#tutorials: all.

GLOSSARY

SERVERS. servers can be thought of almost as a self-contained, private forum. generally they’re inaccessible to anyone without an invite -- some groups do publish an invite link to allow anyone with the link to join, while others only send their invite link out to members who have already applied & been accepted into the group. this will be your main hub of activity! some bigger groups will also have multiple servers for organizational purposes, such as one for ooc interactions, one for para threads, etc. each server will be laid out a little differently based on the group’s needs and the admins’ preferences, but to get an idea of what some potential server layouts may look like, you can take a peek at some of the server templates we’ve made and reblogged in the past right here!

CATEGORIES. these are essentially folders within a server meant for grouping channels together. most servers will have a category for ooc channels, important group information, various different setups for ic interactions, and so on. the great thing about this is that categories are all collapsible, so you can minimize them to hide its channels. this does not mute anything, however, so every time there’s an unread message in a channel in a collapsed category, you will still receive a notification for it, which will pop up beneath the category accordingly.

CHANNELS. this is where the magic happens. you can think of every channel in a server kind of like its own little group chat, with each channel having a clear intended purpose. from your general ooc chat, admin announcements, starter & plotting call channels, and ic interaction channels, these are used for just about everything. it’s important that you make sure you’re using them how they’re intended, so if you’re uncertain what a particular channel’s purpose is, check with your admins!

THREADS. these are still a pretty new feature and not all groups use them, and the ones that do tend to have extremely varied ways of implementing them. we’re actually working on a big masterpost right now all about threads and we’ll come back and edit this post to link it once it’s up, but for now what you need to know is that threads basically function as temporary channels that offshoot from an actual channel. they auto-archive after 24 hours if no new messages have been sent in them.

below is an example of how categories, channels, and active threads look in action.

PINNED POSTS. server admins (and members with the specific permission) have the ability to pin posts in a channel, which basically just bookmarks it for easy access later on. this might be used in certain channels to make important information more easily accessible, so it’s always a good idea to check the little pushpin icon in the top right of the screen on desktop or above the users list on mobile.

REACTIONS. one of the fun parts about discord is that you can add a reaction to just about any message, which is an emoji that gets tacked onto the message itself (example below). mostly this is just used to emphasize or respond to messages as you’d expect, but sometimes reactions are used for other purposes as well. for example, many discord groups gauge group activity via interest checks rather than activity checks, in which everyone in the server will be tagged by the admins and have a specific amount of time (usually 24 hours) to add a reaction onto the message to show they’d still like to be in the group. there’s also the use of reaction roles, in which adding a specific reaction to a specific message will allow a bot to assign you a corresponding role in the server.

ROLES. roles can be used for all different kinds of things, but generally they’re used to group server members together in some way. for example, most servers will have a role for admins and a role for members. some servers have roles for members’ pronouns, muse names, and other various purposes. server members can be tagged by role so that all members with that role will get a ping, but others in the server will not.

TAGGING. this is just @’ing another user to get their attention! it’ll give them a red notification bubble and highlight the message they were tagged in. in discord rps, people will often tag each other in their para replies to make sure their partner sees it, or when starting a new thread / channel. it’s also possible to tag @/everyone and ping the whole server, but this is generally frowned upon if you’re not a server admin.

PERMISSIONS. these aren’t anything you have to worry about too much if you’re not a server admin, but there are different things you may be restricted from doing in parts of the server as a member -- for example, you may not be able to send messages in certain channels, add your own channels in certain categories, and so on. if you have a question about or difficulty with permissions, talk to your server admins!

BOTS. these are automated programs that can be added to a server to assist with various functions. there’s a huge variety of bots out there and which ones your admins decide to implement is up to them, but some common ones that are used are moderator bots (which help with admin duties such as sending admins a message when someone joins or leaves the server, setting up reaction roles, etc), bots that allow users to send anonymous messages (click here for more info on those), dice rolling or randomizer bots, and of course...

TUPPERBOX. tupper is probably the most widely-used bot for discord rp. it’s a bot that essentially allows you to create your own character profile for each of your muses, so when you post in character it looks like it came from them and not your own account (example below). we have two guides on how to set up your tuppers here and here, and a few other tutorials about tupper usage you can check out right here!

