Guide to Roleplaying Part 1

Introduction

So, I've realized many, -many- people on Warcraft do not know how to roleplay, so I made a guide. This one will include ideas and suggestions, and pretty much what is needed for a complete roleplay.
Here is general information about what you should have for a good roleplay, along with some ideas you can base yourself off of.

{1. Backstory.}

A backstory. No matter what you are roleplaying, city, wanderer, anything, you -will- need a backstory. Example; I have roleplayed someone named Lashar before. I first started roleplaying him as the leader of a group called the Ruby Legion. Now, I wanted to go in farther with this character, so I roleplayed his youth. I started out when he was 16, in a village, with his father, a merchant. Remember to input details into your story, my character's mother died a few years ago, and this is important, as there was complete lack of female parenting in my roleplay. The obvious things, the little things, you need to make sure -everything- makes sense. Now, I roleplayed through a few days of regular life in his village, simply so everyone there to understand his likes, dislikes, way of thinking, etc. Then, something that will change his life forever happened, the death of his father. Along with that, his village was razed, and he was one of the two only survivors, the other being an elder warrior. They travelled together for a while, the warrior had somewhere to go, and Lashar didn't, so he tagged along. On their long peril, the elder warrior trained the young man to fight, for he obviously wanted revenge upon the bandits who raided his village. He was taught to train himself with the axe and shield. When they finally got to Western Knight's Camp, where the elder warrior wanted to go, Lashar decided to train more and stay with them for a while. Now, the years are also quite important, simply so you can base yourself off some timeline or other. You should also make a realistic time for certain things. My character became quite good at fighting, over four years. Now, at 20, he decided to form a band of few named the Ruby Legion. From then on, it got bigger and his history caught up to my initial roleplay. I fell in love with this character and kept on roleplaying, even his older years. Heck, I roleplayed his son's life afterwards, too! Sure, it takes a while to think of a character which you will really get attached to and will want to roleplay all the time, but it's all worth it.

{2. Wanderers.}

Wanderers. A character that is completely random and isn't living in anything, simply walks around and adventures with what he finds. Most cannot roleplay wanderers. They usually wait at their little camps with a tent and a campfire waiting for someone to stumble upon them. What you should do as a wanderer, is go -get- the adventure. Interact, visit, do anything to roleplay with someone else, spice it up, as I said before, have a backstory, and use it!

{3. Characters.}

Your character(s) must always, when roleplaying anything at all, have a unique personality. That always adds to the interest in the character others will have. Along with good physical descriptions. When starting a roleplay, you must describe his/her physically and mentally, well, to give a certain idea to the others what your character is/looks like. Everyone has something that makes them, them. Something that drives them, something that makes them do what they do. Specify that, find it. To spice things up even more, your character can have a disability or something or the sort. I've roleplayed a deaf character before, it was pretty funny, one of my better roleplays.

{4. Godmodding.}

Now, Godmodding. That's one of the worst parts of roleplaying. Sometimes, godmodding is not your fault. Most of the time, it is. An example; I was roleplaying a stranded human, and someone came to me. I thought he was going to rescue me, but he was very cold towards me, and he had a gun and armor. All I had was a machine with a gun attached to it that I had built by myself(This was a future roleplay). Now, I couldn't do -anything- at all, I was stranded. So, after a few minutes of chat, he decides to randomly kill my robot, take the few things I had and leave me there. What could I do for the rest of this roleplay? Hope for someone to come save me. Does that work? As I stated previously, you must go to the adventure, not wait for it to come to you. But that is minor godmodding, even if uncool. Some people have huge egos and don't like when others stand in their way in roleplays, they want to do whatever they want, whenever, so they make this god character that has shit tons of spells and can do just about anything. To go in further detail about this, let's have an example of someone who extreme godmods.

"With amazing speed, I bash your skull in with my massive two-handed hammer. To make sure you are dead, I bring a massive pillar of fire onto your body, burning you. You are now ashes."
-That- is extreme godmodding, do not -ever- do that, and if someone does, simply ignore them.

What this person should've typed is, "With amazing speed, I attempt to bash your skull in with my massive two-handed hammer."
No "To make sure you are dead", or "You are now ashes". That's just killing off someone's character. That completely ruins the fun. Because that's what roleplaying is all about. Fun.

{5. Leeching.}

Leeching, Hitch-Hiking, whatever you want to call it; when someone bases himself off the story of another and doesn't do anything for himself. That's not good. If someone is doing this to you, tell him/her to buzz off or to at least help in some way with the roleplay. If you have no ideas, leeching can be fine, as long as it's imaginative and builds up to the roleplay. Example; I was doing another future roleplay, and was out of imagination, for some reason. So I leeched off a friend, who was making a squad of a few to get rid of zombies. I didn't make another random squad member. I roleplayed this team's personal A.I.(Artificial Intelligence). I was really useful, and that built up to a great roleplay, until some godmodder ruined it by spawning tons of zombies... Something that's not ignorable, you know? Anyhow, leeching is fine if done correctly.

{6. Spelling/Grammar.}

Spelling and grammar is always needed in roleplaying, even if you don't use it commonly. I got accustomed to it over time and always use it, but it is necessary for roleplayers to spell well and use grammar. It is very annoying to roleplay with someone you cannot understand, so for other's sake, and your own, please type properly.


If I forgot anything, please private message me so I can edit this.


-Krath