Hello there! I'm going to attempt to tackle your points in order!
1) Don't be nervous! There's a wildly diverse group of roleplayers and writers here, so even if you decide to be a moon princess from Attack on Titan who is part of the Matrix, you'll probably find someone willing to roll with that.
2) For my money, forum RP is a lot like playing multiplayer cooperative writing; Flowery descriptions and lots of time spent fleshing out a scene or concept is the stuff those posts are made of. Conversely, in-game roleplay feels more like writing out a script while performing it; Equal parts dialogue to keep a scene moving along while describing just enough of what's not displayed on your character. Since we can see the world itself while in-game, a lot of the necessity to describe buildings and interiors and clothing goes away.
...or not! There's also a healthy amount of "para RPers" out there: The kind of people who don't mind taking the time to write out much lengthier posts to get the full detail of a situation. It really comes down to who your partners are and what the scene calls for!
3) Bards are (I think, I haven't done those quests in about two years) basically just empowered storytellers, who know long-mostly-lost songs that aid in battle. Or, you can just be a lower-case-bard who collects stories and songs. Part of finding your character's voice (no pun intended) is learning what parts of the lore you want to pick up and run with and which ones you don't need: If you don't want to follow the story quests on how you got there, don't! Just gently nudge your character into having always been a bard. Game mechanics don't have to be the sole source of a character's story path!
4) If you've got questions, this thread is fine for them! There's also a new shiny Lore Forum with a lot of collected posts; I'd recommend skimming it or using the Search feature to try and find what you're looking for. Really though, there's all sorts of helpful people here who are happy to jump over themselves to answer and help.
1) Don't be nervous! There's a wildly diverse group of roleplayers and writers here, so even if you decide to be a moon princess from Attack on Titan who is part of the Matrix, you'll probably find someone willing to roll with that.
2) For my money, forum RP is a lot like playing multiplayer cooperative writing; Flowery descriptions and lots of time spent fleshing out a scene or concept is the stuff those posts are made of. Conversely, in-game roleplay feels more like writing out a script while performing it; Equal parts dialogue to keep a scene moving along while describing just enough of what's not displayed on your character. Since we can see the world itself while in-game, a lot of the necessity to describe buildings and interiors and clothing goes away.
...or not! There's also a healthy amount of "para RPers" out there: The kind of people who don't mind taking the time to write out much lengthier posts to get the full detail of a situation. It really comes down to who your partners are and what the scene calls for!
3) Bards are (I think, I haven't done those quests in about two years) basically just empowered storytellers, who know long-mostly-lost songs that aid in battle. Or, you can just be a lower-case-bard who collects stories and songs. Part of finding your character's voice (no pun intended) is learning what parts of the lore you want to pick up and run with and which ones you don't need: If you don't want to follow the story quests on how you got there, don't! Just gently nudge your character into having always been a bard. Game mechanics don't have to be the sole source of a character's story path!
4) If you've got questions, this thread is fine for them! There's also a new shiny Lore Forum with a lot of collected posts; I'd recommend skimming it or using the Search feature to try and find what you're looking for. Really though, there's all sorts of helpful people here who are happy to jump over themselves to answer and help.