Comprehensive Guide to RpNation

[RpNation]

Welcome to RpNation​

Important Links
Community Guidelines
Frequently Asked Questions
RpN Handbook
Staff Contact
BBCode Guide
​

Hey there and welcome to RpNation! We're so glad you decided to join us. While the site may seem rather large and confusing at first, not to worry as that's exactly what this is for! We aim to help clear up some common questions you might have to help get started in this wonderful community.

This guide is broken down into multiple sections for organization and easier reading. It can seem overwhelming, but we want to provide a comprehensive guide for everyone to refer to to help acclimate and understand the RpNation Community.

You can either read as you go or click a link or threadmark to go to a specific section of this guide.

➤ Getting Started
➤ General Forums
➤ Recruitment & Roleplay Forums
➤ Roleplay Recruitment
➤ Site Features
➤ Your Profile
➤ Your Account
➤ BBCode

No Erotic Content! While RpNation is not a PG-13 site and are rather open about roleplay content, we do not permit any erotic/sexual/smut content within any part of the site, public or private. This includes personal messages/conversations as well as recruiting for such things to take place off site. Erotic content and erotic roleplay is strictly prohibited. When a user joins RpNation, they have to click a checkbox that they understand this policy.

Off-site Recruitment As a new member it is important for you to know that we do have an Off-site Ads forum, however you will not have access till you have at least 10+ posts. Please do not spam to reach this requirement! You can easily engage in the community rather than spam! New users should also NOT use the onsite recruitment for offsite recruitment; this includes posting your offsite contact information or Discord server invites.

All RpNation rules still apply to off-site recruitment threads!

 

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Getting Started

If you're here, you've already successfully registered to use RpNation. So, where do you go from here? There is just so much!

The most important things to read first is everything within the Handbook. The Handbook contains important threads that all members should make themselves familiar with to help them avoid breaking any of the site's rules. Within the Handbook you will find;

• Community Guidelines
  • This thread contains the site's rules/policies.
• Recruiting Rules
  • These are additional site policies on recruitment, basically what players should not do when recruiting players for their roleplays.
• Roleplay Rights
  • Information regarding your right as a member of the site, as a GM of a roleplay, and as a player in a roleplay.
• FAQ
  • This is where you can find answers to frequently asked questions.
• Official RpN Staff List
  • Contains the official Staff list as well as explains what Staff do.

The 1 Post & Avatar Requirement

In order for users to access other features of the site, they are required to have at least one post, an avatar, and be at least 15 minutes old.

Until new members meet those requirements they will be unable to:

• Start a PM (aka Conversations) with other members. They will still be able to receive and reply to PMs.
• Set a signature for their account.
• Make a profile post on their profile or the profiles of other users.

Introduce Yourself

The best way to start meeting the requirements and getting your first post is to introduce yourself in the Introductions thread. Please remember that the introductions thread is for introducing yourself, not for recruiting for a roleplay. If you need some ideas on what to include in your introduction to the community, you can mention:

• Your experience with roleplay and how long you have been roleplaying.
• What interests you have within roleplay, such as genre or settings.
• What interests you have outside of roleplay; such as a hobby.
• Why you decided to join RpNation.
• Write about your pet (if you have one).
• Or for something silly, two truths and a lie.

You can use those prompts or just introduce yourself as you wish to the community.

Are you new to roleplaying or forums?

If this is your first time roleplaying (or you consider yourself fairly new) or are unfamiliar with forums, we have an Introduction to RpNation, Forums, and Roleplaying. It goes over the basics for the forums and also has a comprehensive glossary and abbreviation guide to help you translate commonly used roleplay slang.

 

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General Forums

The site guide serves as a site map. In this section the forums will be listed with a basic explanation as to what content you can find and post within them. It's best to start here before you jump into recruiting for a roleplay. One of the most common mistakes a new user makes is posting their recruitment thread in the incorrect forum, which means they will be less likely to find someone to roleplay with.

