Guide to RP

Welcome to the RP zones! A land of beauty, drama, and character development await you! What you will find here is a few tips and even some rules that will help better your RP experience and help you and your character to grow as a player, writer, and roleplayer! Read on, for more information:

For a list of places to RP, check out Role-playing Zones

RP Channels

We’ll be focusing on three very important channels: town-ooc, town-lore, and town-dice.

#town-lore

This channel provides a brief overview of the town and setting for the server. Honestly, this should be your first stop upon joining the server and going to the RP-zone to hop into the fun. You should read up on the town and location you are at to get a better understanding of where you are. 

#town-ooc

OOC stands for “out of character.” It means talking to other players as a player and not as a character. All OOC talk goes into channels like these. 

One or two lines of ooc in the rp zones may be fine; i.e. (Hey I didn’t say that!) (Sorry, fixed!) But they should be deleted right after acknowledgement to keep the rp zones clean and immersive.

#town-dice

This is where all rolls that relate to the rp go. All of them. It is frowned upon to do a roll in any other channel and they are all put here to keep the rp zones clean, neat, and not to break immersion. Please make sure to go here for any saves, checks, spells, etc.

Roleplay Etiquette

Now that you’re familiar with the use of the most important channels, let’s get to roleplaying itself! We’ll be be focusing on opening a scene, making a post, sentences, how to roleplay, and good rules of etiquette! 

The first thing is to always strive to use proper sentences and grammar. Speech grammar is a different thing, because people talk in different ways and you may wish to convey that through the grammar, but action grammar is different. Please make use of proper sentences and punctuation.

Starting a scene

When you start or open a scene in one of the rp channels, you will need to use the following format when you first enter a scene. 

• **Enter CharacterName**: For the first time your character joins a scene
• **Begin Private Scene**: If you are the person who begins a scene you may mark it as **Private**. This means that only yourself and those you nominate may join the scene. For example a private scene may include a group of thieves who are planning a heist.
• **Begin Public Scene**: Scenes that are marked Public are open to all and anyone can join. However, it is usually still courteous to ask before jumping in.
• **Begin Scene Public but Ask**: Scenes that are titled Public but Ask require players to ask the players that are a part of the scene before hoping in. Some players do this as a means of adjusting to the newcomer, especially when something important to the character(s) is going on. For example, if there is a loose meeting between druids, someone may have in mind several players who they would like to meet with but anyone who has an affinity to nature may ask to join.
  

Scenes can be reserved if there are other scenes open. However, before you reserve a scene, please be courteous and make sure there are many other scenes open. We don’t want everyone to be closed out of the rp-zones just because all scenes are closed!

This server has also been rated PG-13. Parental discretion is advised for under 13. This is VERY important! This means to not fill your post with swears, no overt nudity, no sexual themes, and no hardcore violence.

Remember to always be considerate of fellow roleplayers! They’re out here to have fun and many are just as excited to roleplay as you are!

Roleplay Formatting

Now that you’re familiar with the use of the channels, let’s get to roleplaying itself! We will be focusing on making a post, sentences, how to roleplay, and good rules of etiquette! 

The first thing is to always strive to use proper sentences and grammar. Speech grammar is a different thing, because people talk in different ways and you may wish to convey that through the grammar, but action grammar is different. Please make use of proper sentences and punctuation.

When writing for roleplaying always use the following rules:

• Descriptive actions go in italics, using asterisks e.g. *Sarah entered the tavern.*
• Speech goes in quotation marks, with no asterisks e.g. “Wow, that is strong!” 

• Meta information such as use of spells, attacks, features, saving throws, checks etc. go in bold text, usually at the end of a post e.g. **Cast Fireball**

*She walked over to the bar. She picked up her drink and downed it.* “Whew! That is strong!”

That is an example of a good rp post. The sentences are well structured but you can always make them a little more variable.

*Wait. Wait. What? What happened here? He barely could believe what he just heard!* “What!? You what!?”

Again, another good example of an rp post. As shown here, you can include some insight into the character’s inner thoughts in italics.

"I really am a noblewoman, here look at my documentation!" 
*Sarah tries her best to convinces the guard that she is an official noblewoman by showing a crudely drawn document, but her words are falling upon deaf ears*
**Persuasion 2**
*Sarah was getting tired of arguing with the guard so she would wave her finger in a circle*
"You will let me through" 
**Sarah casts Suggestion**

This is a good example of displaying meta information in an RP post. The first helps the DM keep track of what has been rolled so it can be referred back to later on, which is helpful with the slower pace of PbP. The second helps differentiate between when a player is simply describing an action or specifically using an ability. Here, Sarah casts Suggestion but it would be difficult to understand that if it were not bolded.

