Zai's Guide to OOC Threads and RP Conceptualizing

[BANZAI!!!!]

All too often i see potential hosts posting OOC threads or interest checks that are either missing vital information or are, conceptually speaking, not thought out enough to be a workable, functioning roleplay. This usually results in, at best, the RP going off half cocked and dieing off once people run out of things to do or lose interest in general, and at worst, the OOC gets no replies and the host is left whining and wondering what they did wrong. So, in an effort to solve this problem and help curb YCM's infamously high RP mortality rate, I have crafted a handy guide to conceptualizing and writing OOC threads and RP concepts. I hope you find it useful.

Since I have a tendency to textwall, I've separated the guide into different, consecutive sections and spoilered each one for your convenience. You're welcome.

[spoiler=So you think you're badass enough to run an RP on YCM, eh?]Well that's awesome! Hosting an RP is a fun and potentially rewarding experience. However, it takes time and creativity, and more importantly dedication and effort. Lots, and lots of effort. New roleplayers are often overwhelmed just by the sheer amount of things they have to do to keep an RP up and running, let alone active. So, before you decide to throw your masterpiece up in the OOC section, make sure you're prepared to spend a good deal of your time and energy keeping that RP going. I won't sugar coat it. Its honest to goodness work, and unless you're prepared to do that work for the months or even years it can take an RP to finish, you should think twice about hosting an RP at all, and you should probably stick to simply participating for the time being.

In other words, Step 1 is to be truly mentally prepared to work hard for an extended period of time. Are you? You sure? Good. Lets move on.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Zai I'm totes prepared to host an RP and I have an idea for one, can I go post my OOC now?]No, you can't. Not yet.

One of the biggest pitfalls RP hosts fall into is that they think their idea is ready to be an RP. While most story ideas can indeed become awesome RPs, just having an idea for one doesn't make it a workable concept. Let me explain.

An idea is, more or less, the basics of an RP, in other words, your "who? what? when? where? why? how?". You need to answer all six to tell a proper narrative, and you also happen to need to do so to create an RP. Almost every host goes into their OOC with these six questions answered, even the inept or inexperienced ones. "Why isn't this good enough to start an RP then?" you might ask. Well, the answer to that is a bit complex. Yes, you can write up an OOC and start a roleplay based solely on what I have defined here as an "Idea" but in all likelihood that RP won't last in the long run and may not even generate enough interest to begin. See, an idea is, in essence, the story of an RP. Its the plot and the setting and the cast and what have you, and all are necessary to write a narrative.

Notice how I used the words "story" and "narrative"? Those are words we use to describe works of literature.

Roleplays aren't just literature.

We often forget that RPs are games and social activities as well as stories. They have specific rules of conduct and styles of play. Sometimes they may even be competitive, with clearly defined winners and losers (yes, competitive writing is a thing). When you are creating and hosting a roleplay, you must be especially cognizant of this fact because, in essence, you are also designing a game for yourself and for others to play. Games can become broken, unfair, or unbalanced (just look at Yugioh), and it is also your job as a host to make sure that that doesn't happen to your "game", as well as preparing for the eventuality that players (or you yourself) may attempt to break said "game". This is what I mean by creating a concept. In other words, when coming up with a roleplay, one must design their idea (that "who? what? when? where? why? how?" i mentioned above) around the fact that it will also be acting as a game, and in doing so, it becomes a concept. This means, for instance, designing the method of combat in your setting in such a way that it isn't easy to create overpowered characters or abilities (balancing your game), or designing your plot to best fit the amount of players you expect to have (knowing your audience), or making your setting detailed enough to allow other people to weave their  characters' backstories into it (worldbuilding) among many, many other things that you yourself will have to think about during the design process. In layman's terms, conceptualizing an RP means taking your awesome idea and altering it so that it is as suitable as possible for accommodating other people's writing and ideas within itself. Only then, when that alteration is complete, does your idea become a concept. We turn concepts into RPs.

I should also note that at this stage you as a host have the option of putting up an interest check in the OOC section. Doing so is a good idea, since you can gauge how much interest your concept is getting and further refine it accordingly.

In short, Step 2 is turning your idea into a fully fledged and robust concept so that it can accommodate other people. Have you done that? Sweet. Lets continue.

[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Yo Zai! I've got my concept all ironed out and ready to go, I can go post it now right, dawg?]Nope. You've got to write it down first.

Something many a writer neglects to do is draft, and this tends to be especially true for RPers like us, for whatever reason. Now, what do I mean when I say "draft"? Well, quite simply, drafting means putting your OOC down in writing somewhere, whether its here in YCM's own text editor, a google doc, or microsoft word. You as the host need to physically see it somewhere before you even think about posting it, and here's why.

