Guide to creating your own roleplays

So you want to create an epic roleplay of adventure, danger and humor, but don't know how to go about it? Fear not! This guide will explain and outline specific points and rules you can include in your roleplays to keep everyone on track and have a good time =]. It will also explain how to use features like the Dice Rolls and Player Attributes effectively, to benefit things like battles or special actions throughout the roleplay, keeping them fair and reasonable.

Anyways, here some key points you should outline at the beginning of the roleplay to aid your players:


Overview of the world

Here you should outline the kind of world the roleplay is set in. Is it Fantasy? Sci Fi? Modern?  Server Related?

Describe the setting of the roleplay, is it in a town? Ship? Forest?

If it's a new world that no-ones seen before, use as much detail as you can, and try and give some incentives on what the players can do in this world and what could be problems later down the line.

Use of Attributes in Skills

Here you should lay out when attributes are to be used in conjunction with dice rolls for skill checks and such throughout the roleplay. you should say how high a dice roll needs to be for the action the player is trying to do to be successful, and then say how the attributes affect the dice roll.

The situations in which skills should be used depending on what's happening in the roleplay. If it's something out of the ordinary like bashing down a door or jumping across a gap, you should roll for a skill check to see if the player is successful or not. This helps people not go too crazy and silly with what they do in a roleplay. Make sure you make this clear to your players =]

Heres an base and balanced example to use if you dont want to make your own:

Skill rolls use a 30 sided dice and must be above 15 to be successful. Your points in your attributes add onto the result of the dice roll.

Combat

Here you lay out the rules of combat and how they should play out in the roleplay. You should describe how HP is affected when you get hit (how many points it takes off) how MP works in your roleplay (How much is taken off on each spell or any other special effect you can think of) and finally how Dice Rolls are used.

Again, if you dont want to make your own you may use this base and balanced version:

You roll a 6 Sided dice to attack and must get above 3 to hit

You do as much damage as the result of the roll if it is above 3. Otherwise you deal no damage if it is 3 or below.

(Spells should be given by the owner of the thread throughout the roleplay or said at the beginning, and you should outline the cost and effect of them on the character)

You can also state how combat is started with a character or other player, if you have ideas on how you want players to be clear that they are doing so. For example, a player can simply state (ShadowScale entered combat with Kobold) at the end of their post =].

Starting Point

Finally you must lay out a path for your players to set foot on and begin their adventure. You should describe a little about what happened just before the beginning, and maybe issue a goal or problem that they could work towards.

This will give them some purpose and prevent them from walking round in circles, causing chaos with each other, and a common goal makes people work together to achieve it =].





The owner of the thread can play as any NPCs in the story too, if they wish, to keep the roleplay moving along. They fit the role of the GameMaster in a way similar to Dungeons & Dragons roleplays, describing the events and voicing NPCs to give players the story and direct them on what to do.

Anyway, that's all for the guide, I hope this helps in creating your own roleplays and making them clear and easy to jump right into for other players. I wish you the best of luck in your adventures and hope you don't die too quickly xP. Have fun guys ^_^.

*sniff* Finally, someone else besides me writing guides!  

I'm so happy I could cry a small river...  

Hm, I'm working on a heavily Gulliver Mod-themed RP, but my own guidelines don't work too well with the current system the forum has, IMO, so I'll probably use your format for now ^^

Thanks for contributing, at any rate!