Animation Source Forums

Here is a topic for the roleplayers of AS to connect as a community. Every so often a will post another discussion question for any roleplayer to answer. Feel free to answer previous question as well! I really hope that this allows all of us to just talk and get to know each other, so don't hesitate to post a response to someone else's answers. Also, I will let discussions get a little off topic, so don't ever be afraid to say anything here!

The Questions

1. What are your thoughts on the Roleplay Tutorial?

We will appreciate any kind of feedback, so please tell us what you think!

2. Who inspired you to roleplay/ influenced your roleplaying/ helped you the most when you first started roleplaying on AS?

3. What was the first roleplay you ever joined?

4. What was the first roleplay you ever created?

5. What is your favorite roleplay and why?

More questions to come, so check back often!

I personally find it to be very helpful. I'm not ashamed to say that I had never roleplayed before until a few days ago when Spirit girl and I started a private rp. Now that I'm beginning to feel comfortable with role playing it's actually quite fun. C;

Back to feedback for the tutorial topic... As I have never participated in an open roleplay before I have found the topic to be extremely helpful and informative. The comments in red make sense and are very clear and strait-forward for the most part. It's also helpful that multiple people are posting in the topic so that there is a variety of styles. Essentially: great idea and I hope to learn more from it for when I'm adventurous enough to join a public roleplay. C;

I agree with almost all of it! I really, really hope this catches!

I'm still split personally on creating elaborate biographies for custom characters. In an open roleplay, I can definitely see where it comes in handy, because the spontaneous nature and reaction based protocols necessitate and benefit hugely from prior knowledge.

However (this is my own opinion, and probably applies more towards enclosed story writing than role playing on a fundamental level), in private role plays, I think that a character's personality traits should be able to become discernible throughout the course of the narrative without needing the preface. Of course, good writers such as yourself (Windancer's post, citing an example) demonstrated that you can do both; The bio to establish the character, and the follow up to reinforce it.

Personal opinions aside, every one of the posters involved did a tremendous job.

I am so glad to finally hear some feeback! I'm happy this is actually doing some help instead of just taking up space. I am really proud of all the people involved in this project and I have very high hopes for it. I really do want this to get more attention and for the majority of the roleplaying community to know about it, whether or not they agree or use it. Well just have to see how everything plays out.

I want to give this topic some more interest, so I have decided to start a discussion question of the week/month/whenever I think of a good one. I would really like it if the roleplaying members of AS would came together more as a community and connect with each other. I hope this works towards that goal!

I think the first unspoken question was about the Roleplay Tutorial, so I'm just going to move on to the second question.

Every roleplayer remembers joining AS having no idea what a roleplay was, right? So today's discussion question is who inspired you to roleplay/ influenced your roleplaying/ helped you the most when you first started roleplaying on AS?

For me, my style of roleplaying was influenced by a lot of different people. The first two people to really help me along when I first joined AS where AvatarCat and WolfCall. They were the only two to join my very first roleplay and helped show me the ropes of roleplaying. GodzillaWolf also greatly helped me with our Balto private rps. He helped me learn how to really create a well-thought story and sticking to personalities of canon characters. When it comes to more advanced roleplays, LunaWolfSpirit helped me the most. The way I set up a roleplat plot post is based off how she used to do it. She taught me how to post a paragraph because after a joined on of her roleplays, she would post a five-six sentence paragraph and I challenged myself to write just as much.

I can't wait to read everyone else's answers!

Regarding: Inspiration/Influence/Assistance

That second question is an easy one for me; Godzillawolf was the sole reason I had started roleplaying on here! Out of the blue one day, he just asked me if I'd like to do a roleplay with him (still not sure why, but I'm really thankful he did, for more reasons than the obvious fun-factor), and I accepted. Aside from these tutorials, everything I know about roleplaying was something he had taught me.

I was so green to it back then. I quite literally had no idea what I was doing. One of the most important organizational tips I learned from him was about coloring my posts, a color for each character (or set of characters, ala Ralph and Kirby/Muk & Luk).

As far as inspirations go, I'd say that in a backwards way, most of the role plays I looked at for reference immediately before starting the first one were the biggest influence. Most of them were difficult to understand because of grammar/spacing, or they only had one sentence with literally a subject and a predicate. I really hoped to avoid being like those ones, so I made a conscious effort to make our roleplay as detailed as possible, in an effort to make it stand out. Godzillawolf (formerly Kendell, so I gather from your/his "Hero" series) reciprocated this, and it worked out really well.