RpNation

Community Hub

The Community Hub is where you can find the latest news & updates, monthly newsletter, post suggestions, and report bugs. This is also the place to go if you have a question regarding matters that concern the site.​

• RpNation Handbook
  • This is another section already mentioned earlier. It contains important information regarding the site's policies, roleplay rights, and more.
• Tutorials
  • This is a subforum where you can find tutorial on a variety of subjects, for both roleplaying and the site.

My Private Workshop

The content within this forum can only be seen by yourself and the Staff. This would be the place where you can safely practice your BBCode skills, store content you want kept private, and overall private storage. Posts here do not count towards your overall post count.​

Creativity

Creativity
The Creativity forum is the place to host your non-roleplay related creative works; from written, musical, to illustrated works. Original and fanworks.

BBCode Center

The forum is dedicated to BBCode creations. Users can ask for help, share their creations, or even request BBCode designs.​

Discussion

General Discussion

This forum is meant for any non-roleplay, general or entertainment related discussions.​

• Personal Discussion
  • A place to share your personal stories, opinions, and journals.
• #forumgames
  • This is for spammy threads and forum games. Posts here do not count towards your overall post count.

Roleplay Discussion & Advice

This forum is for discussing roleplays, where you can ask for help with your roleplay, get feedback on your plots, and overall just chat about the hobby.​

• Character Feedback
  • Players can request for feedback on their characters here or use it for public storage for their character sheets.

Archives

Older content is housed in the Site Archive which may be viewed but cannot be edited, deleted, or replied to.

 

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Recruitment & Roleplay Forums

Many new users are most confused with the recruitment and roleplay forums and often incorrectly post their threads. You can use this section of the site guide to help determine where you should post. Further down you will find more information regarding prefixes and the filter feature with the "Roleplays" section.

Recruitment

This is the forum where you should recruit for your roleplays. This section is broken down into four different sections.

1x1 Interest Checks

If you are looking for a partner for a 1x1 (One on One) roleplay, this is the forum where you can post your partner search/1x1 interest check. One on One roleplays are roleplays that have only 2-3 players total.​

Group Interest Checks

If you are looking to host a roleplay that will have 3+ players, your search thread would go in this forum to recruit players.​

Dice Interest Checks

If you are hosting a roleplay which uses one of the many dice systems available this is where your recruitment for players would go.​

Off-Site Ads

For those who prefer to not roleplay using forums they must use this section if they wish to recruit for off-site roleplays. Users need at least 10+ posts to access this forum! Additionally, it is important to note that this section cannot promote or link to off-site content which violates the site's policies.​

Roleplays

This entire forum hosts only roleplay content. No recruitment should go into this forum.

One on One (1x1)

Hosts roleplays that consist of 2-3 partners. Prefixes and the filter are explained further down.​

Group

Hosts roleplays that consist of 3+ players. Prefixes and the filter are explained further down.​

Dice

Hosts roleplays are based on a dice system for the game to run. Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder are a couple of examples for dice formats.​

Extra Pages

This forum is for all OOC materials. This is where you host your OOC, lore, character sheet, and anything for your roleplay that is not for in character content.​

Prefixes

Fandom

Contains characters or story, or takes place in an existing universe; such as a book, movie, anime, etc.​

Fantasy

Within a reality/universe that is more fantastic, more whimsical and has the more traditional elements within it that you know you are not grounded in anything that is like our reality and world at its core.​

Futuristic

Within a reality/universe that is far more advanced technologically (typically) and possesses characteristics that we would associate with the future of our reality.​

Realistic or Modern

Within a reality/universe that is similar to our own. It might have some minor magic or creatures in it or even zombies trying to eat us, but the technology and the way of life we experience in this game is similar to the reality we all face in our real lives.​

Multiple Settings

For 1x1 this can be used to recruit for multiple roleplays within a single thread. For Group this is for those roleplays that have multiple elements of various settings (such as a multiverse).​

Nation Building

Focuses on world-building across two or more nations. Common themes in these roleplays are military strategy and politics.​

Colosseum

Exclusively combat-focused. These roleplays are generally not plot-intensive.​

Quest

Roleplays where a single person writes a story and other people post votes to influence the events of the roleplay.​

Hosted Projects

Hosted Projects (aka HP) are roleplay projects that need more resources to run their roleplay than what is provided normally. Hosted Projects applications are reviewed critically to determine if they truly need more resources. Currently HP applications are not being accepted.

