In-experienced roleplayer seeking advice.

[Pitzix]

It's as the title says, I am quite new when it comes to role playing. When I first came to this game was when I first started to actively role play and it's great. I like the open-world role play that this server has introduced me to, but right now I'm caught in a bit of a stump. I'm not sure how to forge a story into my character, I mean I have some ideas, but they either never flourish or when put into practice it doesn't pan out the way I imagined it. It's depressing because I want to evolve from someone who enjoys the comfort of tavern rp to more of a story-progression type of set, but I can't just seem to launch it off right or get things rolling.

 

I guess the question would be to ask is if anyone has been caught in things like this, and what you did to break out of it. I have really enjoyed the server thus far and have made some good friends in the process, and hoping to hear some feedback on how to better improve myself to make my ideas more fluent.

[Val]

If you're looking to progress the story in a particular direction, perhaps you could ask the people on the forums if any of their characters would be interested in getting involved in the story. If the story itself just isn't panning out how you'd like it to, that's not necessarily a bad thing! It gives another way for your character to develop and character development is always super fun and entertaining!

 

I've certainly been caught in these instances before. I've felt like the character I was writing simply wasn't interesting or no one really wanted to get involved with that character because, perhaps, he could be very boring whereas I find him thoroughly entertaining. I've also had nights where absolutely no one would respond to posts I've made and followed that up with several people asking to RP with me at once and I had nowhere near the time required to devote to any of them due to other things. 

 

As how to improve yourself, I'd say practice makes perfect! The only way to really get better at writing, from my personal perspective, is to do it more, do it often, and perhaps read other people's works to get new ideas and influences to develop your own "style" of writing. If you need some help better flourishing out ideas, feel free to drop them here or in a PM or something and I'd be more than happy to help you sort things out as much as I can! I'm not that great, but I'm certainly willing to offer you ideas and I'm sure there are many more in the community that are willing to do the same.

[Faye]

In creating a back story, I find the easiest thing to do is to make a detailed Wiki or some sort of biography for your character. It really helps you to think of all the small quirks to his personality that you'll need to know, and it gives you a sort of guideline you can stick by in determining your character's actions, especially since you can look at it if you forget anything. And, of course, if it turns out you don't like some aspect of your character in execution, it is possible to retcon. Don't feel pressured to continue RPing something you don't like just because you wrote it down in your character's bio.

 

As to how to progress forward in your character's story, while some people like to have pre-planned plotlines, or intend for their character to somehow go from a Point A to B to C, etc., I like for things to be more free-flowing. Sometimes I get ideas I like to implement, but for the most part I find it easiest to go with the flow of the RP. Generally, I just consider my character's personality, and then decide where my character ICly would go from there, how she would react, what goals she would strive for, etc.

[Pitzix]

If you're looking to progress the story in a particular direction, perhaps you could ask the people on the forums if any of their characters would be interested in getting involved in the story. If the story itself just isn't panning out how you'd like it to, that's not necessarily a bad thing! It gives another way for your character to develop and character development is always super fun and entertaining!

 

I've certainly been caught in these instances before. I've felt like the character I was writing simply wasn't interesting or no one really wanted to get involved with that character because, perhaps, he could be very boring whereas I find him thoroughly entertaining. I've also had nights where absolutely no one would respond to posts I've made and followed that up with several people asking to RP with me at once and I had nowhere near the time required to devote to any of them due to other things. 

 

As how to improve yourself, I'd say practice makes perfect! The only way to really get better at writing, from my personal perspective, is to do it more, do it often, and perhaps read other people's works to get new ideas and influences to develop your own "style" of writing. If you need some help better flourishing out ideas, feel free to drop them here or in a PM or something and I'd be more than happy to help you sort things out as much as I can! I'm not that great, but I'm certainly willing to offer you ideas and I'm sure there are many more in the community that are willing to do the same.

 

Thanks for the reply, it's greatly appreciated! I have made a profile on here mainly to make a wiki and as well to meet some people who rp in the forums as well. I can ask around the forums for help along with my stories, as for my character I want him to be involved in dark plots, I've tried to create some in the process. But me being a new person to rp I get nervous and jitters on trying to make one, I guess stage fright so to speak.

 

It's good to know I'm not the only person to have experienced the issue I'm facing right now, I've had some great times in the quicksand with rp and as you said I'd have some nights where nobody would reply to my posts, causing me to believe that my character wasn't interesting enough to some people, but I guess I can't please everyone. But thank you for the advice practice is true to getting better at all things, and I'll try to continue to create a storyline that could grab the interest of a few people. But first I need to settle on creating a wiki.

[Val]

As Faye has said and you have certainly echoed, creating a wiki is a good way to get yourself familiar with your own character and give you a handle on how you want to RP him or her. 

 

Just take it one step at a time. Dark plots take a while to get off the ground and it's hard to do them unless you find people that are willing to have things done to them and, sadly, those are very rare these days. Not just here, but across RP in general--especially if it isn't planned out. As Faye has also stated, I prefer to do free-flowing RP and it's really hard to just get that kind of interaction with someone that you aren't familiar with.

[Pitzix]

In creating a back story, I find the easiest thing to do is to make a detailed Wiki or some sort of biography for your character. It really helps you to think of all the small quirks to his personality that you'll need to know, and it gives you a sort of guideline you can stick by in determining your character's actions, especially since you can look at it if you forget anything. And, of course, if it turns out you don't like some aspect of your character in execution, it is possible to retcon. Don't feel pressured to continue RPing something you don't like just because you wrote it down in your character's bio.

 

As to how to progress forward in your character's story, while some people like to have pre-planned plotlines, or intend for their character to somehow go from a Point A to B to C, etc., I like for things to be more free-flowing. Sometimes I get ideas I like to implement, but for the most part I find it easiest to go with the flow of the RP. Generally, I just consider my character's personality, and then decide where my character ICly would go from there, how she would react, what goals she would strive for, etc.

 

I understand what you're saying as well, I'm definitely going to take some time to finally develop a Wiki for my character and now that I have an account made I can finally do that, and as for the free-flow kind of story I have adapted to that recently. Just kind of rolling with the punches and react to things on how my character will react, I enjoy that as well because it's filled with more surprises than something that's just planned out, but I definitely still want to play some things out to make it look more organized ^^