The Pokémon Crossroads Role Playing Guide (Beginners, Advanced, and Role Play Creation)

[Neo Emolga]

GUIDE #1 THE BASICS

1. INTRODUCTION

If you're new to role playing and you're wondering what all this stuff is about, this is an awesome place to start. There's definitely nothing to be shy about as we all started off from somewhere. And no one stays a newbie forever, so read on and you'll feel like snapping off the training wheels in no time.

So what is role playing? - Role playing is about taking on the position (role) of a character created by you. It's like playing pretend where you used to play cops and robbers as a little kid and professional acting, the kind of thing Matt Damon does as he's running from cops as Jason Bourne. All in all, it's all about you imagining yourself in another living character's place in a fictional world. You determine what they say, how they feel, what they do, and what makes them unique to become a believable character. Unlike a fan fiction where you as the lone writer govern what all characters say and do, here you take on the position of a single character interacting with other members and their characters to accomplish goals, resolve conflicts, and embark on epic adventures with other members who take control of their own characters. Or, pummel their characters into goo.

And believe it or not, learning how to role play has real life benefits as well. Many businesses use role playing in practice to train their sales representatives, financial advisors, and those kinds of guys. It also helps you imagine yourself into new roles and see things from the perspectives of others. And it helps overdrive your imagination. So give it a try, we'd love to have you as part of this crew!

What is "the role play?" - The "role play" refers to a story scenario that is already in progress. Each role play has a story that has already progressed past the exposition stages, and from there, the situation at hand is explained and drawn out so that the story can be continued by the characters that you and other members have created. From here on in, each of these characters approaches the storyline in their own way, often creating events, making decisions, interacting with other characters, and overcoming challenges to progress the story. Through this unfolding of events, each role play becomes a story that reflects and takes different directions based on each character's actions and feelings with reflection to the unfolding storyline. The choices you and your character make will change how the story plays out for everyone. Kinda cool, don't you think?

So yeah, you could start the same role play on two different sites and have each story take two completely different directions simply based on the characters people made and the choices they acted upon. You never really know how things may go!

Who enjoys role plays the most? - A lot of people can. Anyone who enjoys writing stories but would rather enjoy the experience with other people are one. Also, for those who want a little escapism and want to imagine themselves away from the everyday norm are also a great potentials.

2. TERMS AND COMMONLY USED ABBREVIATIONS

You'll be happy to know you don't need to learn a whole new language or a lot of confusing, crazy lingo to role play, and that most of these are just shortcuts. Sure, there's a touch of jargon here and there, but it's nothing that's going to cause you to end up banging your head against the wall at the local funny farm. But really, don't sweat too much about these, you'll pick them up sooner than you think.

Role Play (RP) - The term role play is often abbreviated as "RP" or "RPG" (Role playing game). The action of role playing is also abbreviated as "RPing" and so is the term role player, abbreviated as "RPer." You're free to use these abbreviations around the role play areas, but yeah, they won't work for Words With Friends.

Sign Up (SU) - Usually done in a separate thread, the sign up, or "SU," is a character's profile, which includes aspects such as their name, age, gender, description, personality, background, and many other possible criteria. All of these aspects are built toward bringing your character out of your imagination and into written format, so that anyone reading it can get a much better idea behind who your fictional character is, what they're like, and what is unique about them. You can even mention stuff like whether they like their coffee black or decaf (which isn't real coffee).

Game Master (GM) - The "Game Master" is the gentleman or lovely lady that writes up the role play, enforces the rules, reads and accepts sign ups, and keeps watch on how the role play progresses. Yeah, kind of like Santa Claus.

If you're interested in learning more of the specifics about GMs and role play creation, check out Guide #3.

Out of Character Chat (OOC) - Out of character chat (OOC) is used to talk to other members outside of the role play's context, such as if you need to give them a heads up or want to comment on their snazzy new avatar. It helps to ensure what you're saying out of character isn't confused with what your character does and says. So it should look something like this:

OOC: Hey, Doctor Claw, did you read my post? My character was attacking yours! You never accounted for my bunny throwing an egg at your character's head!