Despite what my ego would like to have you believe, we hosts are human too, and that means we forget to do things and, more importantly, we neglect to do things. The absolute biggest, most common mistake I see made in OOC threads on YCM (and plenty of times by me, by the way) is that they're incomplete.

"But wait Zai" I'm sure you're saying "I've looked at tons of OOCs on YCM, and all of them look finished. Every section in them is complete!"

And here's me telling you that most of them are missing things that almost every RP needs.

Remember what I said earlier about hosting RPs being a ton of work, well believe it or not writing an OOC is one of the most important parts of that work. Good OOC threads are as comprehensive and as accessible to other people as possible, and bad ones have way too much detail about the wrong things or lack detail entirely. Again, I'm not going to sugar coat it. A good OOC is a massive chunk of writing, and they take a lot of time, thought, and effort to write up.

So then, what does your OOC need in it to be awesome? Well, the answer is going to vary from RP concept to RP concept, but luckily there are things that I think every OOC thread needs to have. For the sake of your (and my) sanity I have them listed and described for you below.

• A Rules & Information Section- I'll be frank here. Every single person worth your time on YCM has read and follows the RP section's (and YCM's) rules. You don't need to mention them at all aside from a single statement stating the obvious: that they apply. Lists of rules do not actually matter. Instead, this section should spell out (in paragraph form so that people actually have to read it) any additional rules that your RP may have, and then, much, much more importantly, pertinent information about the RP. What kind of information? Well, things like what players should expect from you and your cohost(s), what sort of playstyle or narrative flow the RP will have (for instance if its sandbox-ey or more linear), how you will go about accepting applications, what players can expect the content to be like (which also tells them the kinds of content they should write), and what kinds of characters and concepts you specifically do and do not want in your RP, plus any other meta stuff that you think is relevant.

• A Setting Section- All too often I see information about an RP's setting simply lumped in with its plot, which makes things both confusing for applicants and will often cause you to leave out important information. Instead, I have found that a section specifically for describing the setting and the background history of the RP works much better. Usually, but not always, this section is going to be a good deal larger than the plot section, as you should include as much detail as you can (without making it too dense and long winded) about the world so that applicants have as much information as possible to use when creating their characters. I can't stress enough how important your setting is for the RP's health and activity, since a good one will not only let people create better and more acceptable characters, but it might even *gasp* get them invested in the world of the RP, which is just about the best case scenario for any host.

• A Plot Section- Removing the setting from your plot section allows you to outline your RP's premise much more easily and efficiently, which in turn helps potential applicants get up to speed faster and also gives them context for the things you mentioned in the setting. A good plot section outlines the premise and opening portions of the plot of an RP, as well as giving context for things like relevant factions and NPCs that the players will be interacting with or joining. Good plot sections are also minimalistic, since they're the most important part part of the OOC and you want your applicants to know the necessary things first and foremost, so avoid weighing them down with unnecessary fluff like prose or irrelevant information. Also, your plot should always come after/below your setting section, since you want your applicants to be familiar with the setting of the RP before they know what's going on in it.

• A Database- Something almost everyone forgets is that applicants are not able to read your mind. They do not and will not know what every term, faction, and event in your setting is or how they work unless you tell them. That is what a database is for. Databases are basically dictionaries of terms relevant to the RP that need to be defined or explained in more detail than you can provide in your setting and plot sections. They shouldn't be overly massive at first (you can always add more to them as the RP goes on) but you should be able to fill it with a few entries if you've written your setting and plot correctly.

• Application Templates- No one really forgets to include these, but a lot of people don't do them correctly. Application templates should always include the necessities of name, age, gender, description, personality, and/or biography, but good templates also include things like appropriate formatting (where and where not to put spoilers, line minimums for sections, etc) and some content do's and don't's (which should also be in your rules on greater depth because redundancy makes people remember things). Obviously each template will vary from RP to RP, and there's no set standard, but generally the more detail you require of your applicants (and yourself, if you're also playing a PC) the better the characters (and by extension the RP) will be. You should also include a skeleton for minor NPCs as well so that you or anyone else can write entries for them.

• The Cast- I'm going to be blunt here again. You need quick and easy access to the apps or bios of every character in the RPin order to keep things running smoothly (and yourself sane), and the best way to do this is to keep a list of links to all of the characters/accepted applications in the OP, or have a link to said list in the OP so that everyone (including yourself) can look at whatever information about any of the characters they need at any time. Very, very important.

