[beanluc]

You can learn by doing, that's the most effective way and it should be very fast.

Don't spend too much time, energy and worry on figuring your character out before you even start. Instead, develop an idea about who you want them to be and what they're like, and then make up a backstory for them which gives you answers to the questions your character will get from other characters about who they are, and then just get in the game and go RP!

You do need a history, but it doesn't have to take an all-nighter to make.
A smart and good little how-to that I've seen is the "Why x3" method described in the newbie file at Sindome MOO: See this link and scroll down to the section entitled "Guardians Why? x 3 History Writing Method"


Very quick, and resulting in a rich set of "experiences" which will be already built-in when your character hits the game world and starts interacting with others.

Beyond that, any roleplaying game is going to have a concept of separating the IC (in character) and the OOC (out of character). Stuff you, the player, know, your character might not know, so, be ready to have the character act how they would act, not how you would act, in a given situation.

Anyway - once you have a history and an idea who your character is, learning to roleplay happens when you get in and do it. Don't be shy, don't be afraid to just log in to the game and find where the other 'live' characters are and let your character stretch out. It's very easy to learn from others, so, I'm sure you'll do great once you get in there.

You titled this thread with 'improving' the quality of your RP, but, somehow I wound up writing this as if you were a complete brand newcomer to roleplaying. At any rate, the best way to improve is to spend time doing it with others, and, having a consistent character history helps too. Roleplaying gets hard when you change your mind about who the character is and what they're like and you change how you're roleplaying them on a week to week basis. Consistency is one of the important factors if 'quality' is what you're really after.