Generally, statements of a few sentences like this are okay within the RP itself. However, for big questions or to settle debates within the RP itself, role players should take that to role play’s discussion thread, where an extensive discussion won't keep interrupting the role play itself and set things off track.

In Character Chat (IC) - In Character Chat (IC) is used when you want to switch back to in-character content after making an out of character comment. It's not necessary to use it if you don't make any out of character comments in your post, though.

Player Characters (PC) - A player character, or PC, refers to any character that is under the direct control of a member and has a sign up made for them in the sign up thread. These characters are the ones that will have the most amount of impact on the story.

Non-Playable Characters (NPC) - Non-Playable Characters are typically supporting characters that exist in the role play’s storyline, but aren’t under the direct ownership of another role player and can be controlled by anyone. These characters may be major characters with names and roles in the storyline, or they can be minor characters without names that only appear for very brief periods of time. NPCs can be civilians, soldiers, creatures, and the like. These characters can either be there to help the player characters, be there as enemies, or are neutral parties that are simply interacting with the characters or are in the same place that the character is in. Keep in mind that NPCs still have their own personalities, motives, and characteristics like what normal player characters have. A formal description of these personalities is not necessarily. Instead, use their actions and words to portray their character.

Generally, the rules for attacking NPCs are looser than the ones for attacking other characters. NPCs can be wounded in opening strikes, but the rules of fairness and realism must still be respected. Like characters, NPCs will realistically try to fight for their life, will try to avoid injury, and will try to be resourceful and strategic in their attacks and defense. Even though no one's controlling them, treat them as they would most realistically be treated.

3. COMMON RULES

These rules pretty much persist for every role play. Each individual role play may have its own unique rules, but these rules are the grand daddy rules that really should be followed so everyone can have an enjoyable role playing experience without a mess.

GROUND RULES

Follow the Forum Guide. - This contains all of the basic rules of the forum that carry on through every section, including the role play areas. In addition, respect all fellow role players and don't spam or post unrelated content in the role playing boards or threads. Give a hoot, don't pollute!

Avoid necroposting. This is the action of posting in a thread where the last post made in it is over a month old and no longer has any activity. These threads have been abandoned and discontinued, and therefore shouldn't be revived. Doing so is like bringing up a non-eventful sports game that happened back in 1973 that people stopped caring about long ago. Yes, threads can become zombies too, but the only brain they're feasting on is yours.

Avoid plagiarism. Use only your own ideas and don't steal someone else's role play from another site and post it here, unless you got their permission. Also, avoid being a copycat where you make an RP very similar to someone else's. While they may happen by coincidence (so many role plays have been done so there's a chance of this happening), don't do it on purpose. You wouldn't want someone copying your idea of the perfect sundae and topping combinations and then claiming they came up with it.

Avoid chat speak. Or what Blizzard calls "leet" or "dude" speak in their User License Agreement if you were ever bored enough like me to read it after yet another World of Warcraft update. Posting stuff like "u thik u gonna pwn me lik dat?? lolz!!" really makes other people want to turn your face into a raw hamburger. Just don't do it.

Avoid God-modding. God-modding, also called "power-playing," is the term used to describe someone that is being grossly unfair during a role play and can potentially cause the whole thing to bite the dust. The term god-modding can be used to describe the action of someone giving themselves too much power beyond the allowed scope of the role play, causing harm to another member's character without giving them a chance to defend themselves, bending reality to give themselves an unfair leverage over other characters, or essentially doing stuff that cheats everyone else out of a fair and enjoyable role play.

These kinds of actions could get you booted out of the role play for good, so don't do them. If you're not sure your next move is god-modding or not, ask the GM first and explain in detail what you're planning.

Avoid Bunnying. Nah, this isn't where you slap rabbit ears and a cotton ball tail on someone. Bunnying refers to what happens when one member suddenly takes control of another person's character, either by governing what they say, what actions they take, or allowing something to happen to that character that the other member did not consent to, such as making them go streaking in public or paint their face green.

Avoid making "Mary Sue" characters and races The term "Mary Sue" or "Gary Stu" (the guy version) is used to referred to what people deem as the perfect character, one who can do unrealistic stuff at ridiculously young ages, has god-like intelligence, strength, uncanny and ridiculously dumb luck, looks so attractive that she hypnotizes people, and loads of other completely inane things that make most sanity-loving people cringe and smash glass to relieve stress and frustration. These kinds of characters are often the results of their creators wanting to push how awesome, special, and powerful their character is. If you're not sure if your character or race is a "Mary Sue," run them through the handy Universial Mary Sue Litmus Test.

