To anyone not familiar with roleplaying conducted on a forum, think of it like this...
You're playing Dungeons and Dragons, but you have neither written, concrete rules nor dice. You cannot simulate an RPG video game because they also depend on a concrete set of rules and much much mathematics. You also cannot simulate an action movie or TV show because you cannot completely, graphically represent the action.
Thus, it's neither fun nor exciting to have Dragon Ball Z-esque battles between powerful characters, nor is it actually a big achievement for your character to slay a dragon single-handedly because the dragon has no power, since it was written in by you.
What you're looking for is character definition, character development, and character-playing. The whole "game" centers on how you try to represent your character. For example, if you play a reclusive old man who is a fire mage, you probably would not have him very eager to meet, say, some young upstart Vinci privateer.
You could also play your character as a sort of doddering old man (where'd I put those pills of mine?), an energetic old man (back in my day, we lifted bricks for a living!), a young-at-heart old man, a wise old man, or any other persona you can think of. The key here, though, is consistency. You don't want to go out of character, even if it will benefit your character (a technophobe desert walker will probably not use a rifle if his life depended on it), and actually, you never EVER want to go out of character to make your character stronger, cooler, or better. That brings us to our next point...
POWERGAMING. Powergaming being overly obsessed with your character's powers and abilities. You can expect characters to be somewhat extraordinary or powerful, following the rule where characters with names are automatically tougher and cooler than those without (think Kung-fu or action movies). However, it is highly frowned upon if you turn your character into someone overly cool or powerful. It may be hard for a novice roleplayer to gauge this, so I suggest a rule where on the battlefield, one character is equal to five grunts. (Five seems like a good number, and maybe a little high.) This is not a concrete rule, but you roughly assume that your character can fight off five enemy grunts and must flee from or outsmart six. Obviously, the weight given to different enemy *types* differ. Your character, for example, can probably beat off five Mianan musketeers, but not four Venucci Elite Guards or a pair of Condotierri Knights. One Clockwork Spider? You can probably kill it with great effort. One Glass Golem? Pffft, forget it! RUN! With Venucci conscripts, though, you can probably take on seven or eight.
Other roleplay rules you might want to know...
1. Never EVER EVER roleplay for someone else. You must never say what another played character feels, thinks, knows, or does. You might not intend the same thing as the person playing that character or you might roleplay the character badly, at which point the proper player would probably be annoyed and offended.
2. Don't game outside the game. That is, whatever happens in the game stays in the game and whatever happens in the outside world stays out of the game. For example, if my character and Czin_Minion's are supposed to be opposed to each other, like I play an Alin who hates the Cuotl because they burned my village and he plays a Cuotl warrior who's very good at burning villaging, but he and I are best buddies (and we're actually not... well, he may be my best buddy and I just haven't realized it ^_^, in which case I'd tell him, "Czin, I love you too"), it's a very bad idea for his character and mine to become friends just because we're friends in real life.
3. The man with the vision has the authority to make you stick to it. It's acknowledged that not everyone has the same "vision" of the roleplayed world, although this depends on where the roleplay is set, varying from a highly defined universe (like a historical universe) to a very vaguely defined one (like Aio), so the person who runs the roleplay (Lord Iarune in this case), has the final word on what is or is not legal.
4... probably some other stuff I forgot to mention. This is just the basics to get you started ^_^
edit: As for everybody who already knows what they're doing, you can stop discussing what's going to happen in the roleplay and start... roleplaying it!
I AM NOT HIPPO. I am Monocular (Vinci), ManWithThreeKidneys (Alin), and Thunderstick (Cuotl).
[This message has been edited by HippoInTheHouse (edited 08-08-2006 @ 02:42 AM).]