[Slydria]

I feel lately we've been getting many new or fairly new players who have a poor understanding on the roleplaying standards we have here and often divulge in making the ridiculous happen.

Just to give you a taste of what I've had to deal with in the past couple of days, first, I had a situation in which a Hyattr laid an egg, gave birth to a what was basically a teenager in appearance and it was all done without a male involved in the birth.

Then during sorting that out, I had to deal with an aggressive individual who was rather upset that their character (a female Doriad) could not impregnate other females. They tried to argue they could do such because 'magic' exists and because supposedly another character used 'breast enlargement pills'. And after being told that they cannot several times, they threw a tantrum and made their exit.

Then today, I've had someone with this troubling description that sounds more like the beginning of a terrible fanfiction.


While it seems painfully obvious that this is poor roleplay, it mustn't be so obvious to them.

Unfortunately, it can be rather difficult to explain to them why this is. "That's not how things work here, please change it" is usually met with resistance. "But someone else was doing X, why can't I do Y?" or "Geez, ruin my fun why don't you?"

I think something that could help this issue is a much more comprehensive roleplaying guide because the one we have now is rather bare: http://sl2.wikia.com/wiki/Roleplay_Guide

Anyway, I felt I just needed to vent about this topic because it's getting on my nerves and this kind of thing just leads to a cycle of poor roleplayers encouraging poor roleplay leading to more poor roleplayers while the better roleplayers get fed up and distance themselves or quit altogether.

[Prism]

Agreed. People like this just show that they have no respect for the world lore, and want to do whatever they want. It's one thing to be creative and another thing to kill other player's immersion. At least what little of it remains.
Some of these players might be young or new to RP, but tough love is sometimes in order. Constructive criticism helps us improve as character creators. At the very least we can't let them give the admins crap for trying to keep the world from devolving into absolute nonsense.

[Ranylyn]

100% agreed. While I may not always agree with the GMs on every issue (I mean, I've been warned for "antagonizing" people when I was being harrassed simply for suggesting someone make an effort to type properly; and I don't mean I was singling out typos, but I mean they were saying things like ASL, IKR, and LOL icly - but I also understand that the GM in question was not present when this started and gets enough backtalk that they would naturally not want my explanation) the fact remains that they're just doing their jobs and the game would be worse if we had no enforcers, so I'm 100% in favor of encouraging a more proper understanding of the lore and rules rather than needing to have the GMs come in and get argued with.

I get that not everyone will be skilled at roleplay. But then you have instances like Slydria mentioned, of examples that could be avoided if people just understand the lore. For example, since almost all races (outside of Mechanations and Doriads, and very maybe possibly elves and redtails, I'm unsure as to their full backstory) used to be human generations ago and were changed either by a patron diety or some form of corruptive influence (I'm counting Wyverntouched here, as it's the only known example of a "mixed race&quot we can safely assume that they all follow basic biology similar to humans, such as being warm blooded, giving live birth, not engaging in photosynthesis, et cetera. Yet, I also remember many, MANY examples of people simply not understanding the lore. Such as...

