Where to Start

First and foremost, you must decide what sort of character you are creating. This will depend largely on the roleplay. For example, you wouldn’t create a space pirate in a Tolkien-esque fantasy roleplay. So you need to ask yourself a few questions:

• Is my character of a race that ‘fits in’ with the roleplay?
• Will my character be a lead character or a supporting one?
• What role does my character have?

Of course, these are very basic questions to ask, but they allow an initial outline idea of your character. By answering these questions, you’re on the way to creating an awesome character.

Names

For myself, I start by naming my character. Certain races have expected naming conventions, but that doesn’t always matter – your character’s name needs to simply fit in with the roleplay.

Names can be difficult to make up, but help is available! Check out the following links to name generators:

• Seventh Sanctum has a good name generator section, with many generators for all kinds of situations
• Dragon’s Mark is another service that offers multiple name generators, focusing mostly on fantasy names
• Another good name generator can be found at fantasyrole.org which again focuses on fantasy names
• PHP Geek is another site with a name generator. It’s pretty basic and works based on your own information – surname, first name, mother’s maiden name and the name of the city you were born in. Of course, you don’t have to enter real information though.

Others exist, of course, and you can use Google to search for them.

Appearance

Your character’s appearance is important. Often it can be a reflection of your character’s personality, an indication of their position, or simply what they look like. A few things should be considered:

• How tall is your character?
• What build? Slim, muscular, chubby, some alien-looking abomination?
• What does their face look like? Hair colour, eye colour, ugly, pretty, handsome?
• What clothes do they wear?
• How does your character ‘carry’ themselves? Do they seem confident, nervous, arrogant, flirtatious? This is often directly linked to the character’s personality.

Personality

A character’s personality will determine their of the world, how they interact with others, and predominantly, how you play the character. A personality can also change over time, as in real life. Often, the character’s history will link into their personality – perhaps being the cause of the personality.

• What is the general attitude of your character? Fun-loving, happy, enthusiastic, serious, stoic, loud, bashful?
• In what way do they view others? Friends, acquaintances, enemies?
• How does your character view the world they are in?
• What standards/morals/principals does your character have?
• Is your character liked by others? Immediately, after getting to know them, not at all?
• What is your character motivated by?

History

A character’s history is one of the keystones in character creation. It is what ties everything together. Much like a real person, a roleplay character will inevitably be moulded by the events in their life. The history of a character can also explain why there are where they are in a roleplay. A few things to consider, when writing a character’s history:

• What was their childhood like?
• What events in their childhood helped to shape them, if any?
• What have they spent their life doing up to this point?
• Are there any influential people they’ve met ‘along the way’?
• What jobs has the character had?
• What trials helped to make the character stronger, weaker, less trusting etc?
• Has your character moved from their home town?
• If so, why?
• If not, why?

Some people like to have a very detailed history, some don’t. The choice is up to you. If you write a history, try to keep at least to the key points in their life that led them to ‘now’.

Abilities and Equipment

A character’s ability and equipment needs to again fit in with the roleplay. Your character wouldn’t have a phaser in a fantasy roleplay, typically. A few things, without going into specifics, should be considered:

• Do the abilities and equipment match the roleplay?
• Are the strength of my character’s abilities too strong? (After all, you don’t want to god mod.)
• Where did the character learn these abilities? Do they match up to the history?
• Do the abilities coincide with other character points? (For example, would a 15 year old really have mastered a technique that takes fifty years to do so?)
• What equipment does my character have?
• For what purpose?
• How many of each item?
• Is it realistic for my character to carry all this equipment?
• How does the equipment assist in my character’s role?
• Are these abilities and equipment necessary, or do I just want an ‘uber character of doom’?

Part 2

We’ve looked at the basics of creating a character here. But, we’re not quite finished yet… We need to keep balance. A balance character is generally more interesting, and helps to suspend disbelief.

In the second part of this tutorial, we will look at how to maintain balance in your characters.

Lord Saladin is an experienced veteran RolePlayer and wordsmith, and long-time tutor of RolePlay and writing. He runs his own proof-reading business and has been published on several websites for his articles about sales and business.

It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.

André Gide says it pretty well here: We sometimes want to focus on the aspects of RolePlaying aside from the literary, which is perfectly acceptable. Yet, it does sometimes mean our writing suffers as a result. So, we must be entirely certain that we make words just as important as everything else.

