Help Me [Roleplay Survey]

[cricket]

;u; Hi guys~

So... was gonna go into detail, but then remembered I'm lazy so I won't. Pretty much I'm going to be teaching a Written Roleplay class soonish. Most of the class is put together, but I'd like some perspectives that aren't mine, so I have a few questions for anyone who's interested in participating.

They're pretty standard. I might add more later as I'm making the PowerPoint.

• How did you get started?
• Where did you start, and where would you recommend? (Facebook, Proboards, Neopets, etc.)
• Why do you enjoy role-playing?
• Biggest roleplay pet peeve
• Tip to a newbie

Thanks to anyone who cares to answer. ;u; I appreciate youuuu~

Cricket

[Grizzly]

How did you get started:
Where did you start:
Why do you enjoy RP:
Biggest RP Pet Peeve:
Any tips for Newbies:

How did you get started (RPing): Honestly? A lot of talking to myself pretending to be different people, telling stories. I liked there being drama and raised stakes like Sailor Moon, Power Rangers and such and found that ultimately the whole thing felt lonely. I sought out others to maybe engage with and it was only after that... like... I found out what RP was called?

Where did you start (What site?): A site called .Hack//Divergence. Still... kinda... doing things? Down to about 5 people or so. Functionally a fanbase that wanted more of the more prevalent MMO IPs of the time. Most of the playerbase were English majors, or at least that's the standard we were held to. Posts were consistently, minimum, 1000 words or you were looked down on for not trying hard enough or just didn't get any decent partners. I met Kira on this site as she was my Big Sister in terms of their newbie program when I first joined.

Why do you enjoy RP: I like organic stories. I like writing stories. I like characters. I find myself wanting to play the villain more often than not if only because I get a kick out of seeing protagonists rising to the challenge and overcoming impossible odds.

Biggest RP Pet Peeve: UHHHH... Hrm... I'm not actually allowed to say as it directly pertains to this site and it's only an assumption more than anything else. My SECOND pet peeve would be people whining about outcomes and generally wanting to be plot armour immune to everything forever. These people are not worth my time or effort when it comes to RP.

Any tips for Newbies: Accept, embrace and love the horrible things that happen to your characters. Empathise with them, live with them, rise above them together. It'll make the times you succeed or hit an amazingly good thing even better and you'll find more people willing to play along to a person willing to take blows to create interesting scenarios.

[vesperial]

i'll answer cricket!! (´∀｀)♡ that kind of teaching job sounds super cool!

How did you get started?
well!! technically my first ever experience roleplaying was when a friend i met in a Paint Chat when i was really young started doing that whole *action here in asterisks* thing with her Star Trek fan characters in our MSN chat, and i ended up playing along. it was weird to me at first, but eventually i actually thought it was really fun.

Where did you start, and where would you recommend?
i somehow stumbled across a pokemon x his dark materials crossover rp forum, and it was the coolest thing ever. like, i was constantly checking my threads to see if a mod replied in the morning before school and then as soon as i got home. since then, i’ve been off and on roleplaying in a couple different places, but i’ve only ever roleplayed as a very select handful of characters, as i tend to spend year(s) on just one rather than multiple
as for what i’d recommend… just wherever you’re most comfortable, really. if you use facebook a lot, go there. if you’re super active on neopets, that’s a nice friendly community to start with. or if you don’t mind starting somewhere fresh and unknown, just jump into whatever interesting rp forum site you stumble upon. worse comes to worst, you just leave and never speak to anyone there again

Why do you enjoy role-playing?
honestly, i dont even know fhshfhhs. i’ve always been more of an artist than a writer, but somewhere along the line i found words could flow easier than my tablet pen, and so my motivation sort of switches between art and rping on a random basis. if i had to pick a solid answer, though, my favorite part is developing relationships between my characters and others’! (especially if long, winding, juicy plotlines are involved)

Biggest roleplay pet peeve
i honestly can’t think of anything that pertains to this kind of site (“literate”), but when i was part of a large chatroom-based rp group, it really annoyed me when i’d type long posts and the person would just reply with, like, “Character: *looks around and giggles*” and just gives me absolutely zero things to work with.

Tip to a newbie
my biggest tip for anything creative is really: just do it (Shia LaBeouf 2015). cliche, i know, but i dont care pfffft. don’t worry about making the perfect sentences, or having a super long detailed post, or if people are judging you- write what you like, post it, be done with it and don’t procrastinate because you’re scared of “not being good enough.” you are, and even if you don’t feel like it, you’ll get there eventually, but only if you keep practicing and writing a ton. trust me, as both an artist and a writer!

[Nova]

1. I believe it was along the lines of being able to create a character that wasn't me, but I could play as if it was me. It was a kind of release for normal everyday life, plus I always wanted to look at living another life, which this allowed me. Plus as I got into it it was really fun and enabled me to keep my love of Pokemon going (this site is my first RP experience). Plus Torrenta allows morphs which apparently some other sites don't. Shameless plugs

2. So as I just said, I started with Torrenta and honestly I haven't been to any other written roleplay site since. Gotta recommend here. That said, I've been writing fanfics, which you can check out in the OC fanfic section. More shameless plugs!

