Your First Roleplaying Experience

[Jeremey Knight]

I know that for a lot of us, the Vault is not our first foray into the world of Playby Post RPGs. So how was it that you first came to enjoy this bizarre and strange world that we all love so much? Did you start when you were very young, or perhaps when you were quite old (by the standards of RPers that is)? Where was it? What did you RP?

My first Roleplaying experience came a long time ago - a little over six years ago to be exact - when I was twelve years old. I was rather new to the whole 'internet-thing' as I put it back then, and didn't have much of a clue what I was doing. It was on this strange website that I cannot even remember the name of but it was probably the WORST RP site in the history of mankind. Looking back on it, it's like the members were in constant competition to see who could make the Sueiest and most Overpowered characters. It wasn't fun at all, and I left that site quickly. Thankfully, I found some more interesting sites to RP on, and it's been a great hobby of mine since - though I was on and off with it for a few years. :P

So what're your stories?

[Maya Parker]

My first RP experience... I'm trying to remember. I did a lot of RPing in different places. I know I started on Yahoo! either in their communities (which were mainly email based) or their chatrooms. I know that I had this elaborate idea to run a Sailor Moon Chatroom based RP, with different chats for different areas and the like. It was basically set up like a forum would be, but with rooms. Real time RP is different than forum RP though.

I moved on to journal based RPs on Livejournal. Again for Sailor Moon, and then finally started looking at forums when I searched Harry Potter RPs. My first forum RP was a Harry Potter one that I left fairly quickly because it was mainly a lot of people fighting and trying to get their favorite ships acted out. I finally settled on one that was basically... a main board, a board for each house, and a few other subboards for classes and clubs and other activities. I was there for years. XD

I've been roleplaying in different forms since I was 11. Chatrooms, forums, journals, twitter, in video games, instant messengers. My favorite is forum RP because it's very central for the stories and it allows for the amount of detail you want (or don't want) in your roleplay.

[Lena Kyle]

My first RP experience was a place called Our Hogwarts. It is still around and I'm still a member, but it is struggling with activity.

Back when I began about 8 years ago, pretty much everyone there used one liners and we all had twisted, crazy characters. There was a bunch of quidditch drama too. Its evolved though and we are all much better posters.

[Druella Elfand]

My first rp experience had to be with phoenix. It was medieval roleplay site. I made my first char out depression. I was not allow to do anything in rl. I was young and high school. I was not poplar as grew up I continue to stay activity through high school. I was looking for something to do with my life since I was not allow outside hardly. Because my grandmother was ill. Anyway only short time there not mention I miss my Jr prom because she did not want to leave the house. She told me all sortie of stories about prom that to keep me home. So when I finally was able to go because I beg my mom to take me. I had so much fun dancing. I did not have date but it was fun all the same.I was not poplar liked some girls. Anyway that was first character was vampire who was countess that was real old. Then other time I made twins one was angel and fallen angel. Then I developed more and I got to craving more when I rp with all sortie of characters.So I made more on phoenix site.

[Samantha Winchester]

I remember my first experience well. I was eighteen and I had just gotten out of school, but it was still very early so I needed a filler so I joined a vampire based site (being the enthusiast I am) for discussion. When I was exposed to the RP element I noticed that it was fun, but the characters were very Mary Sue-esque (my own included to a degree). So once I left that site and learned more and more I slithered around a few sites. I actually found the vault from another member here. She and I were both members of myHogwarts. It was a nice site, but not really our thing since there were Mary Sues aplenty there. Here though it's a nice change of pace. Play by post and no one is outshining Ministry workers in every magical field when they're only a fourth year at Hogwarts.

[Benjamin Strong]

My first experience, that takes me back to like when I was nine or ten years old. The internet was still on that crappy dial-up so every time someone called it was like: OH WELL! WHATEVER I WASNT DOING ANYTHING IMPORTANT!!

It started off pretty lame, on this place called Furcadia, still exists even. furcadia.com lol anyway, it was kind of a furry place you could say, but I didn't use it for those purposes, when I was nine and ten I was just like: OMG BUNNY HOPING ON THE SCREEN. I was a spazz, really it was when I was around that age that I discovered Naruto on American TV, and there was that downhill spiral into what I do now. I found a "world" someone created though in Furcadia it is called a "dream" because you can make stuff, and like in your wildest "dreams" is that idea. So I walked in there, and almost immediately walked up the rank (nobody was that smart back then in that dream) of like owning an entire Naruto village, the Snow Village. Which if you know anything about Naruto, you know what I'm talking about.