Why?

Communication and understanding. To put it in a nutshell. As writers engaging in a collaborative effort to write a story, it is of utmost importance that we all understand what it is the other has written. How else can we expect the next person who posts to understand what just happened, and then continue the story in a coherent manner? Can we at all?

But remember also that we write not only for ourselves, as a RolePlayer, and our group of writers; but also for people who may be reading what we have spent valuable time and effort in creating. That’s an important fact to remember, one we often forget – even myself.

So…

Be sure to write in a way that makes sense, follows a logic that most can understand, and most importantly, make it an enjoyable read. What are the easiest ways to do that?

• Spelling: Spell your words out in full. There’s no need for ‘txt-tlk’ at all. I know that, perhaps, it will save you a quarter of a second here or there, but not everyone uses the same ‘code’ for writing shorthand. This means that your readers may have to spend a few minutes deciphering exactly what you mean; this will detract from the post itself – meaning your actions, narrative, character development etc could quite easily go unnoticed.
• Grammar and Punctuation: Grammar – which includes punctuation – adds to the meaning of your words. Emphasis can be placed in certain areas through punctuation, grammar and sentence structure can help convey the feeling of your character and their mindset or personality of your character better than the words themselves sometimes. Now, I don’t know the origin of this, but Miyumi quoted the following on RolePlay Gateway:

  Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy–will you let me be yours? Gloria

  And, in comparison (also from the same quote):

  Dear John: I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be? Yours, Gloria

  Notice, if you will, firstly that the words and their order are identical. Then take note of the entirely different meaning and tone. That’s the importance of grammar.

In Conclusion

The above two points are only the very basics of the importance of words. Utilising the above will certainly put you soundly on your way to creating exciting, gripping and easily read, easily played RolePlays.

I know a lot of new RolePlayers, and young writers, feel that spelling and grammar are unimportant when RolePlaying, as this is ‘only the internet’ and just some harmless fun. We need to remember, though, that just as the writing is collaborative, so too is the fun made by each of us working together. A lack of understanding, like trying to decipher post-graduate algebra, can take the fun away. Unless you’re a mathematician with a post-graduate degree.

Help is Available Though

No-one expects each RolePlayer to have perfect spelling and grammar, or to be able to maintain a high level at all times. We all make mistakes, which is perfectly fine. The following tools and methods can help you improve, though.

• Word Processors: Microsoft Word, or any other word processor with a spelling and grammar check will make sure that most errors are removed from your posts. Type your posts first there, and copy/paste into your forum.
• Mozilla Firefox: This awesome, free, web browser has built-in spell checkers though (as far as I’m aware) no grammar checker. Its default is American English, but you can easily install most languages, meaning it doesn’t matter in what language you are writing (unless made up), you know you’re spelling things correctly. It can be downloaded here.
• Proof Reading: Read through what you’ve written after you’re finished and before you hit ‘Submit.’ You will likely spot errors. Then read it aloud, you’ll notice grammar and punctuation mistakes. Read it once more. Then maybe let a friend or family member read your post – they’ll notice things you may have missed. Now you can hit the ‘Submit’ button with a secure knowledge that your post makes sense and is easily read.
• Time and Effort: Writing a 500-word post in five minutes may well mean you have a pretty decent typing speed, but likely you’re going lack the quality of someone who takes ten, or even fifteen minutes to write the same amount. If you’re going to write something, do it well. People can generally see when effort has been made, and they will respect that from you. Spending a little extra time, making that bit more effort, will also make your work all the better.

Lord Saladin is an experienced veteran RolePlayer and wordsmith, and long-time tutor of RolePlay and writing. He runs his own proof-reading business and has been published on several websites for his articles about sales and business.

 
When starting a forum based roleplay, char sheets are often used to screen players and identify godmoders while preventing Mary Sues. When dueling, a character sheet helps set limitations on “power level” to prevent powergaming. When casually roleplaying multiple characters, good character sheets can help the player manage the various personalities.

Whatever your reason for using a character sheet, make sure that the sheet you use is functional. If it is meant for other players to read, make it concise and informative. If it is for personal reference, make it detailed and well organized. If it is for player screening, make sure you follow the GM’s rules. If you are the GM, make sure that you set a sheet that you actually care about. While a character’s vocation is important, their hair and eye color are often not. An aside to GMs: if you require a character sheet, don’t use it just for screening. Integrate bits and pieces of characters’ histories into the plot.