On a related note, I agree about Godzillawolf's talent for canon characters. You don't see it so much in Truth and Consequence, since a lot of the canon character's I'm controlling, but several of his My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic stories/roleplays, he hits the nail straight on the head.

This is... about one of the greatest topic's I've ever seen! Great job to you, JC, and the RPers.
It looks fantastic, and is a BIG help. I hope that new and serious RPers/aspiring writers take a look at it. 8]

I've been roleplaying for a while, but not a whole lot. Reading the red really shows how I've discovered
how to properly roleplay, and that I could always use some improvement. Even if it is just for fun.

(I don't roleplay a lot, but I really just wanted to acknowledge this brilliant idea.)

Well, I've never roleplayed with anyone on here - both in the forums or in the shoutbox - but I am more used to RPing either on an IM service [both MSN and AIM.... most likely on AIM] or [previously on] LiveJournal/[now] Dreamwidth.

I will admit that I'm curious to try an RP on here, but I'm nervous to.

But to answer your first question: I really enjoyed reading your tutorial! It was descriptive and wordy, just like I like them, and yet easy to understand. This style will take some getting used to if I ever decide to give forum RP a try in the future [after nearly three years, Journal-style RPing is easier for me - quick off-topic question: Are there any topics focusing on this type of RPing? I have been looking for some players to interact with my post-WQ Aleu... ].

Keep up the good work with your tutorial! It is a great example for any level of RPer to read!

- Juuchan17

I am really excited that the tutorial is getting so much positive feedback! I was pretty worried for a little while that no one noticed it.

Juuchan - I'm not really sure what style of roleplaying you are looking for since I've only ever roleplayed on the AS forums. If you want to PM me a sample of it, I can try to help.

I think it's time for another question or two! This time, you might have to do some digging for these answers.

First, what is the first roleplay you ever joined and how did it affect your roleplaying?

Second, what is the first to roleplay you ever created and do you think it went well?

Feel free to add links when answering these questions.

My Answer: The first rolepaly I ever joined was Rummage In Your Heart. I had completely forgotten about this roleplay until I looked into my old posts. I don't remember much of this, but from skimming over, it looks like I sucked at rolepaly at this point.

The first roleplay I ever created was War of Destiny. I actually remember this one! This is what really helped me learn how to roleplay. Although the posts are far from advanced, they aren't all that bad. Some are one lines, but this roleplay really helped me more with my plot developing and interaction skills. Despite its lack of quality, this roleplay was actually very helpful to beginner Black Rose.

First, what is the first roleplay you ever joined and how did it affect your roleplaying?

Second, what is the first to roleplay you ever created and do you think it went well?

Well, don't I look cheeky.

The answer to both of the questions for me is Balto: Truth and Consequence.

It was the first roleplay I had ever done... ever, so I can't say with too much certainty how it affected my roleplaying. I'll say that with some tutelage and guidance, my technique improved as it carried on throughout the story. It's difficult to look at it objectively though...

I'm a one trick roleplaying pony, I suppose. It's the only one I have ever done.

Although I didn't directly create it, me and Godzilla devised the general plot together before we had posted. It was definitely a co-creation, especially the later segments.. Not withstanding, I think it has gone pretty well. Aside from some coloring and grammatical errors (which I keep putting off going back and correcting), it's a sound story. A bit grandiose, perhaps, but fun nonetheless.

It's tough to gauge success for a roleplay when they are private, I'd wager. That, or success would be measured in different units. A large part in a public roleplay appears to be active user participation, interaction, and cohesiveness, which private roleplays possess on a much smaller scale. Who can say?

First RP I ever joined... that's a tricky one. I've attemped to join several, but many didn't survive. I think my first (or at least one of my VERY first RPs) was by Windancer... something about 'remade'... I'll have to search for it, but it didn't last. It was going well until a few members stopped replying I think. If it wasn't that one then it was one with Godzillawolf and was about Steele, and was something about second chances. It's hard to say which was my first RP, but I know both had a big impact on my roleplaying. It was just all the practice really. If anything, I was a better RPer back then.

