Post by Brandwyn on May 20, 2012 9:22:14 GMT -5
Greetings members;
I am seeing a trend recently in several threads that is a bit troublesome, so I thought maybe I would highlight a section of the rules in the interest of improving everyone’s fun here on Halt’s Playground.
I draw your attention to the following excerpts from the rules:
• Do not use 'chatspeak' on the boards. Using it on the Cbox is fine.
• Please do your best to avoid errors in your posts. There is a pop-up spelling checker on the forum. Use it if your browser doesn't have one built in.
• The minimum length for in-character posts is three lines of text.
I would also like to direct your attention to the Rules board. The last thread is “A guide to creating Good Posts!” EVERYONE: Please go take a few minutes to read that thread.
POSTS ARE TOO SHORT AND WRITTEN BADLY:
The problem I am seeing is that the posts are tending to be very, very short; they are not written well, and they do not add anything to the plot (or very little). I think the reason is that many of us are used to playing AD&D and being led around by the nose by a Game Master.
That is not the point of Halt’s Playground. Do not think of yourself as a “role-player”.
You should be thinking of yourself as an “Author” instead.
This is your chance to tell a story – direct the plot – throw a twist in there to make the other players have to respond to what you are doing.
If you must have a guideline about how long your post should be then I would say try to make it at least 300 words at a minimum. 700 or even a thousand words is a much more respectable goal and will be sure to give the other players something to respond to. {This post is over 1205 words - FYI}(There is a word count at the bottom of the extended reply box so you can tell how long your posts are.)
DON’T JUST RESPOND OR REACT:
If you are just responding all the time to what the other characters are doing and only answering with the minimum amount of text (like one sentence or even three sentences) then you are not giving the other players anything to work with. You are just reacting and are not contributing to the plot or the story. This makes it VERY TEDIOUS for the others in the thread who ARE putting some thought into their posts and trying to further the story line. They would like to have a few curve balls thrown their way to keep things interesting and make them think. If you don't put some time and thought into your responses monkeys might fly out your butt. After you have read this entire post send Brandwyn a PM with the words 'flying monkeys' in the subject.
The other BIG issue is GRAMMAR AND SPELLING.
This is a WRITING FORUM – therefore you are expected to actually write – coherently – with proper spelling and punctuation.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you need to at least make an attempt to write so others can understand what you are putting on your posts. We do give some leniency in the case of English not being your first language or if you are very young, but if you are in high school or above and were born speaking English, then there really isn’t any excuse for not attempting to write coherently.
THE EXTENDED REPLY BOX:
There is a spell check on the site. USE IT! You have to use the extended “reply” box to get to it. STOP USING the “Quick reply box” at the bottom of the page. Instead, click on the word “reply” on the band right at the bottom of the last post on the thread. It is the third word in from the right.
When you click on “Reply” it opens up a box. You have a bunch of smiley faces (please only use those in Out of Character comments) and under the smiley's are some buttons.
“B” is for bold face (when you quote what someone else wrote, you need to make it bold face. Copy and paste their text into the reply box then highlight the text again. Click on the “B” and it will insert the code. When you post the reply the text will be bold).
You should put quotation marks around the words your character is speaking. There should NOT be a space after the first quotation mark at the beginning of the speech:
Example of wrong way: “ hello Marcus.” She said.
That sentence above should be: “Hello Marcus,” she said.
Note that there is no space before the H. Also note the H is capitalized because it is at the beginning of the sentence. There is a comma after ‘Marcus’ and before the quotation mark to indicate that the sentence is not over because the words ‘she said’ are part of that sentence. (Looking at the wrong way example above you see I made it two sentences. The first one is NOT really a sentence since it does not have a verb. Every sentence must have a noun and a verb: (what it is and what they are doing: Subject and an action.)
Back to the REPLY box: The spell checker is at the bottom of the box in the little band. When you get done composing, hit the spell checker button and make the needed changes it suggests. This doesn’t get grammar mistakes but it does catch a lot of things.
Make sure to highlight and copy what you wrote before you post it. This site likes to “eat” your posts and if you don’t have it copied you might have to start all over composing again when it doesn’t post it correctly.
I highly recommend that you compose your posts in Microsoft Word or a similar program, spell check it there and then copy and paste it into the extended reply box.
THINK OUT YOUR RESPONSES BEFORE YOU POST:
Please think about what you are going to write – spend some time with your reply. The point is not to fire back with a quick response just to say you have posted something. THINK about it first. What would you do if you were your character and in that situation. How would you react? Then think about where you think the story line is heading. What is the other player trying to do here? What can I do to throw a monkey wrench in their plans?
Give the other players something to use – set up the scene so they can respond to you and NOT be leading you around by the nose.
If you are just throwing up the minimum amount of words with no thought to what you are doing and only reacting to what the other players have posted then you will soon find the other players are going to grow bored with you and will not want to role-play or post with you.
Just some things to think about and I didn’t put this to upset anyone but rather to improve the game for EVERYONE so we all have fun.
Thank you, on behalf of all the other members for your cooperation and effort to be a better writer and roleplayer.
