Posted by Kim on September 29, 2017, 11:15am
You may have noticed a larger than normal influx of new members these past few weeks. Many of them come from a site called the role-player's guild.Role-player's guild was a large forum site that welcomed a wide range of RP styles. Their method of creating RP profiles was quite different from ours, and from what we understand, a simpler process in some ways (with our freedom to do most anything you like comes the price of more confusion!) From all of our conversations with its old members, Role-player's guild was very well loved by its userbase of several thousand. Unfortunately, it has to close its doors in the coming weeks, and many of its members are landing here. We know that losing your RP home can be a heartbreaking experience, and want to do our best to ease the transition.
Welcome, erstwhile members of the Roleplayer's Guild! We were very sorry to hear that you were losing your previous home base, but we are very glad to have you with us now. On behalf of the RPR, may you have many wonderful and continuing adventures here!
You've been a very inquisitive and involved bunch and have sent me and the mods a raft of questions seeking clarifications, so we thought we'd make a public post to both introduce our existing community to you, and you to our norms here.
Before I take it away with some of the questions I've been asked, let me ask you: What was your favorite thing about Roleplayer's Guild before the announcement it was shutting down? What do you hope to find here that's the same? What do you hope is different? Inquiring admins (and communities) want to know! Please remember to keep your responses constructive!
What's different around here
As I understand it, on RPG, things were less segmented. You could see everything everyone else was doing, and the focus was on what was going on in all the various chats.
Here, we have a greater emphasis on your individual interests - your dashboard is filled with your characters and groups, and the homepage notifications are filled with things you've expressed a specific interest in, like what characters you've befriended are up to, or recent posts in forum topics you've subscribed to, rather than showing everything everyone is doing everywhere. This is partially because we have more players here, and it might be chaos to see everything! But it's also because of the wide range of RP genres and styles that we offer here, and we want to allow you to customize your experience to match your preferences. You can customize what your notifications show you here: Notification Settings
You may also find the following resources useful for your transition to the RPR:
- Creating and editing characters
- How to style your text (HTML alternative, and why we don't allow HTML)
- Creating character profiles that attract RP
- What is the "Adults Only" Looking for RP forum and how do I access it?
- Site rules
- Forum rules
- Rating clarification
By the by, you can use the "launch chat" button at the top and bottom of any forum topic, whether it's in a private group forum or our public RP forums, to turn your topic into a real time chat! There's also a link in the sidebar of private messages that will let you do the same.
What kind of RP will you find here?
When it comes to styles and systems, I can't give you a single "this is how it is here!" answer.
Our goal is to provide the general tools so that people can do any kind of RP that they want. I think that's part of what sets us apart from most other RP sites, which are often built to work with a specific system (ex. D&D 3.5) or style (ex. paragraph freeform) or even setting (ex. Harry Potterverse).
We have the flexibility for much more than one type of RP, which is awesome, but also makes it a little harder for us to tell you exactly what will be expected from you in every RP that you join here! But most people will happily tell you their expectations or what they'll need from you if you express an interest in knowing more about a potential RP.
Finding one another
As of now, it doesn't appear that any of you have created a specific group on the RPR for former RPG members, but please feel free to comment on this news post if you'd like to identify yourself as a former RPG member looking for others to connect with!
You may also want to browse the introductions forum to find some old friends and make some new ones.
Feedback
Report bugs here: Bug report/admin contact form
Make suggestions here: Suggestions forum
Ask general questions here: Help forum
Some FAQ
This is a roundup of some questions we've received from new members arriving from RPG, and the answers that were given, in case others who were too shy to ask were wondering the same thing.Are there rules and restrictions to what we can RP in private?
- What you're sharing must be legal, and cannot encourage anyone to participate in illegal activities (For example, please don't encourage people to steal art, or, I don't know, sell drugs!)
- It must not harass or defame anyone.
- Must not be spam.
- Everyone must be able to and has legally consented to receive/participate in adult-rated play (ex: minors can't consent to sexual content, so if you want to RP smut, make sure everyone you're playing with is in the same age category)
- Does not involve dishonesty, ie lying to someone about being a site staff member or using anonymous characters to impersonate another player.
Can we upload images to our character profiles that exceed a PG-13 rating?
Yes indeed you can! If you're uploading the image to a gallery widget, make sure you check the box for mature content - this will prevent people who don't consent to see that kind of thing from being surprised by it in their news feeds.
If you're embedding the image directly into the profile via BBCode, please mark the entire profile as containing mature content.
The place you can't do this for your character is as their icon, which is used to represent them all over the site, including in public areas.
Should I be nervous about being bullied here?
Making the RPR a safe and welcoming site is deeply important to me, and to all the moderators. I maintain that I did NOT spend seven years of my life doing a major labor of love just so that people can use it to harass, terrify or be unkind to one another. In fact, Be Nice is one of the first rules of the RPR, and one of the things you have to sign your name to as part of the forum pledge before you can participate in the public areas of the site. I spend at least as much time on moderation as I do programming, if not more, because the community's health and safety is the top priority at all times.
