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Forums » RP Discussion » advice needed: what if you're shy?

Since joining this website I have felt quite shy with entering public or private rps. I want to start one or contribute to one but I kinda freeze at the thought. This site feels very comfortable to be on at least! I'm not too sure why I feel shy.

Funnily enough, I also have a character who is also very shy so I have no clue on how to incorporate him! He usually avoids people. How should I play out him joining something?
Claine Moderator

People here are very friendly, and everybody in the Looking for RP forum is hoping that somebody will reach out to them! They're not going to mad to get a response - in fact they'll probably be ecstatic!

Even so, if you don't want to reach out to strangers, you should post your own ad - introduce your character and wait and see who comes to you. If they're messaging you, it means they see something in you and your character that they love and want to interact with!
Hiya! As someone who's super shy too, this site has been a real gem of a find for me: Claine is right that everyone is super lovely and welcoming! And I hope it's the same for you.
Even if someone isn't interested in RPing at that time, most folks here are even happy to just chat. Sometimes Looking for RP ads take a while for people to respond to, too - so if you post one and don't get a response right away, don't be disheartened! ☺️

There are forum games if you want to do some light writing (I post a fair few topic threads and you're always welcome to join!), Group RPs to just jump into, or you can search the old fashioned way and find a 1x1 partner!

I hope you find the sort of RPs you're looking for on here - and if you ever want to, feel free to reach out!
As the others already said, this is a great community, and I would not hesitate to reach out to chat.

Wanted to address your second question, which is - getting a shy character to join things.

People are complicated and full of contradictions. I am of the mind that every character has something they'd never do...until they have a reason to do it. That's it - my LG paladin of a god of self-perfection through discipline and control - would never murder out of passion, until she does. Now she has to reconcile that with who she believes herself to be - the story writes itself. The greatest thing is, most of the time, those reasons are OTHER PEOPLE - which for the purposes of RP - is VERY convenient!

You can give your character a reason to do anything (you're their creator after all!). And if your character is so extreme in their personalities that you cannot tell the story you want with them, then perhaps they aren't the right character for that story. Or, you can also create other characters that give them a reason to act.

Someone is recruiting for adventurers in a tavern, but your character is too shy to speak up? He reached for the wrong drink in his nervousness and got tanked - liquid courage. He had a horrible day with a horrible boss, and the thought of beating up bullies give him a surge of initiative. He had actually been at that tavern for 100 days, psyching himself up to do so, we're witnessing his triumph. Or work with your writing partner so their character ropes yours in whether yours like it or not (RP is a collaborative activity, after all).
+ shy characters can be put into ~situations~ that require cooperation and communication

the mathematical formula for friendship is exposure to someone's company over time, so in meatspace friends come from communal places where you have to spend time with other people, like school or work.

say a tornado or meteorite hits your character's town -- now they'll have plenty of time spent working alongside others to clean up and repair, and might make some friendships over the event.

there are three characters in any two character RP: yours, the other RPers, and ~the situation~ who gets to say why and how the characters are going to interact.

in the case of extremely socially averse, i like to apply life or death situations and survival type issues, where characters would absolutely need to get along in order to survive. conversation might not spring up very organically, but there's no rule saying every reply has to contribute to a conversation between the characters, and there's a really great narrative back and forth that simply visits the characters doing their own thing and exampling to the other where their priorities lie.

lastly, you don't have to play a person!! your character could be a raincloud that hops into group RPs running in an outdoor scene just to change the weather for everyone, throw a little challenge into the scene and then leave, having cheered or inconvenienced the characters in the thread. :D

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