Beginner's Guide to RP

**Roleplaying** is a collaborative story-writing activity in which someone creates a believable character within a universe (in this case, a character within the Naruto universe). The basic rules of thumb are to learn the rules and story of the setting. For JO2.5, that means reading up on the country, clan and world history lore found on the landing page of the wiki.

The contributors of this guide remind readers that these are the basic principles of roleplay, and may not be of any interest or use to veteran roleplayers.

## Glossary - RP Terminology

This is where information regarding roleplay terminology will be explained.

### In character (IC)

The transition between in and out of character are like an actor that’s currently working. Roleplay is a lot like improv or even method acting. From the moment that you pop in-game, you are no longer the person that you are in real life, but you are a resident of the ninja world and the dangers of the Naruto universe are present in your everyday life.

During roleplay, you are always, always in-character. From the moment you join the server to the moment you leave it, you are roleplaying, even if you are alone. While the temptation to break character by doing something uncharacteristic might be present while you’re alone, refrain from doing so.

For example, if your character hates beans and wouldn’t eat them if they were starving to death but it’s the only food you have on you while your hunger stat is 100/100, then don’t eat it just because you would be able to get away with it because no one else is around.

### Out of character (OOC)

Delimited by brackets (( )) is text that isn't considered to be taking part in roleplay. For example, if you and your team are on a mission or your academy student is in class but you have a sudden real life disturbance, you should try to excuse yourself in roleplay in some say, such as by saying "I feel really sick, I have to go talk to a medical nin..." and maybe clarifying how long you'll be gone for in brackets; (( Brb, I just got a phone call )).
It’s worth noting that it’s considered somewhat taboo in roleplaying communities (be they in WoW, FFXIV, JO, other games or even forum-based) to allow IC (roleplay) to affect relations with other players (OOC), or vise versa. It's nothing personal if another player robs you; it's not a slight against you, it's all in good fun and in roleplay. Sure, you can be a bit miffed if someone left you for dead and stole your ore in Baron Country, but that's a part of our roleplay experience here as well.

Should you find yourself getting a bit too riled up over it, take a break and have a breather. Have a cold glass of water, have a walk, take a nap, whatever you do to relax.

### Powergaming

Powerplaying is the equivalent of being that one kid in the sandbox that always goes “say x” or “do x”! When you're roleplaying, refrain from making someone else's character do something without their input. In RP this means to take control of someone else's character without proper introduction or input from them. It's one thing if your character has an opponent in an armlock and they're being lead away, it's another to emote "Kakashi slashes his opponent across the face and forces them to surrender" without the other person having replied. Instead, you should write "Kakashi lashes out with his kunai at his opponents face, trying to cause shock damage that might sway them into surrendering".

### Metagaming & metaknowledge

Where roleplay is concerned, meta knowledge consists of anything you know as a player and person in real life. Metagaming is applying that knowledge in roleplay even though your character doesn't know about xyz.

For example, if a friend in discord tells you about a super secret mission that the Leaf shinobi are going to be doing and you're a Sand shinobi, don't go and blab that to the nearest jounin. That would qualify as metagaming.

Sometimes, you might get confused between what you know and what your characters know and that’s fine. So long as you don’t act on it or correct it in OOC (( )), there’s no harm done. If you thought that someone had introduced themselves to your character and used their name in RP but you got them mixed up with someone else, just say (( Sorry, void that! )) and redo your emote if appropriate.

## Rules of Roleplay

The basic rules of RP are as follows;

* Don't metagame by applying OOC knowledge into roleplay.
* Don't mix IC and OOC or OOC and IC. What happens in character isn't happening to you, and what happens out of character isn't happening to your character. Don't let shenanigans influence your interactions with others.
* Don't godmode by making your character unbeatable and refusing to lose.
* Don't powergame by controlling other people's characters and not acknowledging their emote responses.
* Don't break the lore. For example: you can't play your Transformers character here.
* Don't break other people's immersion by making out of character jokes or spamming abilities on them to distract them from their RP.

## Characters

Most writers and roleplayers have different creative processes. Because of this, tutorials on this matter are somewhat subjective. Please keep that in mind while reading this section of the guide and proceed as you might when you’re using something as inspirational material.

### Character creation

The goal behind characters is to make them believable for the universe that they are a part of. They have thoughts and concerns and dreams and memories and aspirations. They have strengths. Inevitably, they also have weaknesses.

There are things, arguably, that define us, or might have at one point. Our relationships with our parents, siblings and those around us. Our struggles with our faults and juggling stress. How graceful we are in victory, and how graceful we are in defeat. We have personalities, fears and dreams. Our socio-economical backgrounds may or may not affect us now. People, in my experience, are rarely as shallow as they might seem on the surface.

Determining the motivations of your character is important, and those motivations are always subject to change.

Here are some interesting questions to ask yourself while creating a new character:

* Does something keep them up at night?
* How well do they cope with grief, trauma, and what has happened?
* What kind of things give them closure and bring them joy?
* Why did they become a shinobi?

Naming your character is also important. For realism and immersion reasons, JO rules demand that your character have a Japanese name.

You’re not just writing characters, you’re trying to create believable people that might exist in other universes. Create the kind of Naruto universe character that you may have drawn or written about!

### How to write a backstory/bio

When writing out a character’s background, there are a few things to keep in mind:

* What country, region and city are they from?
* What was their position (or that of their parents’) in society? Were they rich growing up, were they poor, or middle-class? How did their position in society affect how they grew up?
* What was their relationship with their parents/guardian and possible siblings like?
* What clan do they belong to (if any?). Did their clan have an impact on their interactions with others? (Yukis being discriminated against by Kaguyas, for example)
* What have they learned? This can be anything, tricks or skills they’ve picked up from others.
* What would your character like to do but can’t? What are their obstacles in life?
* Who were their friends, and their enemies? Are there types of people that they just can’t stand?
* What was coming into adulthood like? How did they tackle new responsibilities and cope with problems?