Follow all internal rules of the role play. Very often, role plays have their own individual sets of rules that pertain to the situation and conditions that exist within that role play, but may not necessarily apply to others. Regardless, you should still pay attention to these and follow them.

Know the difference between what happens in character and out of character. Just because someone else's character is insulting or attacking your character doesn't mean they have something against you personally, nor does it mean that role player is a mean douchebag in person. Said attacks/insults are directed toward your character in the context of the role play's story, not you as a person posting on the Internet. In addition, a character that makes sexist or racist remarks, swears, or commits acts of violence, doesn't mean that same kind of behavior should be applied to and associated with the person role playing them. However, if insults or offensive remarks are made in OOC commentary, that's different and should be reported.

RATINGS AND MATURE CONTENT

Generally, we try to keep things clean and reasonable in terms of adult content, but of course, in the world of fiction, stories can get dark, gritty, and downright ugly. Thus, some role plays may need to be aware of the rating system that is in place.

A role play should be flagged with a PG 13 rating in the title or beginning of the role play if it has the following:

Ultra-Violence - Very often a role play, especially one that involves war, horror themes, murder, or assassination, will have violence and a lot of blood and guts. Even though zombie slaying is a time-honored tradition throughout the world, it's still violent and needs the warning.

Romance - If you've watched stuff on HBO, such as Game of Thrones, the Tutors, the Sopranos, and so on, you know what I'm talking about. Keep it level-headed on the sex descriptions, and don't go too overboard into describing R-rated material. Any bit of foreplay and sex should really be touch and go, but it's best to stay clear of it, especially if it won't have any impact on the story.

Swearing - You're on the Internet, obviously you've seen swearing somewhere or another. Generally, we keep things clean here, but the occasional swear word is permissible with a PG 13 rating. However, obvious attempts to just dump a lot of potty mouth garbage to see how much a person can get away with just isn't going to fly.

Meanwhile, the following are not allowed, period:

Extreme racism and malicious content - This includes themes such as rape, racism and genocide of real life races or ethnicities, and mocking satirical reference to sensitive, real life events such as the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, the Sandy Hook Massacre, or the Holocaust. It's bad enough these kinds of events happened in the first place.

Extreme sexual/pornographic content - Pornography in any form or depiction is a big fat no around here. While most people may know what Rule 34 is (if it exists, there is porn of it), but don't be a contributing member to it. I've stumbled across some really gross stuff even when I didn't mean to.

Threats/graphic situations against real life people or places - Such as a role play about an assassination attempt on Barrack Obama, the bombing of Mecca, or anything of that nature. The last thing you want is the FBI thinking you're actually fantasizing about doing it in real life and your role play is what you're using as a playbook for it. It's no joke, I've heard of stuff like this happening.

4. ROLE PLAY MECHANICS

A role play is usually handled by this pattern:

A sign up thread is created first, detailing the storyline, as well as all the other aspects of the role play such as any special conditions or rules. Then, a blank character sign up form is created as a template for you and other members to use to create their characters. Once the sign up form has been filled out to the GM's specifications, it is then posted in the same sign up thread where it awaits review. Sometimes people do make reserves, which essentially means they're interested in the role play, but don't have the time to work on a sign up. They may also reserve to claim a certain limited character or aspect, such as if the RP has people choosing certain limited starting relics or limited positions in a faction.

The GM will then open up the actual role play itself when he or she feels there are enough characters to get started. Depending on the role play, sign ups may or may not close once this has occurred. Once the actual role play has started, the members involved will take turns posting for their characters.

However, before we get into that, first, the sign up.

THE CHARACTER SIGN UP

Every role play needs to have one of these. These kinds of forms make a template for a member to create their character based toward certain criteria. This form is what helps draw forward a character from imagination into written format.

