RP Guide

From IstaWiki

Ista Weyr's Roleplaying Guide

Players of SouCon or Ierne Island MUSH might be familiar with this document, as Kyrola's player wrote it during her tenure as Winter. It was also adapted from her time as Phoenix, head wizard of the Harry Potter game Order of the Phoenix.

This document is for the benefit of all players at Ista Weyr, regardless of RP experience levels. It will cover the utter bargain basement things that we all had to learn as soon as we showed up on a MUSH and will progress to tougher topics such as consent. All players at Ista are welcome to contribute to this document to help each other learn. We were all newbies once, so giving something back to our newer players is always a good thing.

Contents 1 The RP Guide 1.1 IC Knowledge vs. OOC Knowledge 1.2 Basic Commands 1.3 Posing 1.3.1 Powerposing 1.4 Consent 1.5 Pointers

The RP Guide

IC Knowledge vs. OOC Knowledge

First, we're going to cover the difference between IC and OOC and go over a few points that may help you become aware of that difference. We're going to assume you are aware that IC = In Character and OOC = Out of Character.

The first thing a good roleplayer should do is begin thinking of their character as a completely separate entity. While you may have included some of your own personal qualities into your character, they aren't you, and they will have at least some different sorts of attitudes and reactions to things around them. For instance, you may love swimming, but your character might hate it and prefer riding runners.

While that may be a simple difference, having more and more of them will make it easier for you to separate your IC self from your OOC self, and this is a very important sort of detachment that all players should have.

If detachment is lost, IC unpleasantness could be mistaken for OOC unpleasantness. It wouldn't make much sense if everyone was always pleasant to each other ICly, so you should expect to run across people who are rude and even pretty nasty ICly. So, the first thing is to try and hang onto that detachment. Don't take negative IC actions as being OOC negative actions toward you, the player.

On the other hand, it is possible that someone does act in a manner you, the player, feel is more OOC-related than IC. In that case, you should talk to the Weyrleaders or other senior member of the Weyr. Whatever you do, don't take that OOC feeling and translate it back into IC.

One thing to remember at all times is that you, the player, may know more about other characters than your character does. This is something that you should be very careful about, especially as you read logs. This is something called 'misuse of OOC information ICly'. Things like the canonical history of Ista Weyr wouldn't be known to our characters, or the fact that famous queenrider Moreta of Fort Weyr rode Leri's Holth on her famous Ride. ICly, we would have been taught the deliberately-altered Ballad that taught she rode her own Orlith.

Basic Commands

From here out in this news entry, we're going to assume you've made yourself familiar the three primary commands used for RP, which are 'say', 'pose', and '@emit'. Most RP is done via the latter two. Say allows you simply to say something to the people around you. For example:

• • Gandalf says, "You shall not pass!!!"

Pose allows you to include actions in your RP, such as the following example:

• • Gandalf lifts Glamdring the Foe-Hammer in his hand and shouts, "You shall not pass!!!"

@emit allows you to put a word other than your name in front of the pose. However, make sure you put your name in the pose. For example:

• • Racing after the Fellowship, Gandalf lifts Glamdring the Foe-Hammer in his hand and shouts, "You shall not pass!!!"

Posing

Pose-length varies from player to player. Sometimes you may see something as brief as 'Legolas nods.' More often, however, you may see something that's at least 3 to 7 lines long, including what the other person says and does. On occasion, when certain characters are giving some sort of speech or rant, or there is a ton to react to, it may be far longer.

However, it is recommended that unless your character is having one of the huge long 'how in the world does he manage to breathe' speeches, or he's in a huge scene with a lot to react to, poses shouldn't be much longer than 7 lines, as too much stuff is considered spam. Basically, some people have trouble reading huge long blocks of uninterrupted text, so they'll skim over it and maybe miss bits of it.

Naturally, there are exceptions, generally when an Emitter is running multiple characters that need to have something said or done in a given pose; but for the most part, poses shouldn't be a novel.

