Setting & Plot
Oftentimes these two are not very well distinguished between, which is a great shame because it is one of the things that often leads to Role Plays dying out or being dull. Therefore it is important to think about both as distinct and separate things when you start a new Role Play.
It is always the responsibility of the person starting the thread to know what both are going to be. That is of course a big responsibility and can be a burden, but it also means that they get to have a lot of influence on the story which is a tremendous amount of fun.
It is always the responsibility of the person starting the thread to know what both are going to be. That is of course a big responsibility and can be a burden, but it also means that they get to have a lot of influence on the story which is a tremendous amount of fun.
Setting
The setting can include many different aspects. Often it will include knowing what kind of world the play takes place in; is it a moonbase in the year 2200 or are we playing in Victorian England? This is very important to know to make sure your characters act in a sensible way and that their backgrounds and general level of knowledge of technology is reasonable. But what then if you want to play in a fantasy world? No problem, but you still have to give the world a general ‘feel’ so other players will know how to act within your world. Is magic a thing? Players should know - or at least, they should know if this is knowledge their characters would have. If magic does exist, but you want your play to take part among muggles, you might not tell the players up front that magic exists, but let them discover it along the way. Which leads us to:
Plot
Plot is what you expect to happen in the play. Naturally you cannot plan everything since there are other players and they will heavily influence everything that happens by their reactions, but that does not mean you should not consider what the plot of the Role Play should be. It may sometimes require the use of NPCs - (Non Player Characters) who can be controlled by the player who started the thread to steer things in a certain direction. The NPC might well be some kind of villain or a villain’s henchman.
When you make a plot you will have to be careful not to fall into the trap that confuses Setting for Plot. The way to do this is to ask yourself “What is happening?” Then you might answer “The first years are travelling to Hogwarts on the express” or “There is a Halloween party at Hogwarts” If you do however stop here you’ve settled for a narrowed down setting rather than a plot and unless you are lucky and your players create a plot, your play will quickly get dull and filled with people just saying hello to each other and doing mundane things. You have to continue asking one more question, “If this was a book, why would this moment be interesting enough to have made it in?” Maybe there are dementors and you also want to foreshadow a werewolf teacher that you have as an NPC. Or for Halloween, maybe there’s a troll in the dungeon that you expect the players to either run from or go fight or whatever else they might choose to do.
This is plot and this is what will keep your Role Play interesting to play and not just get stuck in mundane and dull conversations.
Of course a short thread where everyone are just getting to know each other and the setting might not be bad, but it should be kept short and quickly have something more interesting happen or the players will get bored.
Plot does not have to be something external of course, though that is often the easiest way especially early on in a game. As time passes there might be very interesting plays where the bulk is simply a conversation between two or more characters who have something interesting to discuss. A Harry Potter example might have been a conversation between Harry and Sirius where Sirius explains about the Black family, and his own relationship with Harry’s father and subsequent imprisonment. That scene would still have a purpose and the answer to why the moment would be interesting enough to leave in would be fairly obvious; It has a great impact for both characters.
It’s usually best to leave these moments however until the characters have developed something to talk about through things that have happened.
When you make a plot you will have to be careful not to fall into the trap that confuses Setting for Plot. The way to do this is to ask yourself “What is happening?” Then you might answer “The first years are travelling to Hogwarts on the express” or “There is a Halloween party at Hogwarts” If you do however stop here you’ve settled for a narrowed down setting rather than a plot and unless you are lucky and your players create a plot, your play will quickly get dull and filled with people just saying hello to each other and doing mundane things. You have to continue asking one more question, “If this was a book, why would this moment be interesting enough to have made it in?” Maybe there are dementors and you also want to foreshadow a werewolf teacher that you have as an NPC. Or for Halloween, maybe there’s a troll in the dungeon that you expect the players to either run from or go fight or whatever else they might choose to do.
This is plot and this is what will keep your Role Play interesting to play and not just get stuck in mundane and dull conversations.
Of course a short thread where everyone are just getting to know each other and the setting might not be bad, but it should be kept short and quickly have something more interesting happen or the players will get bored.
Plot does not have to be something external of course, though that is often the easiest way especially early on in a game. As time passes there might be very interesting plays where the bulk is simply a conversation between two or more characters who have something interesting to discuss. A Harry Potter example might have been a conversation between Harry and Sirius where Sirius explains about the Black family, and his own relationship with Harry’s father and subsequent imprisonment. That scene would still have a purpose and the answer to why the moment would be interesting enough to leave in would be fairly obvious; It has a great impact for both characters.
It’s usually best to leave these moments however until the characters have developed something to talk about through things that have happened.