Character devlopment and rp traing for frogzombie36

[Danikat]

Don't worry, you'll pick things up really quickly.

Probably the best way to start is with a little over-view of the whole deal.

The style of role-playing we use here is called Free Form Role-Play. Which means its completely open ended. You don't pick your responses from a list, there aren't even any hard and fast rules to determine what you can and can't do, within reason you can do anything you want at any time (I'll get to what 'within reason' means in a moment). More importantly you don't have a pre-set value for your characters health and there is no way to specify exactly how much damage any attack will do or if it even hits. This gives a great deal of flexibility, which makes things much more interesting because there’s an infinite number of possible characters who are all free to act precisely as their creators want them to (or as the characters want to in some cases).

But there’s a catch. The obvious temptation when told your character can be anything you want and can do anything you want is to create one who is infinitely powerful, immortal, omnipotent.....essentially an un-beatable God.
Which might seem like a great idea to begin with, but trust me it gets very boring very fast. Not only for all the people who don't have a hope in heck of lasting 5 minutes in a battle with you, but for you as well because it will take no effort and no imagination to achieve your goals.

So there are a few guidelines on character creation designed to address this without limiting the range of possible characters. Essentially be fair and be realistic.
Try to imagine your character as a real living thing and give it realistic limitations. A flesh and blood creature could only be so powerful, an ice monster would be vulnerable to fire, a creature made of inflammable goo might be immune to being stabbed, crushed, burnt, frozen ect. but it'd also have a very hard time using items or dealing with other people ect. ect. You're also not allowed to spontaneously change your character within an RP simply to avoid damage or to get around a tricky problem. If they had never before shown any kind of inclination towards psychic powers they can't suddenly become a master of teleportation when someone is charging you with a battering ram, they'd have to jump out the way (or take the damage) instead.

Which leads me to the one aspect on which there is a hard and fast rule: You always get to decide how an attack affects your character.
If you're fighting someone you cannot say "I swing my sword and slice your arm off". All you get to say is "I swing my sword at your arm" and its then up to them to decide how much damage (if any) the attack will do (this is done to give them some chance to counter the attack).
Again the obvious temptation is to always have your character avoid taking damage but this will put people off fighting you very quickly and lead to a lot of unrealistic situations. So again the trick is to be realistic.
If a flesh and blood character wearing no armour is stabbed with a sword its not likely to go straight through them (well it might, but it'll do a lot of damage along the way), if your character is made of solid rock they're unlikely to be able to dodge out the way of a sudden point blank attack. It's rare that you'll come up against an unavoidable, fatal, attack so you should be able to take some damage whilst still keeping your character in-play.

Ultimately what I'm getting at here is that whilst obviously Blackstar is not real-life you need to be realistic to a point. Having fun is more important than winning and you'll impress people a lot more with clever and creative role-play than with brute force and an unbeatable character. Unfair characters or moves (including having your character suddenly appear in a new area with no explanation and having them know details of situations/conversations they couldn't possibly be aware of) is known as power-playing and you'll be informed fairly quickly if you do it, although there is some lee-way given for new members who might not realise.

I'd recommend checking out some existing role-plays for examples of how all this works in practice.

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Part 2:
While I realise this is a lot to cover in one go I'd rather get all the theory out the way so we can move on to more fun stuff so I'm going to quickly cover the one other thing that’s easier to do out of character: grammar.

There are two different systems in use here and which one you prefer is entirely up to you. The first is what I like to call 'story mode': essentially speech goes into quotes and everything else is outside of them, written as if it was a story in a book.

For example:

Danikat walks into the room and rolls her eyes at being forced to do a ridiculous demonstration when she'd really rather be catching up on the latest episode of Heroes. "Yes, as explained that was me walking into the room and this is me talking. Easy isn't it?" And with that she walks out again.

The second method, what I like to call 'traditional' mode (simply because it was in use in the CC before the story method caught on. In this case actions, and their accompanying descriptions go into stars (*) and speech is outside of it.

For example:

*Danikat walks into the room and rolls her eyes at being forced to do a ridiculous demonstration when she'd really rather be catching up on the latest episode of Heroes*

Danikat: Yes, as explained that was me walking into the room and this is me talking. Easy isn't it?

*And with that she walks out again*

In both cases anything said out of character (OOC) goes into double brackets/parenthesises ( ( ), usually either commentary on the RP, instructions to another player or an explanation of why you did something.

For example:

((I didn't really intend this to be so long, but apparently I can't get to the point quickly.))

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Ok, apologies for loading you down with so much all at once. If you have any questions about any of that feel free to ask, if not then we can get on with some practice.

[Frogzombie36]

Okay i think im ready

[Danikat]

Good to hear.

Just one quick thing: you don't have to send PM's repeating your replies to topics, its fine just to reply within the topic and wait for people to find it there.

I think the easiest way to go about this now is to practice general role-playing and then we can go from there to fighting. So at this point I'm going to hand you over to my alter-ego, Danikat and she'll carry on from here:

Danikat walked into the entrance hall of the Training Dojo, pleased to find she'd arrived ahead of her new pupil, which gave her time to make sure the hot chocolate was still hot and to top up the marshmellows.

"So, looks like everythings in order, this should be fun."

[Frogzombie36]

((Okay thanks for the tip))

Nexus Walked to the Training Dojo smelling the Hot chocolate and his new trainer. Displeased that she arrived first.