Regardless, I made my character a derp dragon demon dude that could like reach out and touch the moon and use it for battle. What a god-modder. Not long after my ascension it was like the rise and fall of the roman empire, my, ex-girlfriend (now) came along and killed my character, this place was non-consent which was what I loved about it, could kill anyone I wanted to if I had the RP skill. So lets just say I got killed and beaten up often on my characters.

I was often bullied through this place, but through time I stopped caring. Because I was being bullied due to my immaturity, I mean I was an eleven year old (this was after some time), claiming to be sixteen. That didn't go well for me. xD

So ya! That's my first RolePlay experience, I was herp-da-derp. But, you know ten years later... BOOM! Like a boss. xDD

[Samara Raillen]

Teehee...my first roleplay experience happened on the tagboard on Arwen-Undomiel.com. I must have been in....6th grade, 11 years old. I saw others doing it and sat there for about fifteen minutes trying to figure out my name. I remember well. Finally I decided on Tajien and did the whole

*walks in to the clearing, looks around* Hi.

XD It's so funny now, but I spent YEARS roleplaying there. For a while, besides my two best friends, I only had online friends. They were my first family. It was through them I learned how roleplay works, and how important character relations are, and how not to roleplay. We actually have a facebook group of all the oldies on there, it's fun to stay in contact with those people.

Shortly afterward, I hooked up with this site called Hogwarts4U, a roleplay site a few of my friends and I joined. it was all pretty lame roleplay, but I met two guys from Ireland on it, and we and a few other "founding members" created a cool forum site called Godric's Hollow, which was sort of an alternate school. It didn't ever take off, but I got the experience of a small community roleplay where everyone had multiple characters and the plots were partially planned out and you had to figure out how people interacted fully. It was GREAT.

Like I said, it didn't take off, and after a while, I went to college and got so busy that I had to give it up during the semester. But every summer I come home and I find a good site (I used to do Leaky Cauldron but it just doesn't fit, people there post up a storm and you're left in the dust) and I roleplay again.

I'm excited for Vault because it looks super promising, not too overwhelming and very VERY well-organized.

Those are my roots and I'm proud of them! ^_^

[Olivia Cromwell]

I feel so... YOUNG.

Vault is my first roleplay experience, actually. It was only two years ago when I was sitting on msn, like the good little thirteen year old that I was, talking to my friend when she went, "I FOUNDED A SITE." Now, I was a right idiot. I didn't understand her lingo AT ALL. I thought she'd made it, and it took me half an hour of trawling through it to realise she'd FOUND a side. xD

My first character was Catriana Dana, a character from one of my stories, and I was a terrible, terrible RPer because I didn't understand it AT ALL. Forums just... baffled me. And to tell you the truth, I've only ever done forum RP. So... yeah. I'm not really that experienced in the world of RP. But yes, vault is my first and only (unless you count the site I co-own, which I don't because we only have 4 members - 2 of which are admins) experience.

[Samara Raillen]

Lol I remember the days! Don't worry Cat -- you're not missing much. Forum roleplay is, I find, the most superior form of roleplay.

Reason number 1: Everyone has to edit and double check their post before posting, so grammatical, formatting, and other errors are typically minimalized.

Reason number 2: it is WAY more organized. You have to navigate to the appropriate board for your roleplay, which keeps things easy to understand and find.

Reason number 3: People just tend to be more intelligent on forums. Probably due to the lack of chat format and thus, lack of chat -type communication!

I started out with live chat style roleplay, and here's where I ended up. I'm 21 years old! And I still enjoy roleplaying. Power of forums, baby. :3

[Benjamin Strong]

Lol I remember the days! Don't worry Cat -- you're not missing much. Forum roleplay is, I find, the most superior form of roleplay.

Reason number 1: Everyone has to edit and double check their post before posting, so grammatical, formatting, and other errors are typically minimalized.

Reason number 2: it is WAY more organized. You have to navigate to the appropriate board for your roleplay, which keeps things easy to understand and find.

Reason number 3: People just tend to be more intelligent on forums. Probably due to the lack of chat format and thus, lack of chat -type communication!

I started out with live chat style roleplay, and here's where I ended up. I'm 21 years old! And I still enjoy roleplaying. Power of forums, baby. :3

I wouldn't say it's the superior form of roleplay. Seeing as roleplaying is pretty childish on its own, I don't see how there could be such a thing as, "superior" in roleplay. That sounds almost, elitist.. I suppose you could say. Which is actually the reason I have avoided forums for so long, because people have been complete elitists and not very nice to me, this is the first forum that's very personable.

