ABOUT FANTASY ROLEPLAYING Options

[Kaiya]

ABOUT FANTASY ROLEPLAYING

If you're reading these, you are most likely new to the site and, on behalf of the forum, I would like to extend a warm welcome to Fantasy Roleplaying. This article to is to explain the ins and outs of our forum itself; after reading this you should proceed to read the FORUM RULES and the ROLEPLAY GUIDELINES.

FORUM RULES
ROLEPLAY GUIDELINES
Just for fun: "POSTING AND YOU" Courtesy of Steam Forum.

For Newcomers to Roleplaying:
Veteran roleplayers can skip to the questions

Roleplaying, as defined on Wikipedia, is described as such:
"In roleplaying, participants adopt and act out the role of characters, or parts, that may have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different from their own. Roleplaying, also known as RP to some, is like being in an improvisational drama or free-form theater, in which the participants are the actors who are playing parts, and the audience."

I invite you to visit Wikipedia's articles on the different types of roleplaying to get a better idea of the differences between roleplaying, roleplaying games, roleplaying in theater, etc.

FRP is a forum roleplaying community in which the members can create new, original storylines that other members may join by creating characters to take part in the storytelling. We seldom use stats such as strength and dexterity, but prefer to function more along the lines of personality and history.

SO WHY FRP? WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT IT?

There are several good reasons why we think you'll like it here:
>We're drama llamas: We love complex storylines, and plot twists. We like cliffhangers and long lost families reuinited and epic battles pitting brother against traitorous brother, etc. etc. We believe in giving as much typing to a character's thoughts and emotions as to his/her actions and dialogue.
>We believe in commas: Grammar, spelling and punctuation are important to us here at FRP. We like complete sentences with periods at the end and names that are capitalized and we hope you do too.
>We keep it cozy: FRP is a small forum with a modest staff of four people and about a dozen regular posting members, so we can promise we will read all your personal messages, answer all your questions and yes, JOIN YOUR ROLEPLAY if you should make one.
>We like constructive criticism: No matter if you come to FRP a complete noob to roleplaying, or a seasoned veteran, we personally look at everyone's writing ability and try to make you better. In turn, we hope you catch us when we shirk on profiles or decent posting and help keep us on our toes.
>We have awards: FRP hosts a yearly event called the "But Can YOU Juggle GEESE?" Awards in which we showcase the best roleplays, characters, plot devices and even member awards just for you. We also have the annual FRP Roast where you can vote for your favorite staff member and offer suggestions on how to improve the forum.
>We're not going anywhere: FRP has been around for over four years and is still going strong. We've outlived several rival forums by a longshot. We've survived being hacked and having all our content deleted. Not to mention, we throw annual roleplay festivals including our Christmas Eve RP Fest, Kiss the Summer Goodbye Fest, and the Forum Anniversary Party to keep things moving. Bottom line: We're too damn proud of our little forum to ever let it die.

YEAH, BUT EVERY SITE IS DIFFERENT. HOW DOES FRP WORK?

Fantasy Roleplaying uses single threads per roleplay, contrary to other forums that may dedicate an entire board to a story, each thread being a different location or encounter. Here on FRP, everything is in one thread to encourage characters to stay together and prevent continuity errors.

FRP's roleplaying board is divided into four sections:

RP Q/A and OOC:
We encourage new everyone who wants to create a new roleplay to first 'pitch' their idea to other members here where they can get feedback before creating the thread. It is also where all the OOC (Out of Character) discussion threads for existing roleplays are located. Once a roleplay starts, its OOC thread serves as a place where the players can discuss plot points, character interactions and anything related to the roleplay without having to put everything in double parenthesis in the roleplay's actual thread. It's a handy thread for posting maps, fact sheets about the setting, etc. It is also where those interested in joining long running roleplays over twenty pages can ask for summaries of the story so far.

Characters:
Here, you may create one thread to post all of your character descriptions AFTER you have joined a roleplay ON THIS SITE. It's more for your own convenience than anyone else's, to help you keep track of your characters and it allows the moderators an easy way to review your characters when the awards roll around.

Novice Section:
This section is for any and all members new to the site or members not yet qualified for the Advanced Section. Until you prove yourself to the Staff of FRP that you can handle more advanced writing, and post consistently, you will be allowed to the Advanced Section. Within the Novice Section is the Closed Section, where roleplays are moved when they are not looking for more players to join. There is also the Completed/Trashed Section, where roleplays are moved when they are finished or their members have stopped posting.

