Beginners

lately i've been talking to a lot of people who seem to be interested in roleplaying, but either lack confidence in their skills or find the current RPs here a little intimidating. certainly, the average level of writing here is high - which is something i'm personally more than happy with. so... i was wondering.

Do you feel there is need for a specific Beginners' RP? What format do you think would be best? (And would you join?). i mean to ask both aspiring RPers who would consider joining such an RP as well as RPT regulars, since it'd be best to have one or more experienced writers whose posts would serve as an example.

i previously attempted something in the direction of a beginners' RP with Explorers of Haven, but in hindsight the format for that was a little too ambitious, and relied too much on heavy cooperation between players... and it may have been too sandbox-y as well. so now i was considering a simple, chaptered Pokémon Journey RP - but then the issue was raised that it would be too much for beginners to write as both Trainers and their Pokémon. so, another question; what kind of format do you think would best? keep in mind, we are a Pokémon Forum, so at the very least i would like that to be our general setting. but we could play as Trainers, Pokémon, Rangers, or something completely different in that regard still ...

As far as too-sandbox oriented, I don't believe that has much effect on difficulty for new writers. Guess it's kind of the sink or swim approach. I learned my writing in a RP with more sandbox than a Rockstar game and while I'm not the greatest, I can hold my own. (To be fair to myself I do tend to disappear for months to years at a time...)

More it matters (at least in my opinion) who the beginner is surrounded by and if they're not just good at writing, as well as helping said beginner find their own style.

That's my two cents anyways. Don't RP enough here anymore to put much weight behind it though.

Personally, I don't find PC to be a good place for beginners because of how diverse everyone here is in writing ability, making it difficult to really assimilate. The first RP I joined was a forum made specifically for that one RP and an understandably small community(maybe 6 people total at the start and about 10 at its most active.) My posts were maybe one to two sentences long at first, but over the course of a couple weeks you start to emulate and take tips from the other dudes, so naturally I improved. There was basically not a lot of pressure because there was no spectator audience to compare myself to the better writers and progress was made at a consistent pace. And that might be a pause of action for newer potentials, since there is such a high member count on the board, it means that many people could be watching your screw ups and lack of quality.

As for easy Pokemon related RPing begining, a couple easy mode tips would be as followed;

• Go for a Pokemon Journey related RP. You know the basic frame work of "Go to town, beat Gym Leader, go to next town with some random NPC needing help with X" so much better due to the games and anime than someone's random Pokemon noir drama centered around narcoleptic sentrets. Honestly, any RP where you're just repeating the same basic couple of motions with small differences to them make for a good beginner RP, and videogames have such a hugge library of franchises that you still have options.
• Treat each post length as a standard 3rd or 4th grade school essay. Two paragraphs of at lest 4-5 sentences, going over more if you need to. An easy way to pad the length if needed is to mention your character making a verbal sound in response to something. "Craig groaned in pain when he fell" adds some atmosphere while not needing very low writing proficiency.
• Make your first character yourself. It can be difficult at first to write the reactions of an orphaned butcher's apprentice...unless you're already an orphaned butcher's apprentice....but you know whose reactions you do know? Your very own! Just write your character profile as your own evaluation on yourself, change the name, and I'm sorry your parents left you at the deli. It's not because they don't love you, it's because they couldn't hold the bratwurst and you at the same time and sacrifices had to be made.
• If it's a Pokemon RP, don't give your Pokemon a big personality. Treat them as beasts of burden or tools of war....or a pet at best. Making them simple-minded animals allows you to easily control them emotion-wise and you don't need to bother yourself with how they feel about things for too long. While we're at it, don't give them the Anime's speaking habbits. If you have a Pikachu, don't RP with "Pikachu delightfully said "Pi-ka-Piii!" and instead opt for "Pikachu delightfully chattered." Now you don't have to break out the translation dictionary on fictional languages to write a decent post.

Well said, ORegan.

