Joining or Hosting a Developmental Role Play

[Damxge]

If you’ve come reading this thread on how to play or start a Developmental RP, I’m going to assume you are comfortable playing in Beginner to Expert Role Plays. If you are not comfortable with the level of skill required in an Expert RP, then DevRPs are not for you. Before I get down to the definition of Developmental RPs, I’ll go over some basic guidelines for playing in one.

† To join a DevRP, you MUST CREATE A CHARACTER SHEET FOR YOUR CHARACTER IN THE CHARACTER SHEETS SECTION.
† You have to post long, extremely descriptive FIRST PERSON actions, longer even than Expert RPs.
† You have to have great grammar and few typos; if you can’t spell very well without SpellCheck, then don’t post until you have spellcheck available.
†You have to become familiar with the other Players in the game’s characters; meaning you have to read over their character sheets.
† You must take your time in a Dev RP, that’s the whole point. I’ll go more in depth on what I mean down below.
† You must read over the entire World Map thread and reference it for locations, creatures encountered, the description of terrain, etc…in the RP
† You have to follow your Character Sheet, meaning your character has to have a set personality, and you must treat it like it is a real person; get into their head and think like them.
† You are not allowed to use [comment] tags in a Dev RP, your whole post in the thread must be an Action. If you’d like to say something, go to the Sign Up thread for that RP and say it there.
† You have to be realistic to the environment the Admin of the RP has put you in. (More on that below)
† You HAVE to have taken part in at least five Intermediate Level, or Two Expert, or one Developmental RPs to START your own DevRP.

So, what is a Developmental Role Play?
A dev RP is an extremely in depth role play where the Players develop and build their characters up from the ground, an admin will define a starting age range, it could be from five years old to fifty. The players are forced to keep to a strict set of guidelines set by the Admin in a Role Play World thread; this thread will define maps of the regions, cities, and terrain; as well as what creatures inhabit the lands and what abilities are available (meaning, if magic is real or not, etc). The players must play the role play in a realistic fashion, taking into consideration travel time, hunger, money, seasons and other real world problems.
A Role Play like this is for advanced RP’rs confident in their ability as a writer; it also tests their imagination and problem solving skills.

So how do you join one, right? Its almost the same as joining another role play in Expert or Intermediate. You start off by finding yourself an RP you think would be up your alley; then go an create a character sheet for your character in the Character Sheets section, or if you already have one that fits into the requirements of the RP, you can use them. When requesting permission to play in the RP, you should use a form like this:

Code:


Name of Character:
Age:
Character Sheet: [Link to Character Sheet]
Starting Location: (you’ll have to read over the RP World created by the RP Admin before deciding this.)
Starting Items:


Then you wait for the RP Admin to tell you if you are in or not. Just keep in mind that the RP Admin has the right to refuse anyone they want, with or without a reason.

So we’ll assume you were accepted into the RP, the RP thread is up and you’re about to post your first post; the first post is EXTREMELY important. Just try to accomplish these things in your first post:

† Define your character’s location, so other players will know where you are.
† Define where you are currently living (even if its under a bench).
† Define how much money you have (The RP Admin might have a set starting amount).
† Describe your current situation.

Alright! So you’ve posted your first Action eh? Well now might be a good time to go over the Strict Rules of the Dev RPs. Don’t worry, it shouldn’t hinder your playing experience, but they do keep attempted godmodding in check.

† The RP Admin has the final word, if you don’t like it, kill your character and leave the RP.
† You are not permitted to purchase Property or Land without first consulting the RP Admin through Private Message or in the RP Sign Up Thread.
† Like property, you are not allowed ultra-powerful items or powers without consulting the RP Admin.
† You must comply with the RP Admin’s Posts. If they put a wall in front of you, you must use the items you have to get around or over it, you are not allowed to ignore it and keep travelling, you MUST define how you get by the obstacle realistically.
† If the Admin of the RP assigns a quest, you must try your hardest to complete it, but always remain realistic in your posting.

What playing in a DevRP, keep in mind Realism. I keep saying this, but it is extremely important. Develop your character at a human pace, improve their ability, stockpile items, and continue through the story, but do it realistically and day by day. When playing a DevRP, you must read and follow the guidelines set by the RP World thread created by the Admin; if you do not, things could get confusing.

You should be off and playing now, enjoying the slow paced in depth story of the role play; that is, if the RP Admin is a good one. I’ll go over how to be a good RP Admin for DevRPs next.

So we’ll get off on the right foot here by telling you that you are not allowed to Create a DevRP unless you’ve taken part in Five Intermediate Role Plays, Two Expert Role Plays, or one DevRP. If you have not, we are assuming you don’t know a lot about Role Playing, and while this might be a completely false assumption, you must follow the rules.
You need a few things before you start a DevRP.

† A complete RP World. You can have someone else make one for you, or make one yourself.
† A Character sheet for your character.
† A story (I’ll go into this in depth below).
† A Brain (preferably a clever one).

So, you’ll want to have a complete Role Play World before you get going. For how to make one, you can go read [url=]this[/url].
Next you’ll need your own Character sheet, so go [url=]here[/url], to learn how to create your own.
Then you’ll need a story. A story is extremely important for a DevRP, you have to have a beginning, and an end game, as well as a building climax leading through the entire game. All of your little quests and changes in the story affecting others’ characters must be leading up to something, and be tied together, or it’s not a very good Role Play. The more cleverly linked together the small events in the story are, the harder it will be to see the end coming, and the more fun it will be.