When writing your pose, you should also try to address your character's current actions, so everything should be written in present tense, not past tense like you'd read in a book.

When considering your response to someone else's pose, think like an actor. The best kind of acting is when it's all about giving the other guy stuff to make them look good. So, make your pose not just a response to whatever the other person gave out, but give them something in return. Ask a question, offer information, perform some action they can react to. This is a perfect time to show the others in your RP session what your character is doing.

The best kind of RP is a give-and-take. If you give someone else stuff to react to, they're more likely to give you stuff back, and they're more likely to come back to RP some more with you.

Remember, RP is acting, it's not like reading a book. People cannot read your character's thoughts, so pose things they can see, or hear, or smell. Basically, go with the five senses.

Commentary (also known as meta-posing) is the catch-phrase for RP that includes a lot of stuff about a character's thoughts, feelings, background, or anything intangible that the other people in the RP session are unable to ICly react to. On rare occasions, commentary can be a good thing, especially if it's a one-on-one scene where one character is normally quiet. For the most part, however, and especially during scenes where there's more than two or three people in it, commentary is to be avoided. Stick to stuff that the others can ICly react to, and they'll be more likely to do the same for you. Do stuff, don't think stuff, and you'll come up with more interactive RP.

Powerposing

Powerposing is the term used to describe an action where a player's character touches, strikes, or otherwise imposes a specific result of an action upon another player's character, most often done without consent. An example of this would be the following:

• • Gandalf reaches out to Frodo and touches him gently on the shoulder.

or

• • Gandalf grabs his great sword Glamdring from its fall in midair. As he collides with the Balrog, he stabs and hacks away at the foul creature.

In both cases, Gandalf had succeeded in his action, not giving Frodo or the Balrog a chance to dodge the action. In roleplay, you must always give the other player a chance to dodge any action against their character, whether it's a friendly comforting touch on the shoulder or trying to kill them. The only time this doesn't have to be the case is if two roleplayers are OOCly friends enough where such casual powerposing is okay between them. Also, just because Player A and Player B have 'got it like that', that doesn't give you, as Player C, that same permission. If you want to include a powerpose, page the other person first and get their permission.

Now, if you as a player RPing with others witness what appears to be a powerpose between those other players, please leave it to the players in question to report it as a problem. You may be unaware of any paged permission allowing the apparent powerpose.

In the two examples above, a corrected pose, reflecting no powerposes, would look as follows:

• • Gandalf reaches out to Frodo and tries to touch him gently on the shoulder.

and

• • Gandalf grabs his great sword Glamdring from its fall in midair. As he nears the Balrog, he tries to stab and hack away at the foul creature.

Consent

PernMUSH does not have an official Consent policy. In MUSH terminology, 'consent' refers to a player consenting or agreeing to the IC consequences resulting from their IC actions. Since the MUSH doesn't have a policy to enforce in this regard, Ista Weyr chooses to enact the following in-Weyr policy regarding it. The ICA document outlines this information in more detail. We also do not recognize the concept of 'no consent', where a player could try to refuse reasonable IC consequences to his IC actions.

In basic terms, if your character ICly misbehaves, whether it's something as simple as skipping chores or as serious as committing murder, you as the player should be prepared to be caught at some point and punished with the appropriate response. While some hedging for a character escaping justice is well known ICly and OOCly, at some point, they are likely to be caught and dealt with with an appropriate response. We do not recognize the concept of 'no consent', where a player could try to refuse reasonable IC reactions to their IC actions. Otherwise, someone could come up, punch the Weyrleader, and when the Weyrleader tries to have that person incarcerated or otherwise punished, the player could call 'no consent' and waltz away without an appropriate punishment. That's not fair, so Ista Weyr doesn't play that game.

Pointers

There are always a few things to remember whilst RPing at Ista...

• Take your time. Unless it's a huge spammy scene (such as a Hatching or another equally large event), you'll have the time to think about what your character is going to do or say. You should prepare all the stuff your character is going to say and do in that one pose in answer to whatever's being directed at him or her.

