You know the story you want to write. The ad is the hard part: say too little and nobody answers, say everything and nobody reads to the end. So we counted what other writers actually put in theirs.
Between August and October 2026 we read the one-on-one partner ads of 2,200 writers on Reddit, Tumblr and X and coded every line we could: genres, length, pace, age, limits, contact. Here are the lines that turn up everywhere, the ones that depend on the platform, a template you can copy, and the two lines most ads forget.
The short answer
A roleplay partner ad needs five things: the story you want (a premise and genres), how you write (post length and point of view), who can apply (age and limits), how often you reply, and how to reach you. Most writers cover the first three. Only 31% of Reddit writers said how often they reply and 29% gave a time zone, and on X almost nobody did, although ghosting is the dealbreaker partners name most often.
Copy the template below, fit it to the board’s rules and keep the pace line. Or post your ad in FictionCore, our app, where reply pace, timezone, post length and age are fields of their own: the form prompts you for each one, and readers filter by them, so the right people find your ad without reading every word. FictionCore is for adults (18+) and available on Google Play for Android.
What 2,200 writers put in their ads
| What the ad says | Tumblr | X pinned ads | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genres | 71% | 37% | 6% |
| Writing level or post length | 68% | 49% | 33% |
| A plot or OOC chat | 66% | 56% | 12% |
| A pairing tag such as [F4A] | 66% | 1% | 0% |
| How to reach the writer | 65% | 59% | 35% |
| Romance, platonic or a pairing | 62% | 39% | 12% |
| The writer’s own age | 53% | 56% | 2% |
| An age floor or adults only | 45% | 82% | 21% |
| Original characters | 43% | 57% | 12% |
| Point of view and tense | 37% | 13% | 2% |
| Long-term or one-shot | 32% | 11% | 0% |
| Reply pace | 31% | 21% | 2% |
| Time zone | 29% | 10% | 2% |
| Experience | 24% | 6% | 40% |
| Limits or do-not-interact lists | 22% | 18% | 8% |
| A password or “read the whole post” | 15% | 3% | 2% |
| Pronouns | 5% | 7% | 21% |
| A shipping policy | 1% | 2% | 23% |
Shares are of writers, not posts: 1,229 on Reddit, 851 on Tumblr and 48 with a pinned ad on X. Three patterns stand out:
- Every platform shares a core. Writing level, plot, contact, a stance on romance, an age rule, original characters, experience and limits turn up on all three. Whatever board you use, cover these.
- Long ads add the practical details. Genres, your age, point of view, long-term or one-shot, pace and time zone are common on Reddit and Tumblr and almost absent on X. A typical ad on X runs to about 190 characters, against 760 on Tumblr and 1,800 on Reddit: there’s no room.
- Some lines belong to a platform. The [F4A] tag and the password are Reddit conventions. Shipping policies, pronouns and crossovers belong to X’s accounts, often run one per character, where they describe the account more than the search. And 37% of Tumblr writers and 15% of pinned ads on X ask you to answer with a like, a reblog or a retweet.
The two lines most ads forget: pace and time zone
Pace and time zone are the first details to go when an ad gets short. Among Reddit writers whose ads stayed under 600 characters, 1% named a reply pace and 2% a time zone. On Tumblr, longer ads named a pace in 30% of cases and short ones in 8%. On X, 3 of the 118 writers posting one-on-one ads named one.
That matters, because pace is where partnerships break. In our count of roleplay red flags, ghosting was the dealbreaker English ads named most often, and on X, 12 posts complained about ghosting while 11 asked partners to respect pace and real life. One line answers it before anyone asks: “I reply three or four times a week, GMT+2, and I’ll say if I’m away.”
FictionCore turns that line into fields. Reply pace runs from several replies a day to slower than a few a week, timezone has its own field, an optional schedule note says when you write and how you announce breaks, and readers can filter ads by pace and timezone.
A roleplay ad template to copy
Fill in what applies and delete the rest. Keep each line short: most people read ads on a phone.
