New Idea: Have a role playing session set up for new players to show up to every month or so. The idea works something like this. The players attending log and are put in an OOC area to go over the points. The DMs at this point go over some of the different points of RP and have sort of a question and answer session. Perhaps even run through a small scenario or two. The second part of this idea, have some of the veteran players of the community volunteer to drop in and give tips or advice as well (subject to DM approval of course). This way new players can see viewpoints from all across the player base (preferable evil and good) as well as knowing some players they can go to try and get involved in the server assuming IC restrictions are met of course. Just a Thought, -dholt5

ALFA had an 'RP 101' course that they offered to players who were new to RPing, and it seemed to work well. We don't require players to jump through the same hoops that they did, but it would certainly be a nice thing to have for people who were interested in learning.

This is a terrible idea. It's elitist in the extreme, and very few people like to be told how to roleplay, or how to play EfU. I think people learn well enough about the server from just jumping into it. If anything, more scheduled preludes for new players would be better than a "how-to-roleplay session."

I think the best way for this to be handled is 1-on-1, from experience and reflecting back to what I wish I'd had 2 years ago when I started this little RP gig.

Yeah, agreed. I think learning to roleplay is best done as you go, rather than in a specially created controlled environment. You get better by making and learning from your mistakes.

How many players does EfU generally get that are totally new to roleplay and have no true idea of the concept?

I don't think this is elitist, or a terrible idea.

But I do think there are better ways to spend everyone's time. Trying to explain RP to someone can also be very difficult and frustrating depending on how receptive the player is (trust me, after a thousand attempts, I know) and just a massive time waster at times.

Essentially, the best way for someone to know RP is to experience it. This is unsatisfactory for a number of reasons, mostly for the negative effect it has on the players about them, but it wastes no time and it's certainly the best way for people to truly understand what it is to RP. Everyone just has to try and be as accomodating as possible for these new players.

I'd prefer to see this kind of thing run in IRC.