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Raven
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So, I've been thinking a lot about role play samples. On TNI, we really don't do anything with them, aside from having them there. I guess it can be useful to see that the person knows what they're getting into and perhaps getting a feeling for how they write, but I have never used it like that. So, questions:

 

Do you use RP samples? What for?

Do you like or dislike joining sites that have RP samples on their app?

What requirements do you put on RP samples?

What requirements make you roll your eyes?

On a site where the characters are animals (cats, wolves, horses, ect), should samples be required to be of that animal, or are human samples okay? On a human RP, would you accept a wolf rp sample?

 

 

EDIT: I think I've heard plenty of the "against" side, and would love to hear more from people who do use them, if there's anyone else who would like to give input.

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Do you use RP samples? What for?

No, I don't. My site was built to be a chill place, so I just let people wander around having fun.

 

Do you like or dislike joining sites that have RP samples on their app?

While I'm not madly in love with them, I'm actually okay with them if they're part of an otherwise easy app. If the app is already extensive, and then you have to provide a sample, I x out.

 

What requirements do you put on RP samples?

N/A

 

What requirements make you roll your eyes?

None specifically about the samples. I do roll my eyes if they're requested after I have already written you (general you) 600 words of descriptions, personality, backstory, etc. By then you should have a general grasp on how I write.

 

On a site where the characters are animals (cats, wolves, horses, ect), should samples be required to be of that animal, or are human samples okay? On a human RP, would you accept a wolf rp sample?

If I used samples, as long as we're talking about original characters, I would accept any sample as valid. If it was for a canon site, though, I'd like to see a sample with that character, just to make sure the person has a good grasp on it/will play it in an acceptable way.

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So, lets explain the origin of roleplay samples here for a moment. The point of a roleplay sample was to "prove your worth" as a roleplayer to administrators that thought they had a right to judge your writing and if it wasn't up to their obscure standards then you wouldn't get into their site. Mind you this was in addition to their mountainous applications and so you would end up pouring over an application for 6+ hours just to make sure that you were "good enough" for the site.

 

It's evolved from there. There are still plenty of administrators that still have this stigma but it's not as prevalent in today's RP society. A lot of sites, nowadays, use roleplay samples as a means to verify that you know how to play your character. Still obscure but not as bad as "judgement face".

 

Me personally, I'm over apps altogether so I'll answer these in that fashion but take my answers with a grain of salt. I figured out the other day that I've spent 2 whole years of my roleplaying lifetime just writing applications for sites to play on them. That's basically 10% of the time that I've spent roleplaying I've spent them only on applications.

 

  • Do you use RP samples? What for? Nope and never will ever again.
  • Do you like or dislike joining sites that have RP samples on their app? Hate them. Will it stop me if I love the site? Not really but an app wouldn't stop me either.
  • What requirements do you put on RP samples? N/a
  • What requirements make you roll your eyes? Minimum word counts on roleplay samples when the site as a whole doesn't have a word count. I should be able to post one line if that's allowed on the site. People argue that it's not enough to really "understand" ones character.
  • On a site where the characters are animals (cats, wolves, horses, ect), should samples be required to be of that animal, or are human samples okay? On a human RP, would you accept a wolf rp sample? This goes back to the above information I provided. If they are simply judging your skill it shouldn't matter, if they are judging your character articulation then it should.
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@Morrigan That makes sense and those are good points! I personally love writing applications, and often do it for NPC characters even though I don't need to!

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Do you use RP samples? What for?

My site does! :D Though ours is a bit of an old style, part of a pre-play application and not a character app. It's actually something we've used for many, many years and we've done polls in the existing memberbase whether having it is a thing we wanted, and every time the members have voted to keep it - so we have!

 

The way ours works is we have some basic questions (and some optional, fun ones) like what's your name/username, preferred pronouns, age (since my site no longer allows anyone below 13), etc, and then an area for a role-play sample. Since we allow 13+, all we really look for is the ability to write decently, or in the case of a younger member, the ability to write and potential to grow. We like training youngin's how to have fun in this creative field as long as they are willing to learn :D

 

Do you like or dislike joining sites that have RP samples on their app?

