Admin wants to know: How can we make the RP section better?

I wanted to start a topic here to brainstorm some ideas about making this RP section better or more useful for everyone that uses it. Please pitch any ideas you have (or have seen somewhere else) and let's see what we can come up with. Also, since this is a brainstorming topic please do NOT criticize any ideas posted. All ideas are good ones since they may lead to new ideas.

we could have a discuss role play option for members on an rp-to brain-storm.

This has probably been raised several times before, but I'd really like to see a seperate Role Play section for either advanced or older RPers. When I say 'older roleplaying', I don't mean like REALLY old stuff. Whenever someone say 'advanced roleplaying!' everyone seems to respond with 'Oh hell no, you'll start roleplaying sex'. I fully understand that TT is a family friendly site with younger kids on here. I was one myself once. But I think this would be a nice idea for people who aren't exactly fussed on roleplaying about tamas, and want to do other topics with maybe - gasp - the odd swear word, and older characters with older issues.

It wouldn't be hard to hide away the board so the younger members don't come across it. I know IF allow password protected boards - why not have one here and give the password to people 13+? Or have a warning come up so people can turn back?

Please consider this

Because it is a recurring request and regular area of discussion, I would really like to see our members develop their literary RP skills in the area of "advanced/older RP" by creating situations and stories where they can express themselves creatively and effectively without using swear words or creating scenes inappropriate for younger readers.

Hollywood script writers do it all the time. Leading Childrens' and Teen Authors do it all the time - and they produce some powerful and emotive stories. It is possible to replicate real life / imaginary situations without swearing - it just takes practice. There are loads of real people out there who don't swear when they talk - either in public nor in private, and it really doesn't prevent them from participating in articulate and animated conversations!

I look through the "Stuff We Write" forum and see so much good prose - it's well thought through, often pithy, doesn't need to be long winded to be impressive and I just think there's a lot of talent (or developing/improving talent) showcased in that forum that never seems to transfer over to the RPs... it just seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

I'd really like to avoid a situation where TamaTalk starts to exclude some members from the forums because of their young age.

I would also like to avoid a situation where we bend the site rules for some members who want to talk about subjects that are against our rules or use language that are against our rules.

For those members who remember the nTT/Bored Like Me sister site that Admin ran which was for members 13+yrs I would just like to mention that the RP forum on that site was an opportunity for everyone who made suggestions about mature RPs and swearing to go wild. A lot of the regular RPers from TamaTalk were members and had been actively asking for a chance to post in more mature RPs, yet I think it had a total of about 10 RPs in the space of around 12 months... and was eventually closed due to lack of interest.

I totally and completely agree with tamarurtle, some of us have been here for years and quite frankly alot of us really only come back for the roleplay section. I also think that one of the things that he is getting at is that alot of the people who use this forum frequently are older and more advanced users. For those of us who are are older and have been doing this longer the younger ones will come in and make some posts that are quite frankly ridiculous. We have also tried placing a rule in our role-plays that encourages much longer posts and yet we still get those who come on and post things like a simple sentence in quotation marks and will complain when the other users ignore them or ask them to try to create longer posts.

In addition to the ability to expand our writing more and have slightly more nature role-plays and situations we would also have the ability to make it a more literate forum. I also a grew with what she was saying about the expansion of topics, it would be nice to have a 13+ section in order to be able to connect with more serious and advanced users, because, like she said some of us aren't really too keen ok roleplaying as tamas and would enjoy seeing role-play topics and ideas that would be able to broaden our use of creativity on here. Also whenever this suggestion comes up it seems like people always jump to extreme situations where we are basically writin erotic stuff but we are simply asking for a place for those of us who have had more practice at roleplaying and are older and matured, which by that we don't mean like OLDER older.

I really think that you guys should consider this option. You could probably easily post one of those warnings that says 'this is a 13+ zone and may contain some mature content' with a little continue button so the forum is optionallybentred at the users own will. I truly believe that this is an amazing idea and should be thought over and not just be rolled over and pushed under the rug.

Let's talk about the advanced roleplay then. I completly agree with Mystic. We've tried creating rules in roleplays such as 'please post at least a paragraph' (which, round here, seems to be the definition of a long post), however people are only posting sentences or in - gah - script format. I came back to TT RP to try and teach others to roleplay better, by posting long things myself to show what is possible.

All I can think of to help this advanced thing progress is create a set of 'roleplay mods', if you like. Official member group or not - I'd be quite happy to start an impromptu one myself - they could post topics in say, Stuff We Write about how to roleplay better and help people write more and carry their writing skills over to RP, as Tamamum said.

I really hope that both of this ideas, advanced and 13+ are considered more. I know nTT was closed due to lack of interest, but there's more of us now

Well, I'm actually working on a guide to roleplaying right now (which me and admin discussed). i would love to be able to have it stickied somewhere once it's completed! :3

Also, I agree with Mystic and Tamaturtle about having a separate place for literate/deeper rps.

The guide is going to cover the three main types of rps (literate, semi-lit, and script), as well as how to make your characters (NOT Mary Sues), how to make a good post for each of the types, a section about dialogue, a section about character development, and a section about plotting. Possibly a section about grammar and spelling.

Anything else I need to add?

