BASIC ROLE PLAYING ETIQUETTE

Role-playing can be both fun and frustrating. These are some rules of the thumb that help cut down the frustration. Again these are mostly common sense, courtesy and basic manners, with a healthy dose of the Golden Rule thrown in for good measure. So please make sure you read them ALL very carefully, and try to follow them to the best of your ability.

1: IC and OOC.

This really shouldn't need saying, but it seems like one of the more common problems. Try to stay In Character (IC) as much as possible, try not to drop Out Of Character (OOC) to often. If you are in a private conversation, then it needs to be out of sight from others (an outside instant messenger like Discord would be best, but if that isn't an option use the Chats MSG). If you absolutely must say something out of character in the presence of people who are in character, then enclose the OOC comment in parenthesis.
((Example of Out Of Character post in parenthesis)).
This can often be personalised to each Role-player, and as you get the hang of things you get the idea of who does what to signal themselves as being out of character, which at times can be confusing for the Oldies in the chat as well.

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2: Details are The key to everything in Role play!

Try to give as much Detail as you can in your posts all the time.
No one can see into your mind what your Character looks like, what they are wearing, what their personality is like, or how they are doing their actions.
It is up to you to give that key detail! So that other people can see in their minds what you see in your own mind.

• One liners happen, but try not to make them a habit! Give other role-players something to work with, not just 2 or 3 words with no detail. (it can, and will disrupt Role play, but it also makes it hard to Role play with someone who is putting too little or no effort into their posts by giving no details to work with.)
   

• Try to avoid using emojis as a lazy shortcut to facial expressions. It is ok to add some in now and then. but do not let them take up all your post just because you are feeling to lazy to add the detail of a facial expression.
   

• Details are key to everything, but try not to repeat your self to much just to make an overly huge post. Try keeping in mind that you are aiming for quality posts not quantity. Some posts will be short, that is ok, some posts will be long, that is also ok, but what ever the post size try to aim for post quality.

 

3: Meta gaming.

Never use Out Of Character information In Character in any way.
The best example I can give is, just because you can see someone's name (Handle) before their Text, your character would not know that character's name unless someone had told you in character.
This also includes something you may have seen in a role play interaction between two other role-players that are in a location out of ear shot to your character, or the other end of the world where ever else that's not where you are. Or if you have seem something while you are lurking, or even on character Profiles. Unless you had in character interaction where you get that information, with those who are in the known already in character, then your character should not know that information. The BIG problem with meta gaming is that it is Very Rude, and can be EXTREMELY disruptive to Role plays! 

 

4: Never assume someone will react in a certain way.

Do not assume someone will react in a certain way  just because you think they should. Always give others the chance to react in their own way, and don't get upset if the reaction isn't what you expected. Any action you perform on someone else's character, no matter what the action might be, should be phrased as an attempt. By making an attempt instead of just doing it outright, you give the character's player the chance to consent to the action or avoid it if it is something they'd rather not have happen to their character.

 

5: Be considerate of the role-playing mood of others.

If you come into a situation where other characters are already engaged in some RP, don't just leap in with a radically different mood unless you get permission (Either IC or OOC, depending on the situation and whether you have any way to contact them OOC).
Example: say there is a couple sitting at a table discussing a recently deceased character and you jump in acting like a court jester and spill their drinks in their laps while telling bad jokes.
That is a huge change in mood of that role play and you are not going to make friends like this, in fact your actions can offend the players behind the characters and even put them off role playing and land you on an ignore list.

 

6: Spotlighting.

 Don't try to be the centre of attention all the the time. Be polite and share attention with other characters. You are not the only one there to have fun, give everyone their turn in the spotlight.
Role play is not who can be centre of attention it is about story, character development and having a good time all round.
 

 

7: Post timing balance. Give others time to react to you, but also Do not take TOO long.

One of the strangest things I've noticed in online RPs is impatience. People will walk up, say something, wait about 0.0000001 seconds and run off. The person they talked to would barely have had enough time to read what they said, let alone respond to it. This also happens in conversations. People will say something, wait a very short amount of time, then keep going as if they think the person they were talking to didn't hear them or isn't going to respond. In most cases, the other person was going to respond but simply wasn't as fast as expected, and loses the chance because the conversation has moved on without them. There's no need to hurry so much, just relax and enjoy the interaction.
the problem is with the balance of posting is getting it just right so try not to take TOO long to react, it gets boring hanging around 30 mins for a post even more so if that post you have been waiting on is a very short one.

• The best way to get this balance right is to set a posting order with those you are role playing with thus giving everyone a chance to respond.