Role play sign up forms will usually look like this and require these kinds of elements to be filled out for everyone's pleasure:

Name: <Name of the character. Like Jim Bob, or Joe Bob, or The Mad Hatter.>
Gender: <Male or female, or when applicable, genderless. I've never seen a good third gender, so keep it to guys and gals and the stuff that has no gender like robots and Magnemites.>
Age: <How old the character is. As in how many times "Happy Birthday" was sung to them.>
Description: <How the character physically looks. Go into detail regarding skin color/tone, height, weight, hair color, eye color, body size, and possible scars and/or tattoos your character might have. Another paragraph could be used to describe the kinds of clothes they are wearing, and a possible third could go into their strengths and weaknesses, like if a character is perceptive and charismatic, but maybe they’re not physically strong and just don't hulk out as well as some other people can.>
Personality: <How the character behaves and what their emotional intelligence is like. Description is a look into the physical side of the character, and this is the mental side of the character. Explain how they generally behave, what makes them angry, what gives them pleasure, what they find funny, how do they view others around them, and what their interests are. The more you flesh this out, the more believable of a personality you will have.>
Background/History: <This is the character’s history of all the major events and/or generalized summaries of what happened over the years of their life prior to the events in the role play’s storyline. How were they like as a kid, what did they do, what was their immediate family like, and how did their personality affect them throughout the years of their life are just a few of the possible questions you can answer for your character. The more you write to this, the more believable and realistic your character will become. Just don't go overboard and stick to stuff that may have an impact on the role play itself. GMs typically don't like to read a 100 page biography when they've got other characters to check out too. They may even start skimming things quickly if you do too much.>
Other: <Generally, this is considered a miscellaneous category that doesn’t always need to be filled out. Usually this might be used for weapons your character might be carrying, significant mementos or family heirlooms your character might have, or things of this nature. Or if your character is afraid of ants, is allergic to cheese, or has a chronic addiction to Pixy Stix.>

Other categories may include these, which depends on the kind of RP:

Faction/Side: <May occur if the RP has multiple factions in the storyline and your character can choose to be on one of them. Kind of like having to choose between being a New York Yankees fan or a Boston Red Sox fan. You can't be on both sides!>
Race/Species: <Typically appears in the event your character could be something besides a human, such as a cute, plushy Buneary or a badass cyborg. Just make sure your character and their race (if you made it up yourself) is fair and has pros and cons, as well as strengths and weaknesses.>
Powers/Special Abilities: <Could appear in fantasy-style or superhero role plays. This may include manipulating fire, super speed, or summoning an army of fighting cupcakes (just kidding). Generally, if it's up to you to make the power, make it reasonable and don't god-mod. Stay in uniform to typical comic book superheroes if you need a reference or look at what other people who are signing up are doing to get an idea.>
Weapons: <Some role plays may ask for you to detail what weapons your character uses and has. If your character is a chainsaw wielding zombie slayer, well, tell us all about that beautiful, blood-splattered chainsaw.>

And there's plenty of other possibilities.

SIGN UPS: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

Taking on a sign up is like making a sundae. You don't want to make it a mess, you want it to taste good and get a nice mix of great things, but you really shouldn't spend all day doing it (because it melts). So you need to strike the best balance of getting a nice amount of information down that really draws out your character without being an overly-lengthy snoozer. If you're having trouble coming up with a character, use an already existing character from a video game, movie, or book as the model, as long as it fits with the theme and setting of the role play, and bend (not copy) your character to be like them (Change the name, maybe the outfit a bit, and definitely give them a new history).

Here's an example of a GOOD sign up that doesn't try to make itself a mile long to make the GM's eye bug out. The actual sign up is in black, while comments about it are in blue. Not every sign up needs to be written like this, but it serves as a good benchmark until you develop your own style that works.

Again, your sign ups do not need to be in this exact format, but they should be generally in this size and generally have this kind of detail at a minimum. If you want to do more or take a different approach, by all means, fire away, but they should be at least somewhat respectable.

Name: John Clyde
Gender: Male
Age: 27
These kinds of details are easy and touch and go. You don't really need to go too much into detail.

