P.S This was written originally for Chinatown but after writing this, I came to the realization that this could be taken out of context and applied to any faction.
It’s time to address some concerns that have been the focus of many previous factions I’ve led or took part in. One of those concerns is joining the community/faction. This is sort of a letter/guide to people who are not only new but experienced roleplayers with some of the issues we've all been dealing with while joining factions ever since we started roleplaying.
I'll update this guide in time.
Roleplaying in Chinatown, where to start?
1. Creativity and roleplaying with others
As one of the faction leaders, what I will look for in people who are gonna roleplay with us is mostly creativity. By creativity, I mean characters that add to the immersive atmosphere of Chinatown. This means that we aren't just looking for people who will join the youth in the gang or only ABC criminals, but roleplayers who decide to take other angles to roleplay around Chinatown and will find it more than rewarding in their roleplay. This is where the creativity comes into play. Here's a story.
There were all kinds of youth in Chinatown, among them were a group that liked to rave in a parking lot on Saturdays with some drugs and alcohol. One Saturday, the boys and girls were all packed in the same parking lot, just East of Chinatown. Jerry and Ronald had gotten a batch of Ecstasy with the other drugs that they were doing and they were passing the pills around and they encouraged the young ones to take as well. The peer pressure got to the young ravers and among the youth, one who took the pills was Dana Ka. Time passed and the drugs had kicked in, and among the drugs, alcohol was consumed. One moment everything is fine and another, police are rushing onto the scene, EMTs, it's one of the young ones, Dana, she's dead. The drugged youth run off in fear of imprisonment, emotions are in the ceiling. Time goes by, chatter is everywhere about the deceased in Chinatown, people are mourning the death of a pubescent teenager and there's even an article about it in the paper. Among the rumors are that people are blaming the deaths on those who had given the drugs to Dana, and one looking for his payback is Malcolm Ka, the father of the poor child who had fallen to her death.
More time passes and Jerry is blaming himself more and more. Dana's father is still in search of who he believes is responsible for her daughter's death. And so is the daughter's best friend, Kao. Anyway, the story ends with Jerry having an outburst in the middle of the street, claiming he was responsible. He gets tracked down by Dana's best friend, Kao a bit later who stabs him to death on the street.
What's the point of the story? Someone decided to roleplay the deceased girl's father as the story progressed. That was a great opportunity and it made all the difference in the story and roleplay. Perhaps if he never made the character, the roleplay with her death might've ended when she died. There are always roleplay opportunities everywhere. But, since roleplay is a team effort, the important part of it is to look at who you're roleplaying with and think of what you could add to the story and contribute to the atmosphere and situation with said character. With that said, there's a fine line between adding to a story and taking from it, so be careful with the big boss from another town type of characters, especially when you haven't roleplayed one before, or haven't done much research on the subject you're supposed to be roleplaying about, and that's what the next part is about.
2. Roleplaying characters with major pre-development completed.
Examples: a gang member, a police officer, a church deacon. Anything where the curve of what you're roleplaying is already completed. This should be done only by roleplayers who know all there is to know about the subject (for example, you have researched and roleplayed in Asian factions for many times and want to join with an Asian faction and you want to start off roleplaying an established Asian gang member) so they can dive right into it and even then, it may be hard to adjust if the curve is too steep and other people you're roleplaying with are in a different spot than you (check the previous part for this if you haven't). I and my friends usually avoid these characters at all cost, unless the faction is already way on its way and one of us is planning on making a new character to get with the flow and starting from the bottom seems like playing catch-up. Because, simply it’s much harder to get “in the flow” if you don’t give it time to develop into. I’ve been in various situations I just couldn’t get into roleplay on said characters because I didn’t know who they were, because I didn’t know how they got there in the first place. Keep in mind, roleplay is basically improv, you have to be ready to act in any situation as the character that you created. If you can't do that believably, you cannot roleplay.
Another reason not to do this is because there have been far too many occurrences where someone has stepped on existing factions because they thought it'd be wise to roleplay the boss from another city or whatever, and now the established faction has to "bow" to someone who hasn't even much experience roleplaying the high stride they are striving for. The point is to create another dimension in the existing atmosphere not take away from it. Put up a store where the youth hangs and roleplay the old Chinese clerk. Roleplay the girl who hangs with them or is one of their boyfriends. Roleplay a prostitute who hangs near their street, roleplay the cop that has their shifts in Chinatown, whatever feeds your urges at the moment.
3. Roleplaying interesting and eccentric characters a.k.a how to not be spoonfed roleplay.
Are you often roleplaying around characters to which there’s very little happening and you bunch are literally doing nothing until something happens to you? The prime cause of this is that your characters aren’t eccentric or outgoing enough or that you have difficulty expressing your character (check previous part for the last one). This is especially true for Chinese. Chinese are very eccentric people, Hong Kong is one of the busiest cities in the world, people are swarming constantly, talking on phones all the time, just into some shit all the time. There’s so many people and it should be in Chinatown that everybody is always into someone’s shit. Don’t create a character that just stands around, and don’t roleplay one. If nobody is online, you should always be able to sustain your own roleplay. If you’re a criminal, go hold up a liquor store, go mug someone (you don’t need any guns for these by the way). Go interact with people in roleplay in the million ways you can. If you’re not roleplaying a guy that’s in the gray area with the law you have even more ways to do so. Research the thing you’re doing, watch movies about it, maybe a TV show, research the ethnicity. Watch Chinese films. Read a book about Cantonese slang, read books about Chinese mafia. Whatever you can do to understand what you’re actually doing so that you can roleplay it with confidence. Make up your own slang, your character’s sense of humor, his jokes and mix it with Cantonese humor. Use all this to create your character and find ways to express him in roleplay all the time. Roleplay is not real life, it’s make-believe. You don’t have to sit still and do nothing (unless you choose to roleplay it). Real life has enough of that.