Forums » RP Discussion » Your RP Origins

This thread is to show how much you have grown as a writer from when you started to RP, to now.

This is actually what I used to write for RPs (it's cringe):

*she looks over at him in disgust* seriously? that's an awful thing to say! *she walks away*

OOOF. I would not currently RP with my former self.

Lol. That's funny.

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I started here a year ago, the only difference that's really happened is that I've been able to move the plot a little faster. For example:

Before:

"David lit the candle on the table and then sat on the bed. He reached into the bedside drawer and lifted out his gray sharpening stone. Then, he pulled his sword out of it's sheath and began to sharpen it. He wondered what the meeting tomorrow with the magistrate would lead to. It could end in a deal, or in his escape, or perhaps, he might have to use this sword. I won't go to jail again, no matter what has to happen, he thought, narrowing his eyes. Outside the night wind rustled through the trees and he heard wolves howling in the distance. They were outlaws like him, trying to evade a society who would hunt them down and kill them without a second thought. An owl hooted in the tree outside. He continued to sharpen his blade for another half hour until his eyes were heavy and he laid it beside his bed. Sleeping in his clothes, he tossed and turned, worrying about the meeting. Finally he boiled a pot of coffee, making his peace with the inevitable insomnia, then walked outside into the night air. He sat on the porch and stared at the moon. The owl in the tree stared down at him, with large, indifferent eyes that didn't blink. His presence didn't phase it, it was used to humans now that more and more settlers were coming to this part of the great wood. The moonlight shined down on David's face as he contemplated the meeting with the magistrate..."

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Now:

"David sharpened his sword by candlelight, and wondered if bff have to use it the next day, when he confronted the magistrate, and felt a sudden chill run through him. I won't go back to jail, he told himself. He couldn't sleep that night, but as the sun came up, he felt ready. Soon he was walking through the center of town, sword drawn.

The men approached each other slowly. "I'm not going back to jail," David breathed, his heart racing. "That's exactly where you're going," the magistrate declared, draw he men slowly circled each other.


(It's a BIT more focused now)

Oh, boy. I love the idea of this thread.

I started roleplaying at the ripe old age of 13, and I was also guilty of the asterisk posts. It's what we were all doing way back then! I also used to post in first person, which I can't do now without giving myself a migraine.

*I laughed.*

*I shook my head.*

Two prime post examples there, I tell you. I thought I was quite good, too, especially when I was able to do two or three lines at once. Essentially the queen of the site I was on.

I won't post a current example of my writing here because I don't want to swamp the thread, but my first posts tend to be hovering around 6-12 paragraphs these days. A far cry from those brilliant posts above!

I feel the pain. And I totally thought that is what everyone used to signify actions. And like...who cares about quotation marks?

ohohohoh y'all i didn't even use asterisks

i used hyphens

I also never distungished between in character and ooc until needed to and like
i used hyphens for that too

My whole roleplaying thing was over phone texts when I was twelve. I believe they went something like this. I am going to hyper-cringe into another dimension after writing it, so see you guys on the other side.

Venom: (He yells across the room.) EXE! WATCH OUT!!! HE'S GONNA KILL YOU!!!
Exe: (He turns around to face Venom, Eon rising up behind him)
Exe: (continues) Huh? Venom?! What?! What did you-AGHHH!!!
(From Eon's right hand within the shadows, he unleashes a giant laser that pierces Exe's armor, almost KO'ing him.)
1200 damage!*
Eon: (evil laughs and looks down)
Exe: Damn! He's...he's...HE'S INVINCIBLE! AGH!
(Exe groans and yells in utter pain as he falls on the ground, Eon standing before him with glowing eyes and a menacing grin.)
Eon: Haha! FOOLS! All of you are idiots! Take...HAAAAAAA...THIS!!! AHHHHHHH!!! (mechanically roars)
(Eon powers up into his Super-Form II** and begins to glow. Aiming his Chaos Cannon down at Exe, he fires the powerful beam, blowing the two back in opposite directions.)
Everyone takes 2582 damage!
Eon (continues): YOU CAN'T BEAT ME!!!

