Post by Lupa on Sept 11, 2014 16:37:16 GMT -6
What Is 'role playing'?
Roleplaying is somewhat like playing pretend with a lot of people, but through writing about characters instead of playing with toys. For instance, instead of holding a doll and making it dance to indicate dancing, a roleplayer writes about the person and describes the action and the character through words. Also, elements of stories and writing are often applied, such as plots, suspense, romance, action- so it’s often a little more thought-out.
Terminology
autoHits- AutoHits occur from assuming that when your character attacks, another character belonging to a different roleplayer will be hit and/or injured. This is a form of powerplaying. Example: She punched his face and then shoved him into the pool before storming off.
Chatspeak- Basically shortening words, like “ur” instead of “your”, or abbreviations such as “lol”. Please note, chatspeak is NOT permitted here on Wajas. Don't do it.
Generic Character- This is a character created by someone else, NOT by the roleplayer- such as Ash from the Pokemon anime show.
GodModding- Making your character invincible, unable to be hit, etc., particularly when it is unrealistic for them to avoid an injury. Let your character make mistakes and get hurt once in a while to avoid this.
IC(in-character)- Currently writing about the character, participating in the actual roleplaying. It can also mean that the character's personality is portrayed correctly (as in portraying a stubborn, wild character as stubborn and wild, not timid and mild)
Illiterate- The opposite of “literate,” (as defined below), illiterate roleplays don’t demand much writing quality and allow incomplete sentences and grammar mistakes. Be aware, an illiterate roleplay is likely to attract the attention of the mods, as everyone is require to use the best possible English they can when writing on the forums, and doing otherwise will result in warnings, or even your roleplaying being locked. ((You are especially likely to attract the mod-wrath of Maveran, who is an English major and hates seeing her beloved language butchered. So fair warning. Use your best English, don't be lazy with your typing, and she'll leave you alone. ;P))
Literate- The technical definition may be along the lines of being able to read and write, but many roleplayers use this term to refer to those who show quality in their roleplaying posts. Quality traits include correct grammar and more than just a couple of sentences per post. The definition can vary slightly from person to person, but it almost always refers to AT LEAST the qualities I listed. Chat-speak, single-sentence posts, rule-breaking posts, numerous misspellings, etc. are usually frowned upon in roleplays labeled as “literate.”
Mary/Gary Sue- These are characters that literally have no flaws and seem to never make mistakes, which is unrealistic and rather annoying. They are also often combined with godmodding. Here, this site explains Mary-Sues at length, if you'd like to read more. www.digitalgothic.net/Rules/nwodmarysues.htm
OC- This is short for “original character,” a character not taken from another story or person but rather thought up by the roleplayer. These characters tend to be more common on the roleplaying boards here.
OOC- This is short for “out of character,” and it means that the person is not directly participating in the actual roleplay at the moment but is making a sort of behind-the-curtains comment or question directed towards the other roleplayers of the thread. People sometimes use double-parentheses instead of this abbreviation when making such comments. It can also refer to the opposite of the other definition of IC; if someone, for instance, says a character is stubborn and wild but makes them act timid and mild in a scene, that would be OOC for that character.
OP- This is short for “original post,” the post created by the creator of a thread.
PowerPlaying- Controlling a character that doesn’t belong to you in ANY way, including auto-hits, is classified as powerplaying.
Purple Prose- This is basically description that seems overly flowery and is largely over-use of comparisons, although it's still not necessarily that difficult to read and understand (according to Dr.Paine).
RPG- This is short for "role-playing game."
Script-Style- You’re probably not going to see much of this around, as it is not common on forums as far as I know, but in a script-style roleplay people do not type complete sentences. An example of a script-style post would be: Maple- *follows the mouse, tail-tip twitching, and then pounces*
WolfSpeak- This is in a way like purple prose, although (according to Dr.Paine) there is a difference. It’s replacing words with completely different words that don't even mean the same thing, basically- for instance, constantly saying “columns” or “appendages” instead of “legs” and “daggers” instead of “teeth”. Wolf-speak is usually harder to understand than just saying “legs” and “teeth,” so it’s something you might want to avoid
"Her eyes were like the grandest of sapphires, glowing brilliantly in the sun." - Purple prose.
"Her sapphires glowed in the brilliant sun." - Wolf speak. As you can see, the former is annoying but slightly understandable, while the second is just confusing." (Thank you for your explanation, Dr. Paine!)