We're super excited, now that you seem interested in joining us! This is an introduction page to roleplaying, whether you're new or a seasoned RPer, it's always great to get a refresher!


On Modus Operandi, we're mainly looking for moderate to advanced roleplayers, but anyone's welcome to join! This site is pretty open to different plots and ideas as nothing's set in stone. Everyone gets a say in new ideas or plots.


While we prefer paragraphs, it's not a requirement. However, we do expect a certain amount of realism from your character, as well as an ability for our users to take constructive criticism. We do want our threads to move forward in some direction, especially plot-driven ones. The goal is to develop our characters and to have fun!


In this section, we'll simply cover some of the basics, such as what we want from our users, and some general guidelines. Again, we are quite flexible with everything, but hopefully, this will help you out with both roleplaying and creating your characters!

The lifeblood of your character. Who are they? How do they think? What are their quirks? What made them this way? While we don't expect you to have a fully fleshed character in 100% detail, we do expect you to have something to go off of. We understand that it's easier to roleplay something that is relevant to today's pop culture and references, but please remember, this takes place hundreds of years in the future, and in a community that would be generally technologically lacking.


A usual description contains a bit of information about their background history. We get that some things aren't always figured out, and you might want to keep things hidden, but a brief timeline always helps, and it shows us that you've put some thought to what they've done before entering the scene!


It's also very useful to include a few things about their personality. How do they act? What makes them mad? Are they friendly to strangers or hostile? While personalities don't constantly stay the same (yay development!) it's also good to have somewhere to start off, and somewhere to move forward from!

We have a few tips and tricks on character creation!


DO create intricate back-stories that influence your character's personality, decisions, and attitude. What was their family like? What makes them tick? What's their pet peeve? Knowing the little details makes things more realistic!


DO create different personalities for your characters! As they say, characters are part of you, and you're not one-dimensional. Feel free to try everything out, even if it doesn't feel natural at first!


DO have your characters struggle and create rivals or enemies. DON'T get into fight scenes without discussing beforehand whether permanent injuries are allowed. We don't really like powerplaying or overpowered characters; make sure you're willing to take the consequences of a fight as well.


DO create diverse characters, of different backgrounds, race, personalities, sexualities, etc.! We love unique characters! DON'T be in a place where you didn't do your research; we know diversity and thus, playing characters that don't live the same experience you do can be difficult, but remember to be kind and sensitive to the issues other races/religions/etc. face!


DO use a human faceclaim with natural features. DON'T use a faceclaim that is hard to track down or a cosplayer, or anything too unrealistic; it's difficult to claim a face without knowing the name.


DO find original names that mean something to your character, that are realistic and based off real names. DON'T copy a name from a book or movie exactly. We understand that there are characters based off of books you like, but it's difficult for us to roleplay with characters whom we know from online, and it'll be difficult for you to separate the character you play and the character on screen/in the book.


DO get into your roleplays, especially for plots and the Process! DON'T get angry at other users for what happens in plots! We know that things can get emotional, but let's try to solve in-game issues in a civil manner.

GETTING STARTED


WHERE DO I BEGIN LOOKING?

Welcome to the site! We recommend that you begin with taking a look at the bestiary and world creation pages to understand the world we live in, and if you have an idea of where you'd like to start off with, simply click on one of the pages! They'll tell you plenty more about the groups, and please join our discord! We're always happy to help you.


I CREATED A CHARACTER, WHAT'S NEXT?

Congratulations! You've gotten past the first (and sometimes, the hardest) step! Please reply to this thread with the format given and we'll add you as soon as we can! Also remember to fill in your faceclaim reservation here! Once added to the page (you'll know if a staff member has added if they liked your reply!) you can begin roleplaying under the New York City forum!


I HAVE AN IDEA BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW TO GO FORWARD WITH IT. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Ah, plots! The best and sometimes the most complicated part of RPing. If you have an idea, or perhaps want family or relationships for your character, simply post a thread HERE and hopefully, you'll find something that works!


HOW DOES TIME PASS ON THIS SITE?

Currently, we are going at x2 time, which means every 6 months equals a year.


I FOUND A FACECLAIM BUT SOMEONE ELSE HAS IT, WHAT DO I DO?

At the moment, we want to keep it to one faceclaim per character, but you can ask the user if they mind sharing, and approach one of the staff about it. Most of the time, we prefer one character per faceclaim unless they're related.


IS THERE A LIMIT TO HOW MANY CHARACTERS WE CAN HAVE?

We prefer everyone to only roleplay as many characters as you can stay active with! This will change depending on how popular the site is, as having too many characters can reduce the amount of usable faceclaims for new users. However, you are free to make as many characters as you wish.

WHERE DO I FIND FACECLAIMS?

A lot of our members find faceclaims on Pinterest! It's a pretty good resource (though it's a bit difficult to find the names afterwards.) Another opportunity is simply searching for modeling companies and searching through their models. Other users have used instagram, tumblr, or even movie stars, though we don't recommend using anyone too popular. If they're from the TV show, or other TV shows/movies similar or super popular (such as Maze Runner, Hunger Games, Supernatural, etc.) we will likely turn it down unless it proves to be very different from the book/movie/TV show character.

I CAN'T THINK OF A NAME. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

With names, I find the easiest way is to determine where your character originally comes from. Names are an interesting thing to research, after all! An easy resource would be BabyNames and if you're stuck on surnames, Ancestry.com really helps with finding surnames from different cultures! Another thing you can do is look at reality itself! What are some names and surnames of the people around you, and could they be used? You can piece together different inspirations together, whether they have meaning or not.

We allow characters without surnames, but there should be a reason to do so!