How To Role Play

[Haven Tam]

Writing A Post
You can only write in third person(he, she, it…). We know nobody is always erfect, but if you are constantly not writing in third person, you will get a warning. You may use I ONLY if it is in quotation marks. Also, everything is in past tense.

Example:
Haven walked down the stairs in the bridge. Throwing a jacket around her shoulders, she yelled, “Wait up! I’m coming with you guys!”
Not…
I ran to the open cargo doors as I slid a jacket on. Yelling to other “Wait! I wanna come with!” I checked to see if my brother was following.


Entering/Exiting Posts

When you enter a post you simply enter as if you were entering the room. You could talk about walking in, seeing everyone before you & explain the scene. Or if you are alone, you can talk about what is in that particular room & the thoughts that come to your mind.

Leaving a thread is also easy. It's the exact opposite, you're leaving a room or a area.

For example: Haven heard a loud bang down in the infirmary as she walked about the catwalk. She ran towards the sound, & hoped her father was alright.
(out-Infirmary)

Emotions/Actions

As I said earlier you can only control your character. So what happens when you want to do something to someone else is you can’t. You must get permission to move another character first. If they are in a relationship, usually it is ok to move them, but always double check. Emotion wise-just because you want it, doesn’t mean the other character will. Just write from your point of view. Whether it be loving actions or rage.

An example of a good post:
Haven finished crimping the bracelet for her mother. The bracelet was made from some black ribbon with beads spaced out upon it. The beads were the color of her birthstone, Haven’s, Keifer’s, & their father’s. Haven smiled at the thought of the look on her mothers face when she gave it to her. They had recently been in a fight & Haven knew she was at fault. This was her way of apologizing. “And I have just the perfect box!” she exclaimed aloud. Jumping up, Haven opened her side table & pulled out a small pink bow she had made from some foil she’d found. Looking farther back in the draw, she found some white tissue paper with little silver stars to use as well.

Once she was finished wrapping her gift, Haven decided to lay down for a small nap. Clearing everything off her bed, Haven crawled under the blankets & drifted into sleep.

[cheshiresgrin]

I always wondered about how we handled the readers on board. Honestly, I'm not a fan of revealing more than anyone would notice about Mal at first glance. Lots of people tend to go into massive detail about what their character is thinking or feeling...

Here's an example:
Mal drifted off into thought as memories of him and Inarra raced through his mind.

At that point, anyone has the potential to confront Mal about Inarra and say "I know you're thinking about her." Isn't that essentially metagaming (taking things that your character wouldn't know about and using them in game anyway)?

I realize that there are readers on board, and the only suggestion I can come up with is that if people are trying to read each other, they state so, and then you reply with what they find...

Am I off base? Or does TMI (too much information) ruin things a bit?

-e

[Haven Tam]

For readers, they can only go into it vaguely. If they want to go into it more, they have to ask the previous character who they are reading what they can post.

Say, it was River and she was trying to read Daniel's mind. Besides what she can tell from his description she can't post very much detail. Now, if she wanted to go into detail more, she needs to go directly to Daniel and work that out with him.

Great question though. I'm glad you asked it.

[river]

Don't worry about that to much with me. We all know River is a powerful reader but she knows her boundaries and I am not going to let her push them. I will only hint at reading and only if the thoughts come up in previous post will I actually use them. River isn't much for scaring people off by her ability and she isn't going to try to on purpose but sometimes it happens. She is fully aware of what she can and can't do since she discovered Miranda's secret and that is what I am going to work with. So no worries about that okay.

[cheshiresgrin]

It wasn't actually for the reader's sakes... it was for the people being read.

[Haven Tam]

OK, the following three posts are to demonstrate our new rule about posting with more then one charrie in the same thread. I will be switching to hte othe raccount we have for temporary characters to demonstrate this and I will be using Simon to help this(sorry Simon!)




Haven walked into Bella’s room with a spare blanket she had found. It was one of the quilts Shepherd Book had brought back one time after a trip to Haven. It was warmer then the ones they just left in the guest bunks. Bella had complained of feeling cold, though not aloud to anyone. Haven heard it in passing last night as Haven was tossing about. So Have decided to bring her a blanket.

The small bunk room was empty since Bella was in the kitchen helping with a breakfast catastrophe set off by Jayne. The bed was unmade as Bella had rushed out, so Haven decided to make it for her. Stripping the bed, she shook at the sheets and proceeded to reapply them as she hummed along. The blanket provided would be better underneath as the quilt was much nicer.

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Bella was covered in soot from the smoke coming from the stove. Jayne had managed to burn some protein he was trying to heat up on the stove, and didn’t use any water to keep it from drying up, and it burnt. The whole kitchen was smoky and Bella cleared everyone but Jayne out. In the end, Bella cleared up the mess and cooked Jayne some breakfast, sad at the wasting of protein they could use.

She was still in her pajamas because she hadn’t had time to change. Her first couple days on Serenity had definitely proven to be interesting. Rubbing her eyes, she walked into her bunk area to find someone there. Haven was in there making her bed. Leaning against the door, she went, “Erm, morning?”

[takeyouaway]

Simon was looking for Haven. He needed her help with River. She was still winding down after everything on Ezra and meeting Alora. Alora was certainly a handful as well and this was proving to be interesting.

Passing by, he saw Bella was in the doorway of her own room. Peeking in, he finally figured out where his daughter was hiding. She was in Bella’s bunk area making the bed with one of Shepherd Book’s quilts. He knew Bella had been in the kitchen all morning with Jayne’s goof and felt bad for her. “Hey Bella. Thanks for helping. We tend to have cooking problems with Jayne.” Sticking his head into the area more, he said to Haven, “Have I need your help with River once you’re done here.” Turning, he left to go back to the infirmary.

[Out-Infirmary]

[Haven Tam]

Haven looked up as Bella came up to the area. She was finishing up the bed and decided to finish laying the quilt back before answering. “Morning. It was chilly on the ship last night, so I brought by an extra blanket for you.” She lied as she smoothed out the creases and set the pillows back down and observed her. Taking in the sight was more then enough. She felt bad as she saw how crazy it had obviously been in the kitchen.

Nodding to her father she sighed. “Kay dad. Be there in a minute.” As he left, Haven made a face. “All day in the infirmary. Oh fun for me!” She said I tin a low, sarcastic tone. “I’ll see you later Bella,” she passed and left the room.

[Out-Kitchen]

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Bella smiled at Haven. Bella had been cold last night, just she wasn’t going to say anything. “Oh. Thanks.” Bella was actually hoping that Betty could send some of her stuff to one of the planets Serenity planned on going to. There were things she left behind that she wanted desperately.

Letting her hair down, she ruffled it out, the curls falling down her back. Moving to give Simon room, she chuckled. “No problem. It proved to be interesting.” And it was an adventure, but not one she wanted to repeat. When they left, she closed the door and to give herself privacy. There was no lock, so she hoped no one came in as she took out her wash basin and filled it with warm water and began to clean up the ruminates of the kitchen catastrophe.