- A 300+ year old phenix who became a child again every time they died. Because obvious inspiration from mythological Phoenix.
- A Human/Elf couple giving birth to a Redtail because the human was part Redtail from like 10 generations ago.
- Vampires hissing and steaming and running indoors when the sun comes up.
- Kaelensia with hereditary heterochromia as an IC trait. (I can undersand lacking the talent to recolor an otherwise good picture, but...)
- A dullahan transferring their soul into a mechanation. I don't even.
- Warriors with no magical talent becoming liches to have an eternity to master their swordsmanship, the ritual being magical ignored, just to have an OOC excuse to make a melee lich just to be a special little snowflake.
- Liches who were forced to perform the ritual by another, because giving someone else the power to destroy you in revenge is smart!
- Shaitans parading themselves around Cellsvich, loudly discussing their condition with anyone who will listen, despite the Empire's tendency to cut it's problems in half and insisting Shaitans don't exist. This is the fantasy Equivalent of taking history books that contradict the Chinese governments' statements on the issues to China and distributing them publicly. You would not last long. These Shaitans have endured for IC years.
- People that are 9+ feet tall. They're supposed to just be humans with modified features. Humans don't get that tall. Even the very VERY few examples of 8+ feet people have horrendous health problems from being so tall.
- Someone seriously tried to prove their strength once by ICly suplexing the entire arena. Yes, the stone walls. They succeeded. PHYSICS SAY NO! What's next, slashing a skyscraper in half with a sword? Just because it happened in the FF7 movie isn't an open invitation to try it, since it's easily more bullshit than suplexing an arena.
- An elf ICly visited their family in Mersales twice a year. If I need to explain why this is wrong, please spend 24 hours poring over the Elf page on the Wiki, with an additional 72 hours if this was not enough time to understand the problem. If this extra 72 hours was not long enough, please consider learning the English Language before joining a mainly English community as you clearly don't understand simple words.
- There was a Shaitan whose blood would cool to -100c and heat to 200c (100c colder than the freezing point of water, and 100c hotter than the boiling point of water) at Purple/Red Iahsus respectively. Um, yeah, while the lore doesn't actually explicitly state this doesn't happen, I think being that cold would do a little more than make one feel slightly relaxed, and I think being that hot would do a little more than make one feel irate. Just seems needlessly "look how hardcore I am."
- etc etc.


We really do need to encourage more people to actually read the lore and rules. It's not a high wall to surmount (I mean, you can literally just read up on the one race you want to play, have a logical thought proccess when it comes to things like proportions and capabilities, and learn the rest ICly as time goes on) and yeah.


If people don't feel that I'm being too harsh (or lenient, considerng) I'm more than willing to draft a new Roleplay Guide for Dev, Sly, and Chaos to look over and adjust as needed, to save them the work of making a new one from scratch, themselves. Just let me know if this would be appreciated.

[Clockworkers Doll]

Post before reading Ranylyn's: I think a lot of the issue is players who want to try to do something, but don't bother to fact check before doing it, and then complain when someone points it out. (Hyatt being dead is a recent example I can remember.)

I can totally deal with newbie RPers, since as long as you don't instantly go "BAH UR A SHIT REEEEEEEEEE" they're usually open to help. Just teach them the ropes and tell them if they break something, and maybe help with come up with an alternative. But then you sadly also have the people that Sly had to deal with, who think this is some kinda CoC simulator. [strike]I can kind of see why they want to cut the males out of the birthgiving process... But that person's reason was just because they're a lesbian, and not trying to figure out a way Sigrogana can be repopulated when 90% of the population is a lesbian.[/strike] But if they're gonna be a shitter, just leave 'em to rot out or take it to Sly/Chaos. That's the general way to try and deal with Newbie RPers.

But then I think some of the issue falls on people who aren't-so-new to RP, but still constantly disregard lore. The multiple Wingless Hyattr/Corbie/Phenex issues, 'I'm 15 but I can fight live I've trained for 20 years', not reading the lore blurb near character creation (non-doriatic Doriads, Vampires not getting weaker without blood, as two examples), etc. Outside of lore, there's creating drama for no reason, starting shit for OOC reasons, people making like 4 characters that all have the same personality, characters with the same edgy/unoriginal backstory (see Slydria's profile screenshot)... These are just the things I've noticed going on ICly, and it's probably the biggest gripe I can have for the RP side of SL2.

TL;DR: I could start a collection of poor RPers if I really wanted too, and it'd probably get decently big within a day.

After reading Ranylyn's: Ffffffffucking this. All of this. 10/10.

- People that are 9+ feet tall. They're supposed to just be humans with modified features. Humans don't get that tall. Even the very VERY few examples of 8+ feet people have horrendous health problems from being so tall.

Especially this. Might I add about people that are also like, 3'1" at age 30? Being a midget isn't exactly common. Women are also generally not that tall, so I doubt you would find one that was 6'5"-7" feet tall. But yet, we got people who think that like, being a Hyattr makes you a goddamn giant.

