Welcome to the Black Gazza mini-tutorial dedicated to you, the reader! This is a short introduction into role playing offered by some of our more experienced members.

None of us is perfect! It's human nature that we make mistakes and learn from those to better ourselves. With the aid of this mini-tutorial and you the willing participant we can enjoy this immersive environment with greater ease. Within this tutorial you will be offered tips, advice and shown examples of how basic role play can work.

Character Creation

Are they dull? Are they evil, corrupt and sadistic? A character can be any number of things, but in order to play out the role effectively, stick with what you know (at least until you get a firm grasp of who you would like to portray). Using examples from movies, books and games is a good starting point. It's also wise to not try to play a character that you aren't, until you are used to roleplaying. (ie: If you are not good at being dominant and in control, perhaps consider an inmate character over a guard.)

Darth Vader in Episode 3 of the Star Wars Saga portrays a good example of "Lawful Evil." Say you wish to make a guard? He does bad things, horrible things but he believes it is good. He knows it is good in his mind, but the actions speak differently to others he interacts with.

"I didn't know I was evil until someone told me." -Unknown

ASB - Actions, Speech and Body

The husky panted softly, his eyes darting between the two inmates. He knew one or both were about to strike, but which? "Come on, you cowards!" he yelled in a harsh tone as he stood tall, ears flat against his scalp. Images of his own demise racked through his thoughts, yet his resolve was stronger than ever.

This is an example of being aware of your actions, speech, and body.

When you are unsure of what to do in the middle of a roleplay, a good way to figure out what to post next is to ask yourself these three questions:

Action: What is your character doing? How is s/he doing it?
Speech: Are they thinking internally or speaking out? How is their voice? Hushed, yelling, etc?
Body: How is your character's body reacting? Trembling, flinching, shivering, etc?

Roleplaying in Groups

When in a group, roleplaying can get complicated. There's usually a set of unspoken etiquette and rules for roleplaying in a group.

Post order: When you are roleplaying with others, a sort of posting order tends to develop naturally. Character A says or does something, then character B, then character C, then back to character A. When you are walking into a new roleplay, you will become part of that order if you post. It's considered good practice to stick to this order in order to give everybody a fair chance to react.

One post per action: As part of posting order, it's also generally assumed that one post by you will equate taking up your position in that order. Making multiple posts will break the order, and can lead to hard-to-follow roleplay by not giving the other roleplayers a chance to digest and react to your poses in order.

Acknowledging others actions: It's considered rude if you ignore a pose that mentions your character. If you walk into a roleplay as inmate Bob, and Rook the guard says that Bob should stay back because it's a dangerous situation, it's rude if you simply ignore Rook's mention of your character. Excessive ignoring can result in the accusation of power gaming, especially if you are selectively ignoring people's actions.

Post length: Everybody has their level of verbosity and style. Some like it short and fast, others prefer lengthy paragraph-long roleplays. As the audience of Black Gazza is wide and varied, you will usually find yourself in a collective roleplay with a mix of all styles. It's generally considered common courtesy to adapt the style of those involved. If it's a lengthy roleplay with very long and detailed poses, continuously inserting one-liners will usually be very jarring and might lead to resentment. Note that this work both ways. If one paragraph-length roleplayer is interactng with two people who are using short and concise poses, they should adapt instead of making everybody wait for a lengthy pose.

Don't steamroll roleplays: Black Gazza has a rule about interrupting ongoing roleplays. You shouldn't take this to mean you cannot involve yourself in any ongoing roleplaying, but that you should have a reason before doing so. Are you a guard and is there an inmate fight ongoing? It's reasonable to expect your character to walk over and ask what it is up. But if two inmates are having sex or a quiet chat and you interrupt and break it up, this is considered steamrolling. If you end up in a situation where ICly you might interrupt, but it could be considered steamrolling, then first OOCly check with the parties involved. A good example is your guard character discovering one inmate raping another. Perhaps they are engaging in a fun roleplay, and it is rude if you interrupt it by breaking them apart and locking them up in their separate cells. The converse of this would be inmates ganging up against a guard if they are doing something bad to another inmate.

