Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Now before I begin, I want to make one thing clear: Everything below is a law of the universe. There are no exceptions or nuances, and it always 100% right, just like me. And because of that, this thread is meant to assert my superiority and show everyone how my search threads are way better than anyone elses, and for everyone's tastes, just like the word "informative" implies!
Still, a few of you meddling kids may come up with counter examples which, as we all know, are the perfect way of destroying a nuanced point the author aknowleged was a generalization. If that's the case, don't fear! There is a perfect comment you can make, and that is about how all tastes are subjective and you should only write what you want. In fact, go and comment that in every thread about writing tips or quality. After all, what better way is there to help someone who wants to improve themselves and their craft than to tell them it's categorically impossible to do so and that they shouldn't care?
With that out of the way, we can now get to the topic at hand, making an informative search thread. Not that it matters, because it always crystal clear what anyone wants. Fights or divisions never break out between partners due to technical issues, plots are never misunderstood or dissatisfying upon closer inspection and who is the idiot who came up with who you're roleplaying with is just as important, if not more important than what you're rolelaying? What a joke,am I right?
*crickets*
Fine, I don't need you anyway. Roleplaying is a one men job which I can keep entirely to myself with no sharing of any information. Starting with writing this thread.
1. DON'T think about whether your search thread has a purpose
Now, this may be a little too obvious, but the first rule of making search threads is that we need to make them like hollywood makes sequels: Fast, sloppy and in larger numbers than can be counted. Literally anything that happens is a good reason to make a new search thread: Stubbed your toe in the morning? Search thread about a rich guy who stubbed his toe! Feeeling midly sad? Depression search thread baby! Just watched a movie you thought was ok? Serch thread for that one specific movie only! So, naturally, you can't afford to waste time doing petty things like looking over the search threads of other roleplayers who might potentially be interested in the exact things you are interested in and who themselves put work into their search threads. It's much more important that you explain for the 138th time that you don't do one-liners and want committed MxM partners for that one craving you definitely won't get over in a week or two like that last craving.
Now, some have complained that doing this many search threads is a lot of repetitive work and that the number of now useless search threads they made is increasing. But don't worry, the search forums are your personal trashbin, especially the first page. You're the one RPN was made for, after all, it's a site designed to accomodate you specifically, not the hundreds of other roleplayers whose threads didn't even get a chance at being exposed because you had to flood the forum with new ones for your latest ship.
2. DON'T make sure you have the time for extra roleplays
Time is relative, it stretches with the speed at which you move. That was something from the theory of relatively or something, so it's proven science that the faster you create search threads, the more guaranteed they are to last longer, even if you can't actually keep up with that many roleplays. In fact, it's a lot easier to create a whole search trhead from scratch than to check out a couple other RPs in other people's search threads, allowing you to keep a smaller and more balanced amount of RP partners with whom you can properlly keep up while still balancing your IRL. That's nonsense. You should let the craving flow through you and ignore the little voice in your head saying you can't possibly keep with 10 different death note RPs when your tests roll around and post your search thread without a second thought of as much as consideration for the people who will go over your search thread in vain because you're not looking for more than two partners, despite not having actually said anything or marked the thread as closed.
3.Do fret about the BBCode
Players here on RPN are always going on about quality this and quality that, clearly it's the most important thing in a roleplay, so let me teach you the best way to show everyone your posts will have quality: Make them pretty shiny!
And I don't mean metaphorically, I mean it's mandatory to spend 3-4 hours a day looking up several different kinds of easily breakable code so that you can in the end of it all you can maybe make a border and a single-color background. But for the real RPers, there is only one way to go, and that is to spend days upon days creating the perfect BBCode that breaks on phone and it actually harder to read and uglier than the standard site format. It will all be worth it though, because having complicated BBCode automatically means you're a good and a compatible roleplayer and every roleplayer knows that so they will swarm to your thread in an instant. Everyone worth their salt knows that roleplayer's real concerns are not to find a partner that matches their style or cravings, or one who strikes them as a person worth roleplaying with, nope, they just want to see who can fit more colors into a small box.
4.DON'T organize your search thread
"The best books to read are those with no paragraphs and constantly jumping back and forth in the order or events"
-Someone, maybe
Search threads are like this as well. There is no point in indicating what is your preferences and what is what you offer, just jumble it all together! In fact, it's even better if you don't even make any spaces or punctuation, in fact just try to communicate everything telepathically, don't bother typing words in at all! I can guarantee you it works, cause in all 0 times I tried it, it never failed once!