Description: John stands roughly 6'3" and weighs about 180 pounds. He has a strong, athletic frame and has a slight muscular build. He has a tan skin tone, shaggy brown hair, brown eyes, and a decent smile and good looking teeth. Meanwhile, his hands are a bit rough. He also has a tattoo of an anchor on his left upper arm.
Body details. All pure physical description, covering height, weight, body shape and size, as well as skin tone, hair and eye color, and anything else on John's skin. If it helps, this is what John looks like... naked! Nah, just kidding, but save clothing for the next paragraph.

John wears a white graphic t-shirt, covered by a gray hoodie. He also wears a rugged pair of blue jeans, a brown leather belt with a brass buckle, and a pair of black sneakers that have seen some wear and tear. He also wears a black digital watch on his left wrist.
Here we cover clothing. Cover what they're wearing on their chest in terms of shirt, coats, and so on. Then, move onto pants and if applicable, a belt. Then move onto their shoes and accessories. And yeah, you really don't need to mention what kind of socks they're wearing (never matters), and you really, really don't need to mention whether they're wearing boxers or briefs. Or... a thong with a cheetah pattern...

In terms of physical attributes, John is very agile and is a strong runner, but he is more of a sprinter and not an endurance runner. Meanwhile, John has about average intelligence, and he's not the most charismatic guy out there.
These are some of the physical traits about the character. Such as whether they're strong, perceptive, have strong endurance, charisma, are intelligent, agile, or even lucky or not. If you make them strong or intelligent, that's fine, but then maybe they're not agile, or vice versa. It's more believable if you give them both an above average trait and a below average trait.

Personality: John is a pretty friendly guy, but he does have the tendency to be hasty and he dislikes waiting around. He also has a bit of a wild side, and enjoys having fun and taking risks, even if it's just for the adventure of it all. He also doesn't really think too hard about the consequences of his actions, and just doesn't like sitting still for long periods of time.
This first paragraph basically determines how your character behaves on a regular basis and what their day-to-day attitude is like. Don't think about times where it's obvious there would be an exception, such as if John was dealing with a death of someone in his family, if he just got robbed, or any kind of scenario that doesn't happen any more than once a year, if at all.

John enjoys sports most of all, but his favorites are track and field, as well as hockey and soccer. He has quite a few friends and always tries to treat them fairly. Meanwhile, John has a good sense of humor, often enjoying practical jokes and pranks. He doesn't like formality much, and hates having to eat at fancy restaurants and any other occasion that makes him wear a business suit or tuxedo. Very often, John doesn't mind getting into trouble, and doesn't really care too much for authority.
So here we get a better picture of John's likes and dislikes. Every character should have something they like and something that reflect what kind of person or creature they are, but they should also have things they don't like and that make sense by contrasting with things they do like. No one likes or dislikes everything, of course.

The last paragraph in your character's personality should be about their feelings and reflections about the role play's storyline situation. Are they hopeful things will turn out right, or are they just trying to save their own behind?

Background: John was born in Flint, Michigan to his mother, Maria Clyde and his father, Luke Clyde. As a child, John enjoyed attention, but the birth of his younger sister Vanessa and younger brother Nathan did take away from that. As a result, John typically sought after friends rather than attention from his mother and father. In his early years of school, John was roughly an average student, getting grades around Cs and Bs. While he did like English and especially gym classes, he never cared much for math and science.
So there's John's childhood and a few details about his immediate family. Unless a major event happened to them with their family or with school that will most likely come up in the RP itself, you really don't need to go much further into detail than this.

As a teen, John was somewhat rebellious and he did get involved in underage drinking a few times, but he never did get in serious trouble with the police besides a few reprimands. In college, John stayed on campus and did let himself get carried away with the parties in the dorms. During college, he studied Sports Marketing, did relatively well with a 3.2 GPA, but he was prone to missing classes and oversleeping.
Basically, his teen and college years. Again, unless it's really important, you don't need to detail every waking day of your character's life.

As for the last paragraph in the history, you should make it a transition between the history of their past life getting connected to the events of the role play's storyline. Otherwise, it's tough to imagine your character was even made for the story, and for all anyone knows, it's a copy and pasted sign up from another role play (don't get into this habit either).

In this case, if the role play was about a war, the last paragraph should be about John possibly getting drafted into it. If it was about a natural disaster ravaging an area, John should be affected by it. If forget to include stuff like this, it does your character seem like they're not really involved in the storyline at all.

