User blog:Origamarose/10 easy ways to improve your rp

As a server owner, you come across lots of people with a lot of different abilities within your player base. You get the good, the really good and the not so good. There is no 'right' way to rp but some ways are better for your experience and the experience of those you interact with. Here I have compiled 10 easy changes you can make to become better at rp. This list mainly refers to casual rp, if you want a list for events let me know in the comments. If you have any other tips you can think of you can add them in the comments also.

1. Use one-liners in moderation
Many servers and longtime players look down upon those who are emoting only lasts one line or less, some servers even ban or kick people who do this. The odd one-liner here and there is ok but constant one-liners are the mark of an inexperienced player and make people think you're lazy. I plan to make a separate in-depth article about making your emotes longer since it's a problem I see all the time but can be fixed quite easily. Don't just talk about what your character is doing or saying but how they are saying it, what they are thinking, wearing etc.

2.  Good Grammar
Any longtimer will tell you bad grammar is the most frustrating thing when you're trying to rp with someone. You don't need to be perfect or know every single punctuation mark, commas and full stops go a long way. Start your emotes with capital letters, use speech marks for speech.

3. Use the third person
This basically means writing she and him, not you or I. Your character is not you and their character is not them. This rp style is typically used in lower quality servers. In rp you are writing characters to be in a collective story, not putting yourself in the story.

4. Don't get too attached to your character/s
This is more of an issue in servers where there is some possibility that your character could die or get injured. Again this shows up with more inexperienced players who may have just started, it is never fun to lose a character but you can always make another.

5. Don't bring irp problems into real life
Similar to the third tip, your character is not you. If someone injures or insults your character, they are not insulting you. Their character isn't them, they may have a character that goes around bullying everyone but they themselves can be perfectly nice.

6. Read people's character apps/intros
Before you start an rp, get to know the character you are rping with. If your character has something in common, like they like reading for example, you can bring a book with you. People tend to interact differently with different types of people if you are speaking to a person of authority or perhaps someone older you may speak more formally to them.

7. Don't rp with only one person
This is just a one-way ticket into you losing interest in your character and getting bored. nuff said

8. Read what's going on in an area before you join
It is courtesy to wait at least 24hr before you start a new rp. Don't just run into an area without reading what's going on, you may have just interrupted someone else's, private love confession. If you're not sure if an rp has finished, ask. If you want to join an rp it is always poilte to ask first. Even when you've asked to join and been accepted, still always read over what is happening, imagine your character walks into a scene where someone is being beaten up or attacked and says "Hi, what a lovely day it is today. Would anyone like some cookies?"

9. Don't write several messages for one turn/emote
What I mean by this is Dale walks into room *send* He says hi *send* He walks away *send* If you need to add more to your emote simply edit it in, multiple messages are just annoying and are the mark of a newbie.

10. BEREALISTICOHMYGOODHOLYMOTHEROFSALMON
There is a large part of rp that is fantasy based, but even then that fantasy has lore behind it. The biggest problem with newbies is that they want to be as strong as the people in the universe. You have to understand that stories usually have one protagonist, this protagonist usually has something different to everyone else. They may be the strongest of their peers or the smartest, but that doesn't work when everyone wants to be the main character. In order to keep the peace you must be fair to everyone, so you either need everybody to be super overly powerful or all like everyone else. In rp everyone is the main character of their own stories. If you want to become stronger in rp you have to work at it, but if you just instantly start off invincible there is no glory in beating the monsters. The balance between unrealistic and realistic fantasy really shows the ranking of a server and the amount of instant power a player wants shows their ability.