Medieval & Fantasy Minecraft Roleplaying

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[Discussion] Tips For Roleplay Improvement

Naelwyn

Non sum qualis eram
In summation to my post series, I'll leave you with the Abridged Guide to Writing Intelligent Characters. It's for a novelist, but many points can apply to a roleplayed character as well.

http://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing

My own, personal advice to creating a good character:

Know your own limits, your own competencies. Try not to overreach those limits too much. If a game permits it I can roleplay up to just a little smarter than myself, for example, but more than that, I cannot achieve. If you know absolutely nothing about fighting and want to make a trained knight, you're /going/ to run into trouble. Educate yourself, or start with a squire, apprentice to those who /do/ know - do things right and people will be glad to teach you.
 

Scardrac

Felsummer
A good villain thinks he is in the right, and fights for that belief. The best villains know they are right, and wait for the day they become their own martyr.
 

Scardrac

Felsummer
In summation to my post series, I'll leave you with the Abridged Guide to Writing Intelligent Characters. It's for a novelist, but many points can apply to a roleplayed character as well.

http://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing

My own, personal advice to creating a good character:

Know your own limits, your own competencies. Try not to overreach those limits too much. If a game permits it I can roleplay up to just a little smarter than myself, for example, but more than that, I cannot achieve. If you know absolutely nothing about fighting and want to make a trained knight, you're /going/ to run into trouble. Educate yourself, or start with a squire, apprentice to those who /do/ know - do things right and people will be glad to teach you.
Allow me to relate. Scardrac always was a fighting character. He started back when there was almost no copy/paste medieval aspects of the server. During that time, I never had to worry about my medieval 'fighting' being realistic. But as time went on, I had to develop with the server. People started to realize that we should form into something more realistic, more uniform. The same happened with fighting. I started to do the best I can to study medieval arms, armaments, and techniques for fighting. Over the years, I developed more knowledge, and realized mistakes I made in the past. Mistakes that involved illogical decisions based on the ignorance of a certain topic. This doesn't apply to just fighting. If you don't know what you're doing, don't expect to do it right, let alone do something possible at all. Many people want to make a combat character, but never take the time to research into what actually happened in terms of medieval combat. They go into fights, and as Naelwyn said, they get into trouble. Not just IC trouble, but the flow of roleplay is disrupted by unrealistic actions and displays.

Take my advice on this. If you would like to have a character develop, consider his or her mind your own, and develop with it. I am rather proud of my knowledge on fighting, and look where it placed me and my character now. Starting from ground-zero isn't as common as it was when Scardrac started. By that I mean, I see a lot of characters coming in with a ton of weapons, and apparently a mindset already formed to do what you intended their character to do. Unfortunately, most people don't share the same mindset. My apologies to Naelwyn if I repeated what he essentially just said. I wanted to elaborate and relate, is all.
 

Paint

Lord of Altera
Frosty
Retired Staff
ShadowAdmin
ShadowAdmin
Frosty
Any tips on improving my combat RP? I'd love to hear anything that I can use to help me get better at it c:

Edit: I know /Learn/ it in RP, which I am doing right now, but tips would be great
 

Ace19

Lord of Altera
Any tips on improving my combat RP? I'd love to hear anything that I can use to help me get better at it c:

Edit: I know /Learn/ it in RP, which I am doing right now, but tips would be great
Learn what works Oocly first, Cant Icly do what you dont know, also learning how to emote movements is helpful, I dont know I know @Scardrac can answer this better then me
 

Scardrac

Felsummer
Any tips on improving my combat RP? I'd love to hear anything that I can use to help me get better at it c:

Edit: I know /Learn/ it in RP, which I am doing right now, but tips would be great
Study actual techniques. Historical texts, instructional videos, and picture references. I do it all, and I have been doing it for a while. You need to remember to emote every significant detail that contributes to the combat of the roleplay. Refrain from being flashy, having flashy, cool, gimmicky things. It doesn't help. Be historically correct, and understand that what worked in history, worked in history. From that, you just need to learn from mistakes and false assumptions, and keep your knowledge updated. Like Drake said, don't try doing what you don't know. If you don't know, accept it, and accept whatever failure or result comes from it.

I'm always up for helping you out if you're confused or have a question about combat.
 