Other: John hates reality TV.
I think we all do.

Now, if you're feeling plucky, here's an example of a BAD and ROTTEN sign up.

Name: John
Gender: Male
Age: 27
I'm sure even the most clueless of noobs can at least get these done, at least.

Description: John's tall, has brown hair, a hoodie, jeans, and black sneakers.
So, in other words, if you witnessed John cap someone in the head and this was all you told the police, they'd never find the guy.

Personality: John's funny, hates waiting around, and likes sports.
So do millions of other people.

History: John never really liked school, but he did okay and liked sports.
So do millions of other people.

Other: Nuh uh.
Uh huh.

And here's an example of an UNGODLY UGLY sign up.

Name: jon
Gender: m
Age: 27
Description: jons tall wit brown hiar wit hoodie jeanz n shoes
Personality: funnie n liks sportz h8s waitin
History: went 2 skool h8s class liks sportz lol!
Other:
And this can go die in a fire.

Don't be "that guy." Really, just don't.

INTO THE BREACH: GET TO ROLE PLAYING!

So, you made a sign up, it was accepted, the role play has started, and now you're ready to jump in there and get your feet wet. So, how do you get started?

First, you'll need to decide on the following:

PERSPECTIVE

Perspective deals with the viewpoint of how you're going to be writing your role play posts. Think of it like a camera. It will affect how you use pronouns and how you generally stylize your writing. Pick the one you feel most comfortable with, but both are acceptable.

First Person Perspective - When you write in first person perspective, YOU are the character. You see what they see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel, and smell what they smell. You reflect on all of these and what they think about as if you were them. So, if you made a sign up for a dragon in a medieval fantasy setting, you are the dragon! Imagine yourself huge in size, covered in scales, with sharp claws and talons and dozens of razor sharp teeth in your giant draconic mouth. Feel those giant leathery wings on your back and your inner fire just itching to roast up some tasty- looking peasants.

Sounds fun, doesn't it? Well, that's how first person perspective works best: imagining yourself in the skin of your character and if you are really them, documenting all the events of the story as if they were writing a journal to be told to others. You'll use pronouns such as I, me, our, and we when your character talks about things.

And so a sample bit from a role play post would look something like this.

It was a sunny day in the grassy, placid countryside, and no one suspected a thing. I saw them in the distance, laughing, playing, generally acting like idiot chickens with their heads cut off. They smelled... delicious. So many of them had been laughing and carelessly growing fat over the years. I couldn't have asked for a more savory meal.

I stretched out my massive wings, and then took to the skies, flying over the tiny village to send them all into a frenzy of fright before I eyed one small cottage, ripe for roasting. As the villagers ran screaming in all directions away from me, I opened my massive maw and spewed out a blazing fireball of savage, fiery destruction at the pathetic, little cottage, smothering it with burning fire.

Today was a fine day indeed.

Yes, I've role played dragons before and it is glorious fun that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Anyway, as you can tell, this bit was written from the perspective of a fire-breathing and downright wicked dragon. The whole passage is told from his beliefs, his feelings, and what he sees, hears, and smells. If you're going to use first person point view, it's best that you use that character's five senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.

Third Person Perspective - This is great for those who would rather envision their role playing as a movie with a camera that is aimed at the target character as opposed to being set behind their eyes. This perspective also brings out more of the environment around the character as opposed to what's going on in their inside thoughts and reflections.

So if we want to use our third person perspective camera on that dragon burninating that village, it would look something more like this:

It was a sunny, placid day in the countryside. In the distance, a small village was nestled with its citizens peacefully enjoying their day to day activities with children playing and the adults working hard to tend the fields and perform their handiwork. However, they didn't expect the horror that was to become of them and their tiny town.

In the distance, a savage, black-scaled dragon took flight, hungering for the now panicked villagers as he flew over them, causing them to scatter in all directions as they screamed and ran for their lives. With his piercing, red eye, the dragon spotted one cottage, and just to cause more anarchy, he opened his massive mouth and spewed a blazing fireball into the roof of the house, smothering the tiny cottage with a deluge of fire and flames.

Truly, the world had become a much darker place.

