What the hell is an RP and what did I sign up for?

I've been giving out scattered info to everyone while trying to convince them an RP is A Thing they want to do, so here's a quick primer of how this particular RP will work.

Since it's a very small group of friends (whose writing skills I admire!) I'm going to trust you all and keep this pretty free and easy.

The idea here is that we each create a character (or two, or three, if you REALLY want) and send them off on a specific adventure. In this case, we're going on a space heist (more info in another topic to come). You control your character, and write about them in third person. You'll create a bio that everyone can see,with a basic backstory, personality, likes and dislikes - enough to give other players ideas for interacting with your characters to create much chaos and angst and all the fun times. For example, if I see your character is terrified of dogs, I may have mine pick up a stray that so happens to disappear when I'm near you, giving you the opportunity to encounter the pup and have a freak-out.

You can either create a new character, or use a character from your MSes (cause I LOVE THEM ALL) if you want to play with them/explore them for future writings or edits.

If you want to put a big plot point into motion, there's a separate OOC (out-of-character) forum to discuss and make sure everyone's okay that you want to, say, bring in an army of kinda-Stormtroopers to raid the ship. Smaller things like alerting the guards in a specific area are fine, and you can create whatever NPCs you like to interact with.

If you're having a convo with another person's character, don't put words into their mouth or give them actions - end your post at a point where they can respond. Also, give them enough insight to your character that they can play off. So if someone approaches you to see if you're interested in a plan, don't just go, "Yeah", and that's it. Think something like:
Max suspiciously examined the shabby woman who'd approached her. Gross. But maybe there was something to her proposal. It couldn't hurt to hear her out.
She gestured at the seat across from her. "Sit down, but if you so much as reach for your gun, you're dead. And this round of drinks is on you."

Your post can be as long or short as you want. Maybe a few lines, or entire paragraphs if you've got a big thing happening and want to play it out. But always give people time to react to what you're doing. For example, you wouldn't just go, "Max pulled out a match, laughed maniacally, then lit the fuse and blew a hole in the ship."
You'd go, "Max pulled out a match and laughed, lunging for the fuse.", and then let the other players react (or not).

There's no specific order to when you post, just post as and when you feel like - but if you're in the middle of an event pleeeease try to check in once every day or so, so that it dosen't take a year for a basic conversation to play out! Given this is pretty free-form, we may split private conversations into their own threads if it looks like they'll take a while and no one else can get involved at that point in time, just so other events can progress.

Other do's and don'ts:
DO try to do things that are tangentially related to the RP's goal instead of saying "Screw this I'm off to herd cats on Ibrax IX in the outer reaches of the galaxy"
DO try to give other people events to play off (see dog example above) and look out for hooks other people might have left for you! You don't have to use all of them, but they can be fun.
DO feel free to bring in NPCs for everyone to interact with, like a ship pilot or a random traveller or a smuggler or what-have-you

DON'T get super fixated on making everyone do a particular thing, or making a specific event happen. The joy of playing with others is that you never know what weird and wonderful things can happen, so go with the flow. But if you do really want to do something, just mention it in the OOC forum. We're all writers, we know how to have conflict but still achieve a scene goal.
DON'T make up motivations or add backstory to another player's character. For example, when creating an NPC, you wouldn't say, "Oh and this is Leanne's character's long-lost twin I'm talking to" unless we'd already discussed it beforehand and I'm cool with it.
DON'T feel pressure to have BESTEST WRITING because this is just meant to be low-pressure fun times between friends. We're not out to create an awesome MS, we're just here to enjoy the angst and chaos and drama and explosions.