3. I suppose like I said before already too, RP allows me to step out of my body and be someone else for a bit. It's extremely fun to do and also very interesting at all times, plus you really begin to feel for/like your characters and kinda become one in the same. It's an interesting way to express yourself.

4. When people Uptown funking cheat the system and do things like take +3 SUPER EFFECTIVE ATTACKS MULTIPLE TURNS IN A ROW BECAUSE THEIR POKEMON IS APPARENTLY A GOD but aside from that as long as people don't be too overly abusive with some things it's great. Also screw uber serious people when I'm trying to make a joke.

5. Every word that you type/use/say has meaning, so make them count. Don't waste too many words. Also have fun. Don't try to be that hardcore roleplayer. This is an activity that we do because we love it, so just go out and have fun. Also it's a good bad idea to break as many rules as possible. That said, words can be twisted, and from a twist a loop can be formed. Use your loopholes wisely. They may come in handy one day.

[Kaito]

How did you get started:
When I first started to become a weeb I was super into the Naruto anime. As a result I was look around the Internet for a game based on the anime. Eventually I found a site that was like a text based game, but also had a keen RP community as part of it. It was on <retracted> that I first started role playing. I started off pretty simple with the *action* speech, style. After a while I started doing more literate role play there too, and tools were added to make this possible.

Where did you start:
I started off on <retracted> as stated above. It was a Naruto RP site, but honestly it's a terrible place and I'd never recommended anyone go there. After I started improving at RP I went looking for other places, such as more forum based RP. The only forum I've really stuck with is Torrenta (Shameless plug). Sometimes I used to do one on one RPs with friends in private.

Why do you enjoy RP:
RP is an escape, it lets me explore a more creative side that I don't normally get to use either. It allow me to do thing I couldn't in real life, such as have friends. Q~Q I'm joking but it's still pretty fun most of time!

Biggest RP Pet Peeve:
God Modding, people thinking they're invincible and no one else can beat them for whatever reason. Unwilling to accept other peoples ideas and try to override them with their own story or whatever. RP isn't just a one way street, you work with others to develop a story. If you want to make a story about your character becoming some ultra strong best character ever go right a fanfic.

Any tips for Newbies:
Look for somewhere fun looking, and just jump in. Make sure it's a nice active community too. Sometimes it can feel hard to jump into an existing group, but just do it, it's what I did when I started on Torrenta!

[cricket]

;u; Thanks guys~ -encourages new folks to participate too- This isn't Pokemon specific.

[Zena]

1. How did you get started?

I got started on Neopets, doing wolf roleplays. It was the first I'd ever seen of such a thing, but I had some practice with writing because I wrote fanfic in my spare time.

2. Where did you start, and where would you recommend? (Facebook, Proboards, Neopets, etc.)

Neopets was where I got my start, and then I found forum roleplays through an ad on the RP board on Neopets. It was for a dragon roleplay that has long since died but it introduced me to a whole new way of roleplaying (AKA, where stuff didn't disappear after two hours and where you could say and do what you wanted without getting warned). I really recommend any kind of forum roleplay, because I prefer the quality of the sites generally and you can usually always find something you want to RP.

3. Why do you enjoy role-playing?

Because I love writing mostly. I do it a lot even when I'm not RPing so this is just an extension of that. I love my characters to death so that helps a bunch. What I like most about it is being able to make a story with other people, so I don't have to be the only one coming up with it. It's nice to have some things controlled by others instead of me having to control everything like in my fanfic.

4. Biggest roleplay pet peeve

I have so many, it's kinda hard to pick. XD But honestly... usually people just assuming things about my characters or subtly saying they did something they didn't is a big peeve of mine. I also dislike it when someone uses a tense other than third-person past. Present tense when other people are using past bugs me and it's just super weird when someone uses first-person while everyone else is using third I'm just like "wha". Lastly, I really hate this new trend of "come talk in our Discord chat!" I'm not going to join a discord server just to see if a site is active (because sometimes it's hard to tell by the board itself) and I'm sure as heck not going to open an entirely separate thing to talk to other people on the site. (I'm super salty about this latest development, honestly XD)

5. Tip(s) to a newbie

Honestly just... find what you like and stick with it. Read the rules and setting info so you don't get pended a million times and/or frustrate your mods. It's not a great way to get started on a board, trust me. It's fine to have a character that doesn't like people/doesn't care about anything/etc. but if they don't get involved in whatever thread they're in some way you're going to have a tough time. You're likely going to have a thread that goes nowhere and some frustrated people who're roleplaying with you, and trust me they're not going to be keen on doing it again if they get frustrated. Lastly, remember that, at the end of the day, RP is supposed to be fun. If you're not having fun, then something needs to change. If people on a site are stressing you out and you don't think it's something that can be fixed, leave. If you're struggling with a character and they aren't fun to play anymore, drop them. Don't waste your time doing something you aren't happy with, because it'll just make you miserable and that's not what this is about.