See the difference? In first person perspective, you're the nasty dragon, while in third person, you're the camera guy capturing the next hit movie "Dragon's Reign" on film for the whole world to see. Don't worry, the guys on Rotten Tomatoes are loving it.

Here's a big difference that's worth keeping in mind. In first person perspective, you also have to think and write from the character's perspective. The dragon thinks all this destruction is great and exciting. He's evil and nasty, but to him, that's okay because he enjoys it, so you need to write like that in connection to his personality. But in third person, all that changes. Here the dragon is portrayed as a wicked creature, and his actions are terrible and make villagers wet their pants. The audience sees for themselves just how cruel and heartless he is, and how dark the world has become.

As a result, in first person, a character's personality will affect the way the entire post is written and narrated. An evil character will delight in destruction, death, and pain, and whatever they say should reflect that. A sarcastic character will look at most things negatively and think of them in a mocking fashion. An optimistic character will generally look at the bright side of things and find hope even in grim situations. And so on and yeah, you get the idea.

But in third person, the events and general narration should not be affected by your character's personality. You're the director and the camera guy in one, and as a result, narration should be more about the "movie" and isn't the kind of personal "journal" format that first person perspective has.

EXTRA TIPS

After you've decided on the perspective you would like to use, here are some tips to keep in mind just before you make your first RP post.

Some good beginning pointers include these:

Read and watch the advanced role players. And follow their good example. As always, you learn best from people who have done this before and have been role playing for a while now. You don't have to adopt their style exactly and become their mini-me, but at least get an idea of what they did to open up, introduce their character to the storyline, and what kinds of things their character did and how they reacted to things around them. If you're not sure, read up on the posts of a few other people as well and strive to follow the example of the best ones there.
Introduce your character. A good way to do this is by having them personally think about and reflect about what's been going on, and how the elements of the role play's storyline have affected them. Did they lose someone or something because of what happened? Are they worried about what the future holds, or what their enemies might do? How are they preparing to embark on this adventure and what do they stand to gain and lose? There's a wide variety of ways to bring your character out of the box, and they will vary depending on the kind of storyline you put your character into.
Take things slow and easy. Don't be too hasty to do things, even if you made your character to be a hasty person. Generally, first posts are best when you don't try to interact with other people's characters just yet. Gently ease into things and spend your first post getting acquainted with the environment and your new character.

Also, these are good to follow when you're formatting your role play posts:

Type your posts in Microsoft Word (or any other word processing program that has a spell/grammar check) Everyone makes mistakes, but using a word processing program will allow you to catch your mistakes before they happen and before you make a goof of yourself. Not to mention you'll save your eyes by having much more of your role play post in front of you as opposed to a tiny message box on the forum itself. When you're ready to transfer everything from your word processor page to the message box, highlight everything, and use copy and paste into the message box on the forum itself. A great shortcut is CTRL + C, (press the Ctrl key and the "C" key of your keyboard) to copy, and CTRL + V (Ctrl key and the "V" key) to paste. Easy money.
Check BB Coding before submitting. BB Code is what VBulletin and many other forums use to make words bold, italic, underlined, and many other functions. Here is a guide to some basic BB code functions if you're new to this stuff or you need a refresher. Make sure there aren't any breaks in the coding and you formatted everything correctly, or else it will stand out and look funky.
Use the Preview button before you post. Unless you're feeling really spunky and don't mind taking the risk of overlooking a possible goofy mistake, preview your post first before you launch it into space. It'll help you see how your post is going to look like when you post it, and you'll be able to make sure all your BB code worked and didn't screw up. Plus, you might catch a mistake that you might have overlooked while you proofread the post on your word processor.

5. SEE YOU THERE!

Soldier, you are now armed with the basic training and equipment necessary to head out into the field and smack some bad guys around. Nah, but really, you've made it all the way here, you're ready to try out a role play or two and see how you get into things. Sure, there's an advanced guide just below if you're feeling up for it, but if you want to try a role play out first, you've got what you need and there's a low chance you'll run into any real problems. Also, sometimes you learn better just by experience and practice.

So yeah, try out a role play or two, and have some fun with it. And when you're ready, come on back for the Advanced Guide. Don't worry, we'll save some good donuts for you.

Cheers.