Paint

Lord of Altera
Frosty
Retired Staff
ShadowAdmin
ShadowAdmin
Frosty
Study actual techniques. Historical texts, instructional videos, and picture references. I do it all, and I have been doing it for a while. You need to remember to emote every significant detail that contributes to the combat of the roleplay. Refrain from being flashy, having flashy, cool, gimmicky things. It doesn't help. Be historically correct, and understand that what worked in history, worked in history. From that, you just need to learn from mistakes and false assumptions, and keep your knowledge updated. Like Drake said, don't try doing what you don't know. If you don't know, accept it, and accept whatever failure or result comes from it.

I'm always up for helping you out if you're confused or have a question about combat.
Thanks Scar, if I have any questions I will contact you.
I have recently started to use videos as references, I will also have to look into the texts as well.
 

Naelwyn

Non sum qualis eram
Study actual techniques. Historical texts, instructional videos, and picture references. I do it all, and I have been doing it for a while. You need to remember to emote every significant detail that contributes to the combat of the roleplay. Refrain from being flashy, having flashy, cool, gimmicky things. It doesn't help. Be historically correct, and understand that what worked in history, worked in history. From that, you just need to learn from mistakes and false assumptions, and keep your knowledge updated. Like Drake said, don't try doing what you don't know. If you don't know, accept it, and accept whatever failure or result comes from it.

I'm always up for helping you out if you're confused or have a question about combat.
Actually picking up and using and working out styles of different weapons was extremely helpful with what I could do with em, and let me extrapolate.
 

Paint

Lord of Altera
Frosty
Retired Staff
ShadowAdmin
ShadowAdmin
Frosty
Actually picking up and using and working out styles of different weapons was extremely helpful with what I could do with em, and let me extrapolate.
Yeah, I'd love to be able to do that. I have looked into HEMA classes for next year just for the fun of it ~
 

Scardrac

Felsummer
Actually picking up and using and working out styles of different weapons was extremely helpful with what I could do with em, and let me extrapolate.
That is a good thing, too. However, many people might not have enough money to afford an accurate reproduction of a weapon used at this time. Synthetics work, but most of the time you need someone to invest time into learning with you. Myself, I don't have access to any classes, and none of my friends would help me.

But that is a good thing. To be able to know how everything feels, what actually happens when you strike, riposte, etc. I'd buy myself an albion sword if I had the money.
 

Michcat

i'm the wench if you're the cake ;)
That is a good thing, too. However, many people might not have enough money to afford an accurate reproduction of a weapon used at this time. Synthetics work, but most of the time you need someone to invest time into learning with you. Myself, I don't have access to any classes, and none of my friends would help me.

But that is a good thing. To be able to know how everything feels, what actually happens when you strike, riposte, etc. I'd buy myself an albion sword if I had the money.
Noodlebooty and I just go to museums a lot ^^
 

keedycat

Loyal Servant of Altera
Does anyone have suggestions on introducing a character. I feel like having a person just pop into the world like a daisy isn't authentic, especially if they just show up as an adult. I am not sure if that means i should start out with a very young character but even then I am not sure how to Introduce one. Any suggestions?
 

Teeke

Lord of Altera
Does anyone have suggestions on introducing a character. I feel like having a person just pop into the world like a daisy isn't authentic, especially if they just show up as an adult. I am not sure if that means i should start out with a very young character but even then I am not sure how to Introduce one. Any suggestions?
There are many ways to introduce a character. Maybe (s)he has actually been around for a while, filling a mostly NPC state... Maybe (s)he came to the NK from overseas...
 

BrianAT16

The Brainz
Legend
Retired Staff
LeStrangest
LeStrangest
Legend
So I have been having a problem with this since like.. well since I joined the server a little over a year ago.

I find it really hard to make my characters go out into the world and meet new people. Honestly I don't see how people can do it and make it look so easy. For me I tend to meet a small group of people in RP then have my character continuously RP with said group, which ends up making it quite boring and repetitive. Even simply going to the crossroads I tend to make an entrance, make a few emotes and go to sit and hope someone approaches my character- I just don't see how characters walk in there and start chatting up complete strangers and make it look so natural. In fact I have a hard time RPing with anyone unless it is planned before hand or it is at an event (And in the latter I usually just sit silently and watch the event go on.)

