Hey y'all, and welcome to Sparium. I'm Karen Terry, and today we're going to talk about text-based role playing. Text-based role playing is simply any kind of role play that takes place over text. In this way, it's different from role playing games that you play on the computer or tabletop role playing that you might play in a group or even live action role playing. But the principles are really similar to these other types of role playing. So if you've done any other type of role play, it's really easy to get into the text-based role play. You can find text-based role playing on any social media platform, so like Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook. You can also find it on messaging platforms such as Kick or Discord. If you've ever participated in text-based role playing, leave me a comment down below with what platforms you prefer. I currently role play on Discord, but I've used Tumblr, I've used Kick, I've used Live Journal, I even used Gaia Online back in the day. I don't even know if that website is still around. But if it is, there's role players on there too. Back in the day, we used to even use chat rooms and forums specifically set up for role playing that was before sort of social media was a thing online and most role play moved over there. So when I say text-based role playing, what exactly do I mean by that? Essentially what it means is that you and another person create characters and a scenario and you do a sort of improv writing exercise back and forth with the other person. So one of you writes what's called a starter and that is essentially the beginning of the interaction. This can be a few sentences such as a paragraph that you might find in a book or an article and this is called Para RP, so short for paragraph RP. It might be several paragraphs and this is called multi-paraphrp. Or it might be chat-based RP and this is usually a sentence or two maximum where dialogue is so prevalent that instead of denoting dialogue with quotation marks, what you would do is your dialogue is not denoted and the actions are denoted with asterisks. If you want to hear more about those different kinds of RP and different methods for doing it, let me know down below because I could do a whole video on those different types of RP and the merits of them and when to use them and when not to use them and things like that. So once the starter is written, the other person is going to go read that starter and they're going to write a reply based off of the things that are in that starter. So this is how it's like improv. You go back and forth writing the replies based off of the other person's reply. So you do a yes and sort of exercise just like you would do an improv. Each reply is from the perspective of the character you're playing so you don't control the other person's character. What that means is that you can write the dialogue, the thoughts, the actions of your character and anything else going on in the setting, so other characters that you're not playing or it could be things that are going on in the environment, but you're never going to write about the other person's character. So you can't write about that character's actions or thoughts or anything that they're doing, just yours. And that entire interaction is called a thread. You're going to continue going back and forth with those replies with your partner until you've reached the end of the scene. Depending on how much planning you did when you were setting up your characters and setting up the plot is going to depend on how that scene ends. You might know where the scene ends based on what you talked about or you might not. So if you're not sure where the scene ends, then when you start feeling like it's going to end, you would approach your partner and let them know, hey, I think this thread is over, let's go ahead and wrap this up. And once that particular thread is over, you're kind of back in that planning phase where you're going to talk about what your next thread is or where you want the plot to go. And that's what a collection of those threads is called. It's called a plot. Or you might not do a whole plot. You might do a thread and then move on to a totally different thread that has nothing to do with the first one. You can do this one on one with one specific person or you can do it in a group just like you would for playing like a tabletop role playing like Dungeon the Dragons. Exactly how you find other role players depends on the platform that your role playing on. Every platform has its own rules of engagement and exactly how you go about finding other role players that's dependent on how that particular platform works. So for example, on Discord because it's server-based, there are other servers where you can advertise your role play on. On Facebook you can search for Facebook groups and on platforms where they use tags such as Twitter or Tumblr, there are particular tags that people will use to find other role players or to find role plays. Also role players tend to have networks of other role players and people that they like to RP with. So as soon as you start meeting and talking to role players, you're going to find more. So what do you get out of role playing this way? For one, unlike a role playing computer game where you're just engaging with that computer, you're engaging with other people and that leaves you with the ability to form a much deeper story and a much deeper connection to your characters. Also when it comes to text-based role play, you have a unique freedom that we don't have in other types of role play. You can literally do anything that you can imagine. So whatever it is, you can do it in text-based role play. So any setting, any plot, any characters, any fandom, whatever it is, you can do it. And because there's so many pockets of role players out there, if you spend enough time looking, you're going to find people that want to engage with your plots, that want to engage with your characters. So I've personally been role playing for decades at this point across lots of different platforms, with lots of different people, so one-on-one in groups independently. But I've also played a ton of role play games and a little bit of D&D and a little bit of larping as well. But my love always comes back to the text-based role playing, the freedom of it, the ease of it, the way that you're able to engage with it is just something that I really love. So I want to make lots more videos about text-based role playing. I want to help grow this community, I want to help share my knowledge, I want to help make sure that other people are able to get all of the wonderful things that I get out of the hobby. So let me know down below what are your struggles with role play, what are things that you need help with, what are things that maybe you wish to know when you started out role playing. And I think this is really important because the skills that I've gained in role playing, as improv skills, those communication skills, those are useful in other areas of my life as well. If you're running a group, then those organization skills are really useful and I've used those in other areas of my life too. Also some of the relationships that I've built through role playing, some of the people that I've met have been some of my best online friends that I have found in the world. And some of these people I've been friends with for years and years now. So I hope this helps explain what text-based role playing is, why I do it, and why I think it's a great hobby for you to get into if you're not already. Remember to like if you liked this video, comment down below with any questions that you have, subscribe for more videos, and click that bell for notifications as soon as I upload. Links to all of my social media and useful information down in the doobly do. Thank you so much for watching and make it a great day.