Forums » Introductions » My Hopes, Goals, and Intro to RPR

Hello, all! I'm very excited about RPing on RPR. I've done quite a bit of writing on Instagram, and the lack of moderation and respectful RPers has caused me to look elsewhere for my writing and Roleplay. I mean, most people didn't even RP with proper grammar, for starters, and then nobody knew how to separate character knowledge from player knowledge......plus-ANYWAYS

Enough ranting. I haven't RPed on a forum website as substantially epic and legitimate as this, and it's honestly a little overwhelming. But the good kind. Because of this, and due to what sort of characters I'd like to be posting, I have some questions.

1.) My characters are from a world that I've created on my own, and I was wondering, how do I post about that? Do I need a specific post explaining the world, its mechanics, the lore, and the timeline of major historical events and whatnot?

2.) If the answer to the second part of 1 is yes, I'd like to mention that my world/universe also correlates to an alternative timeline to this world's history, future, etc. One of the points that I had in it was how literature and media affected the future, and I may have to mention (but not necessarily use content of and state is mine) copyrighted works, such as Star Trek, 1984, and the Hunger Games. For example, I say that there is no apocalypse or overly dystopian society in the future, specifically because there have been so many books on that subject that they just didn't happen. I would also have a spaceship in a similar, yet realistically modified, design of the S.S. Enterprise, called "The Roddenberry," since Gene Roddenberry wrote the Star Trek series.
Is that allowed, or does that violate the "no copyrighted material allowed" rule?

3.) Should I ask these questions to a mod on a PM-like system instead of on here?

4.) I think I should already know this, but if I post public domain content, do I need to give credit in any way, shape, or form?

5.) Is there any sort of "chatbox"-esque feature on this site?

6.) If someone copies, uses, and publishes the world I speak of on RPR, and I claim shenanigans and sue, am I allowed to use what I've posted on RPR as evidence that I thought of the content first?

7.) If I post a character that is based in a world that is fictional and copyrighted, such as the Multiverse in Magic: The Gathering, does that count as posting copyrighted content?

8.) Does an average RPer on here realistically think about how much of another RPer's character's thoughts would be instantly known by the average RPer's character?

So many questions!! Before I begin answering, let me say WELCOME! RPR is an amazing community, I think you'll like it here.

1 + 2: We don't have any requirements about what kind of RP content can or can't go, or how you fill in your profiles. As long as you stick to our general rules (like flagging a profile for mature content if there is any, not posting anything illegal etc.) then what goes on your character profiles is 200% up to you. You can be as specific or summarized as you see fit.

4: Depending on what you consider 'public domain' material, credit is always a good thing. Just make sure you don't use images off Google that belong to other people. I strongly recommend reading this article.

5: Yes there is! Any forum topic (including this one) can be turned into a live chatbox by clicking the "Launch Chat" button and the top or bottom of a topic.

6: I'm not sure about this. It's never happened before, so your best bet is to contact Kim (the site admin), or potentially wait for her to respond to this topic at some point!

7: You can roleplay canon/fan-based stories and characters here. I do always suggest to check what kind of copyrights the original creator/publisher has in terms of fan-based creations, just to be sure. If Kim is contacted by someone and has proof that copyright has been violated, she is required to remove it. But generally speaking, we haven't had any issues with things like Marvel-canon roleplays and other fictional worlds of that ilk.

8: A lot of us have some sort of guidelines or rules about this sort of stuff. Meta-gaming or god-moding is generally frowned upon. We have a whole bunch of articles in the Help section of the site about this stuff, but here are a few interesting ones for you:

http://www.rprepository.com/help/responsibility-of-RPers

http://www.rprepository.com/help/writing-for-rp

http://www.rprepository.com/help/godmoding

We try to encourage the positives of these articles, but in the end everyone is totally free to roleplay however they want. It's just a matter of snagging the right partner.

Hope this helped you out! Let us know if you have more questions.

Hello!

I'd like to add to numbers 1 & 2: It basically comes down to how much you want other people gettin' all up in your world, and how much you want to keep those characters within that world. If you want to keep them to it and introduce other people into it, then it'd be a good idea to provide some information about it, probably somewhere in a character profile. (Heck, you could probably just have a "character" profile for info about that world.) The more flexible you are about how you run your characters and what settings you'll put them in, the less such info becomes necessary. I've had some trickiness with this sort of issue myself, as some of my characters come from a world I've been working on for awhile. To deal with it, I've picked and posted what's important to that character, such as info about alternative elves and demons, and who Gregor works for.

I'd like to add to number 4: If it's actually entirely public domain, that's completely your choice. Keep an eye out for things with licences like those provided by Creative Commons, as attribution is required, and other things may be as well.

I'd like to add to number 5: The site's sort of "main" chat thingy is Just Talkin', under Smalltalk. People pop in and out sporadically.

I'd like to add to number 6: Copyright law gets pretty vague about websites, and the only sure way to have something protected is to send it to the copyright office and pay a small fee to have it filed. (This doesn't mean you don't hold copyright if you don't file, it just makes lawsuits go smoother if you do.) But, keep in mind that they really just eyeball things to compare; would Average Joe say it's close enough to be a rip-off? And then, can you prove it was done intentionally?

I'd like to add to number 8: I do! I sometimes get into long-winded explanations about why my character would come to any given conclusion, too.

Okay, thank you all! I can't wait to start RPing on here. It seems so lax and official, which make me feel all like a giddy schoolboy.

Welcome Chaotic_Law! It looks like Sanne has done an awesome job of answering your questions! I noticed that you mentioned you have your own world that you created! An option instead of just tossing all that nifty info up onto one profile is to make a Group where all that information can be stored in one place!

I hope you enjoy it here and if you have any further questions please don't hesitate to ask! Everyone here is super friendly and always willing to help

Yes, that does sound super swell, HOWEVAH, it says it's still in Alpha, the last time I checked. Bugs aren't what I want to be running into. But hey, you know what, since you're a mod, I'll trust your input and try it. All my info is saved onto my files and such at least three times, so I won't lose anything except what'll probably be an easier way to organize it all.

Is it set up so that, if someone wanted to add a planet in my world, would they be able to?

Groups are still in alpha, but Kim backs up the entire site's database (which includes groups) every day. Should anything happen to your group that bugs it up, send her a bug report (it's the Contact link at the bottom of every page) and she'll happily fix the bug and get your info back to you. Many people are successfully running a group (and have been for a long time) without running into issues, so I wouldn't worry too much.


You can give other people editing privileges so they can modify the content of the group. However, this would be for all pages and widgets, not just one page. Groups also have forums, so you could setup a forum where people can toss in their own planets and stuff in a topic. There are a bunch of ways to accomplish this, depending on how you want it managed. Why not give it a go?

I just wanted to add that I have never personally had a problem with any of my groups Kim's even been able to recover data that I've derped and deleted by accident myself. She's just awesome like that

Aww, thanks Loki.

Groups are indeed still being developed, but they're a lot more stable than they used to be. There've been a lot of updates recently, and the plan is to have them out of alpha in the VERY near future. And it does sound like they're exactly what you need to store your world-building information and gather characters who'd like to be residents in one place to play.