balmung New member looking for connections

[Vayne359]

Um, so to be frank i'm not even sure exactly what i'm asking here

i made a small introduction in the welcome desk and someone said i should probably post over here. I'm on Adamantoise but planning to transfer to Balmung since i've been told it's the major RP server. however since i made new characters for each race i'm waiting till i can transfer them all at once.

So i suppose i'm looking for a group? i'm still unsure about the companies or guilds or whatever so i'm not sure what to call them. I'm not super picky in the type of rp i do; i've been an administrator for my own um..."Mature" RP forum elsewhere for 2 years, and a romance fanfic writer for at least 3-4 years. To me i feel the most important element is a supportive and friendly OOC environment.

On that note, is there any form of sheet or form for OC information we use? I've literally only been playing about a week total now so i haven't put aside time to make backgrounds.

[Kazukata]

Hey Vayne! This section is an absolutely great place to get your first few contacts and give yourself a framework for exploring the rp community, but in my experience, most people usually come here specifically with a character idea looking for people to bounce off of and find other characters that might have an interesting connection to or dynamic with their own. You can look at some of the other threads here for examples of what I'm talking about. If you're looking for a group, look no further than Free Companies (our equivalent of guilds) and Linkshells (basically themed chat channels, either IC or OOC depending on the flavor of the shell). The forum has its own separate sections with lists of both Free Companies and Linkshells. Most of them have a theme (specific profession/nationality/what-have-you) of some sort, so once you know what kind of character you want to play, there will probably be a few in particular that will speak to you.

 

Now, I'll admit there are probably some veteran people in the community that can probably assist you better than I can, but as a fellow RPC noob to another, let me share what worked for me and got me submerged into the community. Do note that this isn't the de facto way of doing things, just the way I found to be smoothest and most rewarding to get involved with the community.

 

1) Hit up the character workshop section! I know I'm ping ponging you around the entire forum, but stick with me here. The character workshop section is the single most valuable resource I've found on this forum so far. There are people there willing to dump every scrap of lore info they have on you, and they'll go a long way towards making sure your character doesn't break the universe or contradict some known tidbit of lore. I also find that lore, while it obviously restricts you in some ways, is great for inspiration, as well.

 

One word of note for when you make a thread there: I'd recommend you come into the section with a rough character idea; race, gender, a few bullet points of the major events of their life. The more details you can put together, the better the people that frequent that section will be able to help you. From there you can iron out the fine details and get a better picture of your character. Start molding the clay, so to speak. After that...

 

2) You can hit up the RPC wiki and make a page for your character! This website is basically a database of character profiles for other people to reference. Most people (myself included) have one tucked away in their signature somewhere. Check a few out to get an idea of what they're all about!

 

While I wouldn't say a wiki page is an absolute must, it definitely helps if you're looking to drum up contacts in this forum. The more details that are available to your character, the more likely someone is to decide their own characters will jive with you, and the wiki is the main way people find those details. If you're like me and are horribly intimidated by making a wiki page, there are some very helpful templates you can use here. You might want to get someone who's a vet around here to confirm since it isn't quite explicitly stated, but I'm pretty sure these are all fair game to use so long as you make sure you give credit to the original creators. Then after that...

 

3) You're finally back here in the making connections forum. It's a bit of a marathon, I know, but it's worth it! As I mentioned before, you can look at some of the other posts here for examples, but most people usually lay out three things when they start looking for connections: a few details about themselves OOCly (mostly stuff like experience and timezones), briefly describe their characters, and then lay out some plot hooks. Plot hooks are either the kind of people you're looking for or quirks about your character/their history that make them someone interesting to interact with. They're basically the tl;dr of why someone might want to talk to your character.

 

Alternatively, you can look for other people's threads in this section and see if there's anything that strikes you as interesting. If you're responding to them, it's kind of the same deal as when making a thread: lay out a bit of info about you, your character, and what caught your eye/why you want to rp with them.

 

I hope that helps! I know I just bounced you around to a lot of different places, so I'll keep an eye out if you have any questions.

[Vayne359]

Holy crap that's a lot of stuff! Don't have time to read it right now (classes for the day creeping in on me) but i'll take a look over it when im free