Filter Feature

RpNation now uses a filter feature to help you narrow down your search for the roleplays you seek. You can use this feature to filter through content by prefix, sub-genre, tags, and more. It can be used only within the Recruitment and Roleplay forums! When you access those sections on the side you will find the filter. On mobile you will have to click the icon (top right).

 

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Roleplay Recruitment

Before you begin to recruit, please read the Community Guidelines. They are very important before you start because should you violate those policies you put yourself at risk of receiving a warning or worse a temporary ban from the site.

This section is to help gently guide you on roleplay recruitment. If you've read the section Recruitment & Roleplay Forums you should already have a decent idea of how this works.

Important!

You should only post a recruitment thread within the Recruitment forum. That is specifically what this forum is for and posting outside of this area decreases your chance of successfully finding others to roleplay with.

Step 1

Determine what kind of roleplay you are recruiting for. Are you trying to roleplay with a group of other players? Do you want to host a roleplay as a GM? Or do you simply want to find a partner to do a One on One with? What kind of roleplay you want will determine which recruitment forum you should use.

Step 2

Determine what setting or type your roleplay is. You'll need to use the correct prefix, sub-genres, and tags to help browsing members find your thread. You can get more information about prefixes and the filter in the Recruitment & Roleplay Forums section.

Step 3

Write your recruitment information in a new thread. There is no master formula that will guarantee you will quickly or easily find a partner or players for your roleplay. However, we can suggest some common information and ways people recruit others.

One on One Roleplays
You can include the following information to help you find a partner that fits you. This is by no means the standard but to help give you a general idea on information commonly provided by others.

• Give yourself a quick introduction.
• List your preferences:
  • Writing style
  • Your availability
  • Pairings
  • What you require or expect of your partner.
  • List what you are and are not interested in.
  • Specific things you will not roleplay.
• Plots or prompts you want to roleplay.

Group Roleplays
Much like the suggested list for One on One recruitment, group roleplays have some of the same elements in their recruitment. Remember that this is only a suggestion for what you can include in your recruitment:

• Explain your roleplay; such as the universe it takes place in or a basic synopsis.
• List any requirements you may have for players to join:
  • Average post length
  • Activity requirements
  • Rules
• Link any relevant threads, such as your OOC thread.

Step 4

Post! After you post if you want to go back and fix, add, or remove something, you can simply edit it as needed.

Step 5

Patience. This is so important it does get its own step. You have to understand that you are not the only person trying to recruit for a roleplay. This means it might take some time to find someone interested in roleplaying with you. Give it some time.

A Note About Bumping

Instead of re-posting a recruitment thread you've posted, if you are still searching for the same stuff you can simply bump your thread. However, bumping excessively can become very spammy and shouldn't be done too frequently. You can read about the expected bump etiquette within the Recruiting Rules.

 

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Site Features

There are more than just forums here on RpNation. This section will go over these features and their function.

Filter

July 2019 RpNation officially released the filter feature. Within the Recruitment and Roleplay forums there is filter which you can use to narrow down and search for the roleplays you want with prefixes, sub-genres, tags, and more. On a desktop browser there will be a sidebar. You may wish to click the icon and turn off sticky sidebar. On mobile you will have to click the icon (top right) to open it (an image is provided in the Recruitment & Roleplay section).

Discord

RpNation has it's own official Discord server which members may join and chat with other members. In order to join the Discord server you must first associate your RpNation account with your Discord account. You can associate your account here and click to join the server here. Be sure you join the server before you associate your account!

Gallery

RpNation has a Gallery where you can upload images, such as character face claims, maps, etc. You can either upload to a album or to a specific section.