* For damage calculation, there wasn't any. We made up random arbitrary numbers that would fill in for damage.

** Also, we made up different "forms" for characters when they would unleash their special attacks. Again, most of them I forgot because they were never consistent.

Hm. So gonna skip past playing pretend with my brothers, since that had no writing. Debatably my first rp was in a chat room on a writing site, and if I remember right, that chat room had that thing were you could post actions that would start with your name. So like, instead of...

Novalyyn: *does a thing*

It was

Novalyyn does a thing

But that was just goofing around. No character or anything, just chat silliness. No concept of RP, really.

From there, when to a little forum-based "cyber town" and that was with asterisk actions, but it still wasn't exactly rp? Mostly just us pretending we lived in the same little town and owned businesses with no real structure overall.

Then I briefly tried MUDs and MOOs, didn't really get into that, and moved from there to play-by-post RP where, yeah, wrote it out like a story about a character who definitely wasn't me. I think 1-3 sentances was probably my standard for awhile? Honestly, it still usually takes legit effort to do more than that. Probably in part because I don't do imagery well (I rarely have any mental images) and focus more on just the interaction and sometimes thought processes.

Yeah um I used double brackets for my OOC

Double paranthesis here. Seems to be the most prevelent standard.

The first place I started RPing was on WoW, using emotes. So I always got out about a paragraph even when I first started, though that's not to say my replies weren't short sometimes... Looking back at my writing from screenshots, it's not that my style was bad, it's that my plotting was... Everything was very teenage drama (I started RPing when I was... 13? So it makes sense lol)

I use (( )) for OOC, always have since that's how people did it in the RP realms of WoW :>

Okay so um, I started to roleplay somewhere between the ages of 10-12.

It was on...Neopets.

Thankfully, all of my characters from back then are dying in a forgotten hard drive.


The growth is self explanatory there.

I have answered this type of question before, and honestly looking back it wasn't the truth. Not because I lied but because I didn't quite remember for sure; but I thought about it last night.

Before I used to think I first RPed on here pretty much.

Well, technically I first rped on yahoo messenger.

Where someone could randomly just go in the chat be like 'I wanna be a rockstar named Tasha who has a ninja bodyguard, who wants to write?' Then someone from the hundreds of people in the chat, (a chat that was the main yahoo chat, not even meant for RP) would message you.

However I was 11 and adults tended to use my naivete against me and for their advantage, and eventually I stopped getting on yahoo messenger when I was like 13.

Then I joined IMVU when I was 14 (2011). Where it (at the time) it was mostly first person RP, pretend dates, weddings, general outtings, ect. I didn't really know it was RP, I just called it "pretend."


In both cases Yahoo and IMVU there was almost no distinction between IC and OOC with people, including myself. Especially on IMVU people refused to be OOC at all, and their characters also very based on self projection. If you/your character was married to someone else/their character, they got really mad at you if you tried to write with someone else - and at times even acted like they were my actual boyfriend/girlfriend, wanted to call me and stuff as their character.

I stopped playing IMVU when I was 17, (started playing again recently and it seems to be better but not entirely.)

At 16/17 I also started RPing over facebook with my at the time best friend. We just rped some characters of ours together in romance story lines and fantasy/supernatural storylines over facebook messenger.

Then I joined rpr in 2016 and have been here since.

Much happier with the distinction between IC and OOC on RPR. My writing has also changed drastically, in RP style and even the writing in my books. It has helped me become a better writer as a whole.

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My personal progression over the years: (Examples)


On yahoo messenger: ~tasha comes 2 the bar~ Don't leave Eric!!!!

On IMVU: *I walk to the bar* Don't leave Eric!

On facebook: Tasha walks to the bar a frustrated look on her face. "Don't leave Eric." She begs.

On RPR: Tasha walked to the bar. The sound of her heels clicking on the floor could just barely be heard over the music flooding the room. Brow furrowed in frustration she placed a hand on Eric's shoulder.