So when you have these things gathered up, you can go ahead and set up the thread. The basic format is as follows, but you are able to customize it to fit your needs.

Code:


Name of RP
Description of starting world and condition of the world that people are starting in.
[Link to RP World Thread]

RP World lore (defines if magic, the force, or any other strange things are available to players in the RP)

Accepted Players (including your own)

[Sign Up Form]

Additional Rules


And since that can look a tad confusing, I’ll use the same format, but fill in some basic information, when you fill them in on your own, it has to be a bit more in depth than I’m doing here.

Code:


Grasp of the Shadow Cat

A world is now ravaged by the third world war, creatures of all sorts have been spawned from the nuclear waste and radioactive land; many are aggressive and vile creatures. Cities are gone, nothing but mountainous regions with little plant life. Oxygen is short and difficult activities are made more so by the lack of breathable air. This post-apocalyptic world was the perfect place for a strange creature from space, know in lore as the Shadow Cat, to take control of the weakened world, infecting people with his touch, turning them into his mindless slaves.

After the war, people began exhibiting strange abilities, most were random and people could perfect them to perform extraordinary feats. Extreme strength, inhuman senses or speed, and minor shape shifting were the most prevalent.

Players Accepted:
Ala Tune (Cross) [link to that player’s Character Sheet]
John Smith (Drag) [link to that player’s Character Sheet]
Samus Calhoun (LordTomyh) [link to that player’s Character Sheet]
Number of Spots Left: 1

Form:
Name of Character:
Character Sheet:
Starting Location:
Starting Items:
Radiation Ability:

Upgrades to characters’ abilities will come from the Admin only, though you can increase your powers through training and practice.
Flight is not allowed.
You may start with one piece of food, and one makeshift weapon along with your clothes.


There is one final thing before you are able to post your thread. You’ll need a title. The title should be the name of the RP, as well as the word OPEN next to it in brackets []. Once you start the RP, or have the max amount of players you’d like in the RP, go ahead and change the OPEN sign to CLOSED.

So once you’ve got your thread up, people start joining (hopefully). But let’s say you get someone in your thread with bad grammar. You are allowed to refuse them access to your game; you can give them a reason, or just say no.
Now let’s say you get someone in the thread with a few problems with their character. We’ll say that the person obviously didn’t read the rules and has a sniper rifle as his starting weapon. NEVER BE AFRAID TO RUN YOUR THREAD. Tell them to change it, and the nicer you are about it, the more likely the person will still want to take part in your RP.

Now we’ll assume you’ve got the number of people you wanted in your RP, you’re ready to post the RP thread.
This thread will go in the Developmental Role Play forum, NOT IN THE INTEREST CHECKS SUBFORUM.
When posting this thread, copy the Player data from the sign up thread; this includes the player names, what user controls what character, and a link to each of their Character Sheets. You can start off by posting as your character in the first post, or let someone else kick the RP off.
After you start the RP, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO ACCEPT MORE CHARACTERS, this keeps everyone at an equal level instead of letting someone join halfway through and have no items while everyone else has great stuffs.


Now that the RP is up and going, you might wonder, how can I be a good RP Admin?
Being a good RP Admin is not difficult; you just have to follow a few simple guidelines.

† Don’t let people walk all over you. Enforce rules and call people out who are doing something wrong, or is godmodding. You have the power to kick people from your own RPs should they behave badly.
† While still being in control, don’t overdo it or be mean. If they’re not following your story exactly, instead of saying, “You can’t do that, rewrite it and do this,” steer them back onto the desired path subtly, use your own character, or narrate the story to affect them. You’ll have to be a bit clever to do this, but it can be a lot of fun.
† Narrate the story! This can be the best part of being Admin, not only can you control your own character, you can narrate (meaning using Third Person Format). You can place obstacles in front of other characters, you can give them quests, and even control them if need be (but don’t get carried away with controlling others’ characters, people don’t like it and it ruins the game if done overly much).
† Give people upgrades or special little items every now and again, it can help add exciting new elements to the game and make players happy.
† Never lose sight of the end game, but still keep in mind the short term. A lot of DevRPs will become boring after a few quests, so make sure that the quests and missions you send the people off on tie together and reward them for each one, not only tie into the end game. Keep things interesting.
† Don’t get angry. Just don’t do it, if someone makes you mad or won’t play right, kill their character and kick them from the RP. Do not, however, abuse your power to kick them. Make sure that you are really doing the best for the game, not just because you have a grudge against the person. You can get a bad reputation if you start killing people; and no one will want to join your RPs.

The rest is just feeling it out. You can’t be a good Admin without practice, and you should get the hang of it after the first few pages of Actions!

Here are some links to stuff that can really help you with joining, or running a Dev RP.
† Guidelines for Making Character Sheets.
† Guidelines for Making RP Worlds.
† [url=] Role Play Strategy: For Players [/url] [Coming Soon]
† [url=] Role Play Strategy: For RP Admins [/url] [Coming Soon]
† [url=] Example of Proper DevRP Sign Up Thread. [/url] [Coming Soon]
† Ideas for Role Plays
† Advertise Your Role Play [deviantart]

Sincerely and Happy Role Playing,
Mike (Cross)

Sidenote: If you think anything in this thread need to be changed or added, please PM me

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