Forums » Smalltalk » How to better rp

Hi. I wanted to do a video where I talk about how to better your writing and make your rp more enjoyable for you and your partner(s).

Since I ain't a professional, I wanted to hear your opinions and thoughts. Give me some tips on how to better your writing, some of your pet peeves and general advice.

I will credit you in the vid if I happen to use one of your points, if you want me to.

Sure! This going on YouTube?

K.I.S.S Keep it simple stupid
(You might wanna remove stupid?)
Keep your replys simple and not difficult to read.

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Know your character
Many people just make a character (Name, age) and just roleplay it. But they dont think about what happens if someone else wants to rp with you, and your characters personality change because you can't remember what the initially looked and acted like.

Thats my three. I haven't proof read this yet cause im kinda busy, but I hope you find some helpful tips in there. Feel free to edit.

This is big for me: keep your tenses in one place! The only exception is if you're doing a memory.

Basically, what I'm saying is, when someone is writing in past 3rd person tense (verbs end with 'ed', etc), keep it that way! If it suddenly slips into present 3rd ('says' instead of 'said', that sort of thing), it can be really jarring...

Try as best you can to avoid passive tense, too. It's awkward and can make your sentences flow poorly, totally breaking up any imagery you might be setting up.

A huge second thing that always immediately catches my eye and happens to be a huuuuuge pet peeve is referring to people as 'that,' as in "The car swerved towards the people that..." When referring to characters with agency, it's either who or whom, depending on the syntax, but not 'that!'

A lot of small habits like understanding sentence cadence (the natural flow of words and how they go together), really paying attention to comma rules and understanding when and how to develop imagery. Specific details are great, but keep them consistent. Even knowing the difference between strong use of adjectives and purple prose can make a huge difference in your personal style.

Please, please, please for the love of all things, stop beating 'would' into a useless pile of broken dreams and parental disappointment. If your character does something, have them do it! You don't need to 'would have' whatever! It's clunky and unnecessary, and it really hurts new/inexperienced writers trying to develop their voice and style.

I feel you one thousand percent on that "would" portion. It is annoying.

Eh for me it depends on how the "would" is used. I sometimes use it say what my character would do in response in something the other person's character did. For example: "Should he agree to her request to use the shower, she would thank him and head to the bathroom."

I tend to do stuff like that at times to help streamline the rp when it comes small stuff that the other person's character is probably going to have no issue with.

That being said, I will admit to sometimes abusing would in a different way, by that I mean when I am having my charater do multiple things in a sequence. I'll post an example of that blow:

"Assuming he then gave her some directions, she would thank him before heading off to bathe. Retracing her steps, she would make her way back to the washroom and once inside, she would proceed to undress herself. With the kimono now off, she would take a moment to inspect it to see if it was now free of blood splatter thanks to it's enchantment. As such, she would be pleased to see that it had been once again restored to a pristine condition.

Setting the garment aside for now, she would head to the bath for a relaxing soak. Once in the bath, she would briefly dunk her head under the water to thoroughly soak her hair before washing it. After that, she would wash the hair on the tip of her tail before moving on to scrub her body. Then once she had finished cleaning herself, she would choose to just relax for a little while."


If someone could suggest another that i could use instead of would for something like this, I'd love to hear it.

My advice well... as a former one liner RPer and now a current para-RPer...


Speaking from experience, it's never a good idea to go from being a one liner, to trying to be a para or novelist rper. It's very difficult, and often ends in frustration with both parties. (Espeically if you try to RP with a seasoned para-rper) If you'd like to develop your writing skills start with adding a few new words, adjust your basic vocabulary and sentence structure a little at a time. If you'd like to simply write more exposition, and/or be more detailed, start with a couple more sentences of exposition or detail than normal, start describing things in a couple more words of detail. I would not suggest jumping from being someone that writes 4 sentences, to someone who writes 4 paragraphs, nor would I suggest trying to jump from being someone who writes a minimal detail to someone who writes quite a bit of it.

Baby steps if you want to develop or simply change your writing style.

My advice is; if you can finish your post in five words or less, it's probably not worth making. One-liners are fine, depending on the crowd you're RPing with and the rules of the RP group, but you should be able to manage enough to give your partners something to work with... because guess what? They'll write back something which YOU can work with. It's all nice and good to be inspired, but there are only so many replies you can give to; "She drank water and nodded."

Yeah I disagree with the "would" as well frankly. I use it most often at the end of my posts, because I want to say a last action but don't want to assume the other characters own actions.

So I'll say:

"She moved towards the doorway. If he stopped her from walking forwards, she would turn to face him, but if not, she would continue out of the door in a huff."

It's actually pretty common, and as far as I was aware people tend to suggest it, it's a fantastic way to avoid god modding without also cutting your own post short where you don't want to; because you're not taking away the other characters actions nor leaving things at a weird place.

My advice is if it works for you, it works for you. I try not to take advice as 100% 'you have to do this or you're a bad writer'. If it feels right and works for you, do it.

I plan on resurrecting an old article/post I had on this site along the lines of some of this topic.

One thing that can help improve an experience with roleplay is to try your best not to take too much of it personally. I plan on expanding upon this later, but that's one tiny tidbit.


As for something to improve one's writing and readability in writing, it is a good idea to try and expand ones vocabulary. No one needs to have the biggest possible vocabulary, but using the same words repeatedly in a single post can dull things down hastily. Trying to use multiple words that mean similar things could improve the way something is perceived or read by opening up a thesaurus and learning new words or realizing that some words make a better description of something than other words.

