Archived Threads 2: How to Roleplay like a Not-Noob
Archived Threads 2: How to Roleplay like a Not-Noob
Darkmico Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:16 pm
Darkmico\'s guide to Roleplaying like a not noob. (Or just a read for kicks)
Author
Message
Darkmico

Okay, I'm going to have to do this in sections.
I: Starting the game
II: Choosing a role. Wanderer, or Nation?
III: Choosing a race.
IV: Playing The Game
V: How to not get yourself booted
VI: How to get yourself not banned
A. Intro
Okay, so here's a guide to roleplaying, sorry if one has already been done. Lemme rephrase that. This is DARKMICO's guide to roleplaying.
I know you know what a roleplay is and all that silly technical stuff, so let's get to the core of the jib.
I: Starting the game.
Well, you've gotten into a roleplay. But you haven't got a clue what to do! Well you want to be both the first person to type seeall and rush into observers and type .first. Most people cannot achieve this, so they just focus on one.
Now it's time to claim a spot. This is rather important, you want to be close to other players, to be included into the roleplay, but not too close, or they'll end up attacking you in most cases. An official territory claim is marked by a ping on the minimap in that location.
I could talk about the super area in (usually) the top left or right corners of the map, where all your units will be created from unless you're a super smart dork (spawn 10 peasant spawn 10 footman span 01 paladin ftl) and where you can equip your heroes with equipment, but I'll skip that.
II: Choosing a role. Nation or Wanderer?
This is going to determine what you'll be doing during the roleplay. It can occasionally be changed, but it'd have to be a plot related change. Now I'm going to do these one at a time, so I dont get off track.
Nations. These are usually where most or all of the action will happen. Nations are pretty much just places where a player has built up a multitude of buildings and units to give the place a living feeling. Now there are three or so types of nations.
Good Nation: This nation is more likely to be the center of attention over other nations, because wanderers are more likely to flock to the nations where they won't be skewered. These tend to be Human or Elf, but it can really be any species, as long as they hold good intentions and act as a safe haven.
Neutral Nation: These nations are usually the smaller races, such as Goblin, Furbolg, Murloc. They can be just as plot central as Good Nations, and usually act as the 'good nation' when one isn't present. Though they tend to be more likely to be wiped out, because the races that make up these nations are likely to be unable to put up a good, but realistic sized defense against attackers.
Evil Nation: Stop me if you've heard this one before (it's funny since you can't stop me! ). You want to be really evil, but you don't want to wander, so you take up the castle area of the map and make a city out of evil units, like voidwalkers and doomguards and felhounds. That's great! As long as you want to be the center of plot in the sense that the good guys are going to swarm in and kill each and every one of you! Evil Nations are almost essential to the game, but also need to be destroyed. You can't have a plot without a conflict, you know.
Now, a nation doesn't have to be a grand city, but it sure does help draw attention to you. Personally, I end up making medium sized camps and towns, which get a manageable amount of attention, but end up getting wiped out, which is fun and fine.
Wanderers: So you're a bit tired of setting up all these big cities just to have them knocked down by the good (or bad) guys. So you just want to keep it simple and have one or two characters to manage, while still being plot important. That's completely fine. But here are some guidelines you have to follow!
1: It won't be your plot: So you want to make let's say, a noblewoman. Cool. Who is possessed by a demon....okay....and every nation has to band together to fight some great evil to save you.
No.
As a wanderer character, you will so very rarely be able to bend a nation to your plot, it isn't worth trying. Your role is to contribute to the plot, participate, maybe drive for breif moments, but your plot won't be your 100% original idea. You're just one person, you don't need 3 nations worth of attention.
We don't care how possessed you are, m'am, the dwarves from the north and the elves from the east have been bearing down on us about our gold and wood harvesting, you'll have to find some other nations to help you fight this demon.
2: You're one person, be a bit more creative: Your character's personality is really important for a wanderer. Nobody will want to roleplay with a wanderer who isn't interesting, or is too cliche (see Stormguy's post).
3:You're one person, you can't fight an army alone and win: I don't care how shiny your sword is and how high your level is, if you play a wanderer, you'll probably be a bit stronger than most units, but you aren't automatically an unkillable god who can take on legions alone and win. Deal with it.
III: Time to choose a race!
Well, you've decided what you want to do (Im making two parts to each section from now on). So we just have to tell you how to do it right!
