Hey new here and looking for a place to start!

[Strafe]

Hey I'm Strafe and I just joined the site a few days ago! I used to RP pretty frequently on a small site with just a few online friends, but that sort of faded into the dust years ago. Well the semester just ended for me last week and I don't really have much lined up this summer, so I thought it'd be cool to get back into it a little. I just had a few questions before I jumped in so I don't cause a mess or disrupt anything. It's cool if you tl;dr me tho. I'm not usually this earnest.

So where should I start? Free? Casual? Advanced? When I would RP back in the day, I was used to writing 5-10 paragraphs when I needed to, and I definitely was very interested in developing characters within relatively large plots. This site is a much bigger pond than anything I've been a part of though, so I wouldn't say I'm an advanced writer. I also may not be the most frequent poster, though on average I can probably post 2-3 times a day. Think it's safe to start off in the casual section?

Also throw me any tips, hard lessons, or cookies about how to go about things here. Anything's appreciated!

That aside, nice to meet you all!

[ArenaSnow]

Ah... well, based on your description, I suggest you first look at the structures of posts to see if you got it down and then hop into a casual to begin with, then move up to advanced. If you're OK with combining depth and character development in with your 5-10 paragraphs, you can do advanced. If you want I can dig up some starters for you (preferences would help in selection).

This guide may be of use to you.

Welcome to the guild :)

[Strafe]

Aha thanks! I was looking for a new users guide. I guess it was in the news section.

(I'm assuming starters means RPs that are just starting up?) As a general rule of thumb, what's an easy way to find starters? I've been scrolling down pages of threads to check the creation date and post count to find threads created in the past few days, but that feels kinda inefficient. Is there some sort of thread sorting algorithm? crtl+f "new"?

If there's no other way, I've found a few I'm interested in. Thanks for the help though!

dope sig btw.

[ArenaSnow]

What I do is keep up with the ones that say "fresh" in the title. Basically, I rely on that tag and post count (10 or so is my preference) before jumping in and following it. By no means do I follow through on all of them, but it gives me some options.

If it is 50+, it is a little more questionable and looking at the post date becomes much more necessary to evaluate if it's worthwhile. 100+ typically means the RP is full and not really good for looking at, unless something in there explicitly says either there are folks always being accepted or if someone suggests it to you with the note that it would be able to take another member.

If it doesn't have the fresh tag but has under 20 posts, either the RP started somewhere else or just died off is what I see.

Basically, it's a matter of creating a system of how to check things out. I came up with my own, others have their own ways, and I'm sure you will get used to it as well :)

[Strafe]

Oh ok. That's very helpful! Thanks for taking the time to guide me through all this!

[ArenaSnow]

NP, anything else ya need, feel free to shoot a PM or post here :)