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What is roleplay?

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What is roleplay? Empty What is roleplay?

Post by Karl_Salameh Sat Sep 01, 2007 9:32 am

What is roleplay? 34qu2dcWhat is Roleplay? (R.P.)What is roleplay? 34qu2dc

Index:



  1. Definition
  2. Elaborated explanation
  3. How to roleplay?

    1. Emotes
    2. Speech
    3. Out-Of-Character (O.O.C.)

  4. Things to avoid

    1. Metagaming
    2. Powergaming

  5. Detailed character conception

________________________________________________

1- Definition:
Wiki wrote:In role-playing, participants adopt characters, or
parts, that have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different
from their own. Role-playing is like being in an improvisational drama
or free-form theatre, in which the participants are the actors who are
playing parts.


2- Elaborated explanation
In other words, role-playing is the act of creating a character, and living the life of this character from a different point of view than yours, in a predefined environment. The character's way of talking, actions and decisions will rely ONLY on what the character himself would do in the taken situation.
You might be afraid of dogs, and your character have a ferocious bulldog by his side all the time.
You might jump in surprise whenever you hear the slightest clap, but your character might be a bullets-spraying mafioso.
That's why a detailed character creation is important for any roleplayer that respects himself.


3- How to roleplay?
Emotes:
An emote is a way to describe an action that your character is currently doing. This help breach the technical limit that is imposed to roleplayers, and help improve roleplay greatly.
To emote, you must insert the command /me before describing the action of your character as such:
/me smiles.
/me laughs.
/me shoots.
Will appear to other players as;
Karl_Salameh smiles.
Karl_Salameh laughs.
Karl_Salameh shoots.
Considering your character's name is Karl_Salameh

There are a few things to take in consideration while emoting, which will be covered in the 4th section of this guide, "Things to avoid"

Speech:
Speech is simply your character talking. Remember, if your character is hispanic, he might have an accent. If he's russian, he might have an accent too and use different words. (Ese, 'nigga', homie, mate!)
If you were walking in the street, would you go near your friend and tell him; EL OH EL? No. It's for the very same reason you can't type 'LOL' while talking as your character.. It'd make no sense.

Out-of-character (O.O.C.)
From time to time, YOU, the player, want to tell something to the other PLAYER of the character you're roleplaying with. This is why Out Of Character, commonly abbreviated "OOC" is used.

Generally, OOC is used between double-parentheses like so: (( )). This should be kept to a minimum, yet can be useful to signal a pause in the roleplay like so: (( Be right back, I need to answer the phone. )) or to clarify a mis-understanding like so: (( No, you didn't understand what I meant, my character sitting on the chair, not shitting on it! ))

You can, of course use "LOL", "OMG", and such abbrevations while talking out-of-character, because it is YOU the player of your character speaking to the player of the other character.


4-Things to avoid
Metagaming:
Metagaming is when you use out-of-character information (things your character normally wouldn't know), and use them to advantage your character in a situation. For example;
A man with the name 'John_Smith' above his head approaches you in a dark alley, and aims a gun at you, yelling: "Give me all your money!".
You decide to knock him out with your baseball bat, grab a car and run to the police station, telling the officers: "Some man named John Smith tried mugging me in Grove Street!"

That's metagaming. Why? Because your character CAN'T see the name floating above the other character's head! This is an out-of-character that makes roleplay easier in a situation where a character introduces himself/herself to your character, and you'd have difficulties remembering the name. If a character did not introduce himself or herself to your character, you do NOT know his or her name.
That was just an example, there's tons of other metagaming ways, such as using 'PMs' (private messages), or Ventrilo, or calling your frend in real life to tell him your character needs some backup at the rival gang's HQ. You CAN'T do that. Because your friend's character should NOT know your character needs help, unless your character calls him, sends an SMS or any other communication that is considered IC (In-Character), and not OOC.

Powergaming
Powergaming, as its name indicates it, is giving more power to your character than is humanly possible. Keep it as realistic as possible.. If the police ram two FBI jeeps into you, pop your tires and fire ten rounds of bullets into your windshield, it's really not realistic that you keep driving and evading them like nothing happened.
If someone roleplays tying your hands behind your back, it's not realistic that you just jump into a car, magically untie your hands and begin driving away. It's all called powergaming.
Let your character have flaws, a perfect character is no fun to play.

Another, slightly less obvious way to powergame is with emotes. Such as: /me shoots a bullet into X's head and kills him instantly.
You gave absolutely NO opportunity to the other person to roleplay or to react. It wouldn't be fun if someone killed your character that way either, would it? A good way to do such an action would be:
/me reaches for the gun on his side and begins unholstering it.
[wait for the other player to emote for his character.]
/me aims the gun at X.
[If he hasn't reacted yet, wait a bit, and THEN allow yourself to fire. But probably, he will try to dive for cover or something.]