Nations: The most succssful nations I see are ones that are of the odd races, such as trolls, ogres, quillboar. Sure they end up neutral, but they if you pull it off properly, itll be much more creative. Of course, any race can be a great nation I tend to go human quite often.
The base idea is around your goal. Do you want a lot of attention, and possibly be one of the driving forces of the roleplay? A great, human nation usually does the trick. They have a lot of a lot of units, since they can wiggle in elves to their mix. Human nations are almost always the 'good' nation.
If you want to be a bit smaller, human is still an option, but almost every other race opens up as well.
Remember, if you're an unintelligent neutral (furbolg) or evil (undead), zealous good wanderers may possibly attack you unprovoked.
Wanderers: Any race is acceptable, the true question is how you fare on the innocent scale. Too innocent and you'll probably end up being ignored (you'll infringe on your rule about not trying to direct the plot), but too cruel and nobody will RP with you, since no wanderer is really able to get away with being evil, since the evil nations will attack you, and the good / neutral wont want anything to do with you.
IV: Playing the Game (the one that will take me to my end):
This is the bulk of the gameplay in most cases, since this is where the stories take place and such. Now, the only thing I can truely put in here are good roleplaying habits.
First, it's important to try and give your characters decent names. Just because it's a fantasy charcter doesn't mean they have to be named things like "G'thrian" or "Merlin of Fantastic place to be living". It can be simple things like "Sam" or "Hunter". Personally, I put the title of each character before their name, but this is purely optional. I.e. "Scholar Michael" or "Warrior Dennis".
But you don't want to under do it, like having a mighty warrior named Bob, or a world-destroying demon named Mark. The mightier the character, the fancier the name.
Oh, and not all elves require an apostrophe in their name. (I'm looking at you, Drizzt Do'urden)
Second, (and this is a toughie) you need to be able to roleplay conflicts without controlling the other character. The best way to explain this is to do two examples, and say NO and YES.
Example 1.
Warrior Garret grabs Summoner David's staff and knocks him down.
NO
Example 2.
Warrior Garret grabs for Summoner David's staff and attempts to knock him down.
YES
These little weasel words allow for the other player to decide what works and what fails, to make battle more fair. Of course, a good roleplayer can play off of the first example, but it's not quite as easy for them.
Also, roleplayed combat is a bit harder to do without making some control errors, but when it comes down to things like chasing a player, or something, the fate is usually decided in .OOC
And third: Use emotes! It's not very hard, you can either use the - function or just type an action instead of speech with a character! Emotes give much more color to characters, and need to be used. Now don't overdo it and think "Hey, I can just use emotes to interact with people while playing as a dog or a furbolg!" because if you choose to play as a dog or furbolg, you're a very silly person and you should probably go back to LoaP.
V: How to not get booted: Usually this is simple. You'll want to follow red's rules. (That's important, red is always really irritable about such things).
Also, you'll have to be open minded about things. You are usually not the winner, so your character isn't any of the following
uncatchable
unkillable
unbetrayable
unescapable
unresisitable
or any other 'un' word that deals with your character being free to do what they want.
Now, the sure way to get booted is to do things without explanation, such as mass defensive units in the middle of the attacker's force from the spawner....or kill things, go to places, etc without giving plot direction as to why.
VI: How to not get yourself Banned: Don't swear out the host after being booted for being a retard.
Random stuffs:
I once had an awesome RP that started me off as a murloc city on an island, I was destroyed, but a tiny little melee unit of mine survived. I made it swim to the evil city and try to take refuge there (I was destroyed by the good city for making fun of their leader in game) and it turns out that one of the characters from the good city had deserted and was trying to gain entrance at the same time. They wouldn't let us in, so we disguised ourselves cartoon style to talk to their leader about being able to stay (Im a tiny murloc, mind you). In the end, we get to the throne room, but the 2nd good leader was looking for the deserter, so we booked it out of there really fast. During the whole time I was making cracks and being a smart ass frog, which the other person (an elf) tried to handle things. It was comical, it was epic, it was making me kick myself for not saving the replay.
Tl;dr, it's a roleplay, not a funeral. Your characters are allowed to do funny things, and be a bit over the 'omg I'm so serious right now' crowd.
Oh! And new rule. I hate seeing people who make huge supreme beings who can step on planets and are super evil and invincible as a wanderer. It breaks so many rules I want to spam elephant smilies.
