How to Roleplay

The style of roleplay that will be asked from you is arguably the most important part of a text-based roleplaying game. While most of these rules are merely suggestions of what we have found to be aesthetically pleasing and generally popular, they are not at all set in stone. Many people have different ways to RP, and we encourage you to stay as comfortable as possible during your adventure. In our experience, most people find that it feels more natural to RP in the third person, referring to your character by name or using pronouns such as he or she.

Setting the Scene
One thing you need to keep in mind while RPing is that it is up to you to sell the visuals. Picture your character where they are standing. Go through the process of their actions in your head, imagine what little details would stick out. Write those down. The mood of writing can help paint a theme for the scene as well. In almost all cases, we've found that people like having almost everything that is not dialogue italicized. Here's an example of what setting the scene could look like."Razer opened his eyes slowly, tilting his head back to take in the vibrant radiance of the setting sun on the horizon. The orange tint covered everything in view. The wind was calm, nature quiet. He had never felt more peaceful."

Dialogue
Dialogue is an important aspect in a social RP such as this. Our characters have mouths, and they are expected to use them. Dialogue is spoken, even if whispered. People have different styles of dialogue writing as well. Some prefer to mimic how it would actually sound, opting to include any stuttering or by capping words that would be yelled. This is merely personal preference. Dialogue is placed between double quotation marks ("Dialogue Here") and is usually left as normal text to help differentiate it from the italicized setting and actions.

Similar to dialogue, all characters have thoughts. While it isn't necessary to include every little detail that your character is thinking, it can sometimes help put us in their shoes. Thoughts should be placed between single quotation marks ('Thoughts here'). Some people choose to italicize their character's thoughts, too, so that it's more obvious that the thoughts are not actually spoken. Here is an example of dialogue, thoughts, and actions in one snippet."Matt clenched his teeth as he felt a burning sensation cover his right hip. 'This isn't over!' he screamed. 'I'll pay you back for this! For everyone!' A menacing voice in the distance laughed while slowly fading. 'Yeah, but that's easier said than done,' he thought as he collapsed to the ground, unconscious."

Using Techniques
Some players choose to include names of their techniques in their RPs. There are completely optional and come in several different styles. Some players include them in dialogue. I myself prefer to keep them out of quotation marks and bolded instead of italicized. This means that using a technique would look like this:"Fire Dragon's Roar!"These techniques can be in English or Japanese (or really any language if you want your character to have influences of a different culture). Moderators are not required to help when it comes to translating technique names, so if you wish to have them in a different language, it is up to you to fight a way to get them translated. If you do choose to include your technique in a different language, you may also consider including an English Translation in the form of an OOC at the end of your post.

Fighting
Fighting is probably the thing people will be RPing most often. While there are other opportunities to do non-combat jobs or general RP for character development, it seems most people will eventually come back to the combat as it's the most interesting aspect of Create Your Own Adventures. There are 3 types of fighting in this RP.

Player vs Player (PvP)
Player vs Player will probably not happen quite as often as the other two types of fighting. This is when two players use their characters to fight. Since this RP focuses on everyone being on the same side, the only time we would be fighting is if there was a side story for character development or if two players were just sparring. While it may not be as common as others, it is important to discuss. Stats are very important here and should be strongly considered in a PvP fight unless previously agreed by both players and moderators. If one character has 50 more speed than the other, it's safe to say they will likely dodge the majority of the attacks in the fight.

In PvP, you are probably the most restricted. Players can come up with guidelines for their fights separately, but as a general rule, you will be allowed one reaction to your opponent's action, and one action of your own. You dictate if your opponent's last action succeeding by deciding if your character dodges, blocks, or gets hit. After that, you do something, but you don't pick the result of your action, as that is left up to your opponent. Controlling your opponent's character is considering Godmodding and that is against the rules.

Some players will welcome Fluff Fighting. This is when the characters are freely controlled by either character, but no lasting damage is sustained. In addition to this, it does not use up your one action for the turn. They may clash several times with their magic, but it won't significantly wear them down or damage them in any way. This is merely used as a way to lengthen an otherwise lackluster post and may not be welcomed in every PvP fight. We suggest all participants talk this over before starting the fight as to avoid disagreements in the middle.

There may be some cases where a player may use a Flurry Attack. A flurry attack is a series of attacks used in quick succession. This is normally not multiple techniques, but is more like several punches in one go. These are perfectly acceptable as long as they can easily be inferred to be a single action. In reaction to a flurry attack, you could dodge all of them, or block some and get hit by others. The action is seen as a group and the reaction is also seen as a group. You don't have to dodge all of them or be hit by all of them.

Player vs Environment (NPC Controlled)
Player vs Environment, or more commonly abbreviated as PvE, comes in 2 different styles. This one focuses on the NPC controlled variant. These fights will be handled very similarly to PvP fights, but instead of another player, you will fight against a Mod-controlled NPC. The account that should be replying in these instances is /u/Guild-Master. Just like PvP fights, stats are incredibly important here. All mod-controlled NPCs will be given stats that you can view and compare to your own so that you know how you stack up. Most NPCs that are mod controlled will be key characters in the Main Story. This could include anywhere from a collection of elite beasts that need defeated to Bosses in the RP.

