Read Read Read. It is important for all players to be informed before posting and stay informed through out their role plays. You should read all that is going on in the area where your character will be. Forum descriptions and any posts prior to yours in an individual role play will all contain important information for setting and circumstances thus far. You need not know each and every detail by heart, but the lie of the land is important... if your character appears in the middle of a battlefield, they will logically likely be hurt.
Write your post and then edit remembering to check it for spelling and grammar. Be sure that it reflects the story-line of the role play up until the point you are writing about. Is your post keeping in context with the setting and circumstances surrounding your character’s placement in the story, have you used cause and effect? If the Inn door is broken off its hinges, for example, your character should act accordingly, and not pull the door open smoothly and shut it quietly behind them.
Tense And How To Use It The three tenses - past, present, and future - are extremely important in free-form role playing. Without their being used properly, a great deal of confusion in regard to the timeline of an RP can develop. We shall take each individually...
Past - The past tense needs to be used most carefully of the three, since anything put in the past tense cannot be altered in any way by another's response - it has, after all, already happened. The past tense is best used in entrances, flashbacks, and when your character is speaking in it. Otherwise, it should be avoided to give your role plays some malleability.
Present - The present tense is good to use in role plays, and in the vast majority it is the dominantly used tense. It allows responses to change the course of events somewhat, but not to completely ignore your effects upon said events.
Future - The future tense is for two situations, really - the first is battle, since each individual motion hinges on that which comes before it, the future tense should be used to avoid any chance of misunderstanding or accusation. The second situation is where you have chosen to make a very long post - for any reason - and the section you are writing in future tense is dependent on the previous section not being interrupted or changed considerably.
By using the three tenses in the manner above, you can avoid a great deal of confusion that could otherwise arise, and save a few headaches - for yourself, others, and your character.
Setting The Scene. This section can be thought of as the old collection of questions - Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? - you were likely asked when writing anything creative at school. Bear in mind these do not need to be answered in this order in your posts - though each should be answered for each reaction you need to write, so they should be quite thoroughly dispersed through a role play. Also, some situations will not necessitate using all of these – Elidoris already uses many pre established settings and often engages in Forum Wide role plays in which certain circumstances may be forced upon players to react to. If the log standing Tavern you walked into is currently being held up by a band of pirates go ahead and react accordingly.
Quantity And Quality. Throughout everything in life you will most likely have been told that how much you do isn't really relevant - more important is how well you do it. The same is true to an extent in FFRP... you do not need to write thousands upon thousands of words to make a good FFRP post - indeed, if you do write this much it is likely you are repeating yourself throughout, or not giving others a chance to respond to what happens at the beginning of your post. It is better to post a reasonably long (a couple of hundred words) text, without repeating yourself, in which each detail of the RP is quite clearly defined, and a reaction to each event preceding the post (within the RP) is included. Quantity is not entirely unimportant - a post of only a few lines simply cannot contain enough detail to be of high quality.
Action. If you do not say that your character does something, then they do nothing. No matter how much you write or how well you write it, if you do not distinguish between your character’s thoughts, plans of action perhaps, and their actual movements, then others can become confuse and you may have left your character in circumstances you had intended them to behave differently in. Describe the character’s physical actions to best of your ability. Jane jumped over it simply doe not imply the amount of effort one’s character would require to efficiently leap overran agitated wyvern’s swaying tail.
Open Up Options. You should be very, very careful not to hem other role players into a single course of action - just as in real life, you cannot cut off all avenues of possibility, and the same logic applies in your role playing. One of the best ways to improve your role playing posts is to make sure that the next person has plenty to respond to - so that you can respond, to their responses... This makes for a more interesting and involving role play, both for bystanders reading it, and for those writing.It is quite critical to leave others options, lest the role play become stifling, and eventually stagnate. If this means humoring them for a time then you should do so - they will usually be trying to lead you towards a particular conclusion, or simply turn the path of the role play away from a predictable ending. The surprises and mystery this brings to role play is often the most enjoyable part.
Making Assumptions. This is a rule of thumb which many dislike, mostly because they do not include enough information in their posts to stop others making assumptions. For example, if someone does not specify at the beginning of a role play whether it is night or day - they make no mention, and give no real indication - then you are perfectly entitled to assume that responsibility and choose for yourself. Equally, if you do not state that your character is wearing armor, only speaking of the cloak you wear over it, then others are entitled to assume you are wearing no such armor. As such, it is important to give as much detail as possible, for the good of others' characters and your own!
Subject: Roleplaying hints/tips 