Community Guidelines

A list of guidelines for our community.

## **BWRP Community Guidelines**

When we look at the server, we see a blend of different people from different backgrounds all collecting under one united banner of relaxed memery and serious comradery: Broken World Roleplay.

When we come together on the server we love, we acknowledge that we must preserve this experience and help one another enjoy our time here. Together we support an interesting, respectful, and enjoyable community where we forge new friendships and create new experiences.

Writing the destinies of your character, and thus the world, is like writing an in-depth book series. No single person is the main character. The writing of this world slowly reveals what makes up the blood and guts of BWRP. Valuable Individual stories working together to form the cosmology of our awesome community.

These guidelines are here to express what we wish for everyone to get out of their experience on BWRP. We believe that these guidelines will promote the best enjoyment possible, and encourage members to uphold the quality of gameplay and community for all involved.

### **Take the Initiative**

Be the roleplayer you wish to play with, make the story you want to be a part of!

BWRP is a collection of wonderful people telling their own wonderful stories. Keep in mind that every player has their own tastes and desires for what they enjoy in roleplay, so be aware not everyone may be as interested in engaging with your plotline as you are. Sometimes ideas and preferences are so specific that you may need to be the first person to go down that road and start it off. Don’t be afraid to reach out and talk to people about what you want to do,in fact we strongly encourage it, but do be respectful of the people responding to you.

There is nothing wrong with trying something and it doesn’t work, that's how we live and learn. The true failure comes when we no longer explore the new ideas we wish to pursue. The STs are here to enable your stories and fun experiences, and your fellow players are here to reap the rewards alongside you! If you create engaging content, people will flock to you. In return, if you see someone trying to pursue their dreams, push outside your comfort zone and support them! Give them feedback, encourage the biggest highs and support the lowest lows. Each new idea has the chance to become a pillar of history on the server.
A positive and initiative-filled attitude empowers you to stop waiting and produce the experience you desire.
The takeaway: Go and chase your RP! Create and encourage the storyline you want to participate in, and get others involved. Don’t wait for the plot to find you - Take that first step towards it.

### **Be Detached but Excited**

It’s important to be invested in your character and your roleplay, because that means it’s valued by you, and it’s the best way to enjoy it!. However, remember to keep a clear barrier between Out of Character (OOC) and In-Character (IC) sentiments. Blurring this divide provides for resentment and bitterness; the more you allow your character’s feelings, thoughts, and sentiments to be yours as well, the more vulnerable you are to lashing out and taking everything too personally if something in the story doesn’t go according to plan. You are not your character… And neither is another player theirs.

Finding a balance of investment in your character is at the forefront of a healthy relationship with the server and other players.

Make your character just that: a character. Their ambitions are admirable, their flaws are interesting, their failures are funny, and their behavior is representative of them, not you. You do control the character,  but they don’t reflect on you as a person in real life and none of the shortcomings are your fault. You should also keep this in mind when looking at other players. Keep in mind that they are acting in roleplay towards your character, and not as themselves towards you as a person.

Keeping this line in the sand makes it easier to portray a more consistent character and allows for more light-hearted roleplay. So remember that if GrumpyMcDwarf is rude to your kind-hearted elf who just wanted to help… Don’t take it personally - though your character could certainly be miffed!

### **Be Friendly & Encouraging**

The characters that stand beside you deserve dignity and respect, keep in mind that every single person you see is a another human behind that computer screen, as well as someone playing a character that they love. People have a habit of spreading our joy when we feel it, so if one person shows enjoyment it makes us all a bit happier. Remember to compliment people’s feats and accomplishments, and strive to help them through mistakes by turning them into growth. People respond much better to encouragement and positive reinforcement, and will always be more receptive to your suggestions and alternatives rather than complaints without suggestions of recourse, or a plain ‘no’ without elaboration of why.

