Another thing about consistancy are the jobs.
Take Dragoon for instance. In the questline, it's like "you are the chosen one!" but I know for sure there are multiple RPers RPing as a Dragoon, so things like jobs we can variate from, so long as it's not too much. I for one still consider Dragoons as chosen elites, but they're somewhat more common than the storyline has us believe. I personlly feel a bit unsure over characters who RP having too many jobs though. A Paladin who also gets tought to be a Bard, fair enough, because by definition, bards are nothing special beyond being minstrels. Being a bard itself isn't what you would be remembered for, it's how good a bard you are. But with jobs like Paladin and Dragoon, they're more sort of full-time things, especially the Dragoons, given they're supposed to be chosen warriors who fight dragons. If you want a character who is adept at different weapon types, just use the classes, because they're very broad.
And yes, there are parts of the storyline you can ignore if you want. For instance, not all RPers have the power of the Echo, and even then, from those that do, few characters realise it, thus they only get the bonus of understanding languages (which allows players to be foreigners yet still understand Eorzean language), and are as of yet unable to look into peoples' pasts. It's your choice really.
Now, I'm going to touch on posting before I stop.
From my experience, as long as people know where you are and what you're doing, it's fine. For instance "/em walks into the room". If you walk in without a similar emote, people are going to get confused. You need to let others know where you are and what you are doing as the minimum. If you do that, then nobody would see you as lazy.
Now another problem is saying too much. Because people generally don't like the huge wall-o-text. Generally speaking, this is not a novel. Unlike a forum post, eloquence isn't important. What is important is that people understand you and can read through your message as quickly as possible. But don't go too far. Abbreviations and slang sort of ruin the mood. But think of it like this. Your character is eating a sandwich, they find it to be delicious but don't know whether to ask for another.
This is how it should be done:
"/em eats the sandwich and finds it to be delicious. However, they don't know whether to ask for another."
These are examples of how it should not be done:
"/em devours the delicious sandwich, a look of pure pleasure on their face at the magnificent taste. Unfortunately, despite the brilliance of this particular item of food, they are unable to decide whether it would be proper to request another one."
That one sounds pretty, but at the end of the day, takes up too much space and takes longer to read.
"/em eats sandwich + likes it. But they dunno whether 2 ask 4 another"
That example completely spoils the mood.
Finally, I want to pick up on tense because it's a thing that nobody really talks about. Generally, it's present tense. That creates most immersion. You're there as your character right now. You are one with your character. And your character is going about their life simultanious to you playing them. However, some players like to use past tense, like they're telling a story about their character and looking back at it. Now, that's ok, because there's no rule against that, and it's perfectly correct english and still gets the message across, but the best thing to do is stick to present tense, unless you really want to do it in past tense. That way, there's no chance of confusing people with multiple tenses occuring in the same RP.
Take Dragoon for instance. In the questline, it's like "you are the chosen one!" but I know for sure there are multiple RPers RPing as a Dragoon, so things like jobs we can variate from, so long as it's not too much. I for one still consider Dragoons as chosen elites, but they're somewhat more common than the storyline has us believe. I personlly feel a bit unsure over characters who RP having too many jobs though. A Paladin who also gets tought to be a Bard, fair enough, because by definition, bards are nothing special beyond being minstrels. Being a bard itself isn't what you would be remembered for, it's how good a bard you are. But with jobs like Paladin and Dragoon, they're more sort of full-time things, especially the Dragoons, given they're supposed to be chosen warriors who fight dragons. If you want a character who is adept at different weapon types, just use the classes, because they're very broad.
And yes, there are parts of the storyline you can ignore if you want. For instance, not all RPers have the power of the Echo, and even then, from those that do, few characters realise it, thus they only get the bonus of understanding languages (which allows players to be foreigners yet still understand Eorzean language), and are as of yet unable to look into peoples' pasts. It's your choice really.
Now, I'm going to touch on posting before I stop.
From my experience, as long as people know where you are and what you're doing, it's fine. For instance "/em walks into the room". If you walk in without a similar emote, people are going to get confused. You need to let others know where you are and what you are doing as the minimum. If you do that, then nobody would see you as lazy.
Now another problem is saying too much. Because people generally don't like the huge wall-o-text. Generally speaking, this is not a novel. Unlike a forum post, eloquence isn't important. What is important is that people understand you and can read through your message as quickly as possible. But don't go too far. Abbreviations and slang sort of ruin the mood. But think of it like this. Your character is eating a sandwich, they find it to be delicious but don't know whether to ask for another.
This is how it should be done:
"/em eats the sandwich and finds it to be delicious. However, they don't know whether to ask for another."
These are examples of how it should not be done:
"/em devours the delicious sandwich, a look of pure pleasure on their face at the magnificent taste. Unfortunately, despite the brilliance of this particular item of food, they are unable to decide whether it would be proper to request another one."
That one sounds pretty, but at the end of the day, takes up too much space and takes longer to read.
"/em eats sandwich + likes it. But they dunno whether 2 ask 4 another"
That example completely spoils the mood.
Finally, I want to pick up on tense because it's a thing that nobody really talks about. Generally, it's present tense. That creates most immersion. You're there as your character right now. You are one with your character. And your character is going about their life simultanious to you playing them. However, some players like to use past tense, like they're telling a story about their character and looking back at it. Now, that's ok, because there's no rule against that, and it's perfectly correct english and still gets the message across, but the best thing to do is stick to present tense, unless you really want to do it in past tense. That way, there's no chance of confusing people with multiple tenses occuring in the same RP.
![[Image: RSig2015.png]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51152173/RSig2015.png)
