Roleplaying Forum Writing Guide A guide to Role Playing beginning with writing in forums . See also : Guide to Writing a Role - Playing Thread . Original version from 60 . Role Playing FAQ by ( Chro , Level 38 Human Rogue , Guild : Night Blades , Realm : ) . If you are reading this guide , you have probably already read the FAQ or know how to Role - Play from past experiences . This addition is to give hints and tips for how to further your Forum Role - Playing . If you have noticed that you don ' t always get the response from other posters that you were hoping for , this is for you . Types of RP : . As stated in the FAQ , there are a few different types of Role - Playing . For the purpose of this guide , this article will only be focusing on Open - Role - Playing , Structured - Role - Playing , and Closed Role - Playing as these are the only three that require you to type up paragraphs and think in a plot line fashion . Open Role Playing In this type , every person in the thread is a equal actor and you may never God - Mode anyone unless they give their permission . The Original Poster ( OP ) usually starts with an end in mind and will try to steer the thread in that direction but try to give everyone their own camera - time . Structured Role Playing This type is still open for people to jump into and contribute , but is more rigid than an Open RP thread . The OP has a story to tell and is allowed a small amount of God - Moding throughout the thread if things deviate too far from the plot line , but should still always respect the other actor ' s character rights . Closed Role Playing These threads are sort of like a sign up , as a separate thread is created for people to ask questions and register their character . These tend to be rare , but were once commonplace in the Beta Role - Playing forums . Joining . There are a few rules for joining an Open Role Playing thread . First of all , you must join in a logical fashion . The thread starts in Stormwind and you are a Forsaken . What are you doing in Stormwind in the first place ? How did you get in ? Bad Example : Fors came down the stairs of the Lion ' s Pride Inn , yawning . He began slaughtering the pitiful humans all around him . Critique : How did Fors get into the Inn ? Why was he sleeping upstairs ? How would no humans see him ? You don ' t know , and the author probably has no idea either . Good Example : Fors crept into the open window of the Lion ' s Pride Inn , quietly slitting the throat of the only human in the room . It hadn ' t been easy sneaking past the guards or climbing the wall , but that was what he had been trained to do . He was here on a mission , and he meant to complete it . With a light foot and a quick dagger he stepped out of the room and slew another human who had been standing just outside of the door without a sound . He only hoped that no - one would find him before he had a chance to slay them . Critique : A real , logical entrance was made and he obviously has a plan , even if he didn ' t reveal it yet . Plus he has given someone else a chance to interact with him . Many times you simply cannot think of a good reason for your character to be in that place a that time , so you have three options . One : You can start your character in a different location and wait for the plot to advance before joining the others . Two : You can switch to another character . Most Role - Players have many different characters to call upon , so be sure to use them . Three : Just sit back and enjoy the ride . Just because you enjoy a thread , it doesn ' t mean that you need to join it . Posting . This part is broken up into a few rules . God - Moding . This is the thing that every decent Role - Player hates to see . To God - Mode is to use another person ' s character without their consent . This can range anywhere from putting words in their mouth to killing them . Here is an example how the story can be played out , going from good to bad . Good Example : Elly knocked the head off one of the advancing Scourge , shouting to her comrade Rajhin , " We can ' t keep this up ! There are simply too many of them ! " It was then that she noticed that behind the tidal wave of Scourge stood a single Forsaken , the one they had seen before called Kamith . He was holding his hand up high and shouting an incantation . She quickly slashed through the mass of Scourge , hoping she could interrupt him in time . Critique : This establishes what is happening and does not take control of other ' s characters at all , assuming that Kamith had already posted that he was beginning to cast something . Ok Example : Elly knocked the head off one of the advancing Scourge , shouting to her comrade Rajhin , who seemed to be having trouble , " We can ' t keep this up ! There are simply too many of them ! " Rajhin shouted back , " Ya mon ! We need ta be getting away ! " It was then that she noticed that behind the tidal wave of Scourge stood a single Forsaken , the one they had seen before called Kamith . He was holding his hand up high and shouting an incantation . She quickly slashed through the mass of Scourge , raising her mallet to bring it down on Kamith ' s head . Critique : This isn ' t too bad . Elly , however , is determining how Rajhin is fairing against his foes , which is a no - no , plus she is putting words in his mouth . What if Rajhin wants to keep on fighting to the death ? Elly also reaches Kamith and is about to smash him . Sure she leaves that up to him , but what if he had wanted to do something while the two of them were still at a fair distance ? All in all , this isn ' t all that bad , but treads the line of God - Moding quite dangerously . Not Good Example : Elly knocked the head off one of the advancing Scourge , shouting to her comrade Rajhin , who had been stabbed in the leg and was bleeding profusly , " We can ' t keep this up ! There are simply too many of them ! " Rajhin shouted back , " Ya mon ! IWe need ta be getting away ! " It was then that she noticed that behind the tidal wave of Scourge stood a single Forsaken , the one they had seen before called Kamith . He was holding his hand up high and shouting an incantation . She quickly slashed through the mass of Scourge , smashing her mallet into his side , interrupting his spell . He got back to his feet quickly and usheathed his dagger . " Meddling Paladin ! You will die ! " Critique : This simply takes too many allowances . First off , Elly has portrayed Rajhin ' s fight in a way he probibly doesn ' t want . Again , always leave personal fighting against NPC ' s to the individual . Secondly , she puts words in both of the other players ' mouths . What if Kamith wanted to act slyly and not say a word , pretend he was dead ? That is the kind of thing only the other player can determine . This is definitely God - Moding , but can be played if the others let it slide , but Elly will probably get a comment about it . Bad Example : Elly knocked the head off one of the advancing Scourge , shouting to her comrade Rajhin , who was barely conscious after the severe injuries he had sustained , " We can ' t keep this up ! There are