5.DO always cast a bigger net
A roleplayer with a search thread is like a fisherman with a net, in a sense that the bigger the net, obviously the more fish it will catch! I mean, if you don' count the fish which are not wahles and easily slip through the extended holes. But those fish don't eat shrimp. They're low-class fish.
Plus what are you gonna do if you don't get other roleplayers to come to your search thread specifically? RPN is a place where only a small fraction of people actually come to roleplay and the rest just stand around all day, so obviously you don't just naturally get some people looking at your search thread. And that being the case, there is only one solution: Overcompensate by not being decisive about ANYTHING! I repeat, you can't have a single preference? Asked if you prefer a light or darker mood? Always a mix of both! Detailed or casual roleplay? A mix of both! Do you like romance? When it happens on it's own! How else are people gonna ever realize that, as a rational human being, you are capable of comrpomising about things outside of your comfort zone? Plus, it's not like anyone comes to your search thread looking to know you better or find out what your preferences are. No, everything ought to be clouded in a maze of mystery until the actual roleplay suggestion comes . This will under no circumstances result in the partners finding their preferences to be opposites and the roleplaying less enjoyable for everyone.
Therefore you should in no way say what time periods you prefer, what gender you like to play more, whether you prefer faster paced or slower paced RPs, whether you want them to be mor light-hearted or more dark or dramatic, what genders are your favorite, what shows or books or anime you like, your hobbies, because everyone knows nobody can connect with another person through their tastes and interests.
6. DON'T inform the other player of your own RPing style
And so we arrive at the golden rule. This is what will make or break your thread. Now, as we all know, sometimes your roleplaying style, this is, your post size, whether you roleplay in first or third person, the kind of pics you prefer to use, whether you have a bigger and more detailed character sheets or not even use them at all, and so on, may causes a few partners not to want to roleplay with you. WHich makes it perfectly reasonable to not bother to disclose any of this information. Your partners will in no way be turned away from the uncertanty of what your roleplaying is actually like or what you can offer. Plus in all of RPN history there was never an incident where two people were excited and ready to roleplay and then found out their styles where incompatible. Never, not once.
This goes double for your posting schedule. You should not bother to see whether you can actually provide posts or replies consistently on a given date, and your partner surely will not care if their partner suddenly vanishes for three days without explanation. So do not give anyone any info regarding this, especially if you're aware of likely events that will prevent you from being on RPN at all in certainexpected periods.
7. DON'T write what you would like from your partner
Look, so far, everything has been fine and dandy, but your potential partner has been exposed to so much awesomeness so far that they need a break. They're like children, they have a short attention span and are incapable of returning to what they were doing after a short distraction. So you need to make that break yourself, by removing any information about what you expect or want from your partner. Surely, if they made through the ten lines and mountain of BBCode we do for this search thread, then they can handle anything. Any post minimum, any tastes, pics types. In fact, you can think of your partner as a robots that always will adapt to your needs and has no tastes or preferences of their own which might not match the experience you are looking for.
If by some mistake you do put information about what you would like from a partner, don't worry. You can still salvage the search thread by hiding the information or disguising it with other info so that the partner wont realize it is actually a requirement.
8.DON'T Expand upon your pairings or fandoms
They say great minds think alike, but you know that isn't quite true. No, deep down you know that ALL minds think alike. And that is why if you just leave a random pairing or fandom the other person will know exactly what you're looking for with that fandom. Interested in roelplaying Game of Thrones? I'm sure everyone will immeiately catch on to the fact you want to make a roleplay about a lost princess being married off and emerging as a powerful queen in a foreign land. There were no other plot threads, characters, ideas or anything else. It's impossible someone may be looking for an aspect of the fandom you actually don't like that much, that would just be absurd! Besides, things like princesxprincess are the best way to convey the tone of a story!
9.DON'T rate your interest
Now, some people have this barbaric pratice of putting a little symbol after their fandoms or pairings or plots, to indicate how interested they are in doing those relative to one another. But you are a superior roleplayer with complete and total awareness of your interests such that you somehow managed to balance it so every single plot, pairing and fandom in your search thread is equally good to satisfy you. Even if simply saying you're more interested in saying could lead the other person to decide in favor of it when indecise between plots. Nope, it's better to stick to that roleplay you're just barely interested in instead of the roleplay you've been desperate to make for weeks.