We also encourage the use of the "report" button/link any time you are uncomfortable or uncertain about something. Even if you aren't 100% sure it's against the rules, you're never bothering us by having us double check or making us aware that there's an odd pattern going on. Sometimes we have more social solutions in our back pockets - moderating isn't all about banning, after all!
Is there a limit to the number of character slots I can buy?
There isn't a practical limit on character slots once you start buying them. We have players with more than 200 characters on their accounts!
Can I just make a second account to get more slots?
Please don't; we understand the impulse, and we understand that not everyone has fun money on hand, but it's not just against the rules, it's greedy and hurts us.
Although the site is 100% free for you to access, there are real costs to running it. Super users who want to host a lot of characters are what helps us keep the lights on, and 10 is the number we have decided we are comfortable giving away to each person for free. This turns out to be 7 more slots than the average user ever needs - if you are a heavy user of our products, please help to support us by buying slots!
OMG there are so many buttons!! How do I get back to my characters to edit them?
Most of your own creations can be found via the Dashboard link. Just click the icon next to the character's name, and you'll be presented with all the editing options available to you. Here's tons more info on working with character profiles: Creating and editing character profiles
And for fun, here's some ideas on how to make them super awesome:
Creating character profiles that attract RP
Advanced profile prettification
Are there limits on how much text I can write?
Yes, but it's very, very hard to hit them. For example, let's look at profile text widgets: the limit there is 65,000 characters. Note that this is a count of letters, numbers, spaces and punctuation, not of words -- this is important, because "a" is a word but so is "honorificabilitudinitatibus"!
There's a limit of 10 widgets per profile page, so if you made all 10 of them text widgets, that would be 650,000 characters per profile page, or 150,000 more than are in the average 250-page book intended for consumption by adults.
Or, looked at another way, enough text to crash most browsers!
Do you have an app?No RPG member has asked me this yet, but someone literally always does, so indulge me in throwing this in as as part of any well rounded RPR FAQ.
See here for more on RPR apps
I hope this helps you adjust to using the RP Repository, but if you still have questions, you are welcome to ask myself or any member of the moderating team, or post your question publicly on the help forum.
Comments
@Winter: Then you're in luck! There are a lot of people here who are more than happy to spend their time in PM roleplays with you, and some are PM-Roleplay exclusive! (For one, I'm not choosy with either, but the subject matter I RP has me sticking to PMs most of the time.)
But to all of the members of RPG that are transferring here, I'd also like to extend a hearty welcome myself! If you need any help at all, don't ever be afraid to ask any of us to point you in the right direction. That's one of the reasons why I adore RPR myself: everyone here is friendly and willing to help once you ask!
But to all of the members of RPG that are transferring here, I'd also like to extend a hearty welcome myself! If you need any help at all, don't ever be afraid to ask any of us to point you in the right direction. That's one of the reasons why I adore RPR myself: everyone here is friendly and willing to help once you ask!
Welcome One & All. 
Here's to hoping you can make many new & exciting stories; and that the old stories will never be forgotten.
And if anyone wants to make a story with me, I'm open to working it all out.
Here's to hoping you can make many new & exciting stories; and that the old stories will never be forgotten.And if anyone wants to make a story with me, I'm open to working it all out.
Taciturn
September 29, 2017
11:40am
I don't think I've ever heard of the Roleplayer's Guild before, but welcome to all the users who transitioned over here from there!
I'm glad to say RPR is my home base when it comes to Rp sites...I hope others can come to love it too! (As a side note I'd be willing to help in any way I can if anyone needs my help~)
MasterWinter
September 29, 2017
11:25am
Winter here, and former RPG member!
What was your favorite thing about Roleplayer's Guild before the announcement it was shutting down?
A: I'm not too sure really. I like the fact I found some everlasting friends, like Krispy (KrispytheKritter) and my friend I call Riff (FangOfTheDragon). I talk to both almost daily, and they help me get through my days.
What do you hope to find here that's the same?
A) People who I can relate to enough that we can make fantastic rp's together. Krispy and I have many rp's together, and it all originally started with one of her canons and an OC of mine. Been over a year and were still going strong with our rp relation and rl friendship.
What do you hope is different?
A: Honestly...I don't know. Let me get back to you on that.
Thank you for the welcome, I look forward to finding some good role players, to build great roleplays with. Though I am more of a PM rpr than I am a forum one.
What was your favorite thing about Roleplayer's Guild before the announcement it was shutting down?
A: I'm not too sure really. I like the fact I found some everlasting friends, like Krispy (KrispytheKritter) and my friend I call Riff (FangOfTheDragon). I talk to both almost daily, and they help me get through my days.
What do you hope to find here that's the same?
A) People who I can relate to enough that we can make fantastic rp's together. Krispy and I have many rp's together, and it all originally started with one of her canons and an OC of mine. Been over a year and were still going strong with our rp relation and rl friendship.
What do you hope is different?
A: Honestly...I don't know. Let me get back to you on that.
Thank you for the welcome, I look forward to finding some good role players, to build great roleplays with. Though I am more of a PM rpr than I am a forum one.
Darth_Angelus
September 29, 2017
11:51am