I generally partake in freeform RPs and thus rarely read others’ character profiles (except for research). I highly doubt that every player takes the time to read mine, so my primary reason is to create a comprehensive reference for my own use. My characters are often of much varied temperaments than I, so roleplaying “what I know” is a rarity. I build my character sheet the same way that I build my character: given a set of personality traits, I produce an anecdotal history that explains why my character has those traits. Alternatively, given an event in my character’s biography I determine the effects on their psyche and demeanor. This reference is a way for me to tell myself what things make up my character, so that when he or she or it discovers a new situation, I can use their anecdotal past to determine their reaction. Just writing down that reference helps me ingrain it, so I might not even return to it.

A criticism I often receive after making that statement calls me out as bland and “too rational, preventing my characters from ever being spontaneous”. If you feel like making that criticism then you are missing my point: if my character is spontaneous or has the potential for spontaneity I will explain that potential via some event or sequence of events in their life. So when he risks his life to save a little girl, he will be thinking back to his sister’s death that no one risked their life to prevent. Or he will be going out of his way to impress a maiden, fooling himself and others that he is chivalrous. When my character leads a battalion into the fray, my history will reflect either childhood board game endeavors leading to a profound understanding of strategy, or perhaps a con-artisan streak leading up to the commanding rank. Or perhaps he will have spent his entire life working towards the position, and has finally reached it.

What these anecdotes allow me to do is extrapolate other details from the situation. Is my character ecstatic or anxious? Is he confident or doubtful? Is he emotionally stable or unstable? Rather than make a random guess I am able to use my character reference to portray truer actions, ones that will certainly affect the course of the roleplay. More importantly, this reference prevents me from living vicariously through my characters and overlaying my own psyche with their abilities. It prevents my lover from forgiving his cheating significant other, and prevents my brute from solving a simple puzzle.

Of course, the character reference is only relevent or useful if you actually use it. If the roleplay is a duel with no plot then the only relevant details are fighting style, ability to taunt, and attributes of the body, then only those features should go on the sheet. If the relevant character is meant to be an extension of yourself then only the physical appearance (for the benefit of others) is a necessary aspect of the sheet. Whatever your purpose for creating a character sheet for a forum roleplay, make sure that your sheet is targeted for a specific audience (or yourself) and that if fulfills whatever purpose you set out for it.

There are various ways to create a World. In most novels, the world is narrow, detailed like a corridor through which the storyline paths. And yet, many of us have read Tolkien, or Brust, or scores of other authors who persist with the same world. We as forum roleplayers seek to create worlds post-by-post, thread-by-thread. We gather several friends, toss together enough information to have a setting, drop a character each into the fray, create a bit of history, and starting moving forwards and outwards.

Let me first caution you, from my own experience: stick to a single time period, and only move forward. I have partaken in a world so fluidly created that we moved back and forth through history (at the same time) days, months, decades, centuries, millenia. We created three concurrent planes of existance, at least four ranks of beings, and five times as many characters as we had players. Had we need one person, this would have prospered and grown. Unfortunately, there were too many nuances to keep track of in space and in time. At some point, any world will become too thick for many players to keep it free of contradictions.

Let us say that you seek to create a world, and start with a continent, a town, a day, and some characters. You are a group of perhaps ten avid writers, all looking to participate, all with equal pull as to which direction thir world moves in. One way to go about it is to write, each creating lore, writing quests, beasts, enemies, events, and more of the like. STOP. Do not do this. You are not the lone writer, the Tolkein who has free reign of his domain. Passive Writing, where your work is simply added to that of your fellows, is a killer of worlds. Your work does not engage your fellows, nor are they necessitated to read it, given that they too are people, with lives, with limited time, and are currently busy with their own Passive Writing. In analogy, if all of you start bricking out a building from different places with no rules as to how your bricks should be stacked, your building will either have many holes, several clashes between builders, or no structural integrity if you all manage to still come together.

I prescribe Active Roleplaying.

We are all used to in-character topics where we all throw together our PCs and write NPCs in as we need them. This is, of course, Active Roleplaying, as it requires your fellow players to take heed of your character’s actions, and of any world-fleshing information you include among those actions. But how many times can you ‘Kill the Were Bear’ or ‘Save the Princess’ or ‘Recover the Golden Goblet’ before you and your fellows are bored and want to move on to another world, or maybe their girlfriends? Active Roleplaying doesn’t always have to be quests, and most importantly doesn’t always have to involve PCs.