JOINING A GROUP

now that we’ve got the terms down, let’s look at what to expect when you join your first discord rpg! we’ll break it down into steps below:

REVIEW RULES. this is one of the first things you should do upon joining a new server. even if you found the group through tumblr and there were rules on the main or advertisement, make sure to look over them again! sometimes there will be additional, server-specific rules only found here.

APPLICATION. some groups have members apply in the server itself rather than via a tumblr main or other method, so if you haven’t applied to join the group yet, now’s the time to do so! in groups like this, there should be a channel for applications, so head on over there and make sure you follow the format as laid out by the admins!

INTRODUCE YOURSELF. once the above is taken care of, make your ooc introduction! most servers will have a channel specifically for this purpose, some with a predetermined format and some without, but it’s usually always a good idea to include your name, age, pronouns, timezone, and muse(s) at the very least. it’s also a good idea to go say hi in the ooc chat while you’re at it!

TUPPERBOX. if you haven’t done so already, you’ll want to set up your tupper for your character(s), and like everything else, typically you’ll find a channel dedicated in the server for this very purpose. again, we encourage you to look at the tutorials we have on tupperbox registration linked in our glossary!

EXPLORE. lastly, go ahead and poke around the server and familiarize yourself with the layout and different categories! if it’s a smaller group, usually admins will assign a category to each mun or muse, which means you’ll have free rein to add whatever individual channels you see fit. this includes muse intros, musings, tracker, etc! however, if it’s a larger group, there will typically be a category dedicated to muse intros and musings and other ooc things. it just depends on how the admins organize things!

otherwise, don’t be afraid to ask questions! the world’s kind of your oyster from here!

IC INTERACTIONS

PLOTTING & STARTER CALLS. open starters aren’t generally much of a thing in discord rps, so interactions tend to rely pretty heavily on making plotting & starter calls. there are typically channels for this, and usually how it works is that you’ll make a post in that channel offering to plot or write starters, and anyone who adds a reaction to it is looking to do so! plotting is generally done in the dms.

TEXTING & PARA THREADS. there are typically two different kinds of interactions in discord groups, and the prevalence of each definitely changes from group to group, with some being more balanced between the two and some leaning more towards one or the other. there are of course para threads, which are your typical face-to-face style narrative interactions, but a popular draw for discord rps is the ability to implement texting threads -- basically text messages sent in character. these tend to be much more fast-paced, in the moment interactions, and are good for furthering character relationships when you don’t necessarily have time to do a whole para. there are also often in character group chats that serve a similar purpose, which can be a great way to get your characters to interact with ones they normally might not!

the first thing you’ll want to do is head on over to tupperbox’s website, which you can find right here at tupperbox.app.

click the login button in the upper right corner.

the site will ask for permission to hook up with your discord account. you’ll need to allow this in order for your bots to transfer over to your account. click authorize!

it’ll take you back to the homepage, but now you can see in the upper right corner it shows your user info instead of the login button. if you click your username, the menu will open -- click tuppers.

this will bring you to your dashboard! if you already have any tuppers registered, you’ll have a list of your bots in the middle there. as you can see, the bot we registered in our first tupper tutorial is already in there, and if you click on it it’ll show all the bot’s info on the right. but ignore that for now because we’re going to make a whole new bot instead!

click the little plus sign in the header bar, then click add tupper.

a page will come up with all the info you can enter for your new bot. i’ve highlighted all the relevant fields that we’ll be filling in for the purpose of this tutorial. (for simplicity’s sake, we’re filling in all the same fields we did in the other tupper tutorial.)

the big new-tupper up top will be your tupper’s real name. this is the name you can use to edit your bot over in discord if you ever need to. it’ll also serve as your bot’s display name if you don’t set an alternative one.

the following line is your tupper’s display name or nickname. this will override your tupper’s real name when sending messages and is for aesthetic purposes only. for more info on the differences between real names and nicknames please see our first tupper tutorial here.