Still, sometimes this amazing technique doesn't work. What should you do then? Well, obviously the only way to make sure you roleplay what you like is to have no variety whatsoever. Or better yet, just put a "please suggest your own" comment after an short list of suggestions, giving flase hope and conveying nothing all at once!
10.DON'T make your limits and pet peeves clear
You are a good roleplayer, and a decent person, which logically implies that you are completely impervious to anything annoying you, having any sensitivities or absolutely anything you really don't wanna see in the RP or your partner. If by some evil curse you do have one of those, you can rest assured that your telepathic potential partners will be permanently aware of them even if you don't actually tell anyone. As such, you shouldn't bother spending time trying to think of what would ruin the mood or scare you away or annoy you beyond belief. Especially if that limit or pet peeves comes from a personal bias or an incredibly personal experience your partner couldn't possibly have known about.
Still concerned that this may show up later? Don't worry, pet peeves and content in your limits are like bettelejuice. You have to say their name three times or they will never appear. So the best way of handling them is to tell no one about them!
11.DO make updates to your thread undestinguishable from the rest of the thread
If you've ever been to an art gallery then you know it's physically impossible to loook at anything you've already seen again. That is why no player will ever come back to your search thread after having already read it, and if they did they would not still think it's the same just because they missed the new plots or pairing they might have actually loved if they were just visible.
But better yet, why not make it so NOBODY can tell you've updated the search thread? Just sneak edits in without telling anyone what or that you did in any way. For best results, edit the rules and requirements or your own writing style, because who could possibly be affected by your changing the rules of roleplaying with you?
Now some dumbasses think it's healthy and good taste to edit the thread to show it is closed and no longer looking when you have enough partners, but this is completely false! The better option is to bump it again and again even if you're no longer actually looking for anything in that thread, making it so you waste time by having to deal with the people coming to look, in vain, for an RP with you, and them waste time and effort of reading your search thread instead of another. It's not like those other threads belong to roelplayer who matter just as much as you and are also looking for roleplay partners.
Lastly, I do have one more tip: If your partner at any moment makes a mistake about something you included as information in your search thread, the appropriate reaction is to immediately get mad at them, trash everything, snd cut all ties right there without making sure if it wasn't just a misunderstanding or an honest mistake from forgetfulness. After all, what else could possibly be ever in your partner's mind other than you and your interests? Obviously if they contradict something you said in your search thread it's because they hate you and want to harass you, not because they are human and thus make mistakes.
Still, a few of you meddling kids may come up with counter examples which, as we all know, are the perfect way of destroying a nuanced point the author aknowleged was a generalization. If that's the case, don't fear! There is a perfect comment you can make, and that is about how all tastes are subjective and you should only write what you want. In fact, go and comment that in every thread about writing tips or quality. After all, what better way is there to help someone who wants to improve themselves and their craft than to tell them it's categorically impossible to do so and that they shouldn't care?
With that out of the way, we can now get to the topic at hand, making an informative search thread. Not that it matters, because it always crystal clear what anyone wants. Fights or divisions never break out between partners due to technical issues, plots are never misunderstood or dissatisfying upon closer inspection and who is the idiot who came up with who you're roleplaying with is just as important, if not more important than what you're rolelaying? What a joke,am I right?
*crickets*
Fine, I don't need you anyway. Roleplaying is a one men job which I can keep entirely to myself with no sharing of any information. Starting with writing this thread.
1. DON'T think about whether your search thread has a purpose
Now, this may be a little too obvious, but the first rule of making search threads is that we need to make them like hollywood makes sequels: Fast, sloppy and in larger numbers than can be counted. Literally anything that happens is a good reason to make a new search thread: Stubbed your toe in the morning? Search thread about a rich guy who stubbed his toe! Feeeling midly sad? Depression search thread baby! Just watched a movie you thought was ok? Serch thread for that one specific movie only! So, naturally, you can't afford to waste time doing petty things like looking over the search threads of other roleplayers who might potentially be interested in the exact things you are interested in and who themselves put work into their search threads. It's much more important that you explain for the 138th time that you don't do one-liners and want committed MxM partners for that one craving you definitely won't get over in a week or two like that last craving.
Now, some have complained that doing this many search threads is a lot of repetitive work and that the number of now useless search threads they made is increasing. But don't worry, the search forums are your personal trashbin, especially the first page. You're the one RPN was made for, after all, it's a site designed to accomodate you specifically, not the hundreds of other roleplayers whose threads didn't even get a chance at being exposed because you had to flood the forum with new ones for your latest ship.