I personally like them, if they're done similarly to mine - I wouldn't want to have to make a sample for every character I ever made, but xD

 

What requirements do you put on RP samples?

None, really - our sample is pretty open: we allow any sample to be given as long as it's their writing. So if you have a part of a story, or a post from another board you're a part of, toss it at us; that, and we provide a prompt to write a couple paragraphs off of if a potential member doesn't have any writing laying around. :D

 

What requirements make you roll your eyes?

Word counts. I hate word counts, loathe them entirely, even if it's tiny - I just hate them LOL.

 

That, and samples being a part of character applications. It's good to know a potential member's writing ability, especially if you run a more intermediate to advanced site, but I don't like seeing a sample as part of a charrie's bio - bonus if it's not even related to the char!

 

On a site where the characters are animals (cats, wolves, horses, ect), should samples be required to be of that animal, or are human samples okay? On a human RP, would you accept a wolf rp sample?

For my pre-play joining app sample, literally anything goes! Any species, any genre, could be original or fandom, anything. We're super easy to please. xD

 

But if it was part of a character app (which I dislike - see above), and I had to have it this way for whatever reason, it would need to at least feature the character in some form. Relevance and organization plz. <3

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Do you use RP samples? What for?

 

No. I find them pointless.

 

 

Do you like or dislike joining sites that have RPsamples on their app?

 

Dislike.

 

What requirements do you put on RP samples?

 

N/a

 

What requirements make you roll your eyes?

 

A specific word count but the site is a no-word-count board.

 

On a site where the characters are animals (cats, wolves, horses, ect), should samples be required to be of that animal, or are human samples okay? On a human RP, would you accept a wolf rp sample?

 

Depends upon why the admin is requiring a writing sample.

 

Honestly, I never liked them. They don't reflect an actual post. You want to impress the admin on the new board, so you find the largest, nicest, most complex post you've written, and you submit it. That's not your typical post. That's a work of art.

 

You'll never get "typical" on an application, whether it's for roleplay or a job or a research proposal. You put your best foot forward and you submit a polished, crafted work that you're proud of and that makes you look good.

 

Administrators that think they're getting a true writing sample that reflects the member's typical posts are just fooling themselves and making more work for all involved.

 

Not that writing samples don't have their place. They could help you deny an applicant whose writing style you abhor, or who can't figure out how to use spell check, etc. But administrators aren't thinking about it that broadly. They just tell people to correct the spelling errors.

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Do you use RP samples? What for?

No. 

 

Do you like or dislike joining sites that have RPsamples on their app?

Dislike. Not enough to stop me. 

 

What requirements do you put on RP samples?

N/a

 

What requirements make you roll your eyes?

The very idea of requiring a RP sample? An RP sample does not guarantee that there won't be future typos, bad grammar, whatever it is you're looking for. 

 

I only somewhat understand it if you advertise yourself as a 'literate' or 'advanced' (whatever that means to you.)

 

On a site where the characters are animals (cats, wolves, horses, ect), should samples be required to be of that animal, or are human samples okay? On a human RP, would you accept a wolf rp sample?

I don't see why you would not. 

 

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Do you use RP samples? What for?: Nope. 

 

Do you like or dislike joining sites that have RP samples on their app?: I haven't joined a site in a long time, but I did join a few where the sample was required. I disliked it in that... I never really knew what to write? Or why I was doing it? Am I being judged as a writer? If I make a typo, am I going to be rejected? I find RP samples weirdly stressful.

 

What requirements do you put on RP samples?: If I was to bring them in, I would probably put in a word maximum. And a scenario to react to. I think one of the main requirements would be that the RP sample has to be from the character being applied -- because I want to be getting an idea of the writer and the character. 

 

What requirements make you roll your eyes?: I don't actually know enough of the typical RP sample requirements to have rolled my eyes at them.

 

On a site where the characters are animals (cats, wolves, horses, ect), should samples be required to be of that animal, or are human samples okay? On a human RP, would you accept a wolf rp sample?: I would not. As above,I want the sample of the character being applied---not a random writing sample.