 

8: God moding and power gaming.
The Chat has a dice roll system to prevent this so use it! 

Try to avoid godlike abilities and invincible technology for your characters and Locations. Role playing is not about who can make up the best super powers for their characters, it is about the personalities of the characters. Any character that is ridiculously powerful or has a perfect personality, is going to be fairly boring to role play with and will end up being mostly ignored by others. You will get tagged as being a 'Noob', 'god-moder' and 'Power-gamer.'
( Yes Characters can ascend to god hood, and the likes over time it happens to us ALL. At that this point it is best to semi-retire them to NPCs , cameos, or give them a reboot.)

• DO NOT MAKE CHARACTERS PERFECT.

Every Character should have flaws and you should Role play those flaws accordingly. If your character takes wounds after any form of combat, have them act according to the injuries they have taken. Do not have them walking around as if nothing happened.
In Real life no one can dodge, parry or even hit every attack. So thus is stands to logical reason that no character can dodge, parry or hit every attack. For fairness you MUST take damage to your character or miss attacks accordingly. (Phrase actions as attempts not out right actions!)

Dice hit range Example of a D20 system.

Rolling a 1 is a Miss of the worst kind or even accidental dropping of weapons or accidentally killing  or harming yourself with your own attack or weapons much the same if you are defending yourself. (A.K.A. a Thumbal, so make it comical.)
Rolling between 2 and 6 if attacking is a miss, If you are defending yourself you fail to dodge or block.
Rolling between 6 and 10 if attacking is a near miss, If you are defending yourself you fail to dodge or block.
Rolling between 11 and 15 if attacking is a near hit.  If you are defending yourself you just about manage to dodge or block
Rolling between 16 to 19 if attacking it is a hit, if your are defending yourself you manage to dodge or block.

Rolling a 20 if attacking is a critical-perfect hit, if defending you flawlessly dodge or block.

Do not add Over the top pluses' to your dice, Keep it fair! (It is much easier to just keep a straight d20 for everyone that way it is 100% fair to ALL role-players.)
To make this rule simple, attacks and defence are based on the hit dice range. if you both get say roll a 15 you Perry each other or you can both take damage, if you roll lower then the other role player, such as one of you gets a 11 while the other gets a 19, the one with the lowest roll takes damage or if the highest is the defender they can deflect or Perry with a counter attack there by damaging the attacker.
If you both somehow end up roll 1's, make it as comical as you can. Such as you both drop your weapons somehow or loses control of magic or tech. Have it do something random to yourself and, or the area around you. There is nothing more funny then a thumbal. 
 If you both get a 20 your weapons or shields brake and you call it a draw roll with neither of you taking damage.
That said if all role-players you are role-playing with agree to different dice settings, Then by all means use those dice settings your group has agreed to use for that role play.

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9: Random attacking of other Role players.

It is generally considered rude to just up and attack someone out of the blue. If you and your target are not part of some planned combat event, get out of character consent from the player before you attack their character. (This can be done in character if you make your meaning clear enough and you can't contact the other players out of character). If there is no good way to get this permission, at least give them plenty of in character warning that you might attack, and if they seem to approve in character, then go ahead. If they don't seem willing to fight, or you can't tell one way or another, it would be best not to attack them to avoid out of character troubles.

 

10: Story telling and NPC'ing.

Never include someone else's character in a written story that didn't actually happen exactly as you wrote it without letting that character's player proffered and approve the story before you post it. This also includes using other peoples characters with out their consent. There are two ways outside of the written story this may happen. Examples:

1.  lets say you do an RP with another role-player and talk about someones character but you also semi NPC them in a way that is not even in chat or in character to the persons character you are NPC'ing or worse the character is not yet a fully active character or born yet (story and idea dependent.) in a way that they themselves have not yet made public knowledge, You may be disrupting their story or portraying their Character in a way they do not want or like. So always make sure to ask first.

2. NPC'ing someone else's Character. NEVER EVER DO THIS, unless they ask you to, or you have asked to do so and gained consent. Again you must respect that it is someone else's character and may not act in a way or do things that you role play them as doing, Or again you may give out information the Character's owner does not yet want out in the public.

 

11: RP Death and Fights.

Invariably there will be RP fights and there will be a loser of a fight and a winner of a fight, there are some who will aim to kill other peoples characters, but you cannot kill a person's character without clearing it with them out of character first. Since no one likes building characters over and over, there's always some way to get raised from the dead.
Remember just because you killed someone's character and chopped up their body in role play does not give you the right to complain if someone is returned from the dead.
The reason  for this is very simple. It gets old and very annoying if people have had to waste their character development by killing off their character due solely because you want to be the winner.
 

