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aoisakana - blog owner
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
--- Roleplay Mediums ---
   I thought I'd introduce the different type of mediums that are used for roleplaying on the internet. There are several mediums to roleplay with. I'll try to cover all the ones I have been involved in and ones that I have some knowledge about.

   The medium I am most familiar with is chatroom roleplay. I believe this is the most common form of roleplay. What happens is that, in the chatroom, one person will post their own post whilst the rest of the persons involved in that roleplay wait their turns. Usually, if there are more than two people involved in a roleplay, an order is established so that posting doesn’t get mixed up. The advantages to this sort of roleplay is that it is posted in real time so, potentially, a lot can get done in a short amount of time. It also allows for more players to get involved since, often, many people (not already involved in the roleplay scene) are also in the room and may jump in and have their characters react with something that has happened with your own roleplay. The disadvantages for this roleplay medium is that while it is possible to get a lot done in a short amount of time, depending on how fast the other parties in your roleplay type and get a post done, it can actually take a few hours to get a short scene finished. Also, if a character has to leave the roleplay, due to some r/t reasons, then the roleplay may be halted indefinately, or the direction of the roleplay was heading in may shift (which may or may not be a good thing). You may also feel the pressure (although you shouldn’t let it try to get to you so bad) to respond quickly, and as such, you may not post as good a quality as you might have were you not feeling the need to respond quickly.

   The next medium that I am familiar with is message board roleplay. This is another popular one. Instead of posting in a chatroom, participants are posting in a message board. The advantages of this medium are that each post can be incredibly detailed, as much as you want and can contain more actions/interactions than in a chatroom post. There is also not the pressure to reply immediately and replying can easily fit into your r/t schedule; which means that, even if you are unable to find a huge block of time to roleplay in a chatroom, you are still able to roleplay through the message boards. The history (depending on how the board you roleplay on is set up) is saved so anyone who wants to know what has been going on has the option of going back and reading up. The disadvantages are that it doesn’t always get as much traffic as chatroom so trying to get other people involved is always a little more difficult. Responses won’t happen immediately. It may even take weeks for some people to respond due to difficulties in r/t interruptions. This means that despite being able to write a lot in each post, it may not progress as quickly as a roleplay conducted in a chatroom.

   Another medium with roleplay is email based roleplay. This is essentially the same as a message board roleplay except posts are written as responses to emails rather than in a message board. The advantages are it’s very private. Only those who are on the emailing list will be included in the roleplay. It, like message board roleplay, can work with your r/t schedule and can also be very detailed. The disadvntages are that unlike message board or chatroom, it often doesn’t allow for players to jump right in unless they know of the roleplay already. Also, like the message board roleplay, it can take some time to get a scene done. I haven’t done any sort of roleplay with email so I don’t know how the actual format goes but I think it is generally a “reply all” situation so I would imagine your inbox could, potentially, get quite cluttered.

   The last sort of medium I will be talking about is messenger roleplays. This is, essentially, a combination of chatroom roleplay and email based roleplay. It’s conducted over messengers like MSN or AIM in a chatroom like format. The advantages are, like the email based roleplay, that it is very private so only those who you invite into the chat conversation will be allowed to join in. And like the chatroom roleplay, a lot in the scene can get done, potentially. The disadvantages are that again, if one has to leave, then the scene may be stopped indefinately and it make take some time for other players to type up a post so there may be a long waiting period.
 aoisakana 19:27