Another thing to consider: please refrain from using “text speak” “idk. Brb. lol” for in-character posts. Roleplaying is meant to be writing a story and to immerse yourself as your character and get to learn about them and to have fun seeing them interacting with others! You will make friends, enemies, rivals, and maybe even fall in love!

It is considered good etiquette to write in passive verbs. This allows for flexibility with responses and implies consent when partaking in an action with another player. It is considered rude to control another person’s player or try to make them react when you don’t play that character.

Good example:

*Joe would offer Jake him a glass.*
*Jake would take the glass.* “Thanks, friend!”

Bad example:

*Joe would offer Jake the glass. Jake thinks on how great a friend Joe is and takes the glass.*

See? Jake did not get a chance to say whether or not he wanted the glass and lost control of his own character. No one likes that.

On that note: Any saves or skill checks done on another player can be ignored by that player. Even if you got a Crit on a Persuasion, that PC(Player Character) bard you’re trying to pick up still has a choice not to go with you. That sleight-of-hand you made to steal from the Paladin can still be caught.

Also: do not take roleplays too seriously! You are your character, but not your character! If your character enters a relationship with another character, you are not dating the player. Your character is dating the character. If your character hates another character, you do not hate the player, your character hates that character, but you and the player can be friends and laugh at how your characters hate each other. We are writing a story!

Now, look at you! Reading all the way down to here and ready to roleplay! But hold on there, tiger, there’s still a few things that you need to keep in mind before you go out there and give ‘em hell!

Combat RP

In combat, the structure for descriptive text is more or less the same as above. However, in order to make combat easier for the DM to keep track of who’s doing what damage, it’s expected that you post all your combat actions and meta information such as your rolls, any saves the DM must make, the consequences of failure and so on in bold at the end of a post.Setting Scenes

*Sarah attacks John as he moves out of range, seeing her chance to go for an attack. On her next turn, she summons magical energy to surround her quarterstaff. Then she goes for an attack on John, following him out of the room.*

 

**Movement: A1 > A6**
**Reaction - Attack of Opportunity - 9TH 9 bludgeoning DMG (John)**
**Bonus action - Cast Shillelagh - timer 1/10**
**Action - Melee attack w/ Shillelagh - 22TH 10 magical bludgeoning DMG (John)**

As you can see, all of this contains information that the DM can use when coordinating fights - of course, the DMs can look these up manually, but it saves time and makes their lives easier. Note that some things aren’t always too important to keep track of, such as Shillelagh’s timer. However, others like the damage type are important so the DM can accurately factor in resistances and immunities.

When you finish your descriptive text, it’s encouraged for you to type !qstat straight after your post. This will make Avrae post a constant statline that updates when you use its commands to roll.

The example above shows, in order: health points, Armor Class, spell slots in increasing order and Wild Shape tokens. The example character, Sarah, is a druid, which is why she has these tokens. Other classes will have their own tokens e.g. Cleric divinity, Barbarian rage, etc.

Housekeeping

When entering an RP channel, there is no guarantee an NPC will be there to interact with you, but you can assume their actions within reason. For example, when you enter the tavern, you can assume you get a drink, eg: 

The Tarrasque orders a large drink, then sits, crushing his chair. He thanks the bartender when it arrives, tipping well, and takes a sip.

Try not to do anything you don't want to pay the price for as your PC, like murdering someone or going into the cash box. Eventually everything catches up to you in the town.

There is also no actual OOC gold cost for food or lodging while in the RP zone, it is all implied. So no need to subtract anything from your sheet when ordering or saying you stay in an inn.

End Scenes with **End Scene** if you and your RP partners are done, or **Exit Your Name** if you're the only one leaving.

We hope you enjoyed this little guide to roleplaying and keep checking in because more may be added in the future!

RP XP

On the Tuesday of every week (AEST), the participation of each player in the RP zones on the server is determined. Players are awarded ~200 XP per scene depending on if they have made a meaningful contribution to the scene. A couple word responses or parking your character in a scene with one or two posts will not be enough to count towards the weekly XP. The deadline for a scene or post to be counted towards the weekly RP XP is 11:59 pm on the previous Monday (AEST).