One mode of Active Roleplaying that involves only NPCs is what I call Conversation Topics. There is little description (of the scenery, at least) and there is almost no action (apart from “stood” or “sat”). If your world was Rome, there could be a Conversation Topic at the Forum or at the Senate. If you were following Aladdin in Agrabah, a good place for a Conversation Topic might be the local bazaar. In Alexandria, the Lighthouse Library would serve well. In the small town of Sleepy Grove a perfect Conversation Topic would be the Town Hall Meeting. In a college setting, an engaging discussion class would work. Given a corporation, a meeting of the Board of Directors. At a high school, the PTA meeting. In a Fraternity, a Regional or National Conference. Etc. For any setting except for the travels of a quest, there is likely some location where several NPCs are likely to meet.

Use them. Rather than starting off with the “Slay the Dragon” quest, take to the town hall, where all sorts of mundane and otherwise matters are likely to be discussed. One man will whine about someone’s urine on his white fence. Another will comment about how ugly that white fence is anyway. If nothing else, it is a place to create a one-time or even recurring character with a personality that you want to test out. It also sets the mood to have Gerta, mother of three, bust through the doors yelling and screaming about bandits who kidnapped her son and demand the town’s harvest for his safe return, where failure to comply will involve taking the grain by force anyway. Now you have a quest to work with, with a proper setup. Your fellows were playing equally useless townsmen until this quest came about, but now all know about it. When they go to the new topic you’ve created for the quest they wont be surprised: they will be ready, eager, and thinking of what their NPC will say when the heroes come back.

NPC Conversation topics can be revisited over and over again, or can be abandoned with no loss and no harm done. They give players a chance to stay active in the world between quests, while at the same time serving as spawning point for quests. As the world grows, they become perfect starting points for players new to the world. Most importantly, they give all of the players a chance to practice roleplaying with little consequence – a rowdy townsman can always be bounced out of the meeting, while a boring senator can always just stop talking. And if the annoying teacher gets hit by a car, well, not only was that a good solution to a failed experiment, but it also spawned a murder mystery that a bunch of dumb kids are likely to investigate.

NPC Conversation topics aren’t purly theoretical – I have tried them, and in my limited experience they have worked wonders. If you have a world to try them out, please do, and give me your insights and your suceess (or otherwise) stories. Good luck, and happy world building!

This month’s words are: fire and sea

Problems stemming from inflexibility:

• Overwhelming Content – when the prerequisite to becoming involved is reading a large quantity of material, that can form a barrier to players who would otherwise participate.
• Obstructing Contributions – holding an iron fist around what is occurring in the story, and maintaining a regimental environment, obstructs opportunities for others to contribute. 
• Poor Integration – a closed or tedious environment can make it awkward for those who are trying to involve themselves in the story.

To provide an example of the above items, imagine a story involving a group of friends playing a criminal, a victim, and a police officer. The setting is the criminal’s cellar, where he tortures his victim until the police officer comes and arrests him, rescuing the victim. This restricts the ways a fourth party could become involved, making for an example of poor integration. The basement environment is not conducive to people just wandering on in and participating. As an outsider, I would feel as though there was nothing to contribute without railroading the story.

Tools for developing flexibility:

• Open Writing – write in such a way that it is easy for people to respond to you, such as posing a question to nobody in particular or walking up to a vendor in a market square and inquiring of the local news.
• Length and Style – keep your posts of relatively average length, so others don’t spend an excessive amount of time reading them. By the same token, don’t make them too short, otherwise you won’t be able to keep their interest. Also write in a style that is familiar, and not overly obtuse. A narrative, third-person style seems to be the most typical.
• Acknowledging Others – when another person posts, do what you can to acknowledge what they’ve written; for example, noticing they’ve entered the area or responding to something they’ve said.
• Maintaining a Summary – just a short list of what has happened thus far, so people can quickly know what is happening or, if they have a poor memory, can recall it with relative easy.
• Foreshadowing - provide all the involved parties a sense of direction, so when they sit down to write they have focus. This can be done either by foreshadowing in the actual writing or by less discrete methods such as providing a summary of objectives, both short and long term, that is readily available for everyone to read.
• Autonomy - don’t let your character become trapped in a situation where you’re utterly reliant on other players if you wish to move forward.

