and I see people do that—they write their cool loner or shy wallflower brooding in the corner, and if someone actually DOES walk up and talk to them, the character keeps pushing them away. It relies entirely on the other character just having to be that desperate to talk to them for some reason. And again, some characters will be, like I write a perky cheerful friendly girl who definitely WOULD pull someone out of their corner and into the party…but don’t RELY on other people doing that. Instead, try to find ways to make your character have to be engaged, instead of other people making them. See my villain example again. My villain doesn’t normally like to talk to anyone unless he’s giving an order or has something to gain, but I found a reason he would for him. To use another example, there’s a very grumpy guarded girl that I write, she doesn’t trust people or like them to begin with, and I put her on a subway car, aka one of the examples I gave about places where people realistically aren’t going to talk to you. No one talks to each other on subway cars, unless you already know each other; people will think you’re really weird, probably mentally ill and/or begging for something, if you do. So, how did I make it work? Well, I started the thread with just her and a few other people in the car. One of these people was a large man acting in an extremely threatening manner, pacing the car and muttering hostile things and occasionally shouting at the other passengers. It was in NYC, that shit happens. She kept her head down and ignored it, as most people would do, but when he singled her out and began to get her face, she confronted him back and stood her ground. I got things just to the boiling point, then had the subway doors open to let a new passenger in. Whoever stepped in would be walking immediately into a conflict, in a closed-off situation they couldn’t get out of once the doors shut again, and they would have to react to it in some way. If their character was the type to get involved immediately, great. If their character was the type not to, that’s also fine, because I could have the big scary guy turn his attention to them, basically dragging them into it. Either way, my open created a situation to REACT to, instead of just hoping the other person would do it, and it created a situation where interaction could realistically occur, even though it was in a setting when normally it would not. Btw speaking of that—”my muse bumps into yours on the street/in the hall/etc” is rarely a good idea for this reason. What do you think people normally do when they bump into each other? They say sorry, maybe help the other person pick up something they dropped, and go on their way. It’d be very odd if I bumped into someone and they tried to make an entire conversation out of it. Likewise it’d just be completely bizarre to, say, join someone you DON’T KNOW at their cafe table, etc. You can make these work but, as with the subway situation, you MUST get more creative to make a reason why it would work. “YES, AND” OR “NO, BUT” Okay, you got your interaction started, how do you keep it going? Well, there’s this rule in improv theatre for how to keep a scene going, and it’s that all your responses to your acting partners should be “yes, and” or “no, but” What this means is, whatever reply your character makes, it has to give the other character some hook to continue the interaction. Here are some examples. BAD Sally: Do you want to go to the skating rink? Joe: Yes. GOOD Sally: Do you want to go to the skating rink? Joe: Yes, and can we grab some pizza on the way? Joe doesn’t just agree to do the thing, he gives Sally something to reply to and keep the conversation going. And he could do this even if he DIDN’T want to go to the skating rink! BAD: Sally: Do you want to go to the skating rink? Joe: No. Sally: Do you want to go to the skating rink? Joe: No, but I was thinking, do you like the aquarium, how about that? Basically, whether he’s responding yes or no, he’s not closing the conversation. Of course, you do not ACTUALLY have to use the phrases “yes, and” or “no, but” just do stuff that will give the other person something to answer. Here are more good examples: Sally: Do you want to go to the skating rink? Joe: Yes, I loved skating as a kid, but I haven’t been able to do it in years, so I might make a fool of myself! Promise not to laugh? Sally: Do you want to go to the skating rink? Joe: Yeah, that would be great! It’ll be my first time. Do you skate a lot? Can you help me? Sally: Do you want to go to the skating rink? Joe: Hell yeah, I’m the skatemaster! Prepare to eat my rink-dust! Sally: Do you want to go to the skating rink? Joe: No, I hurt my ankle last Saturday, it’s a…long story. Sally: Do you want to go to the skating rink? Joe: No, and listen, Sally? I think you’ve really misinterpreted our relationship. We’re co-workers, and I think that’s what we should stay. Sally: Do you want to go to the skating rink? Joe: No, I’m sorry, my mom is sick and there’s just…so much shit going on. I don’t know what I’m going to do if this keeps up. Sally: Do you want to go to the skating rink? Joe: Are you serious?! That’s what you’re thinking of at a time like this?! I can’t believe you! Some of these are positive, negative, angry, happy, sad, competitive, but they all keep the conversation going better than a “closed” response does. I hope this helps folks! Feel free to add tips of your own in reblogs!