Bookmarks

Bookmarks allow you to bookmark threads and posts so you can easily find them. You can also add notes and have both public and private bookmarks.

Post Macros

Post Macros are a great tool when you use the same content (such as BBCode) frequently. It allows you to create a post macro which you can insert directly into your post from a menu when you click the icon.

Profile Posts

Profile Posts are a small social media feature of the site where you or other users can post small messages on your profile or the profile of others (depending on privacy settings).

Threadmarks

Threadmarks are a useful tool to help organize your roleplay content via tabs and an index. It can serve as a table of contents for your individual posts within a thread, or link many individual threads together for your roleplay.

Site Themes

You can slightly customize the site theme you use using with the , , or icons. These allow you to swap between Light and Dark theme, turn fluid width on/off, have a grid layout, flip the sidebar, sticky the sidebar, or just for fun turn on a snow effect.

Conversations (aka PMs/DMs)

You can privately message other members through Conversations which can host up to 20 different users. Additionally you can organize your messages here by setting up Labels and Rules.

Ratings

You can rate the content of other users. There are two universal ratings which are the Cookie and Heart rating. Other ratings are forum specific, such as the 'Great Scene' rating which can only be used within the roleplay forums. You can see your ratings on your profile and even see how many you have given and received.

Follow

You can follow other members of the site. While the following system isn't exactly the same as a friends list it can be used as such. You can follow someone by clicking the Follow button on their profile (and later Unfollow with the same button if you want). Following someone can add their activity into your news feed.

News Feed

You can see what the people you follow are up to (if they allow others to see their news feed content) by going into Your News Feed.

Ignore

Unfortunately the forum software we use does not have a true blocking system. It uses an Ignore system combined with privacy settings. If you no longer wish to be contact by a certain user you can ignore them by clicking the Ignore button on their profile. This will cause you to instantly leave any PMs they send to you and hide their content from you.

If you want to take this a step further, please read the Privacy section further down.

 

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Your Profile

Every user has a profile. This section will be fairly small because there is overlap with the Your Account section of the guide regarding signatures, avatars, and the about section. To view your profile, all you have to do really is click on it. If you hover over an avatar next to one of your posts a small snippet will appear, which you can click to go to your profile. You can also do this with your avatar which is on the menu bar of the site and clicking your username.

Messages

Messages display the amount of posts you have posted to the site, though this does exclude certain sections of the site such as #forumgames and the Private Workshop.

Profile Cover

You can set a profile cover which can be an image or color. To do this you need to go to your profile and click the "Cover" button. This will display a drop down menu with options. If you want a cover image you can click on "Modify Cover Image". To simply have a color set click "Style Cover". You can additionally position your cover image with the "Position Cover" option.

Profile Tabs

On your profile are a few tabs that you can click. Any public posts can be viewed from your profile as well as any profile posts you or someone else has posted there. Public bookmarks and media will show up should you opt to use those features. Finally, the About section is a little space where you can share little things about you, however, you have to edit your account to put any content within there. There is an additional tab - Post Areas - that displays the areas of the site you have most frequently posted to.

Following/Followers

You can see who on the site you follow and who follows you here under your About tab.

About

This tab on your profile has a small about section which you can edit under your account as well as information for your gender, birthday, off-site contact, signature, who you follow, and who is following you.

 

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Your Account

To access and edit your account information you can click here or click on your avatar on the top menu bar and click Account Details. When you click on this you will be taken to your overall account details which you can click on the side menu to access different parts.

Account Details

Here you can do the following:

• Request a username change
  • You may only request a username change once per year.
• Change/update your account e-mail address.
• Choose whether or not you want to receive news and e-mail updates.
• Change or upload your avatar.
• Put a custom title.
  • This appears under your username for your posts
• Choose the visibility of your birthdate.
  • You cannot change your date of birth, you have to request Staff to do so.
• Put your location
  • Please remember some things should remain private and putting private information in a public space is never wise.
• Link your website.
  • Please remember linked content cannot violate RpNation's policies.
  • This could best be used to link to your roleplay recruitment thread.
• Select your gender.
• Put your occupation.
  • Please remember some things should remain private and putting private information in a public space is never wise.
• Put content in your About section on your profile.
  • BBCode can be used here!
• Put select off-site contact information.
  • RpNation is not responsible for off-site contact should you opt to publicly share this information.

