repost from EU boards
thread by OculusTertius
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~ The Fearghal Guide to Roleplaying ~
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Introduction
Hello all you great people of Aquilonia!
Disclaimer: Let me say this before anything else. I am not one to tell others how to play. If you ask I will give my opinion of course. But at the end of the day, -you- are paying for the subscription, not me. So you can play whichever way you want as long as you follow Funcom's rules. However, if you disrespect the most basic rules of rp, don't expect the roleplayers to welcome you into their world.
Contents
Introduction - Disclaimer, and the reasons why this guide was written.
Lets Have Fun! - An introduction to some of the most basic concepts in roleplaying. Written by Oculus
IC and OOC - and indepth look at these two terms and why they are both so important. Written by Oculus
Etiquette and Good Manners among Roleplayers - A guide on how to avoid those embaressing, awkward moments. Written by Oculus
RP and PvP - Role-Playing in a Player versus Player Environment Written by Caspian
RP and Inspiration - a discourse on ways to draw inspiration from every thing. Written by Sarai
Glossary - A short description of often used terms in roleplaying or this guide. Compiled by Oculus
Links - Links to useful roleplaying threads
Emoting - Some useful tips on how to express yourself through emotes Written by Akselvee
Why this guide?
Several people have requested me to do this, so I've finally decided to put in time and energy to make a guide to roleplaying on a PvP-RP server. I think there have been a lot of good discussions on these boards and many good points have been made - as well as a few poor ones. I believe this guide may help those who are still learning what roleplaying is all about in this kind of setting. I have no illusions of making the ultimate guide to rp that leaves no question unanswered. I only feel a responsibility to maybe help better the community.
This is in no way an attempt to pull down a set of rules on other people. I'm personally not pro regulating our way out of anti-rp behaviour. First of all I think it's impossible, second of all roleplaying is about letting your imagination take over and forget about rules. But if we all play with no respect to other people's immersion then we get one big mess. The following is more an attempt to outline the way many of us "heavy-rp'ers" (man I hate that term) conduct our rp, so everyone has fun.
My vision is to make this both accessible and understandable for new-comers in the RP world, as well as delving into more in-depth discourse for veteran roleplayers.
My background
First I'd like to mention my background for making this.
I've been a roleplayer since the early 1990'ies, mostly as game master. I've played and organized anything from basic pen and paper D&D, AD&D, Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling, Starwars, Call of Chuthulu etc etc. To systemless horror and intrigue events with more than a hundred players.
Let's have fun!
- An introduction to some of the most basic concepts in roleplaying.
Respect thy fellow RP'er
My number one rule has always been: it's about having fun! That's why it bears repeating in massive maroon letters. As game master (GM) I had a big responsibility for this. Say, the GM kills off all the players within the first few minutes of playing together, you can be pretty sure they won't come back. Most roleplayers put a lot of time and effort into creating a character, so always keep that in mind: we are here to have fun - all of us!
Immersion
Creating a character is more than getting out of Tortage and reaching lvl 80. In fact it's anything but! And what the heck does the man mean now? Well, this is where the important concept of immersion comes into play. Immersion is the concept of embracing the world of AoC and making it feel as real and believable as possible. Someone might say. Well, Oculus, there are dragons, magic and demons in this world, how the heck is that believable? Point taken, but let's for a minute assume that this is the case.
Right then, we live in a world that's magical - does this mean anything goes? The short answer is: no. I'll try to give a more detailed answer, in the following. First of all there is a lot your character will do in the game that would be absolutely absurd to accept as reality. A good example is that all players are virtually immortals. You die and you magically come alive on a shiny blue square rock. For this to be true for a handful of players may be acceptable, but for all players to have the EXACT same background story i.e. being a slave of Acheron that nearly drowns and is saved by Kalanthes etc etc is absurd.
The power of OOC
So we have established now that your character will do things in the game that we simply have to ignore from a roleplaying point of view, as it would make no sense at all. This is where the concept of Out of Character (OOC) is a vital tool. Basically you assume this did not happen to your character - he or she was OOC so to speak.
The same goes for anything you say that is not your character talking or emoting (doing something).
Quote:
Some good rules of thumb
anything in /say and /shout channels is in character (IC). Everything else is OOC.
put double brackets around anything you want to say OOC in the normal IC channels. For example: ((Be right back my phone is ringing)).
put an asteric around emotes. For example: *Oculus waves to you*
if you use /t in character (ICly) to for example whisper to someone, then it's a good idea to emote that you are whispering: *Oculus whispers something to you* and then the /t.
Dont use smileys or abbreviations like "HI2U LOL O_o"
If someone emotes along the lines of *examines/looks at/studies your hand/face/ring* then it's an invitation for you to describe the object of attention. This can be via a tell or through an emote in say.
You will find that most roleplayers will completely ignore the generic storyline we all have to go through, as well as raiding, etc. Instead we replace it with our own history for our character.
Your character's history
This is one of the most important things when playing your character. As we all know, people are who they are due to their history. Plain and simple. So if you don't make a background story to your character, you won't really know how they are going to act or why. Most rp'ers will start off with a basic concept and let it evolve as they play and add more to the background story as time goes by. Once you have a pretty good idea of the how's and when's of your character you can go into things like personality, social skills, etc etc.
We are all each other's Game Master
This may be a bit controversial for some, but I believe this to be very true. There is not one single Game Master (in the original sense) to guide us through the stories. To rely solely on game mechanics to fill out the role of the GM would be a very poor solution. We've already established that if that were the case, we would all have virtually the exact same background.