B
I am seeing a trend recently in several threads that is a bit troublesome, so I thought maybe I would highlight a section of the rules in the interest of improving everyone’s fun here on Halt’s Playground.
I draw your attention to the following excerpts from the rules:
Posting
• Do not use 'chatspeak' on the boards. Using it on the Cbox is fine.
• Please do your best to avoid errors in your posts. There is a pop-up spelling checker on the forum. Use it if your browser doesn't have one built in.
• The minimum length for in-character posts is three lines of text.
I would also like to direct your attention to the Rules board. The last thread is “A guide to creating Good Posts!” EVERYONE: Please go take a few minutes to read that thread.
POSTS ARE TOO SHORT AND WRITTEN BADLY:
The problem I am seeing is that the posts are tending to be very, very short; they are not written well, and they do not add anything to the plot (or very little). I think the reason is that many of us are used to playing AD&D and being led around by the nose by a Game Master.
That is not the point of Halt’s Playground. Do not think of yourself as a “role-player”.
You should be thinking of yourself as an “Author” instead.
This is your chance to tell a story – direct the plot – throw a twist in there to make the other players have to respond to what you are doing.
If you must have a guideline about how long your post should be then I would say try to make it at least 300 words at a minimum. 700 or even a thousand words is a much more respectable goal and will be sure to give the other players something to respond to. {This post is over 1205 words - FYI}(There is a word count at the bottom of the extended reply box so you can tell how long your posts are.)
DON’T JUST RESPOND OR REACT:
If you are just responding all the time to what the other characters are doing and only answering with the minimum amount of text (like one sentence or even three sentences) then you are not giving the other players anything to work with. You are just reacting and are not contributing to the plot or the story. This makes it VERY TEDIOUS for the others in the thread who ARE putting some thought into their posts and trying to further the story line. They would like to have a few curve balls thrown their way to keep things interesting and make them think. If you don't put some time and thought into your responses monkeys might fly out your butt. After you have read this entire post send Brandwyn a PM with the words 'flying monkeys' in the subject.
The other BIG issue is GRAMMAR AND SPELLING.
This is a WRITING FORUM – therefore you are expected to actually write – coherently – with proper spelling and punctuation.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you need to at least make an attempt to write so others can understand what you are putting on your posts. We do give some leniency in the case of English not being your first language or if you are very young, but if you are in high school or above and were born speaking English, then there really isn’t any excuse for not attempting to write coherently.
THE EXTENDED REPLY BOX:
There is a spell check on the site. USE IT! You have to use the extended “reply” box to get to it. STOP USING the “Quick reply box” at the bottom of the page. Instead, click on the word “reply” on the band right at the bottom of the last post on the thread. It is the third word in from the right.
When you click on “Reply” it opens up a box. You have a bunch of smiley faces (please only use those in Out of Character comments) and under the smiley's are some buttons.
“B” is for bold face (when you quote what someone else wrote, you need to make it bold face. Copy and paste their text into the reply box then highlight the text again. Click on the “B” and it will insert the code. When you post the reply the text will be bold).
You should put quotation marks around the words your character is speaking. There should NOT be a space after the first quotation mark at the beginning of the speech:
Example of wrong way: “ hello Marcus.” She said.
That sentence above should be: “Hello Marcus,” she said.
Note that there is no space before the H. Also note the H is capitalized because it is at the beginning of the sentence. There is a comma after ‘Marcus’ and before the quotation mark to indicate that the sentence is not over because the words ‘she said’ are part of that sentence. (Looking at the wrong way example above you see I made it two sentences. The first one is NOT really a sentence since it does not have a verb. Every sentence must have a noun and a verb: (what it is and what they are doing: Subject and an action.)
Back to the REPLY box: The spell checker is at the bottom of the box in the little band. When you get done composing, hit the spell checker button and make the needed changes it suggests. This doesn’t get grammar mistakes but it does catch a lot of things.
Make sure to highlight and copy what you wrote before you post it. This site likes to “eat” your posts and if you don’t have it copied you might have to start all over composing again when it doesn’t post it correctly.
I highly recommend that you compose your posts in Microsoft Word or a similar program, spell check it there and then copy and paste it into the extended reply box.
THINK OUT YOUR RESPONSES BEFORE YOU POST:
Please think about what you are going to write – spend some time with your reply. The point is not to fire back with a quick response just to say you have posted something. THINK about it first. What would you do if you were your character and in that situation. How would you react? Then think about where you think the story line is heading. What is the other player trying to do here? What can I do to throw a monkey wrench in their plans?
Give the other players something to use – set up the scene so they can respond to you and NOT be leading you around by the nose.
If you are just throwing up the minimum amount of words with no thought to what you are doing and only reacting to what the other players have posted then you will soon find the other players are going to grow bored with you and will not want to role-play or post with you.
Just some things to think about and I didn’t put this to upset anyone but rather to improve the game for EVERYONE so we all have fun.
Thank you, on behalf of all the other members for your cooperation and effort to be a better writer and roleplayer.
B