[member="Lily Kirsche Kuhn"][member="Lilin Imperieuse"][member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]@Tracyn@Cassia Edric[member="Asemir Lor'kora"][member="Jay Scott Clark"]
I may be a rebel...but I find that RP works best when it is in a mix of styles. PbP really is not condusive to proper conversations, or duels. Duels can be managed a little by saying 'only one block and one attack per post' but conversations can be absolutely friggin nuts. I have seen conversations where one character monologues for paragraph after paragraph, and then the next character does the same thing, addressing individual conversation points from throughout the previous post. What you actually end up with is more like 4 or 5 conversations going on between just two characters! WOW. The alternative to this is writing the conversation together in more of a prose style, with shorter replies and only one characters perspective and then one person posting that conversation as a single post, before moving on to the NPC heavy action, or something that requires less conversation between player characters.
Also, I am convinced that good RP is more like good improv than good writing. Suggestions for good improv like the following, are great advice for RP:
1. ACCEPT INFORMATION: YES AND *
When you get a piece of information from another actor, first, accept it as fact and second, add a little bit more information to it. If somebody tells you that you're wearing a hula skirt, tell them yes you are, and that you made it right here at Club Med. Keep doing this long enough, and you'll have a scene full of fascinating facts, objects and relationships. Fail to do this and everyone will hate you, even your parents.
2. ADD HISTORY *
The swiftest way to add reality and depth to a scene is to have the characters call up specifics from their common history. A simple exchange such as:
--“Are you trying to get us arrested?”
--“Like the time we ran naked through the Yale-Princeton lacrosse game?”
though just a few words, provides a great deal of information. The audience and actors now can infer that the characters are college boys, they are troublemakers, they are educated, they are in New England, they drink to excess, they have police records, they are old friends, and much more. With one sentence, the amount of information the improvisers can now draw on has grown greatly.
Some improv teachers suggest staying in the present tense as often as possible. I disagree. I think, however, that you should avoid talking too much about the future. Things in the future might happen, they might shape your characters. Things in the past did happen, they did shape your characters.
3. ASK YOURSELF “IF THIS IS TRUE, THEN WHAT ELSE IS TRUE?”*
Often in improvisation, things deviate from the normal, the usual. (This happens for a number of reasons and it is usually not intentional. Improvisation is constrained communication so misunderstandings are bound to occur, and these misunderstandings, among other things, can lead to departures from normality.) When in situations that are fantastic, respond realistically, and heed this simple maxim to govern your action: ask “If this is true, then what else is true?” Each time you find the answer, you can play it out.
Example: Suppose, a character picks up the phone and calls Maureen. The improviser on the other end says "sorry, wrong number" and hangs up. The caller says "something must be wrong with me, I keep dialing wrong numbers these days". The other improvisers ask themselves "if the protagonist can only dial wrong numbers, then what else would be true". They come up with new scenes and initiate them. Someone initiates a fire in the scene and tells him to dial 911, inspiring someone else to pick up the call and say "411". The misdialer tries to call his girlfriend and gets another woman on the line, who happens to recognize him from the last times he has dialed the same wrong number. She starts to flirt with him. The real girlfriend suspects something is up, uses reverse lookup, and confrontationally rings the doorbell of every woman whose phone number is 1 different from hers. The what-ifs continue, each person just asking themselves "if this guy only dials wrong numbers, then what else is true?"
4. BE VERY SPECIFIC
If you're going to say "nice car!", why not make it "wow, a 1979 Volvo Station Wagon!" If we know the Volvo owner is a 21 year old woman, suddenly we can visualize her (well, maybe you can’t, but I can: she has dried blue and white oil paint on her fingers, wears an extra large men’s dress shirt as a smock, and has long, straight, chestnut-brown hair). A more vivid image opens up a rich, new world. Adjectives accelerate scene development.
And more ideas found online via :
http://www.dangoldstein.com/howtoimprovise.html
And of course at other sites.
