One of the things you might notice about this continuity is that our particular brand of roleplay is a little different. Most Strict RP dreams located in the Imaginarium demand paragraphs of text; padding or not, most people strive to reach this expectation with every post they make, resulting in minor scenes lasting for hours on end, a detached feeling, and weird interactions born of people taking too many actions in a single post. The sheer amount of Time needed to indulge in this sort of roleplay puts a damper on anything happening--when it takes two hours to get to the climax of a scene that was thrilling when it started but not as much anymore, and another two hours to finish that up and move on to the aftermath... things just don't happen very often.
Skuldhellir is intended to be different. In Skuldhellir, things happen. All the Time.
You'll find that roleplaying here will be a lot easier to get into than what you might already be used to. It may be awkward at first, or leave you feeling insufficient, but in the end, you'll find it much more liberating and even far more expressive than feeling pressured into posting walls of text each post, every post.
I'll sum up what we're looking for in a few words:
To the point and descriptive.
By descriptive, I don't mean 5 lines of mentioning your character's thoughts, or another 5 of describing their actions in immense detail. The majority of that detail wouldn't even be noticed by other characters unless they were incredibly perceptive. No, by descriptive, I mean summarizing your character's actions as well as you can while remaining pertinent. Saying 'Joe attempts to punch Carl's face' is to the point, yes, but posing 'Joe angrily swings his fist at Carl's face with murderous intent in his eyes' is less flat and more interesting and provides many more options for response.
Since we're keeping things short, fitting as many 'hooks' for the other person's post as possible into your own is a good practice to take up. The meat of a post is generally going to be substantial enough to invoke a response, but adding depth to it is what gives roleplay heart. 'Joe attempts to punch Carl's face' will probably result in Carl hastily swinging out of the way in shock--but in the second example, Carl might be able to infer from the rage Joe is displaying that maybe Joe found out about Carl's interactions with his wife, resulting in Carl acting much differently and instantly making things much more interesting!
Most of you are seasoned paragraph roleplayers, so I'm sure coming up with lines like this will be no problem. It's simply worth noting that, while we want short posts, we don't want boring posts. There's a difference!
A few additional rules of thumb to keep in mind:
1. Post orders are generally frowned upon. If you're in a group of people that consent to an order, go ahead, but if somebody else joins and ignores the order completely, they have every right to, and you might just have to break order to keep up with them! This is to keep scenes from stagnating.
2. Try not to fit too many actions into one post. 'Anne spins around and throws her axe at the orc and then runs behind a building to nock an arrow' is a bit much. On average, imagine every pose as taking about five seconds maximum. This is particularly fun when participating in conversations--it allows comedic Timing and lets characters interject where they might do so realistically. Try breaking your monologues up into several posts of a few lines each and you'll open yourself up to some good fun.
3. Haste is appreciated, but unnecessary. Don't feel pressured to post with lightning speed, and don't let anyone else make you feel like a lesser roleplayer for it if you can't. Take your Time, but don't hold everyone up. If you think you might take a while, inform everyone else OOCly of the fact.
4. Try to avoid mentioning your character's thoughts and feelings unless they show very clearly. 'She smiles, but there is a tinge of sadness to it' is much clearer and easier to respond to than 'Despite the pain in her heart, she smiles.'
5. Do things. People like it when you do things. You don't have to whisper people and ask them for roleplay. Just walk around; make a few posts to yourself of your character striding about, reading the noticeboard, grumbling about elves or cursing the merchants. Someone'll notice and join you.
6. RP in a public area is free game for anyone to join! If you want to roleplay something more private, perhaps because you want a break from the general RP style to write with much more description or in the paragraph style, take it to whispers or an inn room.
7. On average, we'd suggest no more than 7 lines of text per post in Furc's smallest font, and a preferred average of 1-5. You can go a little over this if you have something you need to describe in greater detail, but you'll find 7 lines to be ample for the most part.
8. Present tense is the preference. It increases immersion and lessens confusion.
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