Password and security

In this section, you can enable two-step verification for additional account security. You can also change your account password here.

Privacy

Your privacy settings allow you to control who can see what regarding your profile and account information. You can:

• Show/hide your online status as well as if others can see what you are currently viewing via your profile.
• Show/hide your date of birth, both the general month and day and the year.
• Choose whether or not you want to receive news and e-mail updates.
• Determine whether all visitors, members only, people you follow, or nobody can:
  • View your details on your profile page.
  • Post messages on your profile page.
  • Receive your news feed.
  • Start conversations with you.
  • View your identities.
• Allow people you are in a PM with see/not see when you last read a PM/Conversation.

Preferences

This is one of the more expansive parts of your account's settings. Here you can set your preferences for:

• Style
• Language
• Timezone
• Choose whether or not you want to receive news and e-mail updates.
• Choose whether or not you want to be e-mailed when you get a PM.
• Choose how you watch content:
  • You can chose to automatically watch content when you post or interact with.
  • If when something you watch has an alert also sends you an e-mail.
• Choose if you want to see signatures.
• Choose avatar or username for your conversation list.
• Show/hide your online status as well as if others can see what you are currently viewing via your profile.
• Receive direct messages and updates on Discord.
  • A bot will DM you on Discord when you are sent a PM.

Search Options
You can choose what the default setting is for when you go to search for content via the search bar alone. You can search by:

• Default Search Order
• Most recent
• Relevance

Alerts page and summary settings
This area is where you can set what happens when you view your alerts page, such as if you read the alerts page if it dismisses all alerts, if you want to summarize similar alerts and setting the thresdhold for alert summaries.

Alert preferences
This section is not going to list every single alert option because it is a vast list. This section allows you to set up your preferences for what you receive alerts for. Anything you have as a checked option you will get an alert for. Anything unchecked will not send you an alert.

Signature

A signature is a bit of content that will always go under every single one of your posts on RpNation. You can use it for a variety of things, like linking to your recruitment threads, putting a signature image, and so forth. It's a little spot for self-expression.

There are a few limits, such as only limited BBCode, 4 lines, images will have a restricted height of 100px, and gifs should be used with caution.

Connected accounts

You can associate your RpNation account with:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Google
• Discord

If you wish to remove the associations, that would be done here as well.

Following

You can see every person you are following and if you want, unfollow them with a click of the Unfollow button.

Ignoring

Much like the following page, the ignore page lists all those you have on you ignored list. From here you can quickly remove someone from your ignore list.

Post Macros

This was already explained earlier, this is another way you can access your Post Macros.

 

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BBCode

BBCode is our custom-built coding language for formatting posts. This allows us to modify and create beautiful and vivid content without the need for a full web design degree. Designs created using BBCode can extend from simple bolding and headers to stylish character sheets. BBCode is often used to help attract attention to interest checks, or help to set the design and mood of characters. We maintain a BBCode Center where users can create and share their designs, help others, and post guides to BBCode.

Rich Text Editor

Almost all reply and content textboxes have Rich Text Editor (RTE), which provides basic text editor controls often seen word processors. Likewise, it also auto processes certain things inside the textbox, such as turning youtube links into embeds. Hovering over the icons will show a tooltip describing what each one does. The gear icon will disable RTE and change all formatting into BBCode tags. Disabling and enabling RTE on one reply box will disable/enable RTE on all other reply boxes you will see, so remember to change it back to what you would normally prefer.

BBCode

BBCode allows for basic text manipulation and formatting. It uses a system of tags and templates that users can fill in and customize themselves. It is generally recommended to disable RTE when working with BBCode or any of its variations as it is known to mess up the code when posting.