For example:
His quiet footsteps crossed the room with ease.
VS
His delicate footsteps crossed the room with ease.
VS
His indistinct footsteps crossed the room with ease.
VS
His muted footsteps crossed the room with ease.
VS
His soft footsteps crossed the room with ease.

There's a lot of ways to say one simple thing, and that is what makes language beautiful. It can change the tone or make it sound too simple. Keeping things simple is definitely a good thing, but too simple can be extremely dull.
One way to find out if you repeat yourself in your posts is to use a wordcounter that can actually count the words for you and tell you which ones are repeating. Wordcounter.com is actually a perfect way to do this without having to worry about ti poking at anything else in your post.

We should all want to expand upon our vocabularies, so I think it's a good tip for everyone. It's also relatively fun to learn new words.

I would simply say to keep continuity in mind. If a ball is purple in one post it should remain purple in all posts after. If a game is set at noon it should not suddenly become evening unless the skip in time has been acknowledged. Basically, make sure to remember what is going on. I have found by simply talking to other players that the range on this goes from the very occasional 'I don't really care' to the more common 'Yeah that really bugs me' to the extreme 'If they can't look back and read the post why should I play with them?" But end all I have found most I have spoken to will have an opinion on this matter even if they never thought about it before.

Secondly I would say that a big thing about RP is learning a balance of control. Things will not always go as they have been planned out in ones head. It is important that a person not take this personally but moreover that it is acknowledged that there must always be a balance. We as RPers seek out this activity because we don't want to write by our selves. Meaning that not only must everyone involved contribute in some way but must also know when to let others have their say. Letting another person run all NPC's and dictate all setting detail (light off the windows, smell in the backstreet, taste of the beer in the tap... I could go on) is not only unfair to them it is unfair to yourself. It means missing out on all the amazing opportunistic that come with cooperative GMing and the exploration of a world as a group. IMO.

Disagree with me all you want, but I never said it was my way or the highway, so I'd appreciate it if you very kindly didn't put words in my mouth, by implication or otherwise.

I'm still going to point out that the would in your example is entirely unnecessary. For example, "but if not, she simply continued..." simply because it's not the 'would' clause that protects you from godmoding, it's 'but if not.' It's just clunky and detracts from the flow of a sentence. Why stick with would when you could cement your style with something that flows better and enhances the feel of the sentence?

I dunno if this really fits, but writers should just have more confidence in their abilities. You don't have to know every single frickin' rule for writing and junk- just have fun. This is roleplay. If it works for you, it works for you.

I feel a good thing to have is communication with your partner. People probably say or hear this all the time but honestly? It seems like a good chunk of the time communication outside of play is minimal with most, although I've found that the roleplays that I talk with my partner a whole bunch are the ones I enjoy the best. Basically making friends is rad and ya'll should do it more often.

Just observe and practice roleplayers who you think write well I think. As for me, I just to only roleplay in short paragraphs, and repeat a lot of things. Repetition, to me, more than often not just signifies bad writing and unless it has a purpose in the story, it is really just bad writing to me.

He took the cup from the beside table and drank it. He turned to (name) and sighed. He thinks it is a bad idea.

Well, instead of repetition, I suppose it is more of the problem with lack of conjunctions and the fact that the writing style is really choppy and awkward.

I also agree with the first person, about KISS (Keep it simple stupid). By keeping it simple, you woud avoid the content of your RP becoming cluttered and filled with useless back and forth narratives and stupidly long description of something that honestly doesn’t matter much to the RP.

On the other hand, another thing is proper punctuation. It is our responsibility as a roleplay partner to make sure our message gets across, and I am not sure if this is just a peeve of mine, but when there isn’t even basic punctuation in the replies, it can get very, very frustrating incredibly fast.

I am not a professional either, but I think the most important thing is to first discuss what you are looking for in this RP, and our writing styles. For example, from personal experience, as someone who writes pretty long replies to my roleplays, getting one liner replies, or replies with only dialogues or short narratives with no content is the most frustrating thing ever and takes away all the enjoyment from the roleplay.

Other than the obvious no-no’s, such as godmodding and such, ignoring one’s character also makes for a bad roleplay experience. If one’s character is taking to your character, only for your character to not acknowledge the fact that they have spoken at all, is very frustrating. We are roleplaying, not writing our seperate stories!

Also, it is always good if one takes initiative to suggest ideas and changes to the RP, in order to better it or when you feel that neither of you are enjoying it. Take initiative to forward the plot, instead of leaving it all to your partner to write it.

Honestly, I’m just rambling here. Just a few ideas that came to my mind at that question.

- For me a big one is be proactive, both IC and OOC.
In both cases, merely reacting to what the other gave you and not adding much to it can be very tiring for the other person. Wether it's disagreeing with a plot idea without offering another option or your character only responding and leaving it at that.
With some characters it can be tough to have them be pro-active, but it doesn't have to be something they enjoy. I feel it's up to the writer to make sure even the shy introvert has a reason not to sit in a corner and wait.

- Another one I find important is; focus on both your own character as well as the other person's, not just your own. I've seen a lot of posts that were definitely good fiction, but that also only responded to what the other character had said and then just dived right back into their character's conflict or internal musing, paying no attention to things like the other character's appearance, body language, attitude, and so on, and it makes it a lot less rewarding to put those details in.

Both of these are highly subjective of course, but this is just my 2ct.

I like this advice. To find your wings, you need to try to fly.