Grammar

It is essential to have a firm grasp of punctuation in order for a scene to be correctly played out. If by chance your partner or group finds it difficult to understand your post, it can slow down the roleplay. It not only causes frustration for the reader, they may also be uncertain as how to reply. Or, worse, they might misread what you've said.

he smiled at the inmate lay on the ground and said I told u I would get u and kicked the inmate hard on the face and laughed

If you had to reread that then you get the point! The correct way for this sentence would be this:

He smiled as the inmate lay on the ground, “I told you that I would get you!” He bellowed before kicking the inmates face, laughing manically.

Be sure to use a period at the end of a sentence. It will allow the reader to catch their breath! Commas also play an important role; they help make sense of it all.

"We go left right?"
"We go left, right?"

Big difference!

First, Second and Third!

What is the difference?

First person: I stood up.
Second person: You stood up.
Third: He stood up.

To make good use of the three is rather simple; Rook pushed himself slowly from the ground onto all fours, gritting his teeth as the pain from previous attack racked every nerve ending. “I knew I shouldn’t have turned my back!”

You can refer to yourself in third person and someone else, as it removes the need of naming both peoples “he”;

He stood up, moving towards him. He knew if he could grab his neck it would be all over.

Rook stood up, moving towards Jack. He knew if he could grab Jack’s neck it would be all over.

As long as you make it clear who is who with the correct usage of persons it will be much less confusing all round! Just don’t overdo it with using the other person’s name; jazz it up a little! Use what they are and who they are to your advantage.

Rook threw himself at the inmate, he knew if he could pin that rabbit down. His chances of containing the bunny would greatly increase.

Basically it’s using a thesaurus, different words for the same thing. Of course, do not overuse this either!

The only except to the above is when you are roleplaying with a group. It might wise to use names instead of generic pronouns, so as to be clear who you are interacting with. If you pose, "Bob pulls out his stun-stick and hits him," in a crowd, it can be unclear to new-comers who is the target of the action.

PPFT - Past, Present and Future Tense

Generally people overuse words; we all do at times. However in the event of a scene between two or more people it is highly important to show the distinction between what is happening and what has already happened.

Rook sighed deeply as he knew that his shift nearly ended as he walked towards the barracks as he smoked his cigarette as the smoke exhaled through his nose.

The overuse of “as” can be a problem.

Rook sighed deeply as he knew his shift was about to end. He walked towards the barracks while taking a puff from his cigarette, each breath expelled the smoke from his nose as he followed up with a sly smirk.

Common Grammar Mistakes

Your

An item or something which belongs to another. “I like your coat!” or “I like your son.”

You’re

A contraciton of you are. Is directed towards a person, “You’re annoying!”

Where

A location. “Where is Medical?”

Were

A past tense. “You were there! I saw you last night.” "Where were you?"

We’re

A contraction of “We are.” "We're here!"

They’re

A contraction of “They are.” “They’re coming now!”

Their

Belonging to them or someone of unknown gender. “Their hair was slick with sweat.” Or “They always did love their stew.”

There

A place “I always did love it there.” "Where are they?" "They're there."

Definitions

IC

In Character; playing the role of your character like an actor

OOC

Out Of Character; talking as yourself

Parenthesis/Brackets

Used to mark OOC comments. (( )) [[ ]] {{ }}

Metagaming

Using OOC information for IC gain. For example, if someone says while out of character, “I’m going to kill my character off!” Later you come along and while in character say, “I heard so and so is going to kill you later.” This is metagaming, as the knowledge of that person's character dying off was only mentioned OOC.

Power gaming

Using unnatural means to always win in any given event despite the odds against you. This is also known as "God-moding". Power gaming characters tend to be very annoying to roleplay with. Imagine a guard who dodges every blown thrown at him by an angry inmate, or an inmate who does not acknowledge punishment given by a guard. If you feel you are being unfairly power-gamed by someone all the time, please see someone wearing the senior staff tag!

Autoing

Deciding the result of an action for another character directly by your own; “Rook punched Jack square on the jaw, breaking it with ease he laughed as Jack fell to the ground and cried his eyes out.” – You cannot decide if that happens or not it is for the other person to accept or not. That punch might not have hit or hurt! A better way to say this is, "Rook threw a powerful punch at Jack, with intent to break bones." You've made it clear that you desire bones to be broken, but it's up to Jack's player to determine how hard that punch lands.

Tredi Nansen, author; Managarm Fang, Timberwoof Lupindo editors