simply too many of them ! " Rajhin could only scream as yet another blade entered his side . It was then that she noticed that behind the tidal wave of Scourge stood a single Forsaken , the one they had seen before called Kamith . He was holding his hand up high and shouting an incantation . She quickly slashed through the mass of Scourge , smashing her mallet into his side , interrupting his spell . He lay on the floor , nearly dead an drained of all his power . " You can kill me , but my spirit and power will linger on , Light blinded Paladin ! " Elly just sneered and brought her mallet down on his skull crushing it . The Scourge behind her fell apart , saving Rajhin from an assured death . Critique : This is just bad as far as God - Moding goes . She portrays Rajhin as an almost incompetent fighter , obviously with much less skill than her . She then not only interrupts Kamith , puts a lot of words in his mouth , but also kills him ! And to top it off , she just ended the battle before any of the others had a chance to do anything . This kind of thing is unacceptable . Bad Just For Fun Example : Elly lit into the advancing Scourge army , taking out dozens of them with every swipe . Rajhin , however , fell without even taking out a single one . She sighed , raising him from the dead while keeping the tide of Scourge away with one hand . " Must I always say your ass , Rajhin ? " " I be sorry , miss Elly . I be incompetent , " he replied . She laughed and proceeded to destroy the rest of the Scourge army with a few swipes . She noticed The Forsaken Kamith trying to cast a spell , but his obvious fear of her kept his hands shaking and kept him from concentrating . She walked up to him as he begged , " Please ! Please don ' t kill me ! I just wanted to be a real boy ! " She Destroyed him with a single flick of her finger , his body exploding . " Well , Rajhin , my clumsy sidekick , I think all is well in Azeroth again . " And with that , they all lived happily ever after . Critique : . . . As you can see , God - Moding can be very destructive to a thread ' s plot line . Watch yourself to make sure you don ' t do it . Too liberal use of NPCs . Too liberal use of NPCs , especially ones that are crucial to others ' story , can also sometimes be harmful . Take for example the ' Bad Just For Fun Example " above . Elly there defeats the entire army of NPCs without letting anyone else interact with them . Just like God - Moding , you want to avoid doing this . A little rule is that no matter how many soldiers you defeat , the army is always bigger until that phase of the thread is over . Grammar . This does not come naturally to many people and can take a while to get used to . The best suggestion for finding the proper grammar of a sentence would be to read it out loud and see if it sounds right . If it doesn ' t , re - arrange the words until it sounds right . Ex : Brian ate the muffin , hesitant . to : Brian hesitantly ate the muffin . Even though it might not seem like a big thing , it can make all the difference that your sentences flow together , otherwise people will need to stop and re - read you post and suddenly they find that the immersion is broken just because something doesn ' t sound right . Don ' t let it get you down if you don ' t have good skills when it comes to grammar . To get better at recognizing the structure of sentences you should read other novels or even pick up a book on grammar . Spelling . The thing with spelling is to look at the word and ask yourself if it looks right . If it looks odd , change it around until it looks better . If you do that and it still doesn ' t look right , you can look it up in the dictionary or ask someone to correct you . Many people make the argument , " I didn ' t come here to spell good ! " No , but it is important that the person you are trying to communicate to understand you . A little spelling error every now and again is nothing to fret about , but five in every sentence ? Again , reading novels will help correct this problem . Of course it makes your RP look much better . Don ' t hesitate if you think your spelling is really bad , just ask around ( with double brackets of course ) how to spell those things , ignore teens that don ' t know you ' re having trouble with it and all should be fine . Length . The length of a post can be subjective to the situation . The ideal post is one that is around two to five paragraphs in length . Any more and people will start to feel their eyeballs drying out from staring at the screen that long . If you are having a back and forth conversation , short posts are fine , but at least try to put in a whole paragraph to keep interest up . There are few key things in a post that should always be covered . Setting : If it hasn ' t been established , establish it . Nothing makes it harder to imagine what is going on than if the characters are just floating in a ' white space . ' Give them a world to interact with . Describing a new setting should probably take up a full paragraph . Action : What is happening in this post that makes us want to read it ? Action does not have to mean that fighting is going on , action simply means that something is happening . It could be internal conflict , it could be Rarkal found a seat at the bar , Bobby might have picked some lint out of his belly - button . It doesn ' t matter the specifics of the action , just that something happened and you made us interested enough to read it . Resolution / Suspense : You post must contain a logical end to it . You can use these to hint at what you would like to happen next . Such as , " Killia fired his shotgun at Garmend , hoping that it would hit him . If it did , then his plan would begin . " Naturally Garmend is going to be curious to see what Killia ' s plan is , so he ' s now more likely to let the bullet hit him . The ending of your post is crucial in that you finish your step and wait for someone else to start theirs . Give them something to work with . Description . This is the meat of your post . Describe , describe , describe . You are painting a picture for people to look at , so you should make it good . What ever you do , do it with description . Don ' t just say that you ran from the enemy , say you ran like a deer away from a fire . Say that the table wasn ' t only green , but that it had elvish runes carved into it . Did you kill something ? Well then say how you killed it . Now too much detail can be a problem sometimes , but if you are having that problem , just back off a little bit and you ' ll be fine . The point of description is just so that people reading it can get a mental picture of what is going on . Remember ' white space ? ' You don ' t want your character to just stand there with his hands straight down at his sides while he talks . Players ' inactivity . Another problem that can occur in forum roleplaying is players who introduce a character and then don ' t respond for 3 - 4 days or weeks . Basically , you end up having a character that has to fade in and out of existence and cause disjoins in character interactions . i . e . : More is to come . . .