• Other s***- Other things you can and probably should include for the sake of keeping the RP running smoothly are accepted RPer lists, a "the story so far" section summarizing the events of the RP up tot he present so that people can quickly catch up, as well as any in-depth guides to certain aspects of gameplay or the setting that you deem necessary.

See? Look at all of the information you're going to need. Now go look at those OOC threads again. see how much they're missing from this list? Guess what's most likely going to happen to them. That's right, they'll likely stagnate and die because their opening posts don't have the necessary information and framework to keep the RP running smoothly.

TL;DR: Step 3 is writing your OOC down and making sure its got all of the necessary information in it before you even think about posting it.

Have you gotten everything written down? Is it detailed enough? Is it accessible to someone who isn't you? Sure? Proofread it. Still sure? Fantastic! lets move on.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=I'm totally ready for this Zai-senpai! Can I go post my OOC now?!]Yup! But 'ol Zai's gonna teach you how to do it right first. Let me learn ya a few things.

As a host, the OOC is your first and quite possibly best chance to shine. You came up with your awesome idea, you tweaked and conceptualized it to plan for every problem and eventuality, you spent the hours and quite possibly days writing down all of that information in each and every section, and you, sir or madam... are gonna make it look sloppy?!

Yes, you heard me right. Oftentimes we as hosts are so ready to get the show on the road that we forget one very important thing that we need to do: make the RP look f***ing awesome. Now, I don't actually mean it in a story or gameplay sense. You've already done that to the best of your ability. What i mean is that you need to make the OOC itself look good. To use an analogy, if you want people to buy your merchandise, you need to sell it well.

How do you sell you're OOC? Well there's a few easy ways. Here's a quick list for you.

• Spoilers are your friends- Nothing turns potential applicants off more than a wall of text (which your OOC is going to be no matter what you do), so spoilering every individual section of the OP is an absolute necessity. If you can, spoil the subsections (like each entry in your Database) in each of your spoilers as well. I can't stress enough how important this is to making your OOC look neat and presentable (not to mention being accessible and easier to read). Literally no OOC should be posted on YCM without spoilers. Period.

• Logos are rad- Having a nice logo goes a very long way in making your OOC stand out and look presentable. If you're like me and have no skill in image editing, a good place to look is YCM's Graphics section, which has a subforum dedicated to image requests that many of our more talented members are usually willing and able to help you out with.

• Ahh, the sound of music- Since a good portion of YCMs RPs are meant to be anime-like or are based on anime, its often a good idea to include a link to a theme song for the RP. Its not always appropriate, but for something like this it goes a long way toward building immersion, which is something that you definitely want to do as a host.

Step 4: Make it look pretty.

Do that stuff, make it look great, and guess what, you're good to go. Proofread and hit that post button![/spoiler]

[spoiler=Zai, you magnificent stud of a man, I can't thank you enough for helping me get my OOC up and running! What's next?!]Now that you're OOC is up, you need to be ready, willing, and able to curate the applications that come your way and answer any and all questions the applicants may have for you.

As much as we would like to accept every person who takes interest in our RP, the fact of that matter is that you should only accept applications that will be beneficial to have as characters in the RP. Each host's judgement is different and every RP has different standards, so what constitutes "beneficial" can vary wildly from RP to RP. Generally speaking, you as the host need to be on the lookout for mary sues, troll apps, xeroxes, or generally poor characters, as all of these can derail an RP if left unchecked. If you do run into these, your best bet is denial, though if you're not doing limited acceptance in your RP then its generally polite to offer to help the applicant improve their app or offer suggestions on writing a better one. However, if you see no visible signs of improvement or the applicant quite simply will not be good to have in the RP, you also need to be firm and unwavering in your denial of the application. You're the boss, and you should act like it (as long as you do it fairly!).

Applicants also will oftentimes ask you questions about information they do not understand, concepts or ideas they want to run by you for approval, or plotholes they've found and want to point out to you. Once again, the key is to be authoritative, but not nasty. If you don't approve of something, be firm, but fair about it. And If you've made a mistake in writing your OOC or answering a question and you're called out on it, own up and fix it. Nobody likes it when we show how full of ourselves we are, after all.

Step 5 is to be on the ball and ready to help your applicants with their own design process and application to the rp. Once you've got a solid cast and enough RPers, you're all set to write that glorious first IC post, and get your masterpiece underway.   [/spoiler]

And there you have it folks. Hope it helps, and happy hosting!

 

EDIT: Thoughts and input are greatly appreciated, especially If you think I've missed something.