Think I only ever made one. It was about some sled dogs and wolves. Fairly generic with a decent plot. Few fantastic RPers joined, and it was going really well! Lots of detail and thought went into that RP... Sadly it got deleted by accident just when it was getting exciting.

I think it's time for a new question, so how about this one?

What was your favorite roleplay ever? And why? You can answer this in two parts if you want to do a separate to open and private.

This is a really hard question for me since I always enjoy my roleplays. I think I can narrow them down to three, though.

Wandering Through The Mountains and it's sequal Wandering Through The Mountains 2: These were really fun to play around with. I really got into toying with characters in this one and wasn't afraid to have one my characters run away from his family to be with another. And one of my favorite couples, Luke and Mara, were part of this story. I really wish that we had continued with the sequal since I had so many more ideas to play with, but unfortunately after a lot of new people joined the sequal, we couldn't make it work like we used to.

Pack House (the original): This roleplay also had many character interactions and we had so many potentail relationships and drama that I would have loved to see how they grew but after a while, people lost interest.

Hide And Seek: This roleplay was absolutely amazing while it lasted. With great regret, one of our roleplayers disappeared from the forums and we weren't able to continue without her. But we are trying it again on this topic with just the two of us. I really hope this one is as good as the last one!

This is a really awesome topic!
The people that helped influence my roleplaying style and helped me the most were Black Rose, AvatarCat, and GodzillaWolf. Black Rose invited me to join her first roleplay and I accepted. I had never done a roleplay before and learned a lot from her and AvatarCat (the other person in that roleplay). GodzillaWolf also taught me a lot throughout my roleplay Wandering Through the Mountains and through our private roleplays. The three of them taught me a lot and helped me get where I am now.

The first roleplay I ever did was Black Rose's War of Destiny. I loved doing it. I learned how to fill out a bio, slip into different characters in the roleplay and learn out how to interact with others. I couldn't be more happy that I joined it.
I'm pretty sure that the first one I created was Wandering Through the Mountains. I had originally planned to make it into a story but it worked out a lot better as a roleplay. I'm still very grateful I decided to make it a roleplay. I learned a lot from it and had a great time. It turned out so much better than I ever would have expected!

It's hard to pick favorites from my old roleplays but two of my tops are Pack House and Wandering Through the Mountains parts 1 and 2. Pack House always had such amazing characters and interactions between them. Every time I'm part of that one, I wait anxiously for an update. It's got such an amazing plot and you never know quite what's going to happen. Wandering Through the Mountains was also an amazing roleplay. All of the characters were extremely well developed. I'll never forget how much I loved roleplaying at one of my favorite characters I ever made, Winterfall. The relationships between the characters were great. All of the characters truly acted like a pack. It was a shame when it died.
I also loved Pokemon Journey, the private roleplay I had with GodzillaWolf. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the way we developed our plot and characters throughout our roleplay. It's also one of the longest private roleplays I've ever done.

I have a new question! What would you guys think of a new roleplaying guide?

For more information, Click Here!!!

First of all, I absolutely enjoy reading the Roleplay Tutorial (someone should definitely make it a sticky so that it's easier to find.)

Who inspired you to roleplay/ influenced your roleplaying/ helped you the most when you first started roleplaying on AS?
Hmmm... well, I guess I'd have to say Weespah inspired me to roleplay (didn't even know it existed until Weespah convinced me to join AS.) But as far as who most influenced my roleplaying and helped me the most? Hands down, Windancer.

What was the first roleplay you ever joined?
I'm going to go with, "What was the first roleplay you joined that actually started?" That one would be Warriors: Rise of New Fire by LunaWolfSpirit. Along with Kyatho, these roleplays are where I worked most of the kinks out of my writing style and gained some confidence.

4. What was the first roleplay you ever created?
The Legend of Kyathro, and for the most part, it's still alive and kicking! It's basically a fantasy free-form about a group of outcasts that travel together for survival.

5. What is your favorite roleplay and why?
I actually have two favorite roleplays: Just Another Fairytale, and The Legend of Kyathro. Just Another Fairytale by Black Rose has a really interesting and complicated plot, and keeping up with Rose and Moki is a challenge I enjoy. The Legend of Kyathro is almost the complete opposite, but it lets me experiment with different scenarios and work on developing the personalities of two of my characters.