Crash Course in the Basics of DWRPing
Okay, so doing RP on Dreamwidth is very similar to RP on LiveJournal, if you were around that corner of the internet back then. If not, I got you fam. Heads-up, I use the terms "journal" and "account" interchangeably- they mean the same thing.
The Character Journal
Date: 2019-01-02 10:49 pm (UTC)The icons, on the other hand, usually provide visuals of the character emoting- a full set of icons means you can match the face to the tone and carry some extra oomph with your posts. But there's nothing wrong with having even just one icon if you're playing an original character. Commissioned icons can be expensive, and not everyone can draw their own. If you are able to get or create multiple icons, a solid guideline for a good spread of emotions can be found here. Free Dreamwidth accounts have a maximum of 15 icons, but a paid account gets like, hundreds. Icons can be uploaded to a journal by going here, and you can pull straight from a URL or from a local file on your system. Icons are allowed a maximum size of 100x100 pixels, and larger uploads tend to get awkwardly resized. Icons of non-square sizes (ie 30x100) tend to look a bit odd, so taking a moment to crop/resize/manipulate an image to the 100x100 size helps a ton. This can totally be done in things like MSPaint too through some slightly tedious nonsense- if you'd like a walkthrough on how I've done that just ask.
Typically, the character's app goes as an entry in the journal, for others to reference. The app varies from one roleplaying game to the next, but they often ask about backstory, personality, special abilities... standard enough stuff. On top of all of that, you may want to tweak the design of the character's journal once you've made it. This can be done here. Designs are listed as "TITLE by AUTHOR for STYLE", so if you like the layout of a particular journal but not the color, you can just click the link to the style and it'll automatically filter to those. I like picking designs that seem to fit with the character's personal tastes or color palette, but there's no wrong answer here. And if you don't want to see all the colors and different formats whatsoever, you can go to the display settings and change Entry Pages: Shown to You to Site Skin.
The Roleplay Environment
Date: 2019-01-02 10:50 pm (UTC)As I said, you can think of a DW community as like a message board. Within an RP sense, that means that each entry within the community is its own separate sub-event. The mod(s) might post an event to the community, which means that all RPing directly related to that event happens in the comments to that entry. Some things, like RP events, are often guided like a D&D game, while other posts are more open-ended prompts.
GUIDED THREADS
Date: 2019-01-02 10:52 pm (UTC)Visually, it would look something like this...
Post Body: Mod details dungeon and points out the three paths. In a Discord or OOC comm discussion (or even an IC thread if people want) the trios are determined and each gets their own thread within the post.
THEN, once that event is done enough, the tank's player makes a new entry in the community located in the hospital as an aftermath post. If the players all agree, it could even be included as an extra thread at the end of the Event post. It's whatever.
Open-Ended Prompts
Date: 2019-01-02 10:52 pm (UTC)And a character's comment, called a top-level, is cherry-picking what they want to work with from those options, and would be one comment to the entry including all of something like...
So the important thing to keep in mind with top-levels, especially when there's a bunch of them around, is that they don't have to mutually exclusive between characters. It's generally poor form to have your character respond to more than one prompt from another character (unless it's exclusive to them, which is fine!) but the only thing stopping your character from throwing a reply at every character with a top-level in the bunch is your own mental reserves and free time. It might be easier to start smaller with 2-3 threads at once to test what your limits are, though. And it's not often mandatory to write a top-level set of prompts, sometimes it's funner to just rise from the depths and hit the threads that really give you a fun feeling. There are no wrong answers with this, but be willing to put yourself out there.
Other Terms
Date: 2019-01-02 10:59 pm (UTC)And sometimes, a third (or more!) character can drop in out of nowhere and interrupt the flow of a thread. This is called threadjacking, and must be done carefully so you don't step on toes. There are instances where you can pull off that sort of thing without advance warning but it really depends on the temperaments of the players and characters in the thread.