[catabur]

I decided to draft a guide up.

Roleplaying in the SL2 World

The Basics

Before you can begin your mystical adventure into the world of Sigrogana, first you must decide on a few things about your character.

Race -
Your race can sometimes decide on part of your character’s backstory. Dullahans and Vampires are two examples. Other races have either a small part on the character, such as Kaelensian tending to dislike all types of magic, to barely having any fact like the Imperalist-human.

Backstory -
It’s important to know where your character came from. The city they’re born in, people they used to hang around, and events they’ve faced beforehand could have a big impact on personalities and looks. No, you can’t come from another dimension or time-period. And things like “all my family was killed by my oneechan” are cliched. Unless you’re a good writer and know you can pull something like that off, stay away from it.

Appearance -
What would they look like? Have they trained with the Beldam knights and wear heavy armor with short hair? Or maybe they’re from some unimportant village where all the members dress is strange robes and wear silly hats? The most important part is keeping this realistic in the SL2 world. A 8’ wingless Hyattr is overdone and lacks most of the shock/interesting factor of it.

Name -
Do you want a basic name that easily fits in with the town folk, a name that fits your character’s story, or just something eye-catching? “Jack Kilburne” may be cool-sounding name for a swashbuckling rogue, but maybe your character is of nobleblood. Maybe you want “Christopher Vikktoron the 3rd”. Remember that certain places in Sigrogana are tied to real languages, Oniga being the biggest example. An Onigan named “John McAmerican” would be really weird. Don’t forget the actual naming rules, too.


The order these basics appeared is how I usually make a character. Sometimes they can be switched around (like if you have an idea for a coat-wearing vagabond, so you work something off that), but try to make sure they actually makes sense.

Important Tidbits to Remember

Maybe you have your character ready, one Jack Kilburne, a rogue from Cellsvich who not only cuts bags of murai off the waists of snooty nobles, but also steals the hearts of those he meets. With sleight-of-hands tricks, he even fooled a Felidae mage into believing he ruled all spells, but just never bothered with ‘em!

Well, hold it right there, partner, I think there’s a few things you have to know about everything else, before jumping into the world of Sigrogana. Stereotypes or the social norm, whatever you want to call the.

Racial Sensitivity

Kaelensia: Do you know who the first Hexers were? They were Grimalkins, who were hated by the other Kaelensians due to their hair color. While this was quite some time ago (“During the dawn of civilization on Egwyn” being a direct quote from Neus), but they still have some disliking towards mages as they see them as a “violent profession”.

Phenex actually left Egwyn for the mountains in Kysei, so whether or not it applies to them is unknown. Phenex worship Helondis, but after Heaven’s Contention, Helondis became a big, red egg who is kept somewhere in Kysei’s mountains.

Some people are fearful of the golden eyes the Kaelensian have.

Serpentkind: Wyverntouched are seen as good omens, but they’re also the spawn of a human and wyvern in human form. Glykin are thought of to be the “body snatchers” that are common in scary stories and that their god Glycon is actually made up, but this could simply be from vampires spreading slander about them.

Hyattrs aren’t too trusted either, as their god was known for burning entire settlements for not worshiping him; it's not too hard to imagine a Hyattr doing the same on a smaller scale. A small percent of Hyattrs have tails.


Mechanation: They were perfected in the year 290, which means mechanations can’t be too old. They either show little to none emotions or have a unique personality of their own, the reason on ‘why’ is something people have been trying to answer. Mechanations with thoughts and personalities of its own could be referred to as “Awakened”.

Owning a mechanation like one would a person isn’t seen as “slavery” and is legal.


Humans: Imperialist and Tannites are pretty similar, except Tannis is the home to some of the best archers in all of Sigrogana, a fact primarily known through the Sigro-Oniga war. Onigans distrust magic due to magic being used to murder one of their Tennou and have a ban on it, aside from the Mage’s Guild portal usage, within its walls.