the avatar url is where you can put a url for an image to use for your tupper’s icon. unfortunately you can’t upload an image directly to the tupper dashboard unless you subscribe to tupper on patreon, so you’ll need to upload your image to another site such as imgur or even discord and copy-paste the url into this field.

the brackets field is for, you guessed it, your brackets! this is the command you’ll use to trigger your bot over on discord. for new bots the brackets default to “new:” so here you can change them to whatever you’d like. your brackets can be literally anything, including symbols, emojis, etc. but the important thing to note is that in order to trigger your bot after registration, you need to type your brackets exactly as you did when you set it up. this includes making sure any capital letters and spaces are all in the right place.

below that is the birthday field, which should be fairly self-explanatory.

fields we’re skipping over in this tutorial are the group & description fields, but we have tutorials on both those functions planned for the future so stay tuned!

here’s how it looks with all our info for our new character filled in. once you’re done make sure to hit the save button in the lower right!

now head on over to discord itself.

type your brackets and a message in any server that tupper is present in, and...

a mention is when any user @'s your username on discord. this will highlight the message, as well as give a little red bubble in the channel name and the server's icon. but what you may not know is that discord also keeps a list of every post you've been mentioned in for easy reference!

there are, of course, pros and cons of using this method. the biggest pro and the reason it's my preferred method is that it does it automatically, instead of you having to go into a thread tracker you've made and update it yourself. the cons are that if you don't delete unwanted messages out of there regularly -- including when anyone uses the reply function on one of your messages -- it can get messy quick. also, the mentions tab will only store posts that have been made in regular channels for 7 days, and posts that have been made in threads will go away if the thread auto-archives (usually after 24 hours of inactivity). it also does rely on making sure your partner tags you every time they reply, or you can use a tupper to tag yourself (if you tag yourself in a normal message, it won't show in your inbox, but if you use a tupper to send the message then it will).

to find your mentions on desktop, click the little inbox just to the right of the search bar, then change the tab from unread to mentions.

in the mobile app, you can find it by clicking the @ symbol next to your user icon at the bottom of the screen.

some other handy features:

by clicking the X in the top right of each mention on desktop, or tapping and holding on mobile, it'll let you delete each mention from your inbox. i like to delete ones i've already replied to (and other mentions i receive that aren't thread-related) to keep the inbox nice and tidy!

if you hover over the mention on desktop and click the jump button, or simply tap the mention on mobile, it'll automatically bring you to the right channel and server where your thread is!

if you click the icon that looks like some lines with indicators on them, it lets you filter your mentions like so: (if you uncheck “include all servers” it’ll only show mentions from the server you’re currently in)

another reason i like to use this feature to track my threads is once i've finished all my replies and cleared out my inbox this message always makes me feel very accomplished :)

before using tupper, make sure you have the bot added to your server! as a note, you can also register and edit tuppers by dming the bot on discord if you don’t have a server to do it in!

now, let’s register our bot.

the green tul!register is the prompt that tells tupper what you’re trying to do (register a new bot).

the blue ‘jane doe’ is what your bot’s name will be. make sure to always put the name in quotes!

the pink jane: text is to set your brackets. this is the command you’ll use to trigger your bot in future messages. for registration purposes, the word “text” is representative of the message, and whatever comes before that (in this case, “jane: “) is the bracket itself. your brackets can be literally anything, including symbols, emojis, etc. but the important thing to note is that in order to trigger your bot after registration, you need to type your brackets exactly as you did when you set it up. this includes making sure any capital letters and spaces are all in the right place.

you can also attach an image to your message when registering, and that image will be set as your bot’s avatar. then once tupper sends you the confirmation back, you can test it out!

if you forgot to include an image for the avatar, or just want to change it to something else later on, the prompt is tul!avatar ‘tupper name’ -- note that as it says, if the message you sent with the image gets deleted, eventually your avatar will stop showing up and you’ll have to set it again.

the name looks kind of plain, though, and this is where the NICKNAME function comes in. if you’re at all familiar with discord, you probably already know the difference between usernames and nicknames -- your username is essentially the name of your account that others can use to look you up, and will show as your display name when first joining a server or in dms. however, in each server you join you can also set yourself a nickname, which will change how your name looks when sending messages in that individual server.