Advanced Section:
This section is for members who have proven themselves to be experienced roleplayers capable of better writing quality and sustaining more complex storylines through consistent and, more often than not, lengthier posting. This is also the location of the Mature Section of the site where threads with more violence, language, or sexual content is located. You may be designated a 'Mature Member' which will allow you to post in the Mature Section, but not the Advanced Section. It also has its own Closed Section for roleplays no longer accepting new players.

HOW TO I GET INTO THE ADVANCED SECTION/BECOME AN ADVANCED MEMBER?

All newcomers to the site start out with their rank as 'Member'. To become an Advanced Member, which allows you to post in the Advanced Section, you must post in the Novice section first. Through posting there you must prove:
1>You're literate: Obeying all the rules of the English language in spelling/grammar/punctuation is a must.
2>You're thorough: Your posts go beyond only the characters actions and into their thoughts and emotions, facial expressions, gestures and mannerisms. You're not afraid of the nitty gritty details that really make a roleplay shine.
3>You're not a flake: Above all, you're consistent. Too many times we've had members join and show incredible promise, with beautiful posts and enthusiastic promises, only to disappear after the first few weeks. This makes us very, very sad. We'd like to see you stick around for about a month, posting once a week before you make Advanced Member.

If you've done all of the above in the Novice Section and believe you deserve access to the Advanced Section, send a message to a staff member with a link to the roleplays you've participated in and justify yourself. Tell us why you think you are Advanced! The staff will review your request and reserves the right to deny you Advanced status based on skill, consistency and whether or not you've been rude about it.

Other than Member and Advanced Member, these are FRP's member groups:
ALMOST Member: The default group that everyone is put in when they have zero posts. Once they introduce themselves in the Coming/Going Section, it switches to Member.
Mature Member: This is the ranking given to those participating in a roleplay in the Mature Section but do not have access to the entire Advanced Section.
Honored Member: A group for members that have been on the forum for an exceedingly long time, reserved mostly for members who helped create FRP.
RP Keeper: This group consists of the forum moderators, Novallie and Kaiya. Moderating is basically welcoming new members and helping them adjust to FRP, answering questions, critiqueing new roleplays, etc.
Admin: Consisting of Kailand and Laterose, these two run the forum's more technical side as well as moderating.

NO ONE IS POSTING!

As much as we would like to be online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it's just not possible for most of us. Most of us are still in school, some of us have jobs, and there are other ways that we enjoy spending our free time too. We know, hard to believe. So, unfortunately, sometimes, the site will go a day or two without any posts. Don't panic. We haven't died, we're just all busy at the same time. It always picks up again.

I DOUBLE POSTED! WHAT SHOULD I DO ABOUT IT?

Get out of the forum. Right. Now.

Just kidding. All you have to do is edit the post you don't want to say "((Double post. Please delete.))" and the staff will take care of it when they do a de-spamming run over the site or if they're in the roleplay.

WHAT IF I WON'T BE ONLINE FOR AWHILE?

If you know you're not going to be available to post for a longer period of time, we ask that you post a thread in the Coming/Going Section of the forum and let everyone know how long you're going to be gone and what they should do about your characters in their respective roleplays. List who should puppet/godmode your character while your gone or would you like them to wait until you've returned to post?
If you're leaving the site completely/taking a hiatus, it's important you let everyone know and try to place your characters in a position where they won't hinder the other players or keep them from continuing the storyline.
Be advised that if you don't post any notice at all that you're leaving for any period of time, your fellow roleplayers have the right to invoke Manual Override (see the Roleplay Guidelines).

A FEW FORUM VOCABULARY WORDS

The Mod Squad: What the staff at FRP is affectionately refered to as.
Puppets/Puppeteering: Used to refer to characters other than a member's main character in the thread. For example, my character may have a brother that appears in the roleplay. As long as he does not have an official profile posted, he is refered to as a puppet.
Pooph: A fun spelling of the sound effect 'poof', first used by Kaiya. It's an FRP unique word and is used in OOC parenthesis during a post to indicate a change of time and place in a roleplay.
Exit-Stage-Left: Our expression for when a character leaves a roleplay because their player has to leave the site for awhile, etc.

If you have any questions or concerns about the forum's working, contact any member of the staff: Kailand, Kaiya, Laterose, or Novallie.

About FRP © Kaiya and Laterose
Lovingly edited by Novallie.