Since we all have lives and sometimes RP threads can take a bit to make happen, there's backtagging, which is a player's tolerance for threads taking longer, and how willing they are to keep a thread going after its prompt has gotten a little older. Some people will backtag an introduction thread for months, and some will stop after a few days or weeks, whatever's their comfort level.
Either way, you shouldn't feel awkward asking the person you're threading with what the end state is. (That's not a real term I've seen people use but I'm using it now, so!!!) Sometimes all parties are winging it and seeing what happens or things reach a natural conclusion, which is fine! But sometimes the players both start to run out of steam or inspiration, so it's easier to say "when do we wanna wrap this one up and how?"
These topics and many others can be figured out through a Permissions Post which I outline further down.
Permissions Posts
Date: 2019-01-02 11:17 pm (UTC)That's where Permissions Posts come in. Some things here may not be entirely applicable, but you can easily scroll through these fancy-formatted posts to get an idea of the sorts of things people decide to say they are/aren't down with, either in- or out-of-character.
In the past, I created and used this:
Anatomy of a Comment
Date: 2019-01-02 11:21 pm (UTC)This is a comment in the making. We've got the From field, which is the journal you're logged in as, you only should care about this if you have more than one. The Icon Used area on the top right normally has keywords in that arrow-box but I don't have any icons on this account, so. Oops. The Subject Line is often left blank, but can be used for snarky banter between players. It's helpful if you're doing a chain of comments back-to-back. The Message section includes the body of the post itself, using limited HTML coding. Worth pointing out is that
makes text smaller, and
makes text bigger. These can be nested, so
asdsads
is real small.The basic setup for shorter-form posts is that thoughts and actions are bundled up into a some sort of container, usually brackets [] or parentheses (). These are then contained in a
classifier so the text takes up less space. Anything the characters actually say is outside of those smaller brackets, formatted normally. Longer-form prose-y posts are a-okay and would use the same sorts of formatting (or lack thereof) if you were writing in a word processor. The above shorter format can be used for more in-depth posts.
And sometimes you'll want to chain a series of comments together, often for dramatic/humorous effect to show a character's change in demeanor through a reaction. A player might decide, for example, to have the character react to something very funny by bursting out laughing, chained into a comment of the character shouting about what they're laughing about, and then a third of the character collapsed on the ground, struggling to catch their breath. This sort of approach is only really viable if you've got multiple icons showing that range of emotions- the content of those chained posts can just as easily be condensed into one if preferable.
I do a quick-and-dirty example of this sort of comment chaining below:
1/3 i am so sorry
Date: 2019-01-07 01:00 am (UTC)The hum of the microwave faded into the background, but a glance a the timer ticking down showed that it was almost time, that sugary fizz-slop was almost boiling(????). This train wreck has already started, and despite the horrified gazes of the onlookers, it shows no signs of- ]
2/3
Date: 2019-01-07 01:05 am (UTC)Hehehehe- [ A hand wrapped around the mug's handle, gently removing it from the box. Sure, the soda wasn't boiling like water needs to be for ramen, but... close enough! ]
HahahaHAHAHA- SHIT don't drop it! [ The words came out as if through a fire house as a stumble almost sent the uncomfortably warm mug of soda flying into a wall. Catching himself, he regained composure and breath in front of the sink.
And then he began to pour the soda into the ramen. ]
3/3 this foul deed is done
Date: 2019-01-07 01:17 am (UTC)Does... does this look like it's supposed to turn green? [ The guy's hand then extends the cup. Second opinion needed. ] Did I break it?
BONUS + WARNING
Date: 2019-01-07 01:24 am (UTC)If you try to use them, just look for good opportunities for that marked shift in a character's mood as a point to split comments on. But try not to overuse them, because after a point, you can probably make the comment work better by condensing it into a single comment.
End
Date: 2019-01-02 11:23 pm (UTC)questions etc
Date: 2019-01-02 11:26 pm (UTC)ON ASSHOLES
Date: 2019-02-28 01:37 am (UTC)