Guide: Writing Inspiring Roleplay and Interesting Dialogs for Beginners

Mechanical
RP

This is not just a guide on how to roleplay overall, but what makes it interesting, even inspiring, to read and be a part of. It is easy to write yourself into a dull corner if you do not often style your roleplay in a way that can be reacted to. Posts can be written like filler episodes of a TV show. It might be fun to see regular, standard banter between favorite characters, but too much filler without actual advancement of the plot leads to stagnation and boredom. Your own characters can land in fun small, or longer arcs by just writing a few simple lines that are meant to trigger a reaction. That means the length of a post doesn't matter so much either; you can write hooks that require only a few sentences or several flavorful paragraphs, each can be equally valued.

When you want to make a story start turning, think of hooks as an obvious opening for another player to snag onto to create a scene. Here are some things to consider when you are writing a post:

• Am I writing something that obviously shows my character's personality and mood?
• If its not supposed to be obvious, am I leaving enough breadcrumbs?
• Would what I post contribute to the story of my character?
• Would it contribute to other characters' stories? Am I going to involve others?
• Am I going to influence my character's relationships positively or negatively?

The more of these questions you can answer yes to, the better the responses by other players around you will be. Ultimately, your goal should be to see your characters land themselves in new events, and make fun, dramatic, or even sad memories to share with others. Not every single post needs to be a perfect story builder, but for when you want to get your creative wheels turning, consider this guide.

The Hook - A Quick Example

For example of a simple hook, say you have two players idling around in a village and one of them decides to make a morning greeting.

• Character A: *CharacterA walks over with a confident, grinning strut through the dirtpacked streets of the village and tries to slap CharacterB on the back upon approaching him* "Hey, how are you doing B? Did you ever have a chance to apologize to CharacterC yet?"

Player A has written several small hooks that others can react to.

1. Describing how the character approached helps lay the mood. Character A is apparently entering the scene jovially, which gives Player B more of an image to play with. A clearer scene leads to clearer reactions.
2. More strongly, and even easier to react to, is the emote to slap their back where Player B can react by dodging out of the way, accepting it amiably, hating it, or any other way they can imagine. It's up to them.
3. The whole "How d'ya'do" greeting could have been left with the first sentence, open-ended, but it would have been way too vague to answer, thus being a boring hook. In the second sentence though with CharA asking about CharC it helps to spur the dialog along by referencing a past event, and even a current problem if there is still drama between CharB and CharC to settle.

This way CharacterA has shown at least part of their demeanor, what they're trying to do, and had made an honest attempt to begin a new scene centered around an on-going subject. It is up to the other player then at this point to respond so they can keep the dialogs going for awhile, or simply answer in a way that at least reveals possibly a few interesting story bites about their character. There's even a possibility another player outside of the scene might butt in out of interest, which would add even more to the story.

The Building Blocks of an Engaging Hook

In Marosia you have three parts of dialog to consider in order to properly roleplay a scene. You want to use the current environment, expressive emotes, and choose the right conversational topics to add depth to whatever you write. To build a basic but interesting post you need to:

1. Know the environment and scene. Place your character somewhere in it and describe it.
2. Add a strong gesture that will either show what's on your character's mind, what they're up to, or do something that may impact another character.
3. If you want a scene to start moving or to continue, choose something properly attention grabbing to say, and it should be followed or preceded by a strong emote that will guide the reader on how you're saying it.

For more detail, read the following.

Environment: Being aware of your environment is an important first part of a scene. Specifying where your character is can be a huge boost for helping in writing the rest of your post. Is he or she watching somebody from the other side of town? From the top of a tree? Are they twiddling their thumbs on the beach tanning in the hot sun? Sitting in the middle of hard rain? Or kicking their legs up on a table from a chair? Consider this first before writing the rest of your roleplay. If others know where your character is, the number of ways they can react increases exponentially, making you Engaging and Fun.

Emotes: How you flavor your movements and actions have a huge impact on how others react to you, or can just make them appreciate being around your character more. It is enjoyable to read odd body quirks and other small fidgeting that is not normally described, as it typically breaks the mold to really help set the mood of a scene. Depending on the situation, you should try to make the emotion of your actions be obvious. Good emotes guide readers to what your character is currently feeling and paint their personality. They also add depth and meaning to actual dialogue and help break it up to emphasize certain phrases. Overall, making your character's actions clear rather than detailed goes a long way in adding to scenes. This also means overwriting is a thing.

• For example, *Her fingernails drum on her pantleg anxiously and she chews her lip.* is better than *She looks anxious.*.
• In another example, *His lips curl into an aggressive snarl as he responds heatedly* compared to just *He responds angrily*

Conversation: How a character talks is the simplest way to gain reactions. While it depends on the personality, you should force your characters to talk differently from how you would in real life. Make them say something you would never dare. Try to think of words you normally wouldn't use. From the previous example, talk to others while referring to current events in the game. Try to avoid Real Life Style small talk that leads nowhere as that does not inspire players to keep conversations going.

• Asking questions, making jokes, flirting, shoulder slapping banter, insulting others, and etc etc are all stepping stones to engage a scene.

Possible Ideas and Options.

For slightly more specific examples to kickstart a scene, or at least to show off what your character's personality is, here are some options. The following will not be very detailed and left somewhat vague so as to not steal too many ideas for future roleplay. Remember not to limit yourself to what you see here as there is always a crazy number of other events and categories of unique actions that could be thought of and done.

• Step on toes: Directly approach another player with your character and make them the center of your world. This is the best short-cut make any scene start moving. Shove yourself in their face, tap their shoulder, try to spook them from behind, and so on. Just remember to not break the Godmode rule by defining any extremely invasive action as "attempts to" or "if allowed" for the other player to freely react how they want to your emote.
• Project Events: Your character could be working diligently on their project, up until you decide to make up something odd happen. For instance, an animal that spawned in the area suddenly disrupting your character in a humorous way, or maybe your character was hammering in a nail and hits his or her thumb making them scream.
• Drama/Friendships: There are often events going on around other characters that you can butt in on. You could have your character react strongly to a scene that may disgust them, or fill them with hate or jealousy. All of this leads to drama that you can follow the thread of for a long time. On the other side, it is just as fun to single out characters to form friendships with. Let them know often through your own actions that your character is paying attention, appreciates them, and watches out for them. Compliments, gifts, physical affection, planning parties/dates and so on are all things you can do.
• Character goal: All characters should have a goal. Maybe multiple goals. Short-term, long-term -- everybody should find something to keep their minds occupied. From small pleasures such as eating great food, or something harder like obtaining power over all others. Center your next hook around what your character wants to do in life.

Author: Anonymous.