Well, role-playing is…

It’s very likely you’ve heard the term “role-playing” somewhere before, whether on the internet or in real life. It’s used for a variety of purposes—psychotherapy, demonstrations, and if you’ve ever had to stand in front of the class and awkwardly read Romeo & Juliet in English, literary exploration! Fortunately, our kind of role-playing is a lot more fun.

Dictionary.com defines role-playing as, “An instance or situation in which one deliberately acts out or assumes a particular character or role.” Our website runs within the world of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, which is a fantasy epic with so much setting development that we’re able to imagine what someone’s life would be like, should they actually live in that world. The characters that we create do just that. We imagine the kind of character that would exist within the Wheel of Time, then write from their perspective as they live, work, and play.

Of course, it gets a bit more complicated than that. The first step is creating a Wheel of Time character. The second step is writing with other members to create stories (also called “role-plays,” shortened to RPs, or strings or threads) together. These role-plays are hosted on our message boards, and range from simple, random interactions with other characters, to lessons and classes, to life-changing moments. To keep things moving, and in accordance with the guidelines that Mr. Jordan developed in the Wheel of Time, there are various character ranks and requirements for advancement.

A role-play can span weeks to months, and can involve one, two, three, or many more writers. They can be planned out in advance, or written as the mood strikes. To start a role-play, someone will compose a short piece of fiction of their character doing something, leaving the ending open for another person to write in their character. Each one of these short pieces of fiction are called posts, and are anywhere between 300 and 3000+ words long. We have Writing Guidelines for minimum post requirements. These minimum word counts are enforced not because we believe that every role-play should become its own novel, but rather because it takes a few paragraphs to adequately develop a character’s thoughts, feelings, and perspective, as well as the story’s setting, plot, and structure. The more a character is developed, the more fun they are to write for and read about.

A role-play is completed at a mutually agreeable point between you and the other writer(s), at the end of the plot, or at a predetermined time (such as during group RPs like lessons or festivals). At that point, it’s time to start a new role-play!