Step Six: Your First Scene

Your character is approved, you've survived character generation, and now you've made it onto the IC grid. Congratulations! You're officially rolling, and will probably do just fine if you decide to ditch this guide here and now and wing it from here on out. But this last section will guide you through your first scene, to get you more firmly on your feet, since you're fresh out of the generation process.

The first step, of course, is to find a scene. There are a couple ways you can go about doing this. First of all, you can type in "Where", which will pull up a list of which IC locations have people in them. Armed with a map, if you're feeling confident you can go exploring in the hopes of finding one of those people. Anybody on the IC grid is fair game for roleplaying with. Secondly, you could ask for someone to come to you for a scene on the ChiaPets channel, and someone interested in a scene can come find you. Failing both of those, page a staffer to tell them that you're new and on the lookout for your first scene, and you can probably con them into @tel'ing, or teleporting, you to where you want to go.

Roleplay on Chiaroscuro takes place in turns, or poses, detailing characters' actions. The length of these poses can be anywhere from a sentence or two to upwards of three paragraphs, just depending on your personal style. The main thing to keep in mind is how long you work on your poses--people are pretty lenient, but best to keep it to something reasonable whenever you can. Optimally, under five minutes makes a good aim, but most people will be content with under ten.

When it's your turn to pose, there's a couple different ways you can go about it. The first is to "@emit ", which will post your message directly, without prefixing your name to it.

-> @emit The sun hangs low in the sky this evening, the dying rays casting the shadows long and dark over the Drakesreach Sierra. The sun hangs low in the sky this evening, the dying rays casting the shadows long and dark over the Drakesreach Sierra.

The second way is to pose with a colon, like on a channel, or in a page. Using the syntax ": ", this form will prefix your name to the beginning of your pose.

-> :casts a studious look up to the sky, watching a few stray wisps of clouds drift across the sun. Kavi casts a studious look up to the sky, watching a few stray wisps of clouds drift across the sun.

Finally, though this method is rarely used, you can use a double-quote to say something without adding a pose around it. It is an IC action when you do this.

-> "Evening. Kavi says, "Evening."

To speak to the other players in a scene OOCly, and without paging them, prefix whatever you want to say with ooc. For instance:

-> ooc Heya! [OOC] Kavi says, "Heya!"

You can pose OOCly the same way you would in a page or on-chan--with a colon.

-> ooc :glomps. [OOC] Kavi glomps.

When you reach a place with someone to scene with, somebody obviously has to pose first. This first pose is called the set, because it sets the stage for the scene, detailing things like the weather, NPCs in the area, and what the character is up to. It's important at this stage to read the room description and the paragraph beneath it about the weather.

The duty of setting usually falls to whoever was there first, except in special cases and sometimes in Staffer-run events. Let's say, for instance, that Fred is in the room when James turns up. After reading the room desc and the weather, Fred would set, and then James would pose in. Then Fred, James, Fred, James, etc. etc. etc. After a few rounds of this, though, maybe Erika shows up--say, right after Fred's turn. James would use his next pose to set for her, as well as responding to whatever Fred had posed recently, since it's his turn anyway and Erika would need one.

Suppose, though, that James and Erika arrive at the same time. Fred still sets, since he was still there first, but after that pose order is determined simply by whoever gets a pose on the board first. So if Erika's the faster typist, the pose order would end up being Fred-Erika-James, and so on.

In big scenes--say, five players or more--players might revert to a pose order called "Rule of Three", which basically means that after the set, players can pose whenever they wish as long as there are at least three other peoples' poses between each of theirs. This style of playing keeps things running quickly, and means that if one person goes AFK for a little while, it won't hold up the scene. It also means players don't have to wait an eternity between poses, and can respond more quickly and efficiently.

And that should cover how to go about your first scene. Have at it, and good luck!