"Don't go, Eric. Please. Don't move a thousand miles away for some pipe dream. What am I supposed to do without you here?" She asked. Her voice tight in her throat.

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Though even on RPR my style has progressed. When I first joined I was writing about one paragraph, now I write 3-5 on average, upwards of 6-10 depending on the partner. I prefer 3-5 though.

i started on moviestarplanet, in first-person with something as simple as ""hello" *smiles at you*" before i moved on to a site called gosupermodel, where my writing evolved a tiny bit from that to a few more descriptive sentences, usually including some feelings or sometimes just more details of the characters physical movements. when gosupermodel shut down, i came to this site and since then, my writing went from being perhaps a paragraph and a half to now about four paragraphs, way more descriptive and including a lot more feelings and personal backstories for my character(s)!

I used to trade stories back and forth with friends over email lmao. At the time I didn't know there was a word for it. Some of my friends preferred paragraphs and others preferred script style, so I just rolled with whatever. Eventually I came across a roleplay thread on some forums and read the whole thing and it looked fun so I started actively looking for writing communities. yeah

This is such a cool topic that I'm coming out of my little hermit hole to reply to it. Not really a hermit, I feel like I'm just so lazy about communicating on here in the forums...but you all seem like lovely people.

I started roleplaying back as a kid. "Roleplaying" for me, when I was probably 6 or 7, was just playing pretend at first. I met my (then) best friend in kindergarten, and we would get together almost every day. Sometimes, it was playing with stuffed animals, where all of them had names, personalities, histories, relationships...other times, it was us taking on those character types and stories. We would pretend we were horses (we loved Black Beauty, lol), or wolves, or lions (thank you, Lion King), and in the pool, we would pretend to be dolphins or whales, whatever. It was great. We would go at it for hours, outside or indoors -- we would go as far as even building "homes" and walking on all fours -- sometimes the plots we imagined were so dramatic and Shakespearean, lol. I really miss it, actually. It was so cool sharing that in person with somebody, so I guess it was kind of like little kid LARPing? Lol.

But by the time I had hit 9 or 10, my mom had gotten us a computer and I started the kind of RPing most people are familiar with. I don't remember where I started first, but I definitely stumbled about Neopets forums and forums on Howrse.com . That really launched me into it, and the first RPs I did were very similar to the kind I'd always done as a little kid -- animals, and a lot of Warriors stuff (you know, ThunderClan, Firestar, the whole nine yards). I was super into that, and didn't actually start writing for human characters until I was about 15. I actually jumped from a ProBoards site that was strictly Warrior cats-based to another forum where it was strictly humans...like, "Eh...I'll give this a try." That site died, but I made a wonderful friend on it and the two of us posted constantly. Our RPs/characters are still going today, and I'm 23 now.

But RP has shaped my writing so much. I have always been a paragraph-style writer, but when I was younger...oof. Lol. A typical Warrior cat post from me would go something like this:

"Snakestrike's ears twitched with interest. He yawned his jaws open wide, hoping to catch a helpful scent in the air. His tail twitched, and his green eyes narrowed to slits as he studied the thick undergrowth. StarClan knew he would find plenty of trouble if he didn't find Larkpaw by dusk.

Short, like that. Lots of pronouns. I used a ton of simile back in the day, and I used a ton of imagery, too. I don't think I was too bad for a kid, but I don't think back then I would have ever believed I was capable of the paragraphs I regularly launch into, now. For example (lol, not gonna give ya a novel to read):

"Jasper found himself smirking over his tumbler of scotch. He would have settled for a cheaper drink, but God, this stuff was potent. Ice rattled inside the glass as he swirled it absently in his hand, his dark eyes sinking toward the woman sitting across from him. He had always been a confident man, but the liquor made him downright cocky. She was playing an age-old game of hard-to-get, but he knew it was an act. The young man had twenty-eight years of experience on his eyes, and he hadn't been modest in his courtships; he could see it in her eyes, the way her gaze would wander him when she thought he wasn't looking. The soft blush in her cheek, the way her lips trembled with what she really wanted to say. But she couldn't. Because she was a polite society girl, and the women in their little echelon didn't beg for anything. Not even for the handsome scoundrel who sat sipping scotch across the aisle, looking every bit the sinful prince he was."