• If the combat was a large battle, mention casualties but don't expect every Character to have names and if a player Character is involved do not assume they will stay dead, we all have ways and means of keeping our Characters alive. So just assume the two sides had several no-name extras along for the fight that can provide convenient dead bodies. Now If it was a duel, one on one or two on two then have it be to first blood or to loss of consciousness. Unless of course a character's true death was agreed upon out of character ahead of time by the character's player, but these situations tend to be very rare.

12: Disrupting role-plays. 

There has been a long history of role-play Disruption as long as there has been role-play, This is one of the single most annoying and frustrating things. This can happen in a few ways. so here' is a list to try and make this easy to digest.
 

1. Not reading a whole post correctly or just scan reading a post.
   Please be sure to read a whole post and reply accordingly to a post, If you are unsure of something ask the other person to explain things in more detail, but do not just scan read and ignore half or more of a role play and then reply with a nonsensical reply, just because you are feeling to lazy to read everything or just don't like what they put. 
   Example: 
   (RP'er1) *She goes into the shop*
   (RP'er2) *Sees RPer1 walking the street and hugs her*
   In this example Rp'er2 ignored everything RP'er1 said. This behaviour is extremely rude and highly disruptive to role play. (See Rule 2)
    

2. Ignoring someone else who is part of the RP. (Unless you have a Good reason to be ignoring someone) you should Try to interact with everyone involved not just one person. (See Rule 7 bullet point)
    

3.  Going out of your way to disrupt an RP with needless OOC, or silliness with pure aim to disrupt things. (see rule 5)
    

4.  Needlessly dragging out RPs by keeping people locked in locations for what should be a tiny RP. this is most often down to role players not watching time. Try to keep tabs on it and if you know you may have to leave soon, do not start anything, and if you are in something try to round it up and tie it off so that all role players are free.
    

5. Knowing you are part of a bigger role play or a characters development of someone else's character but you don't like how its going.  So you try to stop them from doing what you don't like, you try to control how they will act with their character by trying to force them to RP how you want. (Just don't do it, its RUDE it's their Character they asked you to be involved in that story, let it play out and see where it goes, that's what makes RP interesting.)
   5a: Not getting your way you start to refuse to log in as the character involved, pretend to be off line, or deliberately log off mid RP, anything to delay, avoid or just totally disrupt the RP to the point the other role players quit the RP. AGAIN it is just RUDE to do this. Sure life happens no one can be on all the time, but try to be considerate to the other role players it is not just ALL about you. (See rule 6)
    

6. Deliberate Meta-gaming, power gaming and god moding. (see rules 3 and 8)
    

7.  Taking longer and longer to post and-or posting nonsensical replies of 2 or 3 words or splitting up posts so you do multiple small posts to disrupt the flow of RP. This is extremely rude and very disruptive. (see rules 7, 10. and revisit 12.1) 
    

8. RP Hijacking. This is where someone joins an RP, and starts to forcefully take over from the person who is Leading/DM'ing the RP to try and pull another RP'er out of it or making it go the way they want it to. it is RUDE so DO NOT do it! (See rules 4, 6 and revisit 12.1, 12.3 and 12.5) 

 

13: Let people know you need to leave

Be Right Back's, (BRB), Got To Go's, (GTG) and Be Back Later's, (BBL), This one should really not have to be said. Yet some people seem to forget It is rude and inconsiderate, to leave someone waiting for your posts for ages. one person ups an leaves saying nothing and the person they were role-playing with gets left there being bored and fed up and not knowing why.  If you are going to leave, which we all have to do at some point. It is both considerate and polite to let the people you are role-playing with know you have to go. 
There is nothing more irritating then role-playing with someone and then they just go poof without saying anything. while you end up stuck sitting there for ages left hanging around and being very bored not knowing why.
Disconnection happens and can not be helped but, if you are leaving it really does not take long to type in 'BRB' 'BBL' and "GTG' and hit post. Then do what ever it is you need to do. It takes less then a second to type and hit post on these shorthand things.  So remember don't leave people there wondering if you've been disconnected or being slow to post. Let them know that you need to go so you are not wasting their time waiting around for you thinking you might come back online.
Also if at all possible Try to give an Exit post, like for example you know you have to go to work as say 7:30pm  and it's now 7pm. If it is avoidable try to wrap things up so it doesn't leave people's characters stuck mid RP and thus unplayable.