A Handy Guide to Plotting RP Scenes
Sometimes, you’re just overflowing with creativity and a whole heap of ideas. Other times your mind might be coming up blank. Plotting can be tricky for some, just as much as it can be easy-peasy for others. Here are some tips to plotting so that everyone can feel like they are contributing to the planning stages of RP. This avoids folks feeling like they are the one doing all the heavy lifting, avoids burnout, and may even result in a little bit of pride for knowing that you could bring something to the table.
Option one: Start with a general theme that you might like to explore with your character. Below are just some very vague examples, but they should give you an idea of what I mean:
Do you want to explore how they handle loss?
Could be a sudden passing, or maybe they lost a battle/fight/etc, maybe a friendship fell apart, there is more than one type of loss.
How about getting some really good news?
Maybe it’s something they have been waiting to hear for a long time or maybe it’s an unexpected surprise.
What if someone they had a falling out with in the past comes to mend fences? What if someone they thought died actually lived, or they have a run-in with a person that has it out for them?
Do they secretly have a warrant/bounty out for them? Are they wanted for something? Maybe it was legit, maybe it was a mistake or a ploy to frame them.
Maybe your muse uncovers a huge secret and needs to share it with someone else, or wants help looking into it.
Option two: Pick a time and a place for them to be and go from there:
What would they be doing at this point in their lives?
Who are some people they might run into?
What are some major events happening in this location, at this time? Maybe you can find a way for this character to be involved, or do something loosely related to it.
Option three: Pick another character or player you are interested in engaging with:
What muses do they have?
Why are you interested in those characters?
How does your character relate to theirs, and does it make sense for them to meet?
Option four: For media based RP, take an existing plot within the game/books/comic/etc.:
How would you modify it to fit your muse(s)?
What other characters would you like to be involved in this with yours? Why?
Option five: Lastly, you could just use a prompt generator!
Find a good plot or prompt generator, or a prompt list and tweak it to fit your character. Follow the above suggestions on time, place, etc. to help retrofit it to your muse.
I hope that folks will find this useful. Feel free to reblog and if you repost you MUST CREDIT. Thank you and happy plotting! ❤️
