Here is a complete guide on how to roleplay. I hope that this helps ease soem confusion fro new roleplayers. First, here are some terms to know:

RP - Roleplay - The stoyline that RPers rolepay in
RPer - Roleplayer - People roleplaying
ARPer - Advanced Roleplayer - An RPer who is very good at roleplaying
DM - Dungeon Master - person who posts random events in RPs
IC - In Character - Text is in character
OOC - Out of Character - Talking out of context of RP
BIC - Back in Character - Coming back from OOC
RPG - Roleplaying Game - Tolkeihyme is an example

Okay, now that you are familiar with those terms, lets begin the roleplay. First thing I will go over is Chat Slang. Do not use chat slang in roleplays, no one wants to read chat slang and it is very annoying. here is some examples:

BAD - Yo, Ian wlked out 2 the sh0re & lookd out on2 the water nd n0ticd it was blu.
GOOD - Ian walked out to the shore and looked out onto the water and noticed it was blue.

That is what I mean, but even the good post there was bad because...It lacked detail! You need to make detailed posts. Make the reader understand what your character sees, hears, smells, feels, etc. Here is an example:

BAD - Ian walked into the bar, got a drink, drank it, left, and walked home.
GOOD - Ian entered the bar. It was cold out and the warm of indoors felt good. he sat at a table in the middle and ordered a drink. When he came, he thanked the waitress and slowly sipped down the beer. he left a few coins on the table an dwent back outside. the fresh air of outdoors was good becasue it smelled heavily of smoke in the bar. Ian looked up at the full moon as he bgan to walk home.

As you can see there, the detail helped spice things up a bit. Next, I will go over the point of view of your posts. You want your post to be in third person. that means you refer to your character using their name and describe what they do. Dialogue though, needs to be in first person. that means its them talking and use "I" and "me". Here's an example:

TEXT - Ian walked down the street to his friends house and knocked on the door. His friend's girlfriend opened the door. DIALOGUE - "Is Roy there?" he asked. TEXT - The girl nodded and walked back into the house and soon Roy came walkign up the hall. DIALOGUE - "I heard you needed some money" said Ian.

Now as you can see, it runs like a book. One last thing to go over and that is how to insert Dialogue and thought into posts. Here is example's of Dialogue:

BAD - Ian walked into the bar. Hello All! he said.
BAD - *Ian walked into the bar* hello everyone! *he said*
GOOD - Ian walked into the bar, "Hello Everyone!" he said.

Never use those little stars. they are the biggest problem, never use them. Simply put quotation marks aroudn dialogue. Here is how to insert thought:

BAD - Ian was walkign down the street, gee it is cold, he thought.
BAD - Ian was walkign down the street. "Gee it is cold" he thought.
GOOD - Ian walked down the street. Gee it is cold, he thought.

Simply put thought in italics.

That's pretty much all you need to knwo about how to roleplay, I hoep this helped.

Master Admin, Ian Askuren