" I am here and ready to be trained in the fine arts."

[Danikat]

"Ah, just on time. Excellent." Danikat smiled at her new pupil as she stood up and rubbed her hands on her jeans, a habitual movement when she was thinking, "I'm Danikat, your trainer. Pleased to meet you." She hesitated a moment, formalities were not her thing.

"So it seems you'd like to learn about hand-to-hand combat, is that right?"

[Frogzombie36]

(( should i call you sensei or something? Also any reason your on for like 5 minutes then off again? ))

Straiting up when she speaks. Smiles, revealing long canines.
"Yes i'm am looking to train in the fine arts of hand to hand combat."

[Danikat]

((You can call me whatever you like really. That sort of thing should depend on your character. If they're the sort of person who would use titles in every day conversation then sensi would probably be appropriate, if they're less formal Danikat or Dani would be fine. If it was in character you could probably even try insults although I wouldn't recommend it.

And I'm on for such short periods of time because for some reason which is totally beyond me I seem to have no free time at the moment. But I'm working on changing that.))

Danikat returned Nexus' smile, "With teeth like that its a wonder hand-to-hand is all you specilise in. I'd imagine a bit of hand-to-mouth would be useful in a tight spot. But jokes aside I believe I have just the individual here to help you."

Leading the way across the stone floor she opened a door that was remarkable within the training dojo only for its unremarkableness, unlike most the doors ((Which in case you haven't read the intro topic open onto a sort of 'free space' which can be turned into anything you want)) it opened onto what looked distinctly like your typical martial arts training room. With the notable exception that there was a small golem stood in the middle of it.

"This is mr. Brick, a special aquisition I had my assistants aquire to help train you. I'm not sure what exactly he's made of but I understand its a sort of plastic. But he should be perfect for your training."

Danikat snapped her fingers and mr. Brick opened his eyes. He would have looked exactly like a normal human, he was even wearing a t-shirt and jogging bottoms, the only minor give-away was the fact that he was bright blue and if you looked closely enough there was a seam running all the way around the side of his body. "I Am Brick. I Am To Fight You."
"Not much of a talker," Danikat explained, jumping onto a metal stoage case in the corner as mr. Brick moved into a fighting stance, "But he's good at the hand to hand stuff and easy to fix if you get a little carried away. So please feel free to procced at your own pace."

((As my character said this is your chance to just go at it. I'll control mr. Brick and have him react appropriately but aside from the power-play stuff mentioned earlier theres no rules so you can attack him however you like.))

[Frogzombie36]

"Okay then, Lets fight"

Nexus leaps at Mr. Brick Razer sharp claws aiming for his arm.

[Danikat]

((Ok a couple of tips to start with. It helps to put a bit more description into your posts. I'm not asking for an essay every time you post but imagine you're writing a story, you wouldn't just put the basic facts down, you'd describe how things were done and said.

Also watch out for your grammar, it doesn't have to be perfect but it helps to re-read your posts to correct any typos (like the star at the end of your sentance).))

Mr. Brick swings his arm back, trying to get it out the way of Nexus' attack but it seems he's still warming up and while he evades the full force nexus still leaves deep scratches in the side. Meanwhile Mr. Brick continues turning bringing his other arm around, fist clenched, in an attempt to punch Nexus in the back.

"Very nice," Danikat comments from her seat in the corner, "Good to see someone using their own natural weapons."

[Frogzombie36]

(( Okay thanks for the tips))

Smelling the scent of blood(I think hes bleeding because you said deep scratches))
Nexus smiles and stops to turn around,fur ruffled, unaware of the punch until it connects with his back. Falling over he rolls onto his feet,nursing the bruise."Gah, the hurts for a punch"

[Danikat]

((I also said he's made of plastic, but then golems are weird creatures so theres no reason he couldn't bleed, it would just not be normal blood.))

"I Am Programmed To Hurt." Mr. Brick explained unhelpfully as he returned to a ready position, awaiting Nexus' next move.

"Come on nexus! He can't have hurt that much, keep it going!" Danikat 'encoraged' from the relative safety of the corner.

((And nice work letting your chracter take a hit by the way.))

[Frogzombie36]

(( thanks, i may be a werewolf and fast but a surprise attack almost always hits, im just trying to be realistic))

Nexus circles around the golem look for a weak point when he looks at the seam around the golem. Racing forward he trys to hook his claws into the seam.

[Danikat]

The golem is well made and the seam holds, but one of Nexus' claws catches for a second in a tiny break. Not enough to do any serious damage but enough to tear the outer layer of plastic a little.

Meanwhile Mr. Brick brings both arms up in an effort to grab Nexus and pin his arms to his sides.

[Frogzombie36]

Noticing the tiny break and feeling the arms closing in around him Nexus trys to wiggle lose but fails, losing some fur in the process. "Darn it , this is gonna taste bad" Nexus trys to bites down hard on the right arm.

[Danikat]

((Once again I apologise for being away the last few days.))

Mr Brick is not capable of feeling pain, but he is aware that Nexus is doing considerable damage to his arm, his teeth tearing through the plastic and causing more 'blood' to flow from the golem.
((The blood probably won't do Nexus any damage and it'd taste of plastic.))

In an effort to get his arm loose Mr Brick spins in a cicle, waving his arm around hoping to cause Nexus to loose his grip.