Also, while doing emotes, remember that they are only PHYSICAL actions that your character is doing. Expressing feelings, or thoughts, is WRONG. Because other character can't GUESS what your feelings or thoughs are..
Example:
/me is sad. <-- That is bad. You should do: /me walks into the room, a huge sigh escaping his lips as he dives his regard to the ground.

/me thinks Y is hot. <-- That is also bad. You should do /me glances over to Y a bit and winks, offering her a wolf-whistle.

5- Detailed character conception
First of all, you should think of a name. In most SA-MP roleplaying servers, the format is Firstname_Lastname, such as Karl_Salameh, John_Smith, etc.. It should be a name any parents could name their children. For instance, no one would name their child S1l3nt_K1ll3r or anything like that.

Second of all, choose its sex. Male or Female, clear.

Then you should decide on your character's appearance. You can choose a skin, but to add even more detail, integrate elements to describe him during your emotes. Such as long hair, scars, birthmarks, etc..

Then, and the most important part, you should think up the past of your character. His background. Where is he born? Where has he lived? Who are his parents? Siblings? His age? Where did he work? Was he a clean person, or rather gangsterish?

The background takes you on to your character's attributes. What is he good at? And most importantly, what are his flaws? Does he like swimming? Does he mind killing people? Is his weak spot friendship? Loyalty? Cowardice? You have to think up all those things, and then have some CONSISTANCY in your roleplay.

If some day you decide your character is afraid of heights, and you're evading police, jumping from a roof to another wouldn't be very consistant to your character's background.

Oh and the most important rule; Have fun!


All content in this entering reply of the creation of the thread "What is roleplay?" on the forums known to the server as "lscity.forumotion.com" on the 31st of August, 2007, is copyrighted by its author, Karl Salameh. Permission to copy, modify, use, or publish elsewhere under ANY claim is strictly forbidden if permission from its author not granted. The only allowed use is by the creator of the known server "lscity.forumotion.com" on the 31st of August 2007, and may only be used for this specific SA-MP.com server.

If you find spelling mistakes, typos, things to change or add, etc. send me a PM.

------------------------------

Edit: For those who like advanced roleplay, and like to put details into their /me, here's a tutorial I wrote once before, and I'll paste here. It might be useful for someone..

First of all, a quick description of what a '/me' is.


A '/me' is an emote, a way to describe your character's PHYSICAL
actions or state. Note the bolded, underlined and capitalized PHYSICAL.
This is simply to bring to your attention, that you must not, ever,
emote your character's thoughts. For example: /me thinks this lady is
pretty. That'd be very bad. Why? Simply because an emote (/me), is a
way to show others what your character is doing.. No one can read
through people's minds or feelings! That also means no:

/me appears to be sad.


Explain, rather, how he appears to be sad in such a way;


/me walks into the tavern, a deep sigh bilking from his mouth. His gaze drops to the ground and he strolls wearily.


Now that, with no doubt, will show everyone you're a sad panda.





Next on, ways to use a /me.


You can use a /me for action AND for speech! For instance;


/me
slowly raises his steel-gloved hand to lower the visor of his helmet,
as tardily returning it to draw his finely smithed blade out of its
leather scabbard.



Or, if you'd like to add speech in your /me;


/me
slowly raises his steel-gloved hand to lower the visor of his helmet,
as tardily returning it to draw his finely smithed blade out of its
leather scabbard. "Draw steel, and fight like a man." He taunted the
other warrior, ready to swing at any time.



Now that way, often appears better than doing your /me, then typing out
your speech. But that's just my opinion. It looks better.




A quick tip, try not typing in names in your emotes.. I do it
sometimes, it's not THAT bad, it's not WRONG, but it often looks
better, when you simply type out the race/gender of the person. For
instance;

/me
inclines his head briefly, both hands leaning onto his staff, he offers
a scarce smile to the woman standing in front of him.



Rather than;


/me inclines his head briefly, both hands leaning onto his staff, he offers a scarce smile to Patricia.


Why? Simply because some other people around you might not know her name, and it'd be dull to spoil their fun finding out!


Also, a quick hint concerning names in emotes: If you happen to witness an emote which contains a name, do NOT
roleplay as you know the person`s name. Simply because YOU know it from reading the emote, but your character doesn't! Your
character can not see/hear the text written in emotes!





Pimpin' your emotes!