**MOST IMPORTANTLY**, when you’re around and able to, remember to lend new players on the server a helping hand! You will make a new connection, a new friend, and you will expand your list of players that you can ask for help and enjoy RPing with. With a wider network, you experience roleplay from all walks of life and you push your comfort zone. Odds are, you’ll come across some things that are fascinating and great fun. An encouraging and open attitude builds strong relationships and creates an overall positive experience for everyone.

### **Metagaming & Powergaming**

Playing as yourself rather than as a character, to play a ‘God,’ and to partake in Metagaming, and things of this theme.

Just because you’ve heard something out-of-character and are convinced of it, doesn’t mean that your character would be. Using OOC information your character has not learned through roleplay is called Metagaming.

Powergaming is when you try to force another player’s hand in how their character will behave, act, or respond in a situation. An easy example is if Character A wants to stop Character B from leaving, and emotes “Character A grabs Character B by the wrist and pulls them back into the room so they can’t leave.” This emote assumes that Character B is not allowed a chance at escape or immediate retaliation. A healthier emote would be: “Character A attempts to grab character B…” and so forth.

This then raises the RP experience from a one-sided story to an interactive one where the other person is a collaborative partner with you in storytelling.

‘Self Insert’ Characters: Do not make a character that is you, a personification of you, or you behind a veil. Doing so makes it very hard for you to separate your character’s feelings from your own real-life sentiments, and you risk setting yourself up for unhappiness and taking things in roleplay far too personally. If this is something you feel you may struggle with, try making a character who is contrary to your own personality - it’s much easier to separate yourself from them and make them an exotic, interesting, diverse being. It pushes your comfort zone and breeds diverse and quality experiences in RP.

Additionally, when you vs the character transcends and becomes you as the character, you’ve already begun hurting your rp experience. It is very rare that it truly happens but it is very detrimental to the experiences you are writing. It is never easy to know the ambitions and dreams of your character. It is almost impossible to know how your character acts or who they even are. When there is this uncertainty, it becomes easy to make yourself the character. But, we believe in you and the community is always here to help you mold your character into its finest form.

### **Be Respectful**

Rolling with the punches and respecting your fellow players produces a healthier community environment.

Our server has no main character - No singular protagonist, or singular villain, because we are all viewing different parts of the same story. We all take turns in a shared spotlight. We don’t have a pre-defined end-game or an outlined, pre-scripted story. The goal of roleplay isn’t to “win” in the same way you may win a video game - it’s to enjoy the storyline and character interactions. Remember that you can gain interesting and fun experiences in roleplay even if your character fails at something, or things don’t go according to plan.. Your character ‘losing’ and taking a loss in a story situation doesn’t mean you as a person in real life have failed.

Such trials can spark new avenues of interesting character development! While it makes some people uncomfortable, strife and adversity provide for a great learning opportunity. Most importantly, a laid-back attitude and flexibility to be able to promote others over yourself will earn you a wonderful reputation as a roleplayer. Our server is a community group - and everyone deserves a chance in the spotlight.

### **Out-of-character Misinformation**

Your character may have their reasons for lying or misleading other characters in RP: extra goods, gaining intel, forming relationships, etc. But when you as a player lie to other players on the Out-of-character level, it damages your reputation and it shows very poor etiquette in your capability to be a member of this community. It blurs the lines between you and your character. It narrows your imagination to a rigid objective. It creates no nuance, no intrigue. Once you misinform people out of character, you are no longer playing a character, you are playing yourself.

Say the truth to your fellow players, or say nothing at all. Separate this misinformation between Out-of-character and In-character. We aren’t trying to conspire against each other to best one another in gameplay; we are here to produce an interesting story for all parties involved. If we all vow to not use information gained on an Out-of-Character level, we will be able to respect each other and encourage good sportsmanship in this community we all love to be apart of.

### **Be Creative & Genuine**

In BWRP, you play the greatest part in determining your experience. Don’t be afraid to wonder, and to wander! We could record and archive every single thing in this universe, but then it will lose its charm. Consider that the moment you plan and script your adventure into stone, it is over. So take to the roads and set no destination, let the winds of the world take care of the details, and your journey will be memorable. A creative and genuine attitude inspires memorable experiences and interesting stories.