I also agree with Tamaturtle and Mystic, but as an alternative method an option could be added to make an rp age-limited perhaps

I too, am all for a literate/advanced RP section. I've noticed in the past that some people have tried to wave off the idea saying that it would be unfair to other members or saying things like 'just make rules in your RP'. But the thing is people don't follow said rules and nothing can be done about it. And I do not agree that making a separate section would be unfair. On the contrary, I think it would make things so much easier. No one would be excluded from roleplaying. Just people who would rather RP with older/more experienced members would be able to do so without having to worry about their RP being taken over by members who don't take their writing as seriously as some would prefer when RP-ing. Yes, this is a family friendly forum for people of all ages. That also includes us older people as well

I also agree that it would be a great idea for advance role-play. But I disagree a little bit of getting the fear of being disclude as I have not reached the age of 13 or a 'matured' age, if the age limit would happen. But I guess some of those type of pages should be made by the maturity of members, ones with good karma... Could get a VIP entrance into the forum?

But, if that may seem too much work, there's always the age limit, of course.

I agree with the more advanced role play. I know I'm still trying to get better about more developed characters and better responses, but an advanced role play would help some of the more inexperienced learn from the best.

I agree with everything suggested.

We need an advanced RP forum. There are quite a few amazing role players that can post a reply containing hundreds of words, but then others come along with one line replies, and it really doesn't give the others much to work with.

We also need an advanced board to include more mature issues. Don't jump to the immediate conclusion that this is inappropriate scenes. There are issues all around the world that might form the basis of a good role play, but some younger members might find it hard to do, if they don't have as much experience and understanding. (This isn't me insulting anyone, I'm just saying that older members will have a better understanding of more mature issues and ideas)

Well the focus on more advanced RP shouldn't be surprising to me I guess since it has been suggested many times before. So let's take that in a slightly different direction...

What things would allow for more advanced RPs? We've seen many comments about wanting better character development and better responses... How would that look? What things can be added to allow for better character development? For better responses?

Character development is often something we 'older/advanced/mature/whatever' roleplayers try to address in our rules and forms. For example, 'At least a paragraph for personality, not just a list of traits please!'. The same goes for looks and history - we, at least I do, often ask for a long and detailed history. It's all to get a better idea of the character, and not just so we understand the character. It's so they can too. I've seen so many roleplay where someone's posted their character's personality as 'quiet, shy, not much of a fighter', which isn't really much to go on. Then, around two pages in, said character is killing people using only their thumb and yelling sarcastic one liners in their prey's face as they die.

Also posts - I know this has been mentioned a lot before, whether in this topic or elsewhere, is post quality. For example, someone may post a beautifully worded, long post with perfect grammar and sentence structure - it IS possible - and then someone replies with this:

mary: *giggles* oh sue you tlk too much like but your such a laff!!!!

And the whole topic explodes and posts are put on like 'Please try and use proper grammer/spelling/more words/whatever.' 'Can we just ignore that post?' 'well im sorry but im new to dis i never wanted to join nyway '. If it doesn't happen in the topic, it happens in the chat. My point is, if we seperate these two groups - the 'advanced' people and the ones who 'are new' and prefer script format etc - then this wouldn't happen. I'm not sure how we'd enforce the advanced things - we might not even need to. Some of us who have been roleplaying longer may not need those guidelines - we just do it anyway and have our characters all plotted out already, characters we've developed over the years.

I am so tired of people going like this:

dahlia walked over to hannna hi hana

Annoying, especially when they don't follow the rules, as in: 2 or more lines/sentences.

So it would be nice to have a different Role Play section for the people willing to sacrifice their time to create more structured sentences. Most of the time I tell them to use better grammar/spelling and follow the rules. But, no, they completely ignore everyone who said that. I am not pointing fingers at anyone, but I am just plainly annoyed.

Rather than addressing the whole "Advanced RP" everybody else is talking about, I have something else to propose, that like, maybe we can have the edit button available for forever for the owner of an RP to use for their first, informational post. Like, the RP I'm in, Heart's Desire, could use it, that way people will be able to see who's crushing on who (Owner of the RP can edit the post to show), and maybe, a bunch of other information that would be useful to know/reference to?

Advanced RPing is very fun IMO, I've done it before in the past, and I've gotten better at RPing over the three years I've been doing it for.

Sadly, most of the RPs here aren't very advanced, and most of the ones that are, don't really interest me a whole freaking lot. I hope to find a idea for a advanced RP that'll I'll love to be a part of. so yes, I'd love a advanced RPing board, just so I can fully develop characters of my own, without having to dumb down posts, for the younger members.

OH, WAIT, another proposal! How about a Private RPing section? Private RPing is a RP between two members, and no one else! I love this form of RPing, it's my favorite in all honesty.

I maybe 12 but I think it would be a good idea for more advanced RP's. I would like to see them because some of them that I were in were like: "By! Tlk 2 u latr!" and it annoys me. I myself use paragraphs on most of my post. I sometimes use 1 or 2 sentences, but mainly its about how mature it is and how it is set up. I in my opinion would like a more advanced RP. Like sometimes I feel like saying Bad words depending how my characters life is going in the RP is going. But thats my opinion.

^ I'm 11, welcome to the I'm-under-estimated-because-I-am-under-age-but-I-used-more-structured-sentences-than-some-people club.

Private RP does not strike me that much. How about a thing where if someone is kicked out of the role play for whatever reason, is blocked from going into that topic in order not to cause fights?

Simply solution, four different sections:

Tamagotchi RP: Pretty simple, for the people who want to RP with tamagotchi characters.

Basic RP: No requirements, post can be as long as you want, from a sentence to a few paragraphs. Think of it as free RPing, basically no strict posting rules besides following the site rules.

Semi-Advanced RP: RPs with 2-4 sentences. Not a lot, but a little more advanced than the Basic forum. This would be perfect for members who want to RP in the Advance forum, but still need more practice in writing longer posts.

Advanced RP: The posts have to be at least a paragraph, more if the topic creator wants. This is mainly for the members who have been RPing for a long time with a lot of experience.