Instead we are a big mass of players who need to actually be each other's GM's when we start roleplaying. Some will fill out the role more than others, but for interesting and immersive rp we need to put ourselves in the role of the GM. And why is that? Well if we didn't then our roleplay would succumb to only dialogue and we would have to rely solely on game mechanics to decide the outcome of interaction with others and the world.
Say, I'm roleplaying a drunken barbarian in a tavern and I decide he is in the mood for tossing a potato out from the balcony he is sitting on. I am actually forcing this event into all the other present characters' world. How they react to it is solely up to them. Some may find it too silly and ignore it altogether. While others may find it a good opportunity for some good rp and play along, perhaps throwing it back up. This time a third person whose character is also on the balcony decides the potato hits her wine bottle, spilling wine all over. And so on and so forth.
Point being: this potato was initially just tossed over the balcony. The second player decides to "bend" the direction so it hits him. And lastly the third player makes the potato hit her wine. In a normal rp setup with a few players and gamemaster it would have been up to the GM to decide who the potato would hit.
The golden rule of "give some, take some"
There have been some heated discussions about certain players feeling that other players are "bending the direction of the potato" too much so to speak, or power-roleplaying/emoting as it's commonly termed.
I'm not going to take sides in the discussion, but the reason I bring this up is because this really IS a delicate matter. Many players rely on emoting in a fasion so that it leaves an option for involved players to avoid it (e.g. *Oculus reaches for your hand* instead of *oculus grabs your hand*). But having to do that every time you involve someone else in your emotes is absurd in some situations - for example if you want to punch a tied up prisoner.
In general you should apply the "open-ended" kind of emotes with people you haven't rp'd much with before. While rp'ing with people you know and are comfortable with might only need few of these kinds of emotes.
This brings me to the golden rule of "give some, take some". We could all roleplay strictly in a way that has no effect on others except by dialogue and thus prevent people from power-roleplaying. But that would quickly make roleplaying very dull. That's why many of us embrace this rule. Basically you have a consensus that in some situations it's allowed to power-roleplay as long as it goes both ways.
At the end of the day, when in doubt - use your common sense, and try not to behave in a way that would be absurd or immersion-breaking for others.
That's all for now - more to come.
Oculus
PS: This is just a potato tossed in the air. Feel free to do what you want.
EDIT: A special thanks goes to all the fantastic rp'ers out there for discussing these things with me - especially Nashara and Meos. This is all basically putting into writing what we have talked about.
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IC and OOC
- and indepth look at these two terms and why they are both so important.
Ever stumbled into someone in-game who told you they were OOC or IC'ly not there and wondered what the heck that is all about? Ever had someone tell you something in tells and afterwards saying they don't know it IC'ly? Someone ever accused you of mixing OOC and IC, and you just went ?_____?
Despair no more! In the following section I will try my best to explain what these terms encompass and why they are so important for roleplaying on a pvp-rp server.
In Character (IC)
Being in character is what roleplaying is all about. Basically it means that your character is physcially present the place your avatar (the graphical image of your character) is. What do you mean now Oculus, isn't that so always? Short answer is, "no". I will explain further down why, but let's talk more about this IC term first.
IC is not just about where you character is physically, it also means what part of the environment and interaction your avatar takes part of you accept as part of your character's reality. As a rule of thumb you decide what is IC for your own character, and no one else.
IC also covers information. To be loyal to the basic concepts of roleplaying your character usually only knows what he/she has learned while being IC.
Out of Character (OOC)
Out of Character basically means everything that is not part of your character's reality. That could mean being decapicitated while duelling with a friend, all the mini pvp games, your horse magically appearing when calling for it, the guy saying "hi2u rp nub L2P" after he ganked you, killing Vistrix for the 27th time, what goes on in Global and Guild chat, etc etc.
In short, there's a whole lot of stuff going on OOC'ly all the time that your character is totally oblivious to. As has been mentioned in the above post, taking all these things as IC would be absurd, to say the least.
Keeping the two seperated
When acting IC'ly you always have to filter out everything you know OOC'ly. In short, there is no clear way to say this or that is IC or OOC. Some guilds play with their guild chat as IC, even though most consider it an OOC channel. It all comes down to that vital tool of common sense.
If it wouldn't make sense for your character to be in a situation that he/she is in, then you can decide it is OOC. In the above example with the barbarian tossing potatoes, you might decide it's just all too silly and ignore it as OOC for your character.
Making storylinesNEW
At times you will wish to add twists and turns to your character's life that you may not have the time to roleplay IC'ly. You might also want to draw others into a common storyline. A good idea is to contact these persons OOC'ly and discuss a foundation of ideas to base the rp on. Start by trying with people you are comfortable with e.g. some guildies. That way you get the feel of it and can work your way up to spiralling bigger storylines and perhaps combine events that are free for all.
There are as many different styles of rp'ing as there are rp'ers, roughly put. Keep that in mind. So sometimes it may take some time to find a good balance.
If all fails, or someone's play style is not applicable to your own, don't get angry or personal. Remember we are here to have fun. If you aren't having fun rp'ing with someone, then don't. Simple as that.
That said, I think it's important we let spontaneous and wholly unplanned rp take over some times. This is my personal preference, however.
Again, key thing here is that it's up to you to decide what is IC and OOC as long as you use your common sense. If you don't, other roleplayers might not want to let you take part of their characters' reality.