If you are an RP blog and you’re NOT a massive major canon male muse everyone loves, you may have trouble getting interaction and followers. And while making a promo is worth it, I think the MOST effective way to get interaction is to, well, interact. See, if you thread and send asks to even just one or two blogs, the people who follow those blogs are going to see you, and see you in action, and see you providing fun to someone they also like. This will incline them to check you, probably as much or more than a promo will.  So by all means make an ad for yourself, but don’t rely on that alone! Shoot someone an IC ask, send them memes, get a thread going if you can! Of course don’t use other blogs just to network---interact because you WANT to interact with this mun and muse---just, be sure that it’s in a way that other people are going to see. It lets them know you exist and get a preview of your skills and character so they can judge if you seem like you’d be compatible and to their interest. Many people aren’t going to be interested in a promo of a character they don’t know or have an interest in, but if they see a muse being loads of fun on their dash, they may go “hey I want in on that!” This does mean you may have to do a lot of reaching out and making the first move, which I know is intimidating as fuck, but nothing ventured nothing gained!

I’ve written HERE and HERE about how to be more specific about your muse in their bio, and now here’s another post about it---if you would describe your muse as nice, kind, caring, etc., describe in what ways they SHOW that. Different people have different ways of showing they care to others. For instance, I show kindness by being interested in what people have to say and trying to support them emotionally and creatively. I try my best to be a good listener and to offer advice when I can, and when I can’t, to at least be an empathetic shoulder to cry on and vent to. My dad shows kindness through acts of service, like when he would go out during winter in the morning, without being asked, to warm up my car for me before work. My dad is not good at anything emotional, but he’s very good at practical things like that. I’m not good at anything practical, but I think emotional intelligence is a strength of mine. We both show kindness and love in the ways that work for us, but because we’ve very different people, with different strengths and weaknesses, the way we show this is very different. Basically, it’s like the concept of a “love language” but applied to kindness in general instead. Also, WHO are they kind to? Just close friends? People who have wronged them? People who they will never meet? Are they the type that won’t give a dollar to a homeless person for various reasons (scared of them, believe they will use it on drugs, etc.) but does donate large amounts to charity---or are they reverse, where they’ll directly help someone immediately in front of them, but don’t feel the same about indirectly helping people they don’t see or meet. Time, money, services, thoughtful gifts, sending someone pictures or things relevant to their interests (lots of people send me rat pics because they know I love rats!) , and emotional labor are all different ways someone can show kindness to others, and different people are kind in different ways. So figuring out what ways your character is “kind” (and who they are kind to, and when/in what circumstances, and what makes them NOT be kind) can be much more helpful for making their bio stand out and be more specific to them, than just saying that they’re “kind”. (Same for the different ways people can be mean!)

Insecurity does not make a character a good/moral person. Confidence does not make them bad. I’ve noticed that we as a culture, and especially on Tumblr, seem to conflate how insecure we are with how good we are. Not that lots of people aren’t genuinely insecure, but Tumblr seems to have developed a very performative, almost competitive culture around it, wherein we all collectively bemoan to a weirdly bragging point about what stupid inept loser potatoes we are. And I notice that a really common flaw for “good” characters is insecurity, self-loathing, being overly modest, etc. And a really common flaw for “villains” is arrogance, vanity, etc. This applies in the RPC but has also been a common trope in media since forever, going back even to Ancient Roman plays. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these things period. I write some villains who are VERY arrogant and egomaniacal. And it is indeed a negative trait! But I feel like there’s this idea that only egomaniacs and bullies can be at all confident, even a little bit, and it’s a sign of virtue to be overly modest even about something you’re very skilled at. By all means, have arrogance be a flaw, and have humility be a virtue. But it’s no sin for your character to have self-confidence or be proud of their accomplishments either. They’re not a bad guy for that. And neither are YOU.

