Whew. Okay, that's most of the theory out of the way. Before I get into specific examples, I just want to say a quick word about "Meta-RP" skills. These skills don't relate directly to the play itself, but still have enormous impact on the quality of RP you experience. "Meta-RP" roughly translates to "above RP" or "outside RP." In other words, these are OOC/interpersonal skills that relate to the roleplaying. Much of meta-RP concerns your general attitude and approach to RP, as opposed to specific rules governing what you do in play. Sadly, this area is frequently neglected and almost never discussed. If you want to be pretentious, these are just darn important life skills to have anyway, but it's especially important that you be able to apply these skills to RP. If no one is good at these things, the RP community will stagnate, and not a lot of actual playing will get done. I will list a few briefly.

• Be able to work with others. This stems directly from the doctrine of cooperation. If you don't have a good grasp on the collaborative process, cant "read" other people or cant establish a healthy give and take with them as you develop an idea, you aren't going to get very far in your RP.

• Be able to play for the good of the group. In addition to working well with others, you need to develop a perspective of RP being sort of like a team sport, and understand that you'll occasionally need to "take one for the team" to prevent everyone from losing. You need to be able to see when it's okay to play selfishly, and when doing so will result in a dead-end that kills the dynamics of a storyline.

• Be able to take initiative and go out on a limb when the situation requires it. Television, the Actual Factual Devil of our day, has taught us all to be passive and wait to be entertained. This absolutely will not cut it in roleplay. The result of waiting around for an entertaining situation to occur is a lot of navel gazing and sitting around drinking your character's beverage of choice. The bottom line is if a roleplay is boring, it's your fault and you need to take the responsibility for correcting it. That said...

• Understand which contributions are helpful, and which are more of a hindrance. The point of RP is...wait for it...RP! Elaborately planning a storyline with your buddies or making well written posts to a message board, while potentially interesting, don't actually contribute to RP. Building rooms, starting a new hub, creating scads of new, ever more detailed characters are all potentially fun - but they aren't RP. The number one way to get involved in Shards and contribute to the community is to just play. It seems obvious, but an amazing, even absurd number of people don't seem to grasp this simple concept.

  There are many specific things you can do to help out, depending on the situation. Sometimes this will mean taking on the role of a baddy and starting shit. Sometimes this will mean letting your character die, be abducted or otherwise suffer inconvenience. Very often this will mean doing something that isn't immediately gratifying or awe inspiringly amazing. For instance, going into a room you don't normally RP in instead of sitting around writing forum posts, playing with people you'd normally never play with, letting your storyline simmer in the background or go in a different direction, playing a "bit" part because your normal character just wont fit in or doesn't work as the center of action, being willing to jump into an RP even when it isn't "yours," being willing to allow people into "your" RP even when they haven't been invited are all valid and helpful contributions. The way to a lively and active RP community is paved through small, "invisible" contributions, not ego gratifying strokes of bold leadership and cunning plans.

  You need to develop your recognition factors in terms of what helps when, and an attitude that says "sure, I'll pitch in" no matter what. This can feel an awful lot like hard work at times. If you are serious about RP, and want to see your RP community thrive, you will be willing to roll up your sleeves and jump into the fray. It is essential that you understand that freeform RP is not about any one person or even group of people. Freeform RP is about everyone - the "goal" if you can use such a word is for everyone to enjoy themselves, and hopefully for interesting stories full of unexpected twists and turns to be crafted in the process.

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Article text ©2004 Chris Wyman. Redistribution is permitted provided this notice is retained. All other rights are reserved.