 

If you're starting to question their purpose on your board, it's probably time to ditch them. Talk with your staff and members, find out who uses them and what value they add to the board. Personally, I don't feel they add anything that I don't get from the application process. 

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Do you use RP samples? What for?

 

No, I don't and I don't like them. I consider a writer's talent can be seen in the way he writes a bio too.

 

Do you like or dislike joining sites that have RP samples on their app?

 

I dislike it with a passion. However, if I liked the site I joined it.

 

What requirements do you put on RP samples?

 

I don't. But I saw and I liked the fact that the RP sample had to be the first post with that character on the site. So you didn't work twice.

 

What requirements make you roll your eyes?

 

None.

 

On a site where the characters are animals (cats, wolves, horses, ect), should samples be required to be of that animal, or are human samples okay? On a human RP, would you accept a wolf rp sample?

 

I would want the same animal for an animal site and human for a human site, assuming that I wanted samples in the first hand. Because I think it is not the same thing, and there might be people like me who write humans but wouldn't be able to write animals.

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8 hours ago, Morrigan said:

So, lets explain the origin of roleplay samples here for a moment. The point of a roleplay sample was to "prove your worth" as a roleplayer to administrators that thought they had a right to judge your writing and if it wasn't up to their obscure standards then you wouldn't get into their site. Mind you this was in addition to their mountainous applications and so you would end up pouring over an application for 6+ hours just to make sure that you were "good enough" for the site.

 

I think this is kind of misleading and telling more of your personal experiences than an actual origin. When I first encountered actual "rp samples", it was in a neopets guild and it was strictly so that other people could see how you write. If there was judging, it didn't matter because there wasn't an accept or deny or rewrite. There weren't even applications. It was just a character sheet with a sample of a rp reply or starter. Before neopets, I would rp on chat services like teenhub or aol chatrooms pre-aim. In those days, we often exchanged "samples" of writing before starting campaigns or stories. People enjoy showing off their best work, and that is what a rp sample allows them to do.

 

 

Do you use RP samples? What for?

I honestly don't think I've ever required a sample... Maybe once as an optional thing? But it was never anything we actually considered to be part of the application process.

 

Do you like or dislike joining sites that have RP samples on their app?

I'm neutral on it. It's super simple finding a random post to copy and paste. Sometimes I'll try to even cater it to the genre.

 

What requirements do you put on RP samples?

None, because I don't require them.

 

What requirements make you roll your eyes?

Being forced to create a new sample specifically for the application. I mind less if it is a canon character meant to be played on canon, but overall I'm not a fan of the sample being more of a preview.

 

On a site where the characters are animals (cats, wolves, horses, ect), should samples be required to be of that animal, or are human samples okay? On a human RP, would you accept a wolf rp sample?

I wouldn't mind what they use, as long as they feel it represents the average post they make.

 

 

I think that a rp sample is the easiest, and often times least annoying, part of an application anymore. I don't mind showing people an average post by me. In fact, I love showing off some of my favourite posts. It gives me a chance to share my fav stuff with new people who might also like it. I don't like that it can intimate some people. I used to think that I had to put my biggest, most detailed starter ever as my sample to make people like me, but it really backfired. 1500 words is not ideal for a sample when I average 500-800. I wish that people could use them as what I always thought they were meant to be; an example of the average post.

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2 minutes ago, Bass said:

I think this is kind of misleading and telling more of your personal experiences than an actual origin. When I first encountered actual "rp samples", it was in a neopets guild and it was strictly so that other people could see how you write. If there was judging, it didn't matter because there wasn't an accept or deny or rewrite. There weren't even applications. It was just a character sheet with a sample of a rp reply or starter. Before neopets, I would rp on chat services like teenhub or aol chatrooms pre-aim. In those days, we often exchanged "samples" of writing before starting campaigns or stories. People enjoy showing off their best work, and that is what a rp sample allows them to do.