/me smiles a bit and nods.

/me nods briefly, a squeaking of rusted metal echoing from his helmet as a smile begins drawing its shape onto his lips.





Now honestly, which's better? It's emotes such as the first one
that make the roleplay scene dull and boring. Roleplay is all about
art, writing and literature. Fancy words and abusing your dictionary! I
personally use http://wordweb.info
and use it regularly, every time I roleplay. It really makes roleplay
more fun, more enjoyable and more impressive. Use adjective! Adorn your
emotes with fancy words and descriptions! Be as descriptive as you can.
There's a limit of xx characters per /me you'll tell me? Who cares?!
You can add a small ~ or in the end, as a sign that you're
continuing the emote on another /me, to let others patient for a
moment... Let your imagination flow while you're writing an emote.

While in this part of the tutorial, let me talk about grammar and
spelling. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, (etc..) use
abbreviations in emotes. Oh how do I dislike, and literally hate it
when people type 'ok'. I'm saddened, and quite bothered that some good
roleplayers, old players who should know better, type 'ok'. At least be
bothered to type 'Okay'.. Or even better, /me that you agree.

/me nods shortly and agreeingly, crossing both arms over his chest.


It's way better that way! Also, never use Net-speak.. For instance
'lol', 'wot', 'den', 'y', 'idc', 'b4', etc.. And of course, last but
not least, grammar and spelling!

/me look at the man in front and smiled a litel bit.

/me looks at the man hereby, smiling a little bit.



You judge which is better. Now I know, sometimes it's hard, but try!
Re-read your emote once or twice before sending it in.. (Considering
you're writing a few lines in your emote, not a few words.)


Try never doing one-word emotes.. It's really bad.. e.g; /me nods or /me smiles.. Ugh.. what a lack of creativity.





Force-emotes! Roleplay's no-no.

Forcing roleplay can often be a blurry subject. Hard to control,
hard to define, and the line between force and proper is a thin one.


Lets try a practical example;


/me approaches the man and grabs him by the collar.

That is considered rude, and unwanted. You're IMPOSING an action to
someone else's character, lack of courtesy. A simple word, most of the
time, fixes it all; "attempts". That way, you ATTEMPT to do an action,
the other character can either walk with you, ignore, or counter your
action, depending on the situation.


/me approaches the man, and attempts to grab him by the collar.

Now that's way better. The 'target' can either; Accept being
grabbed (If for instance, he sees the other character coming from
behind him, if he's unalerted, etc..) or manage to parry/dodge being
grabbed, if for instance, he is alone/stronger/armoured/etc..





Another kind of force-emote, that is often forgotten, is inflicting emotions by force.


/me is so beautiful, she makes you drool.

I know I know, I used a little rough example, but I'm just kinky
like that. Now that kind of emote is also seen as rude and unwanted.
Not because of the 'horny' part, more because of the 'she makes you'
part.


No one likes to be forced into anything after all.


A better way to do it would be;


/me's
features are lean, sleek and flawless. The little attire she wears
grasps onto her slightly tanned skin. Her movements are elegant and
daring.


Last edited by on Fri Oct 19, 2007 11:31 pm; edited 7 times in total
Karl_Salameh
Karl_Salameh
Lead Admin
Lead Admin

Male Number of posts : 247
Age : 34
Location : Montreal, Canada
Humor : NONE.
Registration date : 2007-08-27

http://www.karlsworld.net

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Post by Pritin Sat Sep 01, 2007 11:28 am

Awesome !
Pritin
Pritin
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Lead Scripter and Admin

Male Number of posts : 191
Age : 34
Location : India
Job/hobbies : Scripting / Gaming
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Post by Genç Fri Oct 19, 2007 11:03 pm

/me claps his hands.

Nice work Karl. What a Face

Genç

Male Number of posts : 3
Age : 31
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Post by Karl_Salameh Fri Oct 19, 2007 11:21 pm

Who are you? Very Happy
Karl_Salameh
Karl_Salameh
Lead Admin
Lead Admin

Male Number of posts : 247
Age : 34
Location : Montreal, Canada
Humor : NONE.
Registration date : 2007-08-27

http://www.karlsworld.net

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Post by Jose_Calvo Sat Oct 20, 2007 4:42 am

He's your worst nightmare, believe me Very Happy

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Male Number of posts : 78
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Location : The Netherlands / Overijssel/ Almelo
Job/hobbies : Biking, football,basketball and having fun with friends.
Humor : I dont have humor
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Post by Luck_Robinson Wed Nov 07, 2007 9:12 pm

Nice explanation, i like it Smile

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Male Number of posts : 6
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