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Role-Playing (role-play, RP, RPing): The concept where one acts out scenes and stories with others around a particular theme by assuming a "role" and taking on the personality of a particular character. It is your character acting out or telling his or her own particular story. Everything that you post is to that end. It refers to a situation of fictional context whereby you portray yourself as someone you are not. It allows you to be whatever you want (within sim rules/limits of course) as though you were playing a part in a large multi-leveled interactive movie. Out of Character (OOC): The typist, the person behind the avatar, the RL person behind the keyboard. OOC: Anything that occurs and/or relates to things out of the game. This means you are speaking with your OWN voice and not the voice of your character. In local chat this is often denoted by a set of double parentheses on either side of your statement. eg ((My computer just stuffed up...sorry guys)). Use of excessive ooc comments is frowned upon while RP is going and very disruptive for the people engaging in ongoing RPs. In Character (IC): The character in your screen, the avatar and the role/character/personilty you have given him/her. IC: Anything that occurs in and/or relates to what happens in the role-playing game (to/by the characters). If you are talking "IC" it means you are speaking with the voice and words of your character. When making IC posts, you should NEVER use abbreviations (how r u?, lol, rofl, etc.) or emoticons ( :), ^.^, :P, etc.). When you are IC you should also avoid the use of gestures - they distract from RP. IC/OOC Line: The line between ?in character? and ?out of character.? Players are not their characters and are not necessarily even like their characters, and vice versa. Realize that everything that is happening when IC is just that - a character someone is playing in a game. Do not take IC actions, insults, fights, etc. personally. You may not like another character, but respect the fact that they are just that .. a character. Emoting: To make a post that expresses emotion, action or inner dialog, thoughts, ponderings, etc. of your character. You indicate this by typing /me before your text. Example: "/me smiles." Posts as "Nevan Nizna smiles." When expressing inner thoughts or emotions, your should always *do* something observable so that others can react to it. For example: Not-so-good Emote: Nevan Nizna sees the stranger eying her but she isnt interested in him. Better Emote: Nevan Nizna sees the stranger eying her. She wrinkles her nose and turns her head away from him with disinterest, hoping he will get the hint and move on his way. The first example cannot and should not be commented on by other players; the second can and should be commented on by other players. Metagaming: Bringing OOC knowledge into an IC situation, e.g. knowing that a character really likes busty brunettes, when it has never been mentioned, and your character has no basis for knowing this fact. Any knowledge discovered through ?out of character? means may not be used ?in character.? The practice is considered ?meta-gaming?, which is a strict no-no. This includes, but is not limited to: conversations ?overheard? in avatar chat range when your character could not reasonably overhear it due to ?physical? constraints (i.e., through walls, floors, ceilings, or the ground), and using information gained through looking at the Avatar Tag, reading profiles, use of the mini-map or camming around. Don't use information/knowledge your character hasn't earned - only things discovered/learned through roleplay can be used ICly. Godmoding (godmoding, moding, godmodding etc.): Where a character does something they are not capable of and/or do not have permission to do to another character, e.g. moving another character by stating they are somewhere they are not without the other player?s permission, mindreading without permission, stating something about a character's storyline without permission. Godmoding can also refer to the case where a player definitively describes the outcome of their own actions against another character. For example, if player A states, "A strikes B and B takes damage", they could be considered to be godmodding. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godmodding for more information. Powergaming (or powerplaying): Roleplaying is a give and take experience. No one is invincible, no one has all the answers to any problem, has all knowledge, etc. - everyone has weaknesses, so let your enemies know yours and take turns battling and exploiting each other. It makes roleplaying with you a lot more fun. If people start to groan when you're around or avoid roleplaying with you, you might want to try and change your tactics. If in doubt - IM the people you are RP'ing with to make sure you're all in agreement about what is happening. Illiterate: Usually used as an insult, few people actually admit to being 'illiterate'. Illiteracy is characterised by deficiency in all areas of role playing; a role player who is 'illiterate' exhibits the following: - a lack of imagination in their writing, e.g. Mary-Sue characters, uninspired settings, very common and overused or one-character-centric plots, and a tendency to write themselves out of the action. - many and wide-ranging grammatical mistakes (some of the most common being 'your/you're', 'their/they're/there' and 'to/too/two') and bad spelling. Sometimes the person in question will use chatspeak in character, or slip out of character in the middle of a post. Generally speaking, this is the most damning give-away of somebody who is illiterate. - a lack of respect for other role players. Typically this includes god-moding or powerplaying behaviour. On top of this, an illiterate role player will often try to direct all the attention of the other characters onto themselves, or subvert the action/plot with a random, nonsensical addition designed to net their character attention. - very short posts that are either composed of dialogue or out-of-the-blue events (e.g. "suddenly, adam's scar burned brightly and he fell to the ground and twitched in the middle of discussion!" . Often, illiterate role players are very young or very new to role playing. Despite their flaws, they should neither be picked on nor 'gently encouraged' unless they actively seek you out to ask for advice. If somebody wants critique and asks for it, then you may respond. If you try and 'help' people in the middle of a role play, it can often be construed as rude and arrogant. If an illiterate turns up at your board and you