Role Playing Guide

This is a guide not just for new role players but for existing ones who perhaps want to know tips on how to improve. Though it should be noted that the number of ways a person can role play is about as diverse as the number of people who could be role playing.

What is role playing? / What are role playing games?

A role playing game has a lot of different definitions and is widely used, occasionally misused. In the world of computer / console gaming a role playing game (also called an RPG) is found in games like Wold of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls Online, Planescape Torment, etc.. These games don't really describe what we do here on this server and thus can be a bit misleading as these are narrow in field and scope compared to where the term came from.

RPG Origin

A role playing game has its origin in the idea of adult make believe. Games like Dungeons and Dragons are a lot closer to what we do here on this server than things like World of Warcraft. In these the game takes place largely in ones imagination, much like a book. You have characters and you react and play in that role for the purposes of the game. This is a little difficult for novices to understand, I know that is was for me when I started (back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and cell phones didn't have text messaging).

What does Role Playing mean here?

Here, it means collaborative writing. This server focuses heavily on stories and plot, that means we're not so much about battles or sex as we are about what is going on, building characters, having them interact, and providing storylines in which they can grow and evolve according to where we'd like them to go. Since we use a format called FFRP (Free Form Role Play), we do not use dice except when it is necessary to do so. We would much prefer, overall, to trust our players to react in appropriate ways without using dice to enforce it.

Dice are usually used to ensure things are fare, you roll, random chance decides what happens and this means that (in theory) everyone gets a chance at success. In reality, it seldom feels that way, but dice an provide a good amount of unexpected elements to game play. So we have a dice bot that we use when it might be nice to have random chance decide things. Overall though, this isn't about the dice (or the random number generator) it is about the writing and having fun.

Here, you write chunks of text which describe how your character interacts with the world around them.

How to Write

Before coming here a person should at least be somewhat familiar with the act (art) of creative writing. If one is not terribly familiar with creative writing, I suggest reading a few writing guides.

• Creative Writing 101
• Fiction Writing from Purdue OWL
• Another Creative Writing 101

There are also hundreds of books on the subject. For our purposes we will assume that the players have some idea of what creative writing is and how to do it (even if they don't think they do it well at all).

Perspective

We use a 3rd Person narrative. That means generally speaking one should write as if they are narrating someone else's events and refrain from using personal pronouns like I or me in the narrative text. This allows us to do a few things, for one, a consistent format makes it easier for everyone to read, and secondly it allows more variations as multiple points of view can be expressed easily. Rather than saying "I thought about picking the flower." and have no one know who "I" is referring to, it is better to say, "Joe thought about picking the flower." Now everyone knows who is thinking about picking a flower.

Text and Context

In any chunk of text there should be two primary elements when something is being said. There should be text and context for the text. That is to say, when you're reading a book you don't usually just see characters blurt things out without something about what they are thinking, doing, feeling, as they are speaking. So when typing, on average, a good role player with have some way to differentiate the two parts. This is sometimes called emoting.

Lance was thinking about heading back to his room, it had been a long day today but he didn't want to end the conversation too early, "Oh, no I appreciate the thought, I'd love to." he responded, the smile hiding how tired he was.

That is in opposition to:

Oh no I appreciate the thought, I'd love to.

See how much information is left out? With the first one we have a context, he's tired. We can imagine that his eyes have a bit of a tired look, we can think perhaps his attention or body language shows he's a bit tired and wanting to head back. The smile might appear forced. This gives the other players so much more to work with in coming up witht heir own responses.

Ways to Differentiate

We are not very strict, so any player is going to see a mix of ways to separate what is being said and the context. A lot of people use italics.

Lance was thinking about heading back to his room, it had been a long day today but he didn't want to end the conversation too early Oh, no I appreciate the thought, I'd love to. he responded, the smile hiding how tired he was.

It is a little bit clunky, but it does in fact work. Other methods such as bold text are also used, but less frequently.

What we'd like to stay away from is the multi-line approach:

Lance was thinking about heading back to his room, it had been a long day today but he didn't want to end the conversation too early
Oh, no I appreciate the thought, I'd love to
he responded, the smile hiding how tired he was.

Where each lines is on its own, that can get confusing and ping people multiple times for one action.