Writing witty characters is hard. Being witty is one of my biggest writing challenges. It was one of the things I was most concerned about when I took on one of my own muses from a canon, though I think I’ve done pretty well when I write as him. I can’t really tell you how to be witty. I still haven’t figured out how to articulate that. It just kind of comes to me when I step into his “shoes” while I write him. But I can tell you one thing--- Be original. If you are trying to write a witty muse but their “wit” is very blatantly ripped off from others, it will fall flat, IC to other characters and OOC to readers. For instance, if your character calls Loki “reindeer games” it’s. .  .not really funny or witty, because Tony Stark already did that. It’s not clever for someone else to do it. It’s not going to make anyone laugh. And it comes off as especially. .  .cringey, might be the word?. . .if your character is written as NOT being intended to ICly be imitating Tony, but as having come up with it by total coincidence on their own. It’s not to say it’s impossible someone else could invent that insult---his helmet has horns, horns are like antlers, ergo reindeer---but for readers, we KNOW where you the writer got it. So it does not come off as your character being clever even if technically she is being totally original in her own universe. Here’s another example. I had an arrogant jerk muse, and I like for people to insult him, I’m down with that. So a lot of my mutuals would say insulting things about him IC and OOC. One of my mutuals on made a really funny remark about him OOC, and I reblogged it to tell them how funny it was. And then one of my OTHER mutuals soon after had their muse insult my guy with. .  .the exact same insult, phrased the exact same way. It was not funny at all THAT time. Because it was obvious they had copied it from the first person who said it. Even if the first mutual said it OOC and the second person said it IC, the fact is that I as the reader could still see they were just ripping off someone else’s cleverness, and it made it fall flat completely. This isn’t to say you have to make absolutely everything out of your own head from nothing. For instance, I have a character for whom it would be IC to make some rather clever and unusual insults about how people look, so I browse Reddit’s “RoastMe” subforum and keep a list of the good roast comments I see so I can tweak them for her use at a later point if I ever have an opportunity; I do a lot of other similar things for various forms of inspiration for various muses. But directly word-for-word ripping from something your audience/mutuals have definitely already seen or read, is a guaranteed way to make your character’s “cleverness” come off as anything but. (Also: “you have a small dick” is not, in fact, the ultimate clever comeback that some people think it is)

Don’t have your muse do the “makes final statement and walks out of the room” thing unless you and your partner both agree on it to end a thread. It’s very frustrating thing to your partner. I get it, you want your character to have the last word and for it to be Very Dramatic. You want the interaction to end, but you want your character to “win” it. And media has taught us that the last person to say something, usually a very dramatic cool Wham Line, and then leave the room, is the winner and who we agree with. The problem is, RP is not media. In these media pieces, one person is writing (or a team of writers, but not in the same way two RPers are) and they are deciding how the entire interaction went and who wins, and who the audience is meant to side with. In RP, that is not the case. What you are doing when you do this, is basically ensuring that the other character isn’t able to respond to yours, no matter what yours said, unless theirs chases them down or stops them from leaving. Which, if both you and your partner are okay with as an option, okay, but for a lot of muns, what this seems to be is a way to “win” an interaction, as I said, and it’s VERY frustrating for the partner because it’s like. .  .what is their muse supposed to do if they DON’T want to have their muse pursue them, or it’s not IC for them to do? Now, it may certainly be IC for your muse to say their Big Dramatic Thing and then storm off. That’s fine. But discuss it with your partner first, or it comes off, as I said, quite frustrating and leaving your partner with very limited response ability.