So I suppose what I am asking is for tips about how instigate RP with new people without prior planning..?
 

Firegirl

Lord of Altera
So I have been having a problem with this since like.. well since I joined the server a little over a year ago.

I find it really hard to make my characters go out into the world and meet new people. Honestly I don't see how people can do it and make it look so easy. For me I tend to meet a small group of people in RP then have my character continuously RP with said group, which ends up making it quite boring and repetitive. Even simply going to the crossroads I tend to make an entrance, make a few emotes and go to sit and hope someone approaches my character- I just don't see how characters walk in there and start chatting up complete strangers and make it look so natural. In fact I have a hard time RPing with anyone unless it is planned before hand or it is at an event (And in the latter I usually just sit silently and watch the event go on.)

So I suppose what I am asking is for tips about how instigate RP with new people without prior planning..?
I guess it helps having a crazy lady as my main character, because I can just literally thurst myself into any RP and get a reaction out of it. I remember the first time I came here my character was really shy, but it got boring quickly. So I ended up walking up to people and introducing myself. That's really the only way I got any sort of role-play.

The problem is, most people don't know you want to roleplay unless you state it.
 

Solus

object oriented
Staff member
Admin
Retired Owner
Does anyone have suggestions on introducing a character. I feel like having a person just pop into the world like a daisy isn't authentic, especially if they just show up as an adult. I am not sure if that means i should start out with a very young character but even then I am not sure how to Introduce one. Any suggestions?
It's good to have an idea of where your new character comes from. A small un-charted village somewhere in the North, South, Plains, Wild Sorrows, even. If you feel that isn't authentic- then you can always peruse the Settlements section of the forums. Seek out a similar settlement to your character, and contact people from the settlement that live there. Most populated places are usually happy to have characters start their backstory/origin story around their parts. It helps root the character to some place, even if the plan for it is to branch out to another place.

Introducing a young character is quite hard if one randomly pops up in the crossroads in the beginning of their roleplay (As that's sometimes a good place to figure out where to branch out your character to). I'd recommend against playing younger characters- perhaps around the Teens or older. Teenagers and up have more freedom of thought and thinking than kids, as they aren't usually lugged around by the few adult characters that want to care for a child. They have more form of growth and choices. Not to say kid characters don't have that, it just happens to be much easier to develop and interact with older characters. Deciding how to introduce one can be helped by knowing where they come from, as suggested above. Their quirks, their reasons for being where they are (Traveling? Hiking? Wandering?). And so on.

So I have been having a problem with this since like.. well since I joined the server a little over a year ago.

I find it really hard to make my characters go out into the world and meet new people. Honestly I don't see how people can do it and make it look so easy. For me I tend to meet a small group of people in RP then have my character continuously RP with said group, which ends up making it quite boring and repetitive. Even simply going to the crossroads I tend to make an entrance, make a few emotes and go to sit and hope someone approaches my character- I just don't see how characters walk in there and start chatting up complete strangers and make it look so natural. In fact I have a hard time RPing with anyone unless it is planned before hand or it is at an event (And in the latter I usually just sit silently and watch the event go on.)

So I suppose what I am asking is for tips about how instigate RP with new people without prior planning..?
A simple way is to give the character a purpose. A reason to talk to random people. Are they searching for someone? Do they just like conversation? Do they want something and the only way to get it is to meet new people and figure out what they have? Do they just want to find new places to travel -are conversing with others to see what safe places there are? Do they need to find work? A home? Are they spreading news? I could give more examples-

Usually when traveling, a character goes to an Inn or Tavern- entails to buy people drinks and strike up a conversation. Figuring out what they do, who they are, where they're going. Offering the same in return. That's how one gets familiar with other people's characters, gaining new people to roleplay with. There's no harm in trying to start a random conversation- even if the other party turns you down if their character wants to be alone. You still get a few minutes of RP and figure out that some characters aren't friendly. I can just say that other people are in the same shoes as you. Maybe that player sitting in that seat by the fireplace by their selves is waiting for random roleplay, too. Go serve 'em a drink and gossip about the latest scandal of Altera. (Or minus the drink offer and adjust to speaking with someone who's by themselves or with others.)
 
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