[F4A] Premise in a few words
About me: 25, 8 yrs writing
Story: 2–3 line premise
Genres: fantasy, mystery
Characters: OC or canon
Length: 2–4 paragraphs
Pace: 3–4 replies a week
Time zone: GMT+2
POV: third person, past
Romance: slow burn or none
Long-term or one-shot
Limits: no gore
Age: 18+ only
Where: Discord or Docs
Reply with: your ideaHow to fill it in:
- Story. Two or three lines that start something: a situation and a question, not the whole plot. Our plot ideas can seed one.
- Length. A range with a unit, not just “literate”. Here’s what the length labels really mean.
- Pace and time zone. The two lines most ads skip, and the two that save the most disappointment.
- Limits. Three to five topics or behaviours. Our red flags study shows how to write your dealbreakers.
- Reply with. Tell people what to send: a character idea, a favourite genre or the answer to a question. 15% of Reddit writers use a password for the same reason.
Here’s the template filled in:
[F4A] The lighthouse that lit itself
About me: 27, writing for ten years, mostly fantasy and mystery.
The story: a lighthouse on the cliffs has been dark for a hundred years. Tonight it lit itself. My character is the keeper’s apprentice, who swears the lamp was empty. Yours is the stranger who rowed in by its light with a letter addressed to someone long dead.
I write in third person, past tense, 2–4 paragraphs, shorter in dialogue. I reply three or four times a week, GMT+2, and I’ll say if I’m away. Long-term; a slow-burn romance is welcome but not required. No gore, no AI-written posts.
18+ only. We’d write on Discord. Send me your character in one line and the first thing they’d say to mine.
Platform rules to check before you post
- Reddit. On r/Roleplay (one-on-one, SFW, English), posts need at least 300 characters, you get one every 24 hours, and accounts must be at least 48 hours old; AI is banned. On r/RoleplayPartnerSearch, posts need more than 225 words, one every 24 hours, and accounts 30 days old with 5 karma. Neither allows links or contact details in posts, so the ad is your only writing sample. Put the pairing tag in the title, as 66% of writers do. These rules are as of October 2026.
- Tumblr. Two in three writers post through ad blogs that publish submitted ads in the blog’s own template, and 96% of those writers state an age floor because the template asks for one. Readers there often answer with a like or a reblog, so say if you’d rather get a message. Most posts in Tumblr’s partner-search tags are adult: our SFW rules set aside 57% of the 4,573 we read.
- X. The standing ad is the pinned post of a roleplay account. Add your pace and time zone, which just one of 48 pinned ads mentioned each, and keep shipping rules in the account’s intro.
- Discord hubs. Ads scroll away in busy channels, so keep the template short and repost only as often as the hub allows.
Our overview of where to find a roleplay partner compares these places in detail, and the Guide lesson Find a roleplay partner covers what to check in other people’s ads.
FictionCore: an ad form that asks what partners ask first
FictionCore is our app for text roleplay: adult roleplayers use it to find partners and groups, share plots and build characters and worlds. Its partner ad works like the template above, except that each line is a field: nothing important gets forgotten, and readers can filter by it.
- Pace and time zone, the lines most ads skip. Reply pace and timezone have fields of their own, with an optional schedule note, and readers can filter by both.
- Length as an amount, not a label. You pick an approximate post length, add an exact range in the length note, and can mark that you match your partner’s length.
- A real writing sample. Reddit’s one-on-one boards don’t allow links. In FictionCore, an ad can point to writing samples on your profile: an opening post, a typical reply, dialogue or narration.
- Age, the rule Tumblr writers state most. An ad can show your age and the youngest partner you’ll write with: 18+, 21+, 25+ or 30+. The whole app is for adults.
- Guided prompts, or your own text. The form walks you through the story you want to write, how you like to write, who you’d love to meet, plot hooks and how to start the conversation. Or paste an ad you already have.