 

Not misleading if you didn't start on neopets. I was on neopets for a hot minute and it never really satisfied anything. The core of "roleplay samples" actually came from Avidgamers (which eventually evolved into IF users or AG2 or Acornrack) where users were literally basing your entire worth on your application and your roleplay sample. This is also where I stem elitest roleplaying from. These were the communities where 8 paragraphs were the minimum for an "advanced" roleplayer even if 7 of those paragraphs were roughly purple prose introspection and they denied that a single sentence could be a paragraph.

 

I remember sites like "Davey Jones' Locker" which was one of the longest awaited AG sites to open for historical RPers (at the time that was me). It took nearly a year to open and JUST to apply to even see who you'd play with you had to fill out an extensive app and you had to have a minimum of a 12 paragraph roleplay sample.

 

In fact there is a roleplay community that has been revamped I think half a dozen times (since their original AG rendition) that I actually got to play on for a hot minute before I was so annoyed with posting 8 paragraphs I sort of flaked off, that still exists in some shape or form today. It's called "Children of the Atom" it's an X-Men site.

 

It's not misleading, just because your experience is different, it's different because our histories differ.

 

From what I remember on Neopets they were actually just as cruel, if not crueler, than the elitest crowd on AG.

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10 minutes ago, Morrigan said:

Not misleading if you didn't start on neopets.

 

I think it is misleading to call the origin of rp samples elitists who just want to judge you. That just isn't true. It may be your origin, but to state it as though it is a factual origin of samples is what I find misleading. As I said, I was using samples pre-neopets. I apologize if you have poor experiences in the past. I get how it can be frustrating to encounter elitists in this community who don't accept you. It just isn't true that samples as a concept were invented by elitists. Abused by them, yes. The origin of the sample as a thing, no.

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It is true though. The whole point of a roleplay sample is to basically "resume how you write" to someone you don't know. It's literally like handing your CV or your resume to a potential boss and how they judge the layout of it. The only difference is we allow it because we're used to it.

 

I know many people that have a very similar RP upbringing. I mean I'd say at least 6 years of my play by post roleplaying was fully judged on my roleplay sample and NOTHING to do with my actual application, how much time or effort I put into anything or even my age and how well I wrote for it. I even did roleplay chat and was required to "interview" with the staffers which is basically "sampling my roleplaying" to make sure that I was "worth their community".

 

I can think of at least half a dozen roleplays (that likely still to this day) base your membership off of the roleplay sample you provide.

 

Additionally, don't apologize to me for a poor experience. It wasn't a poor experience. It was my experience and still is my experience. I don't apologize for it. It made me a better roleplayer and quite honestly a better advocate for people in general because of it.

 

For example, I was recently a part of a roleplay site that required that EVERY CHARACTER that you apped had to have a roleplay sample from their perspective to judge whether or not I could play the character I wrote. Doesn't matter if I just went through the grueling 2 hours of actually writing the app... then I had to prove the apps salt.

 

I apologize to you that you don't understand that elitists did create apps and do exist and that's actually sorta shitty for you because then you don't actually have the frustrating experience of being denied joining a site after spending 12 hours on an app to be denied because you had a few typos in your roleplay sample. It doesn't make me a worse roleplayer, it makes me a stronger roleplayer. Because I know, from my experience, that petty people want petty posts. I don't produce petty posts.

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16 minutes ago, Bass said:

think it is misleading to call the origin of rp samples elitists who just want to judge you. That just isn't true

 

On the contrary, the origin of forum role play samples absolutely was a matter of elitist judgement. Fifteen years ago it was incredibly prevalent in forum culture. Back then, this was the case even on neopets; there may have been guilds and groups that didn't do it, but by and large the RP culture there was just as savage if not worse at times. If your initial exposure to RP samples was chat-service based as you mentioned above, then it may have been a milder experience. However, in this case your personal experience wasn't the norm. It just wasn't.

 

Regardless of that, an RP sample is a metric for others to decide whether or not you're worth writing with. That is it, plain and simple. Some platforms might not criticize them as harshly, and they might not set such strenuous requirements; but boiled down to the base, that's still what they are. They exist solely as a measure of judgement. 

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