Where this gets useful is that when you have a few of these things, you can start sticking them together like some sort of crazy tinkertoy. Now, the obvious way to do this is simple substitution. If Bob likes golf and Dave likes golf, you now have a connection between Bob and Dave. Easy peasy. The weakness of this approach is that there are only so many times I can pull on that particular thread before it becomes predictable – ‘let me guess, we’re golfing again!’. while it absolutely benefits from simplicity, it lacks nuance.

Less obviously, but perhaps more potently is when you establish connections between the outliers. Let’s say for example that Bob still likes golf, but Dave has a different connection: let’s say he’s married to Paula. If I connect Paula to golf (say, she owns the local country club) then I have just made Paula more interesting, and I’ve just made the path from Bob to Dave clear, but a little more nuanced, and practically speaking, easier for me to bring into play. How do I mean? Ok, instead of only having one thread to pull on to get Bob & Dave together, I can pull on either one of their strings and more organically pull in the other. Paula’s havign money problem and the club might be sold. The club is hosting an event and Paula’s running it. A new pro has opened up, and Bob wants his help – if only he had the ear of the club owner!

So, that’s all straightforward enough, but where this ties back into the current line of thinking is with NPCs. While PCs tend to have very organic starbursts, NPCs need to be a little bit simpler, if only for bookkeeping, so I use a simple template when I set one up – a starburst with 4 connections, one to a PC, and the other three to stuff. The link to the PC is usually the most straightforward to account for.

The other three will generally be a thing or an NPC – it doesn’t matter a lot what they are, but what’s important is what their roles are.
he first is something that puts him on the same page with at least one of the same PCs. He values something that the PC values, he’s got a positive connection with one of NPCs connected to a PC, whatever.

The second is a connection that creates tension between the NPC and a player. This doesn’t need to be such a profound difference that it would make them enemies. In fact, antipathy so strong as to make the NPC an enemy should be rare – it is far more useful to have a point of honest, civilized disagreement than a reason to go immediately to the knives.

The third is the one that I’m making sure to add after my recent consideration – something tangential to the PC’s interest, something that explicitly does not tie back into anything else – something that is that NPCs own interest. Practically speaking, this is the thing that the NPC is doing when no-one is watching, and the players may never get full visibility into this.

Now, obviously a more important NPC might have more nodes, while a less important one might have only one or two, but 4 nodes is a good place to start.

Anyway, it’s a simple trick, and one that is probably very familiar to folks who do a lot of relationship mapping, but I find it useful when I need to step back and look at a game and figure out where things happen, and where things need to happen.

Footnote: This is a republished article by Robert Donoghue, printed with his permission from his original post, Building NPCs.

This is part two in the series “Make Your RP Successful!,” not because I am actually exerting the copious effort of composing a series of loosely-related articles on role-playing, but because I figure this opening sentence seems energetic and reminiscent of those inspirational guides on improving life, libido, and America. See? I also have an opening paragraph now, and I have not yet made a single point.

To get on topic, what is up with d’em d’er d’ern intimidated people? When do they come from? Where do they inject liquefied Doritos, if not beneath their eyelids to avoid staining their teeth with that orange, crunchy goodness? Why do they claim to read role-plays with religious zeal, but decline warm invitations to participate?

Originally, I thought this should be a long diatribe of seduction; a how-to of luring impressionable, if not a touch apprehensive, youngsters into a role-play. After all, these are role-plays they exiguously express interest in. However, I rapidly came to the harsh truth that the aforementioned either involves external change (others) or internal change (self). In short, fail!

Not in short, external change is improbable and internal change is unpalatable. To external change, while we may mutilate others, brainwash them, and leave them stranded on a freezing moonscape, that isn’t the change I am talking about. I am talking about change we can believe in. The kind that includes rainbows, fairies, and a big boost in confidence. Unfortunately, in lieu of the latter intangible, these intimidated folk have an over-exposure to the former two. To Internal change: it is possible, but revolting. You and I are no more interested in that brand of change than replacing our parent’s mildew-ridden Depends. That is what home hospice care is for, after all. More importantly, and perhaps the reason such change is so unsavory, is that it involves modifying our role-play modus operandi to suit the needs of other people, which we no doubt perceive as a decline of standards. It may or may not be rational or true, but it reflects our feelings, and such prevents that change from happening.

