Self explanatory. Don't swear if swearing isn't allowed. Keep things appropriate. Pretty basic.

This is one that REALLY pisses me off. Do NOT godmod. This is when you, or somebody else, types:

'Max ran forward, and grabbed Jane's neck, he began squeezing tighter and tighter, until she stopped breathing.'

No. WRONG! That is goddmodding. My character Max, kills another player's character Jane. Who knows, maybe the brains behind Jane want to keep playing. Instead, type up:

'Max got behind Jane, and grabbed her neck.'

This will allow Jane to retaliate. Once again, godmodding really pisses people off.

Yet another one folks. People always give their characters waayyy to much juice, and is a cause for frustration. Do NOT type.

Name: Chuck Norris
Occupation: Bad-ass.
Powers: Roundhouse Kicks, being everywhere at the same time, making love to infinite amounts of women.
Appearance: Short red hair and beard. Fingerless gloves. Not going to provide a picture, because if you don't know what he looks like, you're a ****************************.
Anything Else: Chuck Norris approves of this message.

And that is just the application...

'Chuck Norris walks down the street, and he looks at a guy. He falls over dead from the joy he recieves from being looked at by Chuck Norris. Chuck gets bored, so he blows up the Earth.'

No. Just... no...

Yeah, these always bug me.

Here is the application form:

Name:
Occupation: (What they do.)
Backstory: (How they got to the prison.)
Appearance: (Pictures are nice.)
Personality: (What they act like.)
Anything else?

Ok, first of all, that is a bad app. in itself. But wait, Joe comes along, and thinks this looks fun.

Name: Joe Blow
Occupation: (What they do.) Prison Guard
Backstory: (How they got to the prison.) Joe has always wanted to be a guard. So he went to the academy, and passed the course with flying colors.
Appearance: (Pictures are nice.) Guard uniform. Short brown hair, and a scar under his left eye.
Personality: (What they act like.) Tough, no nonsense guy. Willing to keep the peace, and stop any prisoner.
Anything else? Nah.

Okay. What is wrong here? Do NOT copy and paste, and forget to delete the notes! Big, big no-no! Also, none of the app. really made sense...

Some RP's may call for more things in the app. A few examples include:

Weapons: Used in Zombie RP's and Medieval RP's.
Powers: If it is a magical RP.
Animal Form: Because shape-shifting RP's are fun.
Faction: For some reason, some moron always messes this up. Your faction is good or bad!
Age: This one is commonly forgotten. Be sure to mention minimum, and maximum ages if they apply.

Yeah, all this pain and sore fingers have amounted to this. There are several ways to do this, but this is how I do things.

With one character: Keep things interesting. Stay in character. Don't type things all together.

'Mike walked into the school, and looked around. This was going to be a good year he could tell. He walked over to his locker, and after several failed attempts, manged to finally open it. Blah blah blah, boring, boring, spam, spam spam, blah blah blah, boring, boring, boring, spam, spam spam, blah blah blah, boring, boring, boring, spam, spam spam, blah blah blah, boring, boring, boring, spam, spam spam.'

Yeah, do not type long, hard to read monologues. You are more than welcome to type long ones, just make them easy to read. This may end up in someone else posting something in the time you took that changes the whole story.

With two or more characters, separate what they do in separate paragraphs.

'Mary walked into the bar, and asked for a mug of beer.

Joe reaches under the counter, and pulls out a gun, pointing it at her.'

This is a big one, even I struggle with this. But, keep it short, and sweet, unless it calls for otherwise.

'Emily walks down the street, and a horde of zombies appears from around a corner. "CRAP! Zombies!" She yells, forgetting she was surrounded by them.

Jason sits on the roof of a nearby building, and chuckles as he watches a girl run away from the zed. "She looks like she needs some help." He remarks, and then chuckles as she starts to fight them.'

Imagine what is going on in the story. Type it exactly as you see it.

'Bronson sat in the tree, hidden by the sea of leafy green. He reached up and plucked an apple from it's stem, twisting it and watching the branch snap back up. Shining it on his shirt, he looked at his warped reflection, and grinned. Opening wide, he took a bite, juices dripping down his chin.'