I think I mentioned in the skype chat, but after some thought I think a RP where you are a trainer with 1-3 pokémon who goes on missions a la Crossroads together with others can work well as a beginner's RP. Basically you'd set it in a familiar town, say Saffron City perhaps, since it's central to Kanto. And perhaps Silph Co. would enlist aspiring trainers to do their dirty work go on errands and perform small jobs for them, and even thwart Team Rocket here and there. Players would sign up as themselves one trainer and could then choose from a list of missions and the list of other players to find someone (through IC or OOC!) to do a specific mission with. So there'd be a clearly defined start and end of each adventure in it, and you could ask for a more experienced player to join you if you didn't want to go out and RP with someone just as new as you are.

Meaning, we'd need a couple of oldies to help run it, mostly to invent missions (!), not just Nagi and the mods I imagine :3

That's my plan, evolved from what was supposed to be a stickied PMD RP~ Thoughts? Nagi, how was your original plan?

Apotheosis said:

Well said, ORegan.

I think I mentioned in the skype chat, but after some thought I think a RP where you are a trainer with 1-3 pokémon who goes on missions a la Crossroads together with others can work well as a beginner's RP. Basically you'd set it in a familiar town, say Saffron City perhaps, since it's central to Kanto. And perhaps Silph Co. would enlist aspiring trainers to do their dirty work go on errands and perform small jobs for them, and even thwart Team Rocket here and there. Players would sign up as themselves one trainer and could then choose from a list of missions and the list of other players to find someone (through IC or OOC!) to do a specific mission with. So there'd be a clearly defined start and end of each adventure in it, and you could ask for a more experienced player to join you if you didn't want to go out and RP with someone just as new as you are.

Meaning, we'd need a couple of oldies to help run it, mostly to invent missions (!), not just Nagi and the mods I imagine :3

That's my plan, evolved from what was supposed to be a stickied PMD RP~ Thoughts? Nagi, how was your original plan?

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This sounds like a pretty good idea to me, something nice and casual but also a good learning experience.

to be fair, that is almost exactly the format i had with the Explorers of Haven RP (link to the OP for reference), though that was in Mystery Dungeon style - players could select missions off the Bulletin Board and form a team to go at them with one or more other players. the problem is, when most people hadn't even begun their missions, i already began receiving messages from people saying one of their group members wasn't responding anymore, for instance. then others started getting bored, dropping out, etc... not to mention these were mostly beginners, so they hadn't heard of the concept of Joint Posts for example, which also complicated matters. they often didn't know how to set one up amongst themselves, which (in my experience) is difficult for a GM to assist with. so... yeah.
personally i adore the concept of Crossroads, and really want to try out a RP like that myself sometime, but i'm not sure if such a JP-heavy idea is good for a beginners RP. i do like the ease of basically being able to hop in and out, so that people wouldn't have to feel pressured to subscribe to an incredibly long, epic adventure or something.

i guess i'll give it some more thought.

I think the problem is when beginners click on a role play and then they see the walls of text about the story and whatever else the role play entitles they look at that and think oh no I'll never be able to do this. And even worse when the sign up is just as tedious.

I know I've always hated long sign up's and having to put the history in and sometimes people want between 2-4 paragraphs. I always feel like that's a waste and that the history should come out when you role play.

I think a nice simple role play could be made where the rules aren't so harsh and people don't need to read walls of text just to be apart of it.

Well, in Crossroads it's only single events that are meant to be JPd. Then you can rest and solo post in between or battle or whatever. And it wouldn't be permanent PMD teams, you could pair up with anyone. Maybe newcomers should choose to pair up for their first event with a seasoned member? And then in their second and future events they would be the seasoned member and could help out even newer newcomers c:

Caite-chan said:

I think the problem is when beginners click on a role play and then they see the walls of text about the story and whatever else the role play entitles they look at that and think oh no I'll never be able to do this. And even worse when the sign up is just as tedious.

I know I've always hated long sign up's and having to put the history in and sometimes people want between 2-4 paragraphs. I always feel like that's a waste and that the history should come out when you role play.

I think a nice simple role play could be made where the rules aren't so harsh and people don't need to read walls of text just to be apart of it.

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Well, a RP specifically made for beginners surely wouldn't have as much text walls or hefty rules or SU requirements. But we also don't want it to be the simplest thing ever, if we do want people to get used to how our "real" RPs are :3