Roleplaying: A Guide

For those of you new to the hobby. Below is a list of do's, dont's & and an intro to some terminology.

I like to think of roleplaying as collaborative storytelling. In my opinion thats the best way to describe it. You will be in control of one character; you are in charge of their thoughts, speech, actions and reactions. Other characters controlled by other people will interact with your character in a variety of ways. Together, you and these other people will begin telling a story.

You will be writing out the rest of your characters lives on the site. Through roleplaying you will form friendships, enemies, relationships, go on adventures and discover things. It's a really fun experience.


It's a game of give and take, you give the other person something to work with and take what they give you back. When you post you’re giving something to the other person, it needs to be something they can work with and reply back to. Dialogue, actions and changing things in the surroundings are all things that people can use. In the roleplaying world, it isn’t uncommon to see 500 word posts and nothing to reply to. Writing about the scenery and what your character is thinking and feeling are all great, they really add to the story but it doesn’t always make it much fun to reply to. Try to have a good balance of both in your posts.

If you are having trouble responding to something, communicate with your partner(s). Let them know that you’re having trouble replying and maybe they have some ideas on how to respond. Or perhaps they will add something to their original post to make it easier for you.

We allow all levels of role players, we do not expect everyone to have absolutely perfect spelling and perfect grammar. We do ask you to do try though, even if English isn't necessarily your first language. Most word programs will have a spell check for you, some browsers have it built in as well.

A couple other general things:

• Speech should be surrounded by quotation marks (" "). Some role players like to bold their characters speech to make it stand out a bit more and look nicer. This is not at all required.

• Proper capitalization is preferred. It's stylish among some role players to do their entire post in lower case or their entire post in upper case. Please refrain from doing this as well, you may think it looks prettier but some people actually find it difficult to read and make sense of.

In roleplaying there are also some things that should be avoided when posting. Those things are godmodding, metagaming and powerplaying. While sometimes these terms may be used interchangeably, they actually all mean different things.

• Godmodding means to control the other persons character. You can control your own as well as NPC’s but you shouldn’t start playing the other persons character too. This happens most often during fight scenes but it can happen in other places too. If for what ever reason you need to take control of another character to keep the thread moving then feel free to message the member and make sure they’re okay with it! Most people will be fine with minor things, but its always nice to check first.

Example: (Harry Potter is in a thread dueling Draco Malfoy.)

Harry raised his wand in the air, “Stupefy!”. The spell hit Malfoy square in the chest, knocking him back into the wall, unconscious.


This is an example of godmodding because Harry did not give Draco a chance to react to the spell. Draco had many options, he could have dodged it, he could have put up a protection spell or it could have hit him elsewhere.

• Powerplaying means to make sure your character comes out on top in everything they do. Often, but not always it could even mean changing the rules to the game. This can obviously come in many forms, but we’ve included a very extreme example below

Example: (two first years are dueling)

Dean: This was it, Dean finally had the element of surprise. He pulled out his wand and shouted the only spell he could think of, “Locomotor Mortis!”

Daphne: Daphne hadn’t been paying attention, the instructions Tracy was whispering took all her attention off her opponent. Still though, she managed to turn around in time to dodge the curse. Oh who did he think he was, trying to sneak up on her like that! “Cruccio!” she yelled, pointing her wand at his chest.


Again, a very extreme example but hopefully it get the point across. None of the unforgivables would be workable for a first year.

• Metagaming means to use out of character knowlege in character. This is one thing that happens quite a bit in roleplaying.

Example: (You already know, from the narrative in their post that Hermione has been getting annoyed with Ron lately. She hasn’t said anything to your character about it yet. But you reply as though she did.)


Hermione: The fight with Ron earlier today had turned a day she was looking forward to into a day she couldn’t wait to end. Thankfully though, her friend Parvati had asked her to study, offering a much needed distractions. She sat down at the small round table in the library next to Parvati who was already surrounded by a mountain of books. “So,” she said with a forced smile. “Where are you in the potions essay?”

Parvarti: “Hermione you don’t need to pretend to be so happy. What Ron did wasn’t nice, you have every right to be mad right now.” Parvarti blurted out immediately as Hermione sat down.


This doesn’t work because Parvarti shouldn’t know why Hermione was upset. The same thing goes as if you read something about another character in a thread. Unless your character has been told something about another, they shouldn’t know it. The only exception would be if you and the person you’re roleplaying with have discussed something beforehand.