Roleplaying Etiquette

Guidelines To Roleplaying Well

This section does not refer to hard rules but how one should, generally speaking, approach roleplaying with others to maximize the fun of everyone involved and avoid OOC problems.

Roleplaying is a collaboration, not a contest.

• The ultimate goal of roleplaying should be to have fun, not to 'win'. Therefore, your goal when you engage in it, especially conflict-based roleplaying, should first and foremost be to detach your ego from the scene and simply play it out. 'Winning' conflict doesn't make you a good roleplayer, nor does 'losing' make you a bad one.
• This does not mean you must resign yourself to defeat, or not try to win; just that you will have a better experience if you aren't so invested in the outcome, because sometimes things will not necessarily go the way you want them to.

Interactivity is key to good roleplay.

• You should not dictate every detail of a scene when interacting with someone else. Give them a chance to play as their character.
  • For example, this is poor roleplay 'Ren Brown throws a mighty punch into Yut Put's gut, making him vomit.' Why? Because we are not only dictating that our punch hits without giving Yut Put any sort of chance to respond, we are also saying that he's hit so hard it makes him puke. Other characters should not be treated as toys, but as participants.
  • To improve on the above, consider this instead; 'Ren Brown rears back his arm and throws his fist forward towards Yut Put's stomach mercilessly.' Here, we have passed the baton to Yut Put, giving them some choice in how they respond. Will Yut Put try to get out of the way? Will they be too slow to react and take the punch anyway? Will they see it coming and take it to show how manly they are? It is much more enjoyable not to know.
• You do not have to make every facet of a scene interactable, of course. If you're having a conversation with someone over tea, you don't have to meekly emote things like 'Ren Brown puts the cup to their lips and attempts to drink, then lowers the cup back to their saucer as if to set it down.'. If your roleplay partner wants to smack the tea into your face, you can simply react afterwards. Simply use your best judgment and approach your roleplay with good intentions and you shouldn't run into any problems.

Keep IC and OOC separate.

• You shouldn't let your character's interactions with another player's character influence your perception of that player OOC. For example, if a character is mean to yours IC, you shouldn't assume that the player of that character is also mean.
• Conversely, you shouldn't let your OOC perception of a player influence your character's interactions with their character. For example, if you dislike Player B, having your character treat theirs poorly, ONLY because you know it's Player B controlling them, is not something you should do (unless you have IC reasons, of course).
• Being friendly in OOC regardless of IC interactions has a 100% success rate of leading to fun RP.
• Bringing IC dislike/conflict into OOC (or vice versa) has a 100% chance to foul the enjoyment of everyone involved.