- Fresh ads. An ad runs for up to 24 hours and can be reposted with a tap, so the board shows who is looking now, and a saved search alerts you when a matching ad appears.
- Contacts on your terms. You choose who sees your Discord, Telegram or other contacts, and other writers can request one.
FictionCore is available on Google Play for Android. It’s SFW and has no built-in chat, so the roleplay itself happens wherever you both prefer, and as a newer board it has fewer ads than Reddit, so you can post in both. How FictionCore works has the full tour.
How we counted
- Reddit. 2,698 one-on-one ads by 1,229 writers, posted between 1 August and 19 October 2026 on r/RoleplayPartnerSearch, r/roleplaying, r/AdvLiterateRP, r/Roleplay and other partner-search communities, read in full. We left out adult ads, ads by or for anyone under 18, and game roleplay.
- Tumblr. 1,150 one-on-one ads by 851 writers from Tumblr’s partner-search tags and ad blogs, posted between 1 August and 20 October 2026, in English, with the same exclusions.
- X. 576 public posts about text roleplay with human partners, published between 1 August and 19 October 2026: pinned ads by 48 writers and one-on-one ads by 118.
- Coding. The same rules matched each field in all three samples, and we counted writers rather than posts, because many people repost. We checked matches by hand, and most fields were right at least 95% of the time. The rules miss some phrasings, so treat every share as a minimum. These are the ads people write, not proof of which lines get replies: replies arrive in private messages, where nobody can count them.
- Privacy. We publish only aggregate counts, without quotes or usernames.
Questions roleplayers ask
What should a roleplay partner ad include?
The story you want (a short premise and genres), how you write (post length and point of view), who can apply (age and limits), how often you reply, your time zone and how to reach you. Most ads cover the story and the writing, but only about three in ten Reddit writers name a pace or a time zone. In FictionCore, our app, each of these has its own field, so the form prompts you for every one.
Is there a roleplay ad template I can copy and paste?
Yes, the one in this article: premise, about you, genres, characters, length, pace, time zone, point of view, romance, long-term or one-shot, limits, age, where you’d write and what to reply with. On FictionCore, you can paste it into an ad as it is, or let the form’s prompts build the ad with you.
How long should a roleplay ad be?
Long enough to cover the essentials and show how you write. The typical one-on-one ad ran to about 1,800 characters on Reddit, 760 on Tumblr and 190 on X. Boards set minimums too: r/RoleplayPartnerSearch wants more than 225 words and r/Roleplay at least 300 characters.
What does [F4A] mean in a roleplay ad?
It’s a pairing code. In most ads the letter before the 4 gives the gender of the character the writer will play and the letter after it the character they want opposite: F for female, M for male, A for any. Some writers mean their own gender, so read the ad itself. Our glossary of roleplay terms covers the rest of the shorthand.
Why do roleplay ads ask for a password?
To check that you read the whole ad before replying. 15% of Reddit writers ask for a password, a code word or some other sign that you read the post, and some ignore messages without it.
Where should I post a roleplay partner ad?
Where people who write like you are looking: r/RoleplayPartnerSearch and r/Roleplay for one-on-one ads in English, Tumblr’s ad blogs, Discord partner-search hubs, and FictionCore, an app built for roleplay partner and group ads, where readers filter by genre, post length, reply pace and timezone. Our overview of places to find a roleplay partner compares them.
Is there an app for posting roleplay partner ads?
Yes. FictionCore has two ad boards, one for partners and one for groups, with fields for post length, reply pace, timezone, point of view and age, filters for all of them, and profiles with writing samples. It’s for adults (18+) and available on Google Play for Android.
How do I get more replies to my roleplay ad?
Nobody can promise replies, and nobody can count them, because answers go to private messages. What you can control is fit: a clear premise, a length range, your pace and time zone, your limits and an easy first step for the reader. Post where your genre is read, repost only as the rules allow, and on FictionCore, readers who filter by your genre, length and pace find your ad without scrolling past it.
The right partner reads your ad to the end. Make sure the pace line is in it.