         
See what your silly wanderer has done to this thread? It isn't hardly serious with all those elephant smilies sitting around. Guess it's time to hit send. If I forget anything really important, I'll edit it in or something.
Author
Message
Darkmico

Okay, I'm going to have to do this in sections.
I: Starting the game
II: Choosing a role. Wanderer, or Nation?
III: Choosing a race.
IV: Playing The Game
V: How to not get yourself booted
VI: How to get yourself not banned
A. Intro
Okay, so here's a guide to roleplaying, sorry if one has already been done. Lemme rephrase that. This is DARKMICO's guide to roleplaying.
I know you know what a roleplay is and all that silly technical stuff, so let's get to the core of the jib.
I: Starting the game.
Well, you've gotten into a roleplay. But you haven't got a clue what to do! Well you want to be both the first person to type seeall and rush into observers and type .first. Most people cannot achieve this, so they just focus on one.
Now it's time to claim a spot. This is rather important, you want to be close to other players, to be included into the roleplay, but not too close, or they'll end up attacking you in most cases. An official territory claim is marked by a ping on the minimap in that location.
I could talk about the super area in (usually) the top left or right corners of the map, where all your units will be created from unless you're a super smart dork (spawn 10 peasant spawn 10 footman span 01 paladin ftl) and where you can equip your heroes with equipment, but I'll skip that.
II: Choosing a role. Nation or Wanderer?
This is going to determine what you'll be doing during the roleplay. It can occasionally be changed, but it'd have to be a plot related change. Now I'm going to do these one at a time, so I dont get off track.
Nations. These are usually where most or all of the action will happen. Nations are pretty much just places where a player has built up a multitude of buildings and units to give the place a living feeling. Now there are three or so types of nations.
Good Nation: This nation is more likely to be the center of attention over other nations, because wanderers are more likely to flock to the nations where they won't be skewered. These tend to be Human or Elf, but it can really be any species, as long as they hold good intentions and act as a safe haven.
Neutral Nation: These nations are usually the smaller races, such as Goblin, Furbolg, Murloc. They can be just as plot central as Good Nations, and usually act as the 'good nation' when one isn't present. Though they tend to be more likely to be wiped out, because the races that make up these nations are likely to be unable to put up a good, but realistic sized defense against attackers.
Evil Nation: Stop me if you've heard this one before (it's funny since you can't stop me! ). You want to be really evil, but you don't want to wander, so you take up the castle area of the map and make a city out of evil units, like voidwalkers and doomguards and felhounds. That's great! As long as you want to be the center of plot in the sense that the good guys are going to swarm in and kill each and every one of you! Evil Nations are almost essential to the game, but also need to be destroyed. You can't have a plot without a conflict, you know.
Now, a nation doesn't have to be a grand city, but it sure does help draw attention to you. Personally, I end up making medium sized camps and towns, which get a manageable amount of attention, but end up getting wiped out, which is fun and fine.
Wanderers: So you're a bit tired of setting up all these big cities just to have them knocked down by the good (or bad) guys. So you just want to keep it simple and have one or two characters to manage, while still being plot important. That's completely fine. But here are some guidelines you have to follow!
1: It won't be your plot: So you want to make let's say, a noblewoman. Cool. Who is possessed by a demon....okay....and every nation has to band together to fight some great evil to save you.
No.
As a wanderer character, you will so very rarely be able to bend a nation to your plot, it isn't worth trying. Your role is to contribute to the plot, participate, maybe drive for breif moments, but your plot won't be your 100% original idea. You're just one person, you don't need 3 nations worth of attention.
We don't care how possessed you are, m'am, the dwarves from the north and the elves from the east have been bearing down on us about our gold and wood harvesting, you'll have to find some other nations to help you fight this demon.
2: You're one person, be a bit more creative: Your character's personality is really important for a wanderer. Nobody will want to roleplay with a wanderer who isn't interesting, or is too cliche (see Stormguy's post).
3:You're one person, you can't fight an army alone and win: I don't care how shiny your sword is and how high your level is, if you play a wanderer, you'll probably be a bit stronger than most units, but you aren't automatically an unkillable god who can take on legions alone and win. Deal with it.
III: Time to choose a race!
Well, you've decided what you want to do (Im making two parts to each section from now on). So we just have to tell you how to do it right!
Nations: The most succssful nations I see are ones that are of the odd races, such as trolls, ogres, quillboar. Sure they end up neutral, but they if you pull it off properly, itll be much more creative. Of course, any race can be a great nation I tend to go human quite often.
