Character Creation and Roleplaying

Character Creation And Roleplaying
Many of you may have never roleplayed before, so this is the topic for you! This will show you some of the tips and tricks to making a good OC and write your best roleplaying posts.

Character Creation
Creating a character can be rather hard, especially if you have never written a character sheet before. Here are some tips and tricks to create your character, keeping them realistic and making their sheet easy to read.

• Keep your OC realistic. Avoid sentences like 'the prettiest dragon in all of the lands'. Your dragon can be beautiful, but there is no measure of beauty. Keep them realistic with their colours. Don't make a red SeaWing. SeaWings are teals, cyans, blues and light blue/greens. Keep their personality realistic. A personality like 'Python is very mean to those she doesn't know. She is very kind.' Does not work. A personality like 'Python is very mean to those she doesn't know, however, she is very kind to younger dragonets, enjoying telling stories', is a more believable personality.
  
• Your OC cannot be perfect. Make your OC have flaws. Whether it be their loyalty, their short-temperedness, your OC cannot be a Gary Sue. Its fine if you want to make them strong, however, weaknesses need to happen.
  
• Make your audition easy to read. Your audition cannot be in large blocks of text, nor can its personality, appearance and history be listed. Make a mid-way point between those two. If you don't know how to set one out, check out the example audition.
  
• When describing colours, keep in mind some colours can come in many different shades. Don't call your MudWing 'Ochre shaded', as that can mean anything from white to red. Keep it simple, like maroon, or periwinkle blue.
  
• Your OC does not need a tragic backstory. Many dragons do not have a tragic backstory, and don't need one.
  
• Try and challenge yourself with your OC's personality. Make different dragons with different personalities and see how that fits within your writing style.
  

Roleplaying

• Don't Powerplay. Keep your actions realistic, as if you have only control of your character, not anyone else's.
  
• Make your actions realistic. Don't make your dragon suddenly be able to take down a massive MudWing if they are a dragonet. Dragonets would be running from that situation.
  
• Keep in mind the species and abilities your dragon has. If it has special abilities, how does it use them?
  

Making Your Roleplay Posts Longer
Making your roleplay posts longer is a long and difficult task without repeating the same thing over and over again. Here are some tips on making your roleplay posts better.

• Avoid repeating yourself. Make sure each sentence is unique and flows from the last.
  
• Avoid run on sentences. These tend to make people less likely to read the post, making them less likely to roleplay with you.
  
• Flesh out sentences by describing what's around them. What are the dragons hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling and seeing? What are they doing? What is their tone of voice?
  
• When writing dialogue, speak it out yourself. Your dragon is an extension of yourself, even if their beliefs and personality do not match you own. Make yourself your dragon and speak the words like they would. Does it sound like something they would say?
  
• Keep in mind your dragon's personality. Writing your dragon should be writing a story from their perspective.
  
• Here are some examples of good and bad roleplay posts.

'Hi, Blue!" Screamed Python, smiling at her friend,' is not showing us what is happening other then Python is greeting her friend by screaming and smiling.

'"Hi, Blue!" Screamed Python, her scales flashing to a lovely gold colour as she approaches her friend, smiling at him. She stands close to him, looking up at him, for she is shorter than him, her eyes ooking up at him as she settles, leaning into him,' is a good example of a proper RP post.