Chaturanga is a city that accepts all of those who can prove themselves, so Chatarns, like Imperalist, aren’t that inclined to be racist. Karaten is the center of magical ability and learning, but some mages happen to think that they’re better than everyone else.

Lispoolians might harbor more distaste for dark arts and vampires than the average human.


Ancients: Elves come from Mersales, where conflict is more sparse than Egwyn, but it’s also a land where no diseases grow. Once an elf travels from Mersales, there is no way of getting back there.

Vampires. There are plenty rumors surrounding vampires, most of which are just like you’d expect in the real world. They prefer being passive in their plans, having other races doing their work for them like some sort of evil mastermind. There are special groups and items made just for hunting vampires. A vampire drinking the blood of another vampire is considered taboo. Drinking Glykin blood hurts them.
Vampires are weakened, if they die, and must feed. If a weakened vampire is killed and hasn’t fed on someone, they will crumble to ash.

Liches are commonly seen as knowledge-hungry maniacs who would resort to a ritual where a single miscalculation could spell your death. Karaten does not accept them into their facilities, but they’re seen in a slightly better light than vampires at least.

Zerans are (commonly) proud of their origin, their horns, and who they are. They’ll boast about how it was their god who won the war between gods, which is an attitude that can be seen as arrogant to some. Yet, deeming them as “useless” and “lazy” is a mistake, as they’ll gladly help those around the either through honor or pity.


Other: Redtails are sometimes mistake for Kaelensian, due to their animal features, but they lack the golden eyes. The story they tell, and they do love telling it, hints that they originate from the the land of Gold. The saying “don’t gamble with a fox” originates from their strange abundance of luck in just about anything.

Doriad are tree-people. It’s said that once a large amount of focus is within an area with enough vegetarian, there’s a chance these tree spirits will come out of it. It’s easy to mistake one for an elf, due to both of them having pointy ears.

Dullahans are souls trapped in a full suit of armor. Mallus is the most common home for a lot of Dullahans, but that’s not to say that anywhere else can’t have them. Sane dullahans are very rare, but meeting an insane dullahan guarantees a tough fight on your hands. They don’t feel pain, they will keep following you, and they will try to kill you. While slow at first, they can quickly become fast to catch up with their prey.


Corrupted: Shaitans and Papilions are both known for being insane (yet not mindless like Dullahans). The Empire states Shaitans do not exist due to the violent nature they have, a fact that’s probably not only costed some adventurers and citizens’ lives, but also shaitans. It is possible to treat a shaitan’s mind through mercalan healing magic and medicine, but they’re also incredibly rare due to them coming from the Dark Zones.

Papilions are humans who manage to survive the Deep Woods, an area by Karaten that the average citizen is kept off-limits from. Their affinity is with wind, the element of illusions. It’s not too hard to imagine a race that lives in illusions to have a faltering psyche.

When your parents tell you to stay inside during a Black Eclipse, it’s because there’s a chance that you’ll become an Umbral. They all have a mark somewhere on their face, along with pale skin and slightly pointy ears. During night, they fade into the darkness somewhat.

Oracles can see the future, yet their eyesight is pretty bad. It’s unknown how or why Oracles exist, but people seek them for their ability and some even kidnap them.

That’s all the current races and information that’s some-what public, but you should get the jest about now. Of course, there are always exceptions to everything, but when isn’t there when talking about the norm? I’ll skip over some facts about lands for now.

Roleplaying!

That’s one of the reasons you came to SL2! Roleplaying is a simple action, but there’s a few ways to improve it not just for you, but also for the people around you.

Tip 1. Follow the basics of typing/writing: close your sentences with a period, exclamation mark, or question mark and always capitalize the beginning letter of your sentence.

Ex: Girly McCat says, “lets go to the mall” vs. Girly McCat says, “Lets go to the mall!”

It looks better and adds a bit of personality.
Of course, the proper way would’ve been, ‘Girly McCat says, “Let’s go to the mall!”’.