So, what is to be done? Uh……uuuuh… Damn.

That is a question I, too, wring my hands over. Now let me distract you from my lack of solutions with this sample conversation reflecting a similar situation to what I have experienced a few times in the past:

<N’Tim_Idated> Wow, cool RP!
<Circ> <3
<Circ> Why don’t you join?
<N’Tim_Idated> I wouldn’t want to screw up…
<Circ> RAWR! RUN IN FEAR MORTAL, FOR I SHALL DEVOUR YOUR - hey, don’t worry about screwing up. It’s about having fun, and we need people who are willing to jump in and participate.
<N’Tim_Idated> o.o
<Circ> Please?
*N’Tim_Idated signs off
<Circ> Was it something I said?
<Circ> I swear, I’m not a monster!
<April> Jerk.

What does this conversation prove? Not much. However, it does demonstrate that even though we behave courteously, openly, and express a desire for others to participate, it sometimes doesn’t pay off. As much as I want to imply otherwise, we can not make people do something they are unwilling to do. We simply create a welcoming, unthreatening environment, that still meets our personal standards, and hope they join in.

To those intimidated people out there, I have this to say: we really aren’t sour, soul-devouring anathemas. We are full of love and goodness! Do not fear us! Do not fear criticism! And hey, even if we are, the worst thing that can happen is … well, don’t worry about that. It won’t.

Joe Davis presents “Telescopic Text” – an interactive demonstration of expanding upon content, word by word.

You finally find a role-play forum gurgling up the Siren’s song of promise. There are tons of threads, and on every breed of subject matter your eager little soul can conjure. More surprising, many of them have quality writing! Yes, even the occasional furry threads exude greatness. Navigating through it all is daunting, but hey, that’s a sign of healthy, growing community. Most importantly, a sign of activity. Too much activity to be spelunking through and finding a role-play that suits suit you, of course. So, instead, eager to prove yourself, you dive right in, and start your own role-play. 

An hour goes by, and nobody joins. A day passes, and still no response. After a week, you give up hope. Your role-play concept was genius, but those arrogant losers – those self-ingratiating trollops – obviously have no taste for superb talent such as what you graciously (and, lest we forget, humbly) offered. In disgust and dismay, you wander off to find a community where people will accept your natural brilliance.

I am here to offer hope! The first step is realizing just how socially inept you are. Hey, stop looking at me contemptuously. It is true. Moreover, we are all just as gimpy as you, because – and lets belly-up and face facts – we have all done it. 

You know that kid in the playground, by the swings, all by him or herself while the rest of the young’ns frolicked in ignorant bliss as he or she pined for a friend to rescue them from their oppressive ostracism? Three years later, someone finally did. With a rock to the face. They had to have twelve stitches. It got so bad, the kid’s parents were forced to move to a different school district, but the process inevitably repeated itself. By fourteen, he or she ended up in a dark alley snorting Doritos and injecting Novocain into their … but I digress. This isn’t about me. That could have all been avoided if the whippersnapper simply participated in that communal ritual called play.

While it is definitely encouraged that people start role-plays (this is RolePlayGateway.com, after all), doing so takes a wee bit more planning than just coming up with a good story and posting it on a forum. You need people! That’s right, I said it. People. Without people, you will be lacking that little thing called participation. They are not going to just flock to your pure grandeur, like some European supermodel to a poorly-dressed college dropout who happened to overdose on Axe one day; especially if you are new to the forum. So here are some tips regarding people you may need to consider:

• People have their own gig – likely in their own, or their friends’, role-plays;
• People are very unlikely to see your thread in the sea of content;
• People may not realize they’re welcome to join your role-play (even if you make it painfully obvious);
• People generally like to meet new people, so joining their role-play won’t bring the apocalypse.

Solution? Join an already active role-play, or several role-plays. Make friends, because friends are what will invariably keep you attached to the community long after the wow-factor fades away. When you are ready to start your own, you will have a core group to help you get it moving. A group of people you like and are comfortable with, which will make the experience all the better.

So, you have two options. You can start play with the other kids, or sit by the swings and hope somebody nice comes over and plays with you. Because if you leave, on account of nobody joining your role-play, and go off looking for another community where you’ll be appreciated, those are precisely the odds you’re up against.