Roleplaying Ettiquette and Tips

Discussion in 'Roleplaying Forum' started by Ferret, May 29, 2003.

Remove all ads!
Support Terra-Arcanum:

GOG.com

PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Ferret

    Ferret New Member

    Messages:
    1,913
    Likes Received:
    0
    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2001
    Seeing as the roleplaying forum is starting to creep back into activity, I thought that I'd just post this here as a helpful resource for member new to the roleplaying community.

    First of all, unless specifically renounced, the thread creator has control over the thread and what is regarded as acceptible within their thread. This included a say over who can join their thread and how the players can act within the thread. For example, some thread creators may have a specific idea for the direction of their thread and so will not allow people to play certain factions or write certain things which will later compromise their designs.

    RP ettiquette suggests that anyone wanting to join a thread should either PM the thread creator or post a request to join in the associated discussion thread. The thread creator will usually be happy to let the person join, but may specify conditions under which the player cannot join. For instance, the thread creator may rule out that the character must be below a certain level, or they cannot be a certain alignment or profession, with reference to their designs for the thread. Doing this avoids any unpleasantries where someone joins without asking and thus has to be subsequently removed if they unwittingly compromise the thread.

    Also, along these lines, when creating a charactor for the thread, it is usual to post the character in the discussion thread if there is one, or to PM the character to the thread creator for ratification prior to joining. This allows the character to be checked for any problems, such as traits that the creator doesn't want to belong in the thread.

    Most of the time there is no problem, but some thread creators like to keep their player's characters below a certain development or skill level, or they like their characters to have a particular level of history associated with the characters before they are posted.

    Usually, if the characters are posted in such a way as follows then there is no problem:

    Name:
    Age:
    Gender:
    Race: (If appropriate)

    Desription: (Both physical and personality)
    Skills and/or abilities:
    Inventory:
    Character history and Background:

    The following is an example of a character that I made for one of the threads here:

    Name: Lindsay Farrington
    Age: 24
    Gender: Female
    Race: Human

    Description: She has long, slightly wavey, honey-blonde hair. Normally she wears this in a pony tail down to her lower back, loosely-tied with an elaborately plaited leather hair tie. However, when on site she usually wears it tied up in a bun so as to keep the dust out.

    She has rich, hazel eyes and soft features. She is very attractive and of medium build and full figure. She is slim, but not athletic, keeping to a sensible diet rather than working out.

    She usually wears a dress of some sort, but since this is impractical at a dig site, where she is often running around through dirt and obstacle-filled passages and dust bowls, she tends to wear comfortable soft-leather leggings and jacket, over a blouse of some description. She wears Elven boots whether in town or on site, because they are comfortable, quiet and both soft enough so as not to damage anything underfoot and hard wearing enough so as not to wear out too often. She also tends to wear soft elbow-length leather gloves in order to protect any specimens she handles from damage due to oils or moisture from her fingers.

    Currently, she is wearing a pale blue blouse, with the top two buttons undone because of the heat from being underground, as well as her black leather leggings and a beige sleeve-less soft leather jacket/waistcoat. Her leater gloves are also beige and she is wearing a brown swuede fedora, that used to belong to her father, to keep her hair tied up in a bun.

    At her hip is a flask of water, a sharp double-edged dagger for use in removing artifacts, that is also perfectly weighted for throwing and a small pouch that contains various tools of the trade, such as soft brushes, cloth and bandages for the various incidents that invariably happen on digs.

    Lindsay is a friendly and outgoing person who is enthusiastic in her learning and gleaning of knowledge and can often be quite excitable.
    Especially if there is an unknown or newly discovered artifact involved.

    She is trusting and makes friends easily but can hold a grudge if her trust is broken. She can also be fiercely protective of her acquisitions and dig sites.

    Abilities: Lindsay is highly dextrous. Years of crawling through small spaces and tunnels, over objects and around obstacles has given her a flexibility that is invaluable in her line of work.

    She is highly intelligent and always keen to learn. She is a expert healer and is accomplished at most forms of throwing weaponry although she has never had to put her skills to the test.

