Helloooo? Can everybody hear me?

I'm not being ignored, am I?

Am I?

Don't mind me. If you're still here, I'm going to take that to mean you're willing to attempt to put up with me.

Ok, pencils out, time for a pop quiz. (No, no, don't run away now! You won't get graded on it and I'll be giving you the answers, I promise!)

We know that first impressions have a big impact. This quiz has one question and that question is this: Why won't what I just did necessarily work for RPing?

*Five minutes go by*

Ok, pencils down! Let's compare answers, shall we?

Examples:

~~ Player walks in through the door, smiles and waves to everyone. "Hello."

Technically, that's not a bad pose. But let's take a few other things into consideration.

~~ Player walks in through the door to the infirmary, smiles and waves to everyone. "Hello."

Assume we're talking about Redwall's infirmary for now. And think carefully about this one. Any infirmary, sick bay, hospital or room of that sort is likely to be teeming with sick and injured characters along with general misery. I've had a few characters laid up in such for extended amounts of time and seen players come walking in all happy and chipper with just such a pose. What sort of sane beast can be chipper in such a place? Not many.

Here's another likely situation using some of my old characters: Badgermother Heartwood and the dibbun Skylet.

~~ Skylet tears through the Hall, giggling madly. "Betcha can't catch me, Muvva Heartwood!"

~~ Player comes in and waves. "Hello."

~~ "Get back here, you rascal!" The badgermother comes chasing after her.

~~ "Hehehehe", Skylet shouts, laughing. "Nope!"

~~ Player says, "Erm...Hello?"

See where I'm going here? Our player walked into a room where there was already RP in progress, and no one is necessarily in any position ICly to stop and say hello back.

~~ Player says, "Hellooooo? Is anyone going to answer me?

Now there are a few things that the other players in the room could do, such as explain to the player OOCly that they're not really in any position to do stop what they're doing, or acknowledge them in passing somehow. But not always, especially if the RP is particularly fast paced. Often, by the time someone can get a word in edgewise to the player...

~~ Player gets frustrated and leaves.

~~ Player has left.

That happens. O_o Wait, get back here, Player! I need you for more examples!

More examples:

~~ In a room-page pose to you, Player sighs. "Do I really *have* to go through this?"

~~ In a room-page pose to you, Rosella offers ice cream as compensation?

~~ In a room-page pose to you, Player drools...

Crisis solved ^_~. On with the lesson.

~~ In a room-page pose to you, Rosella drags out the VCR, pops in a tape marked "More Examples of Not-So Appropriate Entrance Poses" and hits play.

~~ Player strides in confidently, sees Skylet and offers his paw to her. "Hello, my name is Player Fancytitle the Brave. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Right, uh-huh, sure. Pleasure to meet you too, really, but...

~~ Skylet has joined her dibbun pals under the table, barely stifling her giggles. "Da grown-ups is never gonna find us under here!"

Two mistakes. First, assuming that the players in the room were in a position to greet him. Second...would you realistically introduce yourself to a group of dibbuns like that?

Next!

~~ Player jumps in front of you, drawing his sword. "Do you feel lucky, punk?"

Stop right there. (And apologies to Dirty Harry.) I can see a lot of people nodding and rolling their eyes right now. Don't dwell too long on this, because most players do grow out of this stage sooner or later. For those that haven't though...the majority of people on this MUCK don't come here looking for fights. An entrance like the one above will often get you nothing but blank stares or worse.

~~ Player walks up to the badgermother. "Can I help you, Heartwood?"

Granted, that's a little better than just saying "hi". But what if Heartwood's napping, or she has the day off or something like that? On a slightly separate note...would you know her name ICly? Maybe, if you've been around the abbey for a considerable amount of time ICly or overheard someone call her name or something like that. But not if you've never met before, you can't know someone's name right off the bat, logically.

~~ Player walks quietly into the bar, takes a drink and sits down at a table.

~~ Deatheart growls, slamming her fist on the counter. "Listen you!" she shreeks. "I'm telling ya, I *paid* my tab already!"

~~ The bartender glares at the ferret. "And I'm telling ya you didn't! I ain't serving you unless I have dat money jingling right 'ere in me paw, lassie!"

~~ Player takes a sip of his drink and looks around.

Technically, there's nothing really wrong with this one...but again, a slight amount of deep thought required. While the player can choose to ignore the simmering argument between Deatheart and the bartender, why not take advantage of it? Think about how your character might react to this situation.

~~ Player slips in through the door and sits down.

Ok, that's fine. But the next time you see him...

~~ Player slips in through the door and sits down.

And the next time:

~~ Player slips in through the door and sits down.

Don't keep relying on the same entrance every time...because the situation in the room won't be the same every time!

I'm sure there's a ton of others and that I've only scratched the surface. But let's let our Player take a breather while I go into explaining how to improve on this.

The Right Pose for the Right Situation...Take 2.

What you absolutely can not do is walk into a room, say Hello and expect to become the center of attention, much less that that RP is going to stop for you.

Here's what I think might be a good general rule for joining rooms that already have people in them. Enter the room, look around...and then enter the room.

I'll explain. When you walk into the room, don't pose right away. Take a minute to get a fix on the situation...watch a few poses go by, ask people through page or room-page what's been happening prior to your entrance, figure out what's going on, where everyone is and what everyone's doing.

Then think about your character. How would they react to this situation? To the people in the room? To the setting? What might your character have been doing before they walk in? Where were you just coming from...what's different between the room you were just in and the room you're entering? Are you moving inside from outdoors for example, or from a crowded room into a quieter one?

Then, keeping all of this in mind, write your entrance pose based on the answers to those questions and then actually, ICly come into the room.

And by the way, the inverse of this is often true as well. Be wary of turning around right away to greet someone when they enter the room, figure out what they are up to before acknowledging their entrance.

This may sound rather complicated to some people. But keep practicing! Eventually, you should get to the point where you're so accustomed to doing this and you know your character so well that this kind of thought process becomes second nature and happens fairly quickly.

And you just might find yourself RPing a little more and ignored a little less.

~~ In a room-page pose to you, Player wonders if he can have his ice cream now?

^_~

Afterword: How To Keep Other Players From Leaving

Something that wasn't included in this article (but described in great detail in another) was the problem of ultraposing. Remember: Not everyone likes waiting five or more minutes for someone to get their 7 or 10+ line pose out and everyone else waits. That's the quickest way to frustrate a player, especialy a new one, and make them think they are being ignored. And we don't want that, do we? As a general rule? Let the player pose in whenever they want and as often as they want. If they happen to interupt something you're doing, don't ignore them; the IC thing to do would be react. If you really must have privacy, seek a private room.