When writing first person POV, make sure that what you write and how you write it conveys the personality of the character who is narrating. I see a lot of first person POV that feels a lot more like the author’s own omniscient voice but inexplicably in the character’s head calling themselves “I” instead, and this often coincides with communicating a VERY different personality than the author seems to have intended, typically in a bad way. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about with a character I shall call Sally as our viewpoint character. The author wants us to see Sally as being a kind, open-minded girl who is quick to see the best in people and is concerned for the well-being of others, but struggles with being insecure about herself, especially about her looks, despite being very pretty. Here’s some passages from Sally’s imaginary book. “As I got into the car, I glimpsed myself in the side mirror. I deliberately avoided looking at my reflection; I don’t think I’m very pretty. I’m slim, but not too slim like a model is, so I’m still too chubby to be really pretty. My skin is okay I guess, I don’t have any acne or anything, but I do have a scar on my leg I don’t like. My topaz brown eyes aren’t interesting like blue or green ones, and the silky long chocolate locks I was running my fingers through nervously never seemed to behave.” Does this really sound like a person who is insecure about her appearance? Or is it the writer trying to make SURE that we know she’s GORGEOUS? Because if she actually talked about her looks the way someone actually so insecure they avoid their reflection would, we might not realize she’s pretty! We might---gasp---think she’s indeed actually ugly! Which would be the worst thing! Even worse than if she was confident about her looks, which of course only vain evil mean girls are. Speaking of. . . . “As soon as I met Mandy, I could tell she was trouble. If the fake smile wasn’t obvious enough, the fake face full of cloying makeup and her fake blonde hair, stiff with excessive spray, should have been. But her outfit was anything but excessive; if anything, the opposite. Where was the rest of her skirt, I wondered? The snottiness in her tone when she said hello to me dripped off her the way her cheap department store jewelry dripped off her fake-tan skinny wrists, and I could tell what she thought of me---loser.” Do these thoughts sound like those of a girl who is open-minded, kind, and quick to see the best in people at all? She immediately judged Mandy as having ill intentions based simply on how she said “hello” and made a bunch of unkind remarks about her appearance. Being “open-minded” doesn’t count if it’s ONLY about the hot brooding misunderstood guy. And how about if this is a magic school or a superhero school or something, and Sally loses control of her fire powers for some reason and nearly burns down the gymnasium stairs. When her teachers are discussing her punishment, do you think someone who is kind and concerned for the well-being of others would be thinking how horrible it is that someone could have been hurt due to HER loss of control and wondering what she can do to prevent this ever happening again. . . or stewing about how UNFAIR this is because it’s not her FAULT she can’t CONTROL it! The writer can intend Sally as kind and most and open-minded all they like. They can have every third character comment on it. They can have God Himself appear at the end to award Sally the Kindest Nicest Most Thoughtful Open-Minded Person Medal. But if all her thoughts---and actions---show is someone who is vain but doesn’t want to admit it, spitefully slut-shames other girls and makes catty remarks about their appearance, assumes ill intentions based on little or nothing, and is more concerned about getting punished than whether people could have been horribly hurt or worse. . . I’m going to see her as exactly that sort of person, not what the writer wants me to see. This goes double if the narrative completely validates Sally’s perspective, never proving her wrong on anything (unless it’s “I thought this guy was a jerk but now we are IN LOVE”). Mandy won’t prove Sally wrong at all; she’ll be the nasty slutty vapid Mean Girl caricature that Sally thinks she is from her first “hello”. Or only the MEAN teacher who we are supposed to HATE is the one who thinks Mandy should be kept away from other students (and from anything flammable) until her powers are under control, while the nice, smart teachers who are depicted as in the moral right say she should be able to go right on back to her very flammable dorm with other girls inside. Because people who write first person POVs don’t realize that their character’s POV should NOT be the objective truth, especially not when there’s no way they should be able to automatically know the objective truth. This type of “first person” is really just third person omniscient in a very, very irritating guise.