Common RP Standards
From Library of the Randirim
Ever get into an RP scene and find you don't know what's going on? What's that ~S~ mean anyway? And all those (( )) marks around what people are saying? Well if you're new to RP or just feel like a little brushing up, here's a quick run down of some of the more common conventions.
A quick note: There is no "right" way to RP. So long as you're having fun, you're doing it right. That said, things tend to work best when you're playing with people with similar RP styles, and when it's clear to one and all exactly what your intentions are. So none of these standards should ever be considered a hard and fast rule. Some people like marking their OOC with (()) and some with [[]]. Some people like emoting a conversation, and some don't. Some people like to include game mechanics in their RP and some would rather not. All of these are perfectly viable ways to play but if you're going to RP with someone else it's generally nice to be able to understand one another.
Contents |
OOC/IC
So what does that mean anyway? Well OOC, or Out of Character, means that a person isn't playing or speaking as their character at that time. For instance, if Hobbit Hob is telling Elven Elroy about his new cellphone, he's probably speaking in OOC. This allows people to converse and coordinate without the "burden" of keeping everything in-character (which would be the IC portion).
Conversations or actions can be either IC or OOC as the speaker/doer wishes, but the thing to remember is that it might not be inherently obvious which is which. So it is customary (and indeed, required by many RP kins) to communicate that in some way. This could either be done by stating at the start that a conversation will be OOC or, more commonly, by marking any OOC statements. This is generally done by encasing the statement in parentheses such as this: ((wee, this is OOC!))
RPing Game Mechanics
This seems bound to be a very controversial topic and there doesn't seem to be any standards that have developed to make it any simpler. Basically this refers to how game mechanics such as level, class, gear, skills, etc are reflected or incorporated into RP. Generally the gamut seems to run along the "type" lines for RP so that lighter RPers take the level of a character into more consideration than a heavy RPer is likely to. This is by no means any more than a rule of thumb though.
A common approach is to assume that a character is able to gauge another character's aptitude/power by visually evaluating their gear. Better/shinier gear means a more powerful individual (and perhaps someone to avoid fighting). Other RPers (especially on the Heavy end) choose to not recognize any sort of gear or level in any way and let it all fall out as the scene progresses.
Types of RP
You've almost certainly seen these distinctions before, but may not have been entirely clear on just what they're supposed to mean. Essentially they're just a very rough way to gauge just how "into" RP a certain player or kinship is. The distinction is entirely preferential and most people will fit somewhere between two categories rather than neatly into one. It should also be noted that none of these is necessarily better than the other, but you might personally prefer one type over the others.
Light RP
- Often good for those new to RP
- Doesn't involve much knowledge of lore, particularly beyond the game in question
- Tends to be rather "loose" in style without much oversight for consistency
- May have fairly generic or vague character concepts
- Often takes game mechanics such as level into consideration
- Doesn't tend to be too concerned with what "could" happen ICly but rather tends towards doing things the player thinks would be fun to happen (see high-fantasy below).
Medium RP
- Essentially just a middle ground between light and heavy
Heavy RP
- Generally for those who are veterans of RP and enjoy taking it as far as they can
- Generally requires a fair amount of familiarity with the lore
- Often includes elaborate character concepts and backstories
- May feature more stories that are written up on forums rather than RPed out in game.
- Generally doesn't take game mechanics into account, or at least only in a vague sense
- May tend towards being low-fantasy
High Fantasy vs Low Fantasy
You might hear this term bandied about from time to time and not be sure of what it actually refers to. The distinction between high and low fantasy is generally between how "realistic" something would be within the confines of the setting. Something that is high fantasy often involves relatively little fact-checking and may tend towards large, grandoise gestures such as major plot points involving canon characters (i.e. Having Gandalf bless you as a baby with special powers). Low-fantasy refers to trying to adher to something that is deemed to be more realistic to the setting. A trade merchant's office featuring interactions between various "employees" would tend to be considered low-fantasy.
Emotes and dialog
Sometimes people like to keep all their actions to emotes and all their dialog to /say. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, but sometimes it's easier to mix the two. This is perfectly acceptable so long as it's notated to prevent confusion. Some examples of notation would be:
Hob waves as he approaches Elroy and says "Hi!"