Everyone struggles with this. Even me, the almighty bn. That is why I use spell check, and make sure that everything looks and sounds good before I post it. It is fine to use wrong spelling and grammar in conversation, if and only if that is how your character is.

'Jake walked up to Jane, "Well howdy thar stranger! Ain't seen you around fer awhile!'

God, that was painful.

So, what do you do when you have something that has nothing to do with the story? Use double parentheses. For example:

'((Someone accept my new app.)) Jake sighed, and got up from the table, following Carson.'

This is when you know what is going on, and you give that to your otherwise ignorant character. For example:

'Grayson sits on top of the roof, hidden well out of sight, his cross hairs on Alice.'

'On a hunch, Alice pulls a grenade's pin, and throws it at Grayson.'

Also, thanks to ParkourPhysics for telling me about this.

This is a big one. Please, please, please, use capital letters and punctuation.

'jordan walked up to marie and said hi'

Ugh.

So you just signed up for an RP. Congrats. Now comes a very, very difficult question. How do I jump in?

If it just started, come up with a nice intro that gives your characters personality away.

If it is an RP that has been going on for awhile, ask using double parentheses.

Let's say Sue spent a long time on an RP. She posts it, and awaits patiently for people to apply. No one does. Who can tell me why this could be?

The most common, is people put the app. thread in Forum Games. Those threads do not get placed in the Last 20 Posts, located on the right of your screen.

Another excellent example, is the title just isn't catchy. Try to come up with a catchy title, and this will attract a lot of visitors.
For example, instead of using, Zombie RP, use The Outbreak. Also, be sure to specify which thread is the application, and which one is the actual RP.

Example: The Outbreak RP App thread. The Outbreak RP Thread. That is simple, and sane.

Another good form of advertising, is to put a link in your signature.

Lets say you posted a thread yesterday at two in the morning. No one was on, or was awake enough to care about your RP. So it has been 24 hours since the post. Bump it! A bump is when you make a post on the thread and it 'bumps' it to the top of the last 20 posts list. Cool huh? However, many people get over excited and bump before the 24 hours is up. A minute or two is fine, and I think that most of the time one hour will slide, but do not bump after only 12 hours.

A huge no-no. Do not do this. Ever. I swear to God, the day I do this will be the day I will walk up to my ex and lay a big wet kiss on her.

The reason why? This is annoying, and may completely override what someone else has written up.

'Jesse sat on the roof and stared at the sunset.'

'With a satisfied sigh, Jesse got up and went back to his room.'

The only exception should be if you need to post something out of story. ((Le example.)) I understand if you are bored, but be patient. The other people you are playing with may have other things going on at the time.

Personally, I love pictures. I have a good imagination, but for the rest of the grey soulless slugs out there, it is nice to have a picture. So Google one. I can almost guarantee that you can find one out there that you like.

*Takes a sip of rant juice.* Now for a rant. As if this blog did not have enough. This just may be me, maybe I am the grey soulless slug, but I HATE ANIME. Maybe because my ex was into it... who am I to say what you can and cannot do, you can post anime, but try not to do the extreme ones. I'm talking about the girls being to skanky and too many strange details like weird heart make up.

Anywho, if you find a picture you like, use it. It pays off to see what you want your character to look like and can really strengthen an RP.

A little brown bear told me to tell you that he really likes it when you take a picture of yourself and use it as your appearance. I wasn't able to get his name, but he said it was something with a P...

This is how you are able to tell a thread is going to be successful. If you or another player has suggested theme songs for your character(s), then the RP can get that much stronger.

So log into Pandora, surf on YouTube, or play a video game. Find a song that just screams your character. Then post a link on a blog or something. Personally, I think that theme songs are great.

I don't know why I am posting this here, I guess just for kicks and giggles. If you are having a discussion, you can add to the drama by inserting action. This simple procedure can really add to the flair of any thread.

You disgust me. *Rage quits and jumps out window.*

So yeah, just put the action in asterisks, (*) and you are good to go.