    She is also a mage of some ability. She knows three spells from the force college and these have proved highly useful in securing sites (there's not much that's less penetrable than a wall of force) or protecting herself and colleagues from the occaisional rockfall or cave collapse. She also knows a few other spells (yet to be decided what).

    Inventory: She has a flask of water, her balanced, sharp double-edged dagger, her excavation and archaeology tools and some bandages readily accessible at her waist. She also has a more complete doctoring and healing kit in her pack for those more serious occaisions.

    She is wearing her normal excavation clothing (see description) and has a spare white blouse, gloves and boots in her pack incase it gets too muddy or dirty in the caves.

    She has a bladed boomarang tucked into a pouch on the inside her sleeveless leather jacket, just incase it's needed.

    On her right hand is a ring of divination that allows her to identify magickal items, on the rare occaisions that her knowledge isn't extensive enough to identify them through non-magickal means. She considers it invaluable although she has only ever had to use it once, since it means that she doesn't have to go through the laborious process of training in the divination college of magick. As far as she can tell, the ring itself appears to have infinite charges, but it takes time to regenerate it's energies after each use.

    Background: Lindsay is an unusual women. She is an
    educated woman. She was born in Roseborough in the Caladonian states and from a very young age she became fascinated with the Ring of Brodgar and the history surrounded it. By the time she reached her teens there was little else she could learn about Arcanum's history from her local environment as so her parents sent her to a school just outside Caladon.

    Although she was not from a wealthy family, she soon excelled in her learning and by the time she was 16 she had won a scholarship to study at the esteemed Caladon Institution of History and Archeaology, a member institution of the University of Caladon.

    She learned much at the Institution and graduated with high honours at the age of 19. She then went on to study for courses in the Magickal History of Arcanum and the Endemic Magickal Properties of the Ancient Artifacts of Arcanum at the mage academy of Tulla.

    She left Tulla at the age of 21, with a doctorate in the History of Arcanum with a minor in the Use of Magicks in Information Gathering. Whilst at Tulla she also learned the art of Force magick and has since gained a keen interest in the study of magery.

    After leaving Tulla she moved back to Caladon for 2 months before getting a year placement at the Tarant History Museum under a Gnome by the name of Professor Donald Smythe. When her year placement was finished she moved into field excavations and has spent the last two years at various dig sites around Arcanum, including the famous lair of the dragon Bellerogrim.

    She is currently attending a dig at the site of what appears to be an ancient Elven burial ground to the east of Tarant. This is unusual because there have never been any Elves documented to have lived in the Morbihan area, even when it was forested.


    Next, dealing with the thread itself.

    Everything in the thread is taken as being part of the story. If anyone wishes to post something that is not directly part of the story, for example, ideas as to what to do next or comments on what has happened, then they should write it as Out Of Character. This is usually denoted by a [OOC] and [/OOC] to indicate that it is not to be taken as part of the story.

    Any OOC messages of any length, or something that is not immediately relevant to the story itself should be written in the discussion topic and not in the thread itself. This allows more freedom to what you can say and it also keeps the thread itself tidier and easier to read.

    The use of colours and italics is also applied in many threads. When used correctly, this makes seeing the speech and thought of each PC (player character) much easier to tell apart from the rest of the post.

    Each character has a colour assigned to them and they use that colour for all of their speech. "Say, that sounds like a good idea!" "Yes, it makes it much easier to see who is saying what!"

    When that character is thinking something then the thoughts can be made italicised, as well as coloured. There is no need to use speech marks though. Hmm.... I can see the sense in that....

    Be careful not to pick a colour that is already in use by someone else or things will be very confusing.

    NPC (Non-Player Character) speech is not usually written in colour (the default color is black for most users) and if, on the rare occaisions that NPC thought is needed, then the use of non-coloured, italics is suggested.

    Some people, like myself, assign a particular colour to the narrator of a thread if there is one, for use on things such as cutscenes where the story is expanded or explained using a non-specific viewpoint. Personally, I use Olive as my narrator colour, but it's up to the thread creator since they are usually responsible for the narration if there is any.

    Of course, if the thread creator wishes to do anything differently then that is their perogative. It is, after all, their 'baby'.

    If there is anything else that I think of then I can add it later. Good luck and have fun! :)
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
Our Host!