Elroy says: Howdy! *waves back*
Emoting alts
So what if Hobbit Hob has an alt named Dwarven Dan and he'd like to have both at a certain RP scene. Well game mechanics and a probable lack of hardware will keep Hob's player from having both chars logged in at the same time, but never fear! A convention has arisen even for this scenario. By putting the pipe character (|, made by holding Shift and pressing \) after your main's name you can specify that the action is ICly coming from another character.
Example: Hob | Dan jumps up and down with glee.
Combat
Every so often there's a situation where it's time for two or more characters to throw down and go a round of fisticuffs with one another. For instance, let's say Elven Elroy takes Dwarven Dan's sammich at lunch time. Well now they can ICly scuffle over the delicious delectable treat and OOCly we're left with the question of how to actually go about this. There's generally two common methods and preference between the two is generally personal. Generally the parties involved would OOCly decide which method to use before the fight starts.
- Emotes can be used to narratively describe each step of the fight. This can get really confusing with more than two combatants but it allows you to really describe the whole situation. The crux to emote fighting is to just write the action your character takes, not the effect of it. So for instance "Elven Elroy takes a swing at Dwarf Dan" instead of "Elven Elroy hits Dwarf Dan in the nose with his spoon." Here's an example of the scuffle with the emote method:
Dan raises his foot and lobs a kick at Elroy's knee.
Elroy jumps up and down as the dwarf boot collides with his shin but holds the sammich up triumphantly.
- Rolling can be done with bigger fight scenes, to introduce a random element, or just for a more D&D feel to things. Basically it's the same as the emote method in that you describe your action (but not the effect) and then let a /roll determine the result (rather than your "opposing" player). So in this case:
Dan aims a tackle at Elroy's knees.
Dan rolls a 89.
Elroy rolls a 2.
Elroy collapses like a limp sack of grain as the massive dwarf smashes into him and sends him toppling to the ground.
Dan stands victorious and enjoys the best sammich he ever had.
Speaking a different language
Tolkien's world is full of languages. Generally most people speak Westron[1] (Common), but there's also Sindarin, Queyna, and Khuzdul (dwarvish) that pop up every so often. So real quickly:
- Sindarin - by and large most elves speak Sindarin and anytime someone is referring to 'elvish' they're probably talking about Sindarin. There are accents or dialects of it that are distinct to certain locales (Lindon, Mirkwood, Lothlórien, etc) but it's still the default language for most elves.
- Quenya - isn't used very much anymore. It was the tongue of the Noldor when they returned to Arda from Aman, but by the end of the First Age even the Noldor were speaking Sindarin as their own language. Quenya and Sindarin both developed from the same 'pre-historic' language (Common Eldarin, which nobody speaks anymore) and so are similar in a lot of respects.
- Khuzdul/Dwarvish is a bit of a mystery. Dwarves have made it a long and hard point not to speak their language around other races and never to teach it to any non-dwarves. So unless you're a dwarf you wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of Khuzdul, and if you are a dwarf then you wouldn't be speaking it down at the Prancing Pony. If you've got a few dwarves off in a corner though, it would make sense.
Now very few of us can actually speak or decipher these languages on the fly and words are fairly scarce in any of them. In fact, the dwarves keep such a tight lid on their tongue that there's maybe 20 examples of dwarvish words in the lore and they're almost all names. So how would we indicate what language our character (who is of course quite fluent) is speaking? Simple, just append a marker at the start of the statement. So, for instance, Elven Elroy wants to say something about Dwarf Dan (they don't like each other very much) and doesn't want Dwarf Dan to hear (ICly at least). Generally this would be noted as:
Elroy says: ~S~ Dwarves are as witty as they are tall.
And, it could be ~S~ for Sindarin, ~Q~ for Quenya, or ~K~ (though some'll use ~D~) for Khuzdul. Generally speaking you'd want to put that at the beginning of each line, but sometimes it's acceptable to just declare that a whole conversation occurs in x language. As long as everyone's on the same page it shouldn't cause a problem.
Notes
- ↑ Even within the novels, Westron is represented by modern English. Thus, it is generally assumed that your character is speaking Westron and so, no conventions are needed to indicate this.