The base idea is around your goal. Do you want a lot of attention, and possibly be one of the driving forces of the roleplay? A great, human nation usually does the trick. They have a lot of a lot of units, since they can wiggle in elves to their mix. Human nations are almost always the 'good' nation.
If you want to be a bit smaller, human is still an option, but almost every other race opens up as well.
Remember, if you're an unintelligent neutral (furbolg) or evil (undead), zealous good wanderers may possibly attack you unprovoked.
Wanderers: Any race is acceptable, the true question is how you fare on the innocent scale. Too innocent and you'll probably end up being ignored (you'll infringe on your rule about not trying to direct the plot), but too cruel and nobody will RP with you, since no wanderer is really able to get away with being evil, since the evil nations will attack you, and the good / neutral wont want anything to do with you.
IV: Playing the Game (the one that will take me to my end):
This is the bulk of the gameplay in most cases, since this is where the stories take place and such. Now, the only thing I can truely put in here are good roleplaying habits.
First, it's important to try and give your characters decent names. Just because it's a fantasy charcter doesn't mean they have to be named things like "G'thrian" or "Merlin of Fantastic place to be living". It can be simple things like "Sam" or "Hunter". Personally, I put the title of each character before their name, but this is purely optional. I.e. "Scholar Michael" or "Warrior Dennis".
But you don't want to under do it, like having a mighty warrior named Bob, or a world-destroying demon named Mark. The mightier the character, the fancier the name.
Oh, and not all elves require an apostrophe in their name. (I'm looking at you, Drizzt Do'urden)
Second, (and this is a toughie) you need to be able to roleplay conflicts without controlling the other character. The best way to explain this is to do two examples, and say NO and YES.
Example 1.
Warrior Garret grabs Summoner David's staff and knocks him down.
NO
Example 2.
Warrior Garret grabs for Summoner David's staff and attempts to knock him down.
YES
These little weasel words allow for the other player to decide what works and what fails, to make battle more fair. Of course, a good roleplayer can play off of the first example, but it's not quite as easy for them.
Also, roleplayed combat is a bit harder to do without making some control errors, but when it comes down to things like chasing a player, or something, the fate is usually decided in .OOC
And third: Use emotes! It's not very hard, you can either use the - function or just type an action instead of speech with a character! Emotes give much more color to characters, and need to be used. Now don't overdo it and think "Hey, I can just use emotes to interact with people while playing as a dog or a furbolg!" because if you choose to play as a dog or furbolg, you're a very silly person and you should probably go back to LoaP.
V: How to not get booted: Usually this is simple. You'll want to follow red's rules. (That's important, red is always really irritable about such things).
Also, you'll have to be open minded about things. You are usually not the winner, so your character isn't any of the following
uncatchable
unkillable
unbetrayable
unescapable
unresisitable
or any other 'un' word that deals with your character being free to do what they want.
Now, the sure way to get booted is to do things without explanation, such as mass defensive units in the middle of the attacker's force from the spawner....or kill things, go to places, etc without giving plot direction as to why.
VI: How to not get yourself Banned: Don't swear out the host after being booted for being a retard.
Random stuffs:
I once had an awesome RP that started me off as a murloc city on an island, I was destroyed, but a tiny little melee unit of mine survived. I made it swim to the evil city and try to take refuge there (I was destroyed by the good city for making fun of their leader in game) and it turns out that one of the characters from the good city had deserted and was trying to gain entrance at the same time. They wouldn't let us in, so we disguised ourselves cartoon style to talk to their leader about being able to stay (Im a tiny murloc, mind you). In the end, we get to the throne room, but the 2nd good leader was looking for the deserter, so we booked it out of there really fast. During the whole time I was making cracks and being a smart ass frog, which the other person (an elf) tried to handle things. It was comical, it was epic, it was making me kick myself for not saving the replay.
Tl;dr, it's a roleplay, not a funeral. Your characters are allowed to do funny things, and be a bit over the 'omg I'm so serious right now' crowd.
Oh! And new rule. I hate seeing people who make huge supreme beings who can step on planets and are super evil and invincible as a wanderer. It breaks so many rules I want to spam elephant smilies.
         
See what your silly wanderer has done to this thread? It isn't hardly serious with all those elephant smilies sitting around. Guess it's time to hit send. If I forget anything really important, I'll edit it in or something.
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