Anyway, I love this thread. It's cool seeing where everybody came from and how they got here.

Oh geee.... are we talking online or tabletop? I GM’d a D&D (TSR 2nd ed) campaign where I wrote a story along the way.... in cursive... on paper....

If we are talking online RP writing, I did a wargame rp in the late 90’s on some long dead and forgotten forum. I didn’t get real serious in it until 1999 on Theonering.com when the lord of the rings movies were being made. It was a random thread called ‘Freedom’. I was terrible.

I shortly thereafter got into another group rp with some amazing writers who helped me get the hang of it. I did much better and maybe got addicted.

Rereading this thread made me remember the time that some random person on Facebook messaged me and said something like, "Humanity is grave danger from the lizard king and minions. Will you join our cause and defeat them?!"

Lol. And I had noooo clue what he was doing. He wouldn't get out of character no matter what questions I asked ("is this a practical joke? Some sort of game?)

Then I joined his group and watch them do this bewildering thing where they were pretending to be lizard people and gray aliens, full with news articles and images that went with what they were saying.

I was like, "What the heck? Why did he put a picture of that city that got hit by a tornado last week and say the lizard people did that. Where's the game? I don't get it.

So I left the group.

Yes later, nooow, I understand. They were roleplaying. The game wasn't in the group, it was in the people, in their story. But boy I had no idea what was going on and thought they were all crazy!

I started roleplaying on Furcadia I believe (I can't seem to remember anything earlier than Furcadia that I'd count as RP) so I learned to post by starting with a colon and writing in third person novel format. All of my OOC was in brackets or parentheses. This probably sounds standard, but... My number one problem? I had no concept of setting/lore limitations. No matter what dream I walked into, I was always the same character. It didn't matter if that place didn't have magic, if it was only for ferals, or if it conformed to strict Furcadian lore.

My dumb little preteen self somehow got her hands on a Kitterwing, so I was gonna roleplay as a Kitterwing and no one could stop me. I wasn't just any Kitter either, I assumed they were like cat-people-fairies that controlled plants, had floaty Tinkerbell fairy dust, and could shrink things. I'd see a pack of wolves doing whatever wolves do and jump in like "Who wants to float!?"

I think a lot of people assumed I was a crack RPer or something of the sort. Maybe I was, but I just let my imagination flow. Sometimes I was happy-go-lucky and played out pure silliness, and other times I'd see that it's snowing in the dream and I'd decide: OH NO, I'M TRAPPED IN A BLIZZARD AND DYING BECAUSE MY STUPID FAIRY SELF ONLY WEARS A LOINCLOTH AND A TUBETOP!

I was also the kind of roleplayer that would try to roleplay as a wolf like everyone else, but I'd still make flower crowns and do backflips.

Back in the day when i started I did all my roleplay through email with this amazing girl I knew as Laura. We became online friends over our passion for Digimon, and made our own fan fiction with digi-destined and their partners that spurred a romance between our human characters. I can barely even remember how good or bad it was.. But I recall one weekend I wrote her a mini series book about our characters being "adults" later and picking up their romance after some time apart.

I remember us having so much fun, but in hindsight I was probably a terrible writer back then. Maybe about 5 years later I found Furcadia and started roleplaying there with random people. I recall looking back at my old logs (I no longer have due to so many computer deaths) that i was.. absolutely dreadful. My grammar, my spelling... oh gods dont even get me started on story plots LOL

I look back on it the same way i look back on my art. I started doing re-draws for certain images I thought were "masterpieces" back in the day that look like a 5-year olds drawing on the fridge. my writing is no different, like wine it has gotten better in time. I wish I had some of my old stuff to compare, It would be interesting to re-write it better.