• Pose orders can be a good thing, especially in those large spammy scenes. Just keep an eye out for the pose of the person who posed in front of you last time.

• Please remember that not everyone is a speed-demon typist. Some are unable to touch-type, either because they never learned, or they may have a physical disability, or they broke their arm last week and shouldn't be on a computer at all. Give everyone time to pose before tossing in another one of yours. If they're taking a bit of time, gently prod them through the mp/h command to make sure they're not just idle, but don't do that two seconds after you posed. :)

• For the most part, we have the time to read our poses before we hit enter, so it's always a good idea to spell-check yours before you send it through. The occasional typo is fine and dandy, but if your spelling frequently looks like it's been through a blender, it's possible that others won't RP with you. Some people don't read English as their first language, or have reading disabilities that make it more difficult to read non-English words, or they may be blind and are having a piece of software read the text to them. This is mostly a courtesy issue.

• This is the same reason why we prefer people do not type out their accents. Everyone should just say what their accent is.

• RP is an interactive venture. Don't just RP with your best friend. Go out and RP with everyone with whom it would be IC to RP with. Most people like to come out and RP with new folks, and the dynamics that new characters bring to a scene can be quite interesting to watch.

• Please keep your poses IC (In Character) at all times when in an IC room. The OOC Sleeping Room and associated 'beginning' rooms are considered OOC and are exempt from this. If you need to say something OOCly, please say it on a knot, via page, or if you're RP-coordinating, you can use the mp/h code to state your comment to the whole room. mp/h is not to be used for chattering. Please do not precede your OOC comment with OOC: or *, as some other MU*s allow. There is no ooc, or +osay, or +ooc, or +sooc command of that nature here.

• Emoticons are not IC and shouldn't be used in RP poses. If you'd like your character to wink, just say they're winking, for example.

• If you'd like to emphasize a word or phrase, most people will use /, -, _, or capitalize the word or phrase. I.e. /Nice/, -Nice-, _Nice_, or NICE. However, the internet convention of all-caps being a form of shouting is generally how someone will regard the last version.

• When typing, please use proper capitalization and punctuation, as if you were writing an essay or a book. Some people regard the inability to find the shift key as a sign of laziness and may not RP with you. English teachers everywhere will thank you greatly. Also, when it comes to spelling, don't forget the items mentioned in Whichword and Apostrophes.

• Wait for someone in the room to do a scene-set pose before posing your entry into that room. It may be on fire, or there may be an infestation of crawlies, or everyone's dancing, but you'll probably want your pose to be in reaction to what's going on there.

• Conversely, it's not a good idea to pose to someone entering the room you're in. They may be running with scissors, and for the most part, you probably wouldn't think this was normal behavior and greet the person as if they'd just come in and looked around. The best thing to do is wait for someone to do a scene-set, basically a brief summary of who is where in the room and what they're doing. An example of this would be:

• • 'Gandalf can be found seated next to King Theoden, his hand on the King's throne, and the King eyeballing it warily. Other members of the Fellowship stand around the Hall in various spots, apparently chatting with the King's loyal soldiers.

• Sometimes, you just can't stay online for whatever reason. Thus, you should find some IC excuse to leave the room and put your character away. It's really simple to find an IC excuse to leave. Everyone's got to answer that darned call of nature from time to time. Or they might need a bath. Or there's some work to be done. It doesn't have to be much, just a little something to explain where your character has gone.

• Once that quick pose is done, please do NOT type 'home' or disconnect in that room (unless that room is your 'home' ;). Try to get out of that room and into an unoccupied room to type 'home' without disrupting the rest of the RP around you.

In summary, RP is an interactive event, but like driving, there are rules of the road. Most of these are based on common sense and courtesy, and the admins of Ista Weyr request that you adhere to them to the best of your ability. However, we suggest you have fun while doing so. :)