don't wish for them to join, let them down gently. Semi-Literate: Semi-literate is a term frequently used by people who believe that they are half-decent at role playing but lack the confidence in both themselves and their writing to move on to 'literate'. However, 'semi-literate' is the most wide-ranging of the terms, with the largest amount of conforming role players; this is because a semi-literate is anybody who still falls down in one particular area of role playing. While an illiterate is incompetent in all areas, a semi-literate could be somebody who finds grammar and spelling very difficult but creates brilliant characters and original/refreshing plots and settings. They might be absolutely perfect grammatically and the prize winner from their local spelling bee, but be unable to construct convincing or interesting scenerios. Perhaps somebody can characterise and spell wonderfully, but they're unable to respect normal role play conventions such as not killing other characters without prior permission. Somebody incapable of anything except spelling and grammar accuracy, maybe? All of these things make somebody 'semi-literate' rather than the rather more prestigious level of 'literate'. Semi-literacy introductions frequently feature a large block of description regarding the character before moving on to a few sentences of action. They tend to 'tell' rather than 'show', which should be avoided if you want to improve your writing. Those who fall under the category of 'semi-literate' (especially the higher end of semi-literacy) tend to be insecure about their writing and slow to improve because they don't want to stray from what they know - their comfort zone. If somebody semi-literate turns up at your literate or advanced board, think for a moment before you turn them away; it's likely that posting at your board took a lot of courage, and perhaps you could spare the time to role play with them a little? Experience helps improvement a lot more than telling people to buzz off. However, as before, always be polite and civil when rejecting somebody, if you really feel uncomfortable with role playing with someone below your level. Literate: The lines start to blur a little more between literate and advanced, and it can sometimes be difficult to tell the two apart. There are little markers, however, that can help distinguish. Literates tend to forget that role playing is about more than one person; a typical literate introduction will fail to interact with the scenerio at the end, promising to do it in their first post instead. Often they are very anal about small things that don't really matter in the context of the role play, like somebody failing to use adequate OOC or failing to capitalise, or perhaps using a little chatspeak when not in character. Literacy is often (although not always!) characterised by arrogance; in the sense of the community at large, 'rude' literates tend to be the vocal minority.** Role-playing wise, literates typically exhibit polished and interesting writing styles with few mistakes (whether typo, grammatical or spelling). Their characters are well-defined and are engaging and properly flawed rather than the Mary-Sue tendencies of some semi-literates and all illiterates; settings and plots are inspired and easy to interact with - they very rarely revolve around one or two characters. However, literates have a tendency to fall into the trap of 'purple prose', which is where a piece of writing becomes so saturated with metaphor and similie that it becomes, while impressive, confusing and somewhat boring. While technically accurate, purple prose is typically indicative of someone who focuses more on description than action, which is a very bad move in role playing. While the vast majority of purple prose is written by literates, however, not all literates write in purple prose. Remember this. Literates are also prone to 'fluffing' out a post, which means filling it with useless description and internal monologues that have no relevance to events, just to make their post look a little longer. When at a literate board, you should always conform to the rules that the person has set out in their first post, and read them extensively to make sure you caught everything. If you are rejected, exit without answering snottily or rudely. Equally, if you are a literate hosting a board, always be civil when rejecting somebody (as I have previously stated); I find that arrogance is quite a big problem with role players, and manners cost nothing. **Bear in mind that not every literate is rude or arrogant; the majority are lovely people. However, bad tends to overshadow good (the vocal minority, etc etc), which can sometimes lead to sounding like all literates are evil. Advanced: This is the most difficult category to write a summary for, because advanced is the most subjective of all the categories; while the others tend to have obvious deficiencies or signs, being 'advanced' is simply about being a very good role player. There difference between writing and role playing is reconciled beautifully in an advanced role player; they not only dazzle with their writing skill, technical accuracy and characterisation, but also make an interesting, original scenerio that is very easy to interact with and contains no fluff or purple prose. An advanced role player understands that role playing is more about the situation and action than impressing everybody with their ability to construct elaborate metaphors, but manages to impress everybody with their writing anyway. Their characterisation and flexibility are immaculate, and they rarely have limitations on things like relationships, violence or profanity because they understand that these things are part of the great human experience. Quality over quantity is another main staple of advanced role players; they are not prone to the purple prose and fluff that literates are. You get two kinds of advanced role player; the modest ones, and the ones who know it. Frequently the latter category are very catty, arrogant and downright rude, so you should always double-check their requirements to join and be as polite as possible. However, the majority of advanced people I have met have been nothing but courteous, so try not to be too intimidated by them. As in all other categories, advanced role players should exercise compassion and politeness when rejecting someone from a role play, and never offer criticism unless it is expressly asked for. Sources: http://subeta.net/forums/view/569624 http://nevsroleplayguide.blogspot.com/2010/01/basic-role-playing-terms_27.html?m=1 | |
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