2. DON'T make sure you have the time for extra roleplays
Time is relative, it stretches with the speed at which you move. That was something from the theory of relatively or something, so it's proven science that the faster you create search threads, the more guaranteed they are to last longer, even if you can't actually keep up with that many roleplays. In fact, it's a lot easier to create a whole search trhead from scratch than to check out a couple other RPs in other people's search threads, allowing you to keep a smaller and more balanced amount of RP partners with whom you can properlly keep up while still balancing your IRL. That's nonsense. You should let the craving flow through you and ignore the little voice in your head saying you can't possibly keep with 10 different death note RPs when your tests roll around and post your search thread without a second thought of as much as consideration for the people who will go over your search thread in vain because you're not looking for more than two partners, despite not having actually said anything or marked the thread as closed.
3.Do fret about the BBCode
Players here on RPN are always going on about quality this and quality that, clearly it's the most important thing in a roleplay, so let me teach you the best way to show everyone your posts will have quality: Make them pretty shiny!
And I don't mean metaphorically, I mean it's mandatory to spend 3-4 hours a day looking up several different kinds of easily breakable code so that you can in the end of it all you can maybe make a border and a single-color background. But for the real RPers, there is only one way to go, and that is to spend days upon days creating the perfect BBCode that breaks on phone and it actually harder to read and uglier than the standard site format. It will all be worth it though, because having complicated BBCode automatically means you're a good and a compatible roleplayer and every roleplayer knows that so they will swarm to your thread in an instant. Everyone worth their salt knows that roleplayer's real concerns are not to find a partner that matches their style or cravings, or one who strikes them as a person worth roleplaying with, nope, they just want to see who can fit more colors into a small box.
4.DON'T organize your search thread
"The best books to read are those with no paragraphs and constantly jumping back and forth in the order or events"
-Someone, maybe
Search threads are like this as well. There is no point in indicating what is your preferences and what is what you offer, just jumble it all together! In fact, it's even better if you don't even make any spaces or punctuation, in fact just try to communicate everything telepathically, don't bother typing words in at all! I can guarantee you it works, cause in all 0 times I tried it, it never failed once!
5.DO always cast a bigger net
A roleplayer with a search thread is like a fisherman with a net, in a sense that the bigger the net, obviously the more fish it will catch! I mean, if you don' count the fish which are not wahles and easily slip through the extended holes. But those fish don't eat shrimp. They're low-class fish.
Plus what are you gonna do if you don't get other roleplayers to come to your search thread specifically? RPN is a place where only a small fraction of people actually come to roleplay and the rest just stand around all day, so obviously you don't just naturally get some people looking at your search thread. And that being the case, there is only one solution: Overcompensate by not being decisive about ANYTHING! I repeat, you can't have a single preference? Asked if you prefer a light or darker mood? Always a mix of both! Detailed or casual roleplay? A mix of both! Do you like romance? When it happens on it's own! How else are people gonna ever realize that, as a rational human being, you are capable of comrpomising about things outside of your comfort zone? Plus, it's not like anyone comes to your search thread looking to know you better or find out what your preferences are. No, everything ought to be clouded in a maze of mystery until the actual roleplay suggestion comes . This will under no circumstances result in the partners finding their preferences to be opposites and the roleplaying less enjoyable for everyone.
Therefore you should in no way say what time periods you prefer, what gender you like to play more, whether you prefer faster paced or slower paced RPs, whether you want them to be mor light-hearted or more dark or dramatic, what genders are your favorite, what shows or books or anime you like, your hobbies, because everyone knows nobody can connect with another person through their tastes and interests.
6. DON'T inform the other player of your own RPing style
And so we arrive at the golden rule. This is what will make or break your thread. Now, as we all know, sometimes your roleplaying style, this is, your post size, whether you roleplay in first or third person, the kind of pics you prefer to use, whether you have a bigger and more detailed character sheets or not even use them at all, and so on, may causes a few partners not to want to roleplay with you. WHich makes it perfectly reasonable to not bother to disclose any of this information. Your partners will in no way be turned away from the uncertanty of what your roleplaying is actually like or what you can offer. Plus in all of RPN history there was never an incident where two people were excited and ready to roleplay and then found out their styles where incompatible. Never, not once.
This goes double for your posting schedule. You should not bother to see whether you can actually provide posts or replies consistently on a given date, and your partner surely will not care if their partner suddenly vanishes for three days without explanation. So do not give anyone any info regarding this, especially if you're aware of likely events that will prevent you from being on RPN at all in certainexpected periods.