Tip 2. Stay in character! If you need say something OOCly, the most common method is putting it in brackets-- (( Like this! ))

Tip 3. There’s 3 typing prompts: say, whisper, and emote. Use them all to your full advantage.

Tip 4. Keep IC in IC, OOC in OOC. If you think someone is OOCly attacking you by IC methods, you should probably alert an admin instead of dragging the rest of the server into it by talking about it on OOC.

Writing a Description

“How do I write???????????????” you ask your bestest friend on Skype, but they give you a defeated shrug! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Generally speaking, no one needs to see your entire life story (something you can keep to yourself on a text document) and read through it to find out you wear a golden necklace on your neck. If you have something in your backstory that other people would know, feel free to place it under a spoiler. There’s a difference between:

“Being born in the city of Valara, Johnny McEdgyson had parents that hated him and locked him in the fridge every time he messed up his daily prayers to village’s own thought-up god of death, Ask’Rahvamanose-Keeldenstienari. After one night of being locked in the fridge for TOO long, he found out his whole village was murdered by ELVES and they ate his favorite snack, grilled pie. Deicing that ENOUGH was ENOUGH, he murdered all the elves and made a grave yard for his, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

As opposed to a line of text hidden under a spoiler that says:

“If you heard his name, you might recognize it being listed along with the rest of Valara’s survivors in some newspaper.”

It leaves more for you describe your character’s appearance and takes up less space, making it easier on the eyes. Describing your character’s hair, clothing, face, and any defining features is the most important part. There’s also “aura”, the type of matter they carry themselves, and if they smell of anything particular.

FAQ

Q. I can’t think of anything to write!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Help!!!!!!/How do I RP?????
Have no fear, just throw something simple together in the terms of appearance and background in terms of this fantasy-anime game. (“A simple adventurer dressed in leather armor with, black messy hair. A sword is sheathed on her waist.”).

Then just act like yourself! Give them your fears, likes, and opinions on things, but make sure you don’t get offended, because of what another character ICly did to them or thinks of them.

Q. What’s a Void??? Who is a Dark Zone??
The Void is purple or blue, depending on who you ask, realm that allows teleporting to exist and is possibly where the gods came from. Think of Dark Zones as being outside the map of a video game-- one that kills 99.8% percent of those who enter and have abominations on the other side.

Q. What about--
The wiki is your friend: http://sl2.wikia.com/wiki/Sigrogana_Legend_2_Wiki

Q. I don’t know anything about this HTML and its letters everywhere!
Luckily, someone wrote an easy-to-use guide: http://neus-projects.net/viewtopic.php?f...5&p=54

[Slydria]

http://sl2.wikia.com/wiki/Roleplay_Guide

Alright, I finally got around to doing something for this. So take a look, feel free to make suggestions if you think something's missing or if I should change something I've written.

[Mivereous]

Could probably link Lore Questions subforum at the spot it's mentioned, and maybe mention the skills thing in the same manner you have done classes ("Wow a Sear, you must be an Evoker!&quot.

Otherwise perfectly understandable and should be put in that empty "Guides" section in the title screen, since they've been coming so soon for two years now.

[Slydria]

Noted, I've added that link and a little more to the 'Differentiating Gameplay from Roleplay' section about that.

[Sarinpa1]

Reading Cataburs notes about various races and with the flood of...comedy liches? I have no idea what to call them, it might be worth it to add a reminder what exactly are the prerequisites to actualy become a lich. To my understanding, being a very good and knowledgable mage is number one requirement..and the reason why they do it is to archieve immortality, greater power, at the cost of their own body, reputation in many circles and let us not forget the insane risk that comes with it. Far too many seem to outright ignore that with their goofy friendly liches that don't seem to be able to do basic math.

Something I've seen less, but still happened, was people outright ignoring what it means to be a Dullahan.
And let's not forget our resident loli vamps that'll munch on someone in the middle of Cellsvich.
So yeah, I think it would be good to add atleast some guidelines regarding the special races. (And perhaps make a remark about feral kalenesia too in the cliche part.)