Similarly to PvP, you are only allowed one reaction and one action. While the NPC may attack several times, they will only ever deal one action to you. If a team of 3 or 4 mages are fighting against a single NPC, then the NPC may need to react to 4 separate attacks and then attack each mage accordingly, but they should never attack more than once. If you have an issue and believe an NPC attacked you multiple times, contact us via modmail so that we can figure out the problem.

Fluff fighting will always be allowed in these PvE fights. Even if a player may not desire to participate in the fluff fighting, a mod may feel it is necessary to seemingly move the fight along at a quicker pace. Again, if you feel this is being used to an excessive amount, we urge you to message us privately so that we can discuss a solution.

Player vs Environment (Player Controlled)
This type of PvE is the least restrictive version of RP Fighting. This will be entirely controlled by the players. A common example would be creating fodder, or opponents that are intentionally weak and meant to be beaten with some ease, and fighting them. These NPCs usually don't need to be given stats. Stats will usually take a back seat here in favor of pure quality. While you still will not be able to use techniques or magics your character does not possess, you can be more open minded about their speed or how destructive their magical power is.

While this type of fighting is mostly unrestricted, we will ask that you don't do something out of character for Fairy Tail. Fairy Tail has an extraordinarily low death rate, so you shouldn't be going around kill every living thing you see. It can be inferred, but don't talk about how you brutally massacred an entire village of gnomes.

Team Fights
There will be some situation where players may want to participate in a fight together with a friend. This is perfectly acceptable. If players agree on a PvP where more than 2 people are involved, then we encourage you to go for it. In mod controlled boss fights, it may even be recommended to team up to fight someone, especially once we start introducing Boss Fights. Considering how unrestricted player controlled PvE is, we of course don't mind if multiple players want to beat up some fodder together.

In-Character (IC) vs Out-of-Character(OOC)
Everything above this section has been for In-Character RP. It assumes you are taking the position of your character and RPing as if you were them. That said, there are times where it's convenient to add an Out-of-Character note into a post. We recommend including these at either the end or the beginning of a post. Make sure to make them easily noticeable by surrounding it in markers such as [OOC: OOC MESSAGE HERE].

OOC comments can be made if you feel like another player may be dodging too much or otherwise not staying true to their stats. An OOC should be the first step in reconciling an issue. If they will not cooperate, then you are advised to escalate the issue to a mod.

Rewards, Mod Help, and Reddit
If you do a thread, otherwise known as a comment chain, and think that it is something that deserves a reward, we will be happy to accommodate you. If you ever need help with a mod to get rewards or to give you an NPC to fight, or maybe to help move the story along, you'll need to do something called tagging. To tag on reddit, you put /u/USERNAME where username is the username of whoever you want to tag. In the case of rewards or general mod help, you would tag Guild-Master. As an example, at the end of the post, you'll hit enter twice and put "/u/Guild-Master" at the bottom. This will send an automated message to that account's inbox and we will be notified that you need help. We will respond as soon as we can.

Likewise, if you're doing an interaction with another player, you would replace Guild-Master with their username. For example, /u/NekoFuu would send a message to the user NekoFuu. If you are interacting one on one, then just replying will also send them a message. Tagging is important for comment chains with 3+ people or to notify someone of a message when they aren't already in the comment chain.

How to Post
Every text-based RP, and especially the reddit-based ones, have very different ideas of how an RP should be ran. We have set up flairs to divide posts into their appropriate subcategories.

Main Story
Main Story posts will be stickied by the moderators. This flair should only be used by mods. The Main Story is the general flow of the Roleplay. It's the plot. The juice. All the good stuff to make progress mean something. These will be updated every once in awhile to move the story forward. How often will vary.

These will work pretty simply. A moderator will post a part to a story and sticky it to the top of the subreddit. Inside of the main body of the post, we will put the bit of story for that piece of the story. The story leading up to that point will always be available on our Story page. Users will post comments to roleplay throughout the story. If you wish to interact with other players, you can reply to a comment chain.

Side Story
A Side Story is a Story Arc, usually for multiple characters. These do not impact the Main Story and can be posted by players. Think of these like Filler Arcs from a real series. These posts will retain the restrictions set forth by stats and other rules, but are typically up to the players to create and maintain. These are expected to take quite a while to finish.

Char Dev
Char Dev posts are posts that generally keep to a single scene or so. One Char Dev post can usually be generalized to allow for many different branches, with the comment chains being the scenes. In the main post, you wouldn't include any RP. Instead, you would include what you're looking for and if it is open or closed to people. Char Dev can be completed with a single player controlling themselves and NPCs, but as this is a social RP, we wouldn't recommend it.

Job
Jobs are handed out by Mods in our 10-day Update posts. This will be stickied to the top of the subreddit alongside the Main Story post so that it is easy to find. This thread will act for a variety of things, including jobs. Job posts will be made by a mod after someone requests a job. The main body will include valuable information regarding the job such as the client and end goal of the job.

For a full guide on jobs, visit our Job Guide.