7. DON'T write what you would like from your partner
Look, so far, everything has been fine and dandy, but your potential partner has been exposed to so much awesomeness so far that they need a break. They're like children, they have a short attention span and are incapable of returning to what they were doing after a short distraction. So you need to make that break yourself, by removing any information about what you expect or want from your partner. Surely, if they made through the ten lines and mountain of BBCode we do for this search thread, then they can handle anything. Any post minimum, any tastes, pics types. In fact, you can think of your partner as a robots that always will adapt to your needs and has no tastes or preferences of their own which might not match the experience you are looking for.
If by some mistake you do put information about what you would like from a partner, don't worry. You can still salvage the search thread by hiding the information or disguising it with other info so that the partner wont realize it is actually a requirement.
8.DON'T Expand upon your pairings or fandoms
They say great minds think alike, but you know that isn't quite true. No, deep down you know that ALL minds think alike. And that is why if you just leave a random pairing or fandom the other person will know exactly what you're looking for with that fandom. Interested in roelplaying Game of Thrones? I'm sure everyone will immeiately catch on to the fact you want to make a roleplay about a lost princess being married off and emerging as a powerful queen in a foreign land. There were no other plot threads, characters, ideas or anything else. It's impossible someone may be looking for an aspect of the fandom you actually don't like that much, that would just be absurd! Besides, things like princesxprincess are the best way to convey the tone of a story!
9.DON'T rate your interest
Now, some people have this barbaric pratice of putting a little symbol after their fandoms or pairings or plots, to indicate how interested they are in doing those relative to one another. But you are a superior roleplayer with complete and total awareness of your interests such that you somehow managed to balance it so every single plot, pairing and fandom in your search thread is equally good to satisfy you. Even if simply saying you're more interested in saying could lead the other person to decide in favor of it when indecise between plots. Nope, it's better to stick to that roleplay you're just barely interested in instead of the roleplay you've been desperate to make for weeks.
Still, sometimes this amazing technique doesn't work. What should you do then? Well, obviously the only way to make sure you roleplay what you like is to have no variety whatsoever. Or better yet, just put a "please suggest your own" comment after an short list of suggestions, giving flase hope and conveying nothing all at once!
10.DON'T make your limits and pet peeves clear
You are a good roleplayer, and a decent person, which logically implies that you are completely impervious to anything annoying you, having any sensitivities or absolutely anything you really don't wanna see in the RP or your partner. If by some evil curse you do have one of those, you can rest assured that your telepathic potential partners will be permanently aware of them even if you don't actually tell anyone. As such, you shouldn't bother spending time trying to think of what would ruin the mood or scare you away or annoy you beyond belief. Especially if that limit or pet peeves comes from a personal bias or an incredibly personal experience your partner couldn't possibly have known about.
Still concerned that this may show up later? Don't worry, pet peeves and content in your limits are like bettelejuice. You have to say their name three times or they will never appear. So the best way of handling them is to tell no one about them!
11.DO make updates to your thread undestinguishable from the rest of the thread
If you've ever been to an art gallery then you know it's physically impossible to loook at anything you've already seen again. That is why no player will ever come back to your search thread after having already read it, and if they did they would not still think it's the same just because they missed the new plots or pairing they might have actually loved if they were just visible.
But better yet, why not make it so NOBODY can tell you've updated the search thread? Just sneak edits in without telling anyone what or that you did in any way. For best results, edit the rules and requirements or your own writing style, because who could possibly be affected by your changing the rules of roleplaying with you?
Now some dumbasses think it's healthy and good taste to edit the thread to show it is closed and no longer looking when you have enough partners, but this is completely false! The better option is to bump it again and again even if you're no longer actually looking for anything in that thread, making it so you waste time by having to deal with the people coming to look, in vain, for an RP with you, and them waste time and effort of reading your search thread instead of another. It's not like those other threads belong to roelplayer who matter just as much as you and are also looking for roleplay partners.
Lastly, I do have one more tip: If your partner at any moment makes a mistake about something you included as information in your search thread, the appropriate reaction is to immediately get mad at them, trash everything, snd cut all ties right there without making sure if it wasn't just a misunderstanding or an honest mistake from forgetfulness. After all, what else could possibly be ever in your partner's mind other than you and your interests? Obviously if they contradict something you said in your search thread it's because they hate you and want to harass you, not because they are human and thus make mistakes.