I for example, much prefer roleplaying over IM. It's much more private, I don't tend to like people reading what I post in such a public manner. It's pretty organized, I save all of my files and just post back. Chat format doesn't make you less intelligent, just because I go on chat and talk to someone doesn't suddenly make me IQ level or brain cells disappear. :P Chat communication is helpful, and that's why a lot of us share our AIMS and such with each other so we can plan things out together! So on the contrary, not having that chat option can be pretty hindering.

Another thing, not everyone checks their grammar and other such things. I don't. I find it to be a waste of time, I just reread my post once sometimes when I think I made a mistake, otherwise I don't really do anything to it. So saying that EVERYONE checks, is kind of not true. My posts are understandable, and at times minimal, I don't like beating around the bush.

Sorry felt like I needed to give reasons as to why I felt forums are the superior form of roleplay.

[Samara Raillen]

Yes, I apologize for using the word Everyone lol.

You have some good points there; I still stand that I like forums better because I DO believe that people think longer and harder about what they say in return on forums, because you CAN leave it and come back if you are unsure of how to proceed. I don't think the quality of the story is any less, and I suppose I phrased it wrong about intelligence. People who live chat roleplay aren't less intelligent. In my personal experience, solely chat roleplayers (i.e. people who do not roleplay in any other fashion) do not always yield good results for me.

BUT this is not the place for this, is it? I apologize for bringing it up! ^_^;;

[Benjamin Strong]

Yes, I apologize for using the word Everyone lol.

You have some good points there; I still stand that I like forums better because I DO believe that people think longer and harder about what they say in return on forums, because you CAN leave it and come back if you are unsure of how to proceed. I don't think the quality of the story is any less, and I suppose I phrased it wrong about intelligence. People who live chat roleplay aren't less intelligent. In my personal experience, solely chat roleplayers (i.e. people who do not roleplay in any other fashion) do not always yield good results for me.

BUT this is not the place for this, is it? I apologize for bringing it up! ^_^;;

You're fine, I was just trying to bring up valid points as to why I think I'm correct, but I'm also a man of arguments, tend to enjoy those quite a bit. xD So you'll have to excuse moi as well. lolol

[Bobbie Brown]

I finally settled on one that was basically... a main board, a board for each house, and a few other subboards for classes and clubs and other activities. I was there for years. XD

I've been there for a while as well, and truth be told, at first I didn't like it at all. Maybe it was because I was still insecure about writing in English (since I'm no native). I was a terrible RPer back then as well, although my character Linda was a pretty ordinary character compared with everyone else's crazy creations. xD If anything, I was able to improve my English while I was there.

After I left that site, I joined a few other forum based RPs. Most of them were struggling with activity so it was basically normal to wait a week for a post. Then finally I found the vault - The Slytherin Dorms - shortly after it opened in 2007 and hey, I'm still here (even if I have been gone for a year or so)!

Of course I was tipping my toes in other forums as well, but so far I haven't found one that was such a fit as the vault is.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

Wow, I've been doing the RP thing since I was 12 years old in a Yahoo chat room. For some odd reason, my nickname was always Belldandy. I eventually upgraded to RPG's by the time I was 14 years old and I can't really remember their names. I know by 15 or 16 years old I ended up on Hogwarts by Night or Riddled in Darkness, I was only of the youngest members on the board and considered the baby of the group (a lot of people on that board were 21 and up). It was a HP/WOD role playing forum that I was on. The characters I became known for on there was Katherina Chovekivich, the Russian girl that beat the crap out of a vamp with her violin, Christine Engel (the vampire that tried to take over the city of London's coven like group) and Prudence "Aibell" Ayres (the alcoholic vamp with an attitude problem). There was another character on that board that I was known for, but alas she would never make the transition to here and she was a ton of fun to play out. It was on there that I wrote my longest post ever (it came out to about 10 pages on Word) and my longest character sheet ever (that one was about 11 pages long).

That board eventually lost a lot of members and I came here around 2009 when they were on their way out. The members on this board were just as inviting as HBN's/RnDs. So, I've been here on and off ever since. Plus, I heart my Cassaroo! She posted with me in German back when I still studied it, which I'm sure by this point I have lost it by now. :( Cass, we should so try another German thread.

That board eventually lost a lot of members and I came here around 2009 when they were on their way out. The members on this board were just as inviting as HBN's/RnDs. So, I've been here on and off ever since. Plus, I heart my Cassaroo! She posted with me in German back when I still studied it, which I'm sure by this point I have lost it by now. :( Cass, we should so try another German thread.

Oh, we totally should! <33