tupper nicknames are much the same. whatever name you register your bot with is its name, and that’s what you’ll use to edit your bot, change the avatar, turn auto on and off, etc. it will also serve as its display name unless you set a nickname for it. the nickname is for aesthetic purposes only, and is what will show as your bot’s name when sending a message. this is useful because you can keep your bot’s real name relatively simple to make it easier when you want to perform any of the aforementioned functions without having to copy & paste a bunch of symbols and unicode fonts every single time, but also still have the display name look nice when sending a message. it also allows you to have multiple bots with the same display name, which can be handy if you have more than one bot for the same character!

the green tul!nick is the prompt that tells tupper what you’re trying to do (set or change your bot’s nickname).

the blue ‘jane doe’ is the bot’s real name -- make sure it’s in quotes, and exactly matches the name of whatever bot you’re trying to edit!

the pink  '*   ·   ˚    𝒋𝒂𝒏𝒆 𝒅𝒐𝒆   .' is the nickname i’m setting. this is what will now show up when i send messages with the bot instead of the bot’s real name. this should also be in quotes!

one way to see the nickname function in action is to now set up one of my other favorite little features, the BIRTHDAY function! this isn’t the most useful feature but it allows you to set your character’s birthday, and on their birthday tupper will put a little cake emoji along with their display name and it’s very cute.

the green tul!birthday is the prompt that tells tupper what you’re trying to do (set or change your bot’s birthday).

the blue ‘jane doe’ is the bot’s real name -- NOT the nickname. as you can see, with a nickname set up i can just type the name to edit the bot without having to copy & paste all the symbols and stuff which makes life a lot easier.

first things first, you have to create the channel you want to make private!

hit the + next to the category name in the category where you want to make the channel.

the channel creation screen will pop up with a few options, including the spot to name your channel, and a slider for whether to make the channel private. make sure this slider is turned on.

the next screen will give you the option to add members. pick whichever members you want to have access to the channel. you can also add roles rather than members if you want to do it that way instead. don’t forget to add tupper!

that’s really all there is to it! to double check to make sure the correct people have access to the channel, it’s always a good idea to take a look at the user list on the right-hand side of the screen. the user list will only show those users that have access to the channel you’re currently in.

this is the user list for the same server, but on the left is in the #general channel that everyone has access to, and on the right is in the private channel we just created. as you can see, TEST ACCOUNT 2 does not show up in the new channel’s user list because they don’t have access to that channel.

but what if you need to add someone to a channel after you’ve already made it?

right click the channel’s name and choose edit channel.

on the left, select permissions, then add members or roles. a similar screen to the one that allows you to add members when you’re first making a channel will come up and from there you can add whoever you want!

please note that only admins will have the ability to add members to channels after the fact unless you give your members the ability to edit channel permissions. unfortunately this cannot be done server-wide, but it can be turned on either by channel or by category (to do it by category, just right click the category’s name instead of the individual channel and from there the process is the same -- this will ensure that any channel that gets made in the category in the future will already have this permission turned on). on that same channel permissions screen, scroll down a little bit to the advanced permissions section.

METHOD 1: TUL!EDIT

the first way to edit your messages is to use tupper's tul!edit function together with discord's reply feature. basically all you have to do is reply to the message you're trying to edit with tul!edit followed by what you want the new message to say, and you're good to go!

pros for this method are that you can keep any server-specific formatting used in your original message such as linking channels or @'ing people, but cons are that it will show the rest of the server a new message was sent in that channel (even if they won't necessarily know what it was because tupper will delete it).

METHOD 2: TUPPER DM

the other way -- and my personal preferred method -- is if you react to the message you're trying to edit with the 📝 emoji (listed on discord as :pencil: ), then tupper will dm you and you can reply to the dm with your edit!

pros for this one are that it's a little more private, but unfortunately if you had tagged anyone in your original message it'll break that. however, the ping from the original message will remain unless they've already looked at it, and i'm pretty sure it stays in their mentions even if it's been edited without the tag, too.