Role-Playing Tips (URPG)

December 3, 2007, 1:11 PM

1. Interact with the Environment.

Environmental interaction not only adds a great deal of substance to your post, but provides endless combinations to use, with or without your character.

Firstly, interacting the environment with your character. Let's use an example, shall we? Say we're fighting in a forest. Well, use the trees! If your opponent relies heavily upon visual stimuli, you can use the trees to your advantage and hide, provide sneak attacks, etc. If you're on a plain with long grass, use your weapon to provide a distraction! How? If you are using a sword, slice the grass. This will, logically, create long blades of grass and, if you time your next slice right, you can launch the grass upwards, creating a screen of grass, if only for like, two seconds. This can give you a slight advantage, and a better one if you are closer to your opponent. There are endless combinations you can make with your character and the environment, and are limited only by your imagination.

Secondly, interacting the environment with your post. Blaitantly stating the weather or the conditions you are fighting in can have a greater effect than you realize. You can't, according to God-modding/power-modding rules, make the weather directly affect your opponent, but you don't have to. A wise player will be able to use the weather to predict his opponent's actions. Even if you can't predict their actions, weather and conditioning can affect how your opponent fights. i.e. If it's windy, they might be more cautious about how much they jump or leap away, etc.

2. Descriptions

Well, for starters, descriptions and clothing can have a drastic effect on how a player fights. If a player is wearing really baggy clothes, they won't be as agile as a person wearing tights

Instead, logically, the wind will slow them down. Recognizing this and stating it can not only give you a good idea of how your opponent may fight, but also give the opposing poster an idea of his limits, limits that they set by giving them certain clothing to make them look a certain way (why do you think my Allsies don't wear clothes, and Jake's clothing is only slightly baggy?).

Also, descriptions of your weapon will give you and your opponent an idea of what to expect. Now, it may sound like a double-edged sword, but it's more like a triple-edged mace, with two of the sides pointing at your opponent. As a disadvantage to you, the opponent now knows what style to expect. However, as an advantage to you, they will have to alter their style of fighting to suit an opponent that carries, for example, a supremely heavy Zweihander sword or a Flamberge, and that style might not feel too comfortable to them.

Another advantage is that they might just have a little trepidation, and I'm not even referring to the designs of the swords. The fact that a sword is small doesn't mean that it's harmless, especially if you're up against an opponent who wields a weapon that slows them down. Rapier vs. Zweihander = Rapier wins. Why? Because a Rapier is very light and very fast. A person wielding a zweihander is usually very slow, and will generally be very open to quick attacks. A good player will be able to recognize these weaknesses and take advantage of them.

3. Non-Playable Character Interaction

Interaction with NPCs is oft underestimated and looked upon as an irrelevant inconvenience. Hera Ledro says not so.

If you interact with NPCs properly, which involves both of you interacting with each other, you can create a situation to which your allies and enemies must conform, and if you play your cards properly, you can checkmate your enemies into a situation that is advantageous to you.

Not only that, but they provide depth and keep interest in your character. i.e. Up until I reserved Brome in my Redwall/Disney RP, he was an NPC. Most of his talk was directed towards Felldoh, my main character, and comprised of describing, even if it was in a condescending demeanour, how Felldoh acted and his past. This gives readers the chance to understand how Felldoh works. Since URPGs are often drawn out, it is a must for other players to understand your characters. NPCs are a good way to help others understand how your characters work.

4. Multiple Character Interaction

This is a little more specific, and is only for those URPGs which allow players to control more than one character, and as a result have multiple PCs.

Proper interaction between your characters is similar to NPC Interaction, in the sense that it serves to place opponents in similar disadvantageous situations, if used properly. However, this is much more powerful, because an opponent will have to try to conform and use their character(s) to deal with multiple different people, and I'm referring to strategies as well as individuals. Having to deal with four people with four different strategies, or even one team strategy, can be very trying, and is very difficult to defeat without god-modding.

As with NPC Interaction, this can also serve to develop your characters. By interacting with multiple characters, specifically those who have known each other for a long time or know each other very well, you can provide a great deal of background information in the form of simple, interesting conversation. This adds substance to your posts, and gives other people a better idea of who your characters are and how best to interact with them.

Most people don't get that RPing is like a game of chess; you move your pieces properly and you can checkmate them quite easily. If you know your opponent, you can conform your own strategies to suit them, and if you are a wise player, you can bluff multiple strategies and individuals, allowing you to get in behind them and take the prize.

*stuck* ~Lady E