Roleplay Guide (Beginner)

*THIS ARTICLE IS A* **WORK IN PROGRESS.** *Nothing stated in this article should be taken as final. If you have any feedback regarding this article, feel free to leave a ticket on the Discord.*

Roleplay is an art, and just like any art, it can take time to get better at it! This guide is intended to give newer role players a solid foundation with which to build upon their story-telling skills. If you already know how to roleplay and are looking to refine your skill and craft more interesting stories, check out the **Intermediate Roleplay Guide**. If you're an experienced role-player looking for some tips on how to craft your character and their story to the server-specific lore, check out the **Advanced Roleplay Guide**. If neither of those sound like you, that's okay! You're in exactly the right place!

### What is Roleplay?

Roleplay is often very hard to define for a lot of people, as it can come in a lot of different forms and playstyles. For our purposes, we will only be talking about the kind of role play you'll find here on this server. Roleplay is perhaps best described as a form of **give-and-take** collaborative storytelling. It shares a lot of similarities to improv acting, if you are familiar with that. In fact, many improv rules apply to roleplay as well, although while improv tends to be used for more comedic purposes, roleplay can cover a wide variety of genres and tones. The key takeaway here is this - **it's a *collaborative* game which relies heavily on every participant to put something into it for it to work.** And in return, every participant will get something out of it - *if* everyone is playing by the rules.

On this server, we focus on text-based roleplay (as opposed to voice-based roleplay) which means that the story is told through writing as opposed to being spoken aloud. But you don't have to be a writer to play! As long as you have a decent fluency in English, you'll likely find that your writing skills will improve naturally as you roleplay. The most important thing is not being capable of writing long swathes of flowery text but rather being able to carry a coherent story as you interact with other players and their characters.

### How do I start?

The first thing you'll do, before you even join the server, is create your character. On our server, we have a lot of different **backgrounds** for you to choose from, and these should serve as the starting point for your character. After that, you'll choose a **profession**, a name, a age, and other appearance details about your character. Then you'll move on to writing their personality and backstory. Let's go through each step one by one.

#### Choosing a Culture

Your character's culture should have direct repercussions on every aspect of your character, from their appearance to their backstory. If after reading your personality and appearance description alone I can't make three guesses of what culture you might be playing and get one of them right, you're probably doing it wrong. Think about it - in the real world, the culture we grow up in dictates so much of our personalities. Our belief systems, moral code, and social constructs are all influenced by the culture around us.

When choosing a culture, keep in the back of your mind what kind of profession and personality you want for your character. It can be okay to create a character that is the complete opposite of what you'd expect from their culture, but they still need to be influenced by the world around them - they might just be rebelling against their culture rather than assimilating into it. However, this can create a lot of other issues so it is best saved for more **intermediate roleplayers**.

#### Picking a Profession

After you've picked a culture, the next step is to choose a **profession**. Keep in mind that new role players often find it easier to roleplay professions that are backed by gameplay mechanics - but try not to rely too much on those mechanics to the point where you're ignoring the roleplay! More on that later.

[WIP - Will finish this section later]

### Common Pitfalls of New Role Players

You're learning an entirely new skill, and like any skill, you're going to make mistakes along the way. The important thing is that you work to correct them to ensure you and everyone else has the best experience possible and that the narrative fabric remains intact. Here's a list of common mistakes new role players make, why it's bad, and how to avoid them.

#### Relying on Mechanics Too Much (Powergaming - Part 1)

While the game mechanics are often a great supplement for roleplay if used correctly, it's easy for new role players to take this too far and end up playing the game like they're in single player! This is also known as *powergaming* and is usually characterized by a rush for resources, doing things that don't fall under your character's profession for the sole purpose of monetary gain, and ignoring or speeding past roleplay opportunities when you've got a task in mind.

**Why It's Bad For You**

Roleplay is all about the narrative. The most valuable things in a roleplay server aren't things at all - they're stories! When players rush for resources, they miss out on the storytelling opportunities that come from not having enough resources. When players act outside of their profession in order to increase their monetary wealth, they miss out on the opportunity to ask someone for help and end up going on an adventure with them! The thing about roleplay is you never know what will happen next - that's the beauty of it. If you try too hard to control the story, you'll miss out on the opportunities that spontaneity provides.

**Why It's Bad For Others**

Roleplay is a collaborative effort. As such, whenever one person drops the narrative, it hurts the experience of everyone in the group. A huge part of roleplay is the feeling of being immersed in your character and the fictional world they inhabit. When other players grind for resources on their own, it not only adds nothing to the narrative, it also actively detracts from it because it introduces plot holes. The lore of the server was designed to create an environment in which everyone has to work together. When one character fails to do so, it makes the entire fabric of the story fall apart.

**How To Avoid It**

Use the gameplay mechanics to *enhance* the roleplay, rather than replace it. When someone comes up to you while you're chopping trees, try emoting your character taking a brief break, wiping the sweat off their brow and then turning around to spot the other character! This acknowledges that you see the other character, and creates an opening for them to interact with your character if they want. Moreover, when you find yourself bored in the game, instead of grinding for resources, try approaching someone else and striking up a conversation! Or, if the colony is in desperate need of a particular resource, try asking someone for help in acquiring it. Going alone isn't fun for anyone but you, but going with others is more fun for you and everyone else involved.

#### Being Good at Everything (Powergaming - Part 2)

A lot of the times new role players end up making a great character with detailed strengths and weaknesses, and then they get in game and they just... forget all about those weaknesses. This is another form of *powergaming* also sometimes referred to as having a *mary/gary sue* character. In this situation, what's in your character sheet doesn't matter - it's how you play your character that is important. If your character is good at many professions, never fails, never gets scared or fears for their life, is very smart *and* very strong, or otherwise just doesn't have any major weaknesses - you're probably playing a *mary/gary sue*.

**Why It's Bad For You**

In roleplay, failure is fun! In fact, some of the best roleplay comes from when characters fail. No one is good at everything, and sometimes failure is just downright funny! Imagine your character tried to butcher something for the first time, and they miraculously manage to avoid rupturing any waste-processing organs, leaving bone splinters in the meat, or otherwise ruining the cut. What was added to the story by that happening? When you think about it, nothing was gained by that outcome except more resources. Why not try failing once in a while, and see what happens?

**Why It's Bad For Others**

A character who is good at everything makes realistic characters with believable strengths and weaknesses feel outclassed. If they're good at everything, then why should anyone help them? If your character is never scared of bears, are they even human? It's one thing to put on a brave face in times of adversity, but everyone has their limits, and they're going to eventually crack when they're alone - or when they think they're alone. Someone who doesn't do this seems unnatural and infallible, which is no fun for anyone.

**How To Avoid It**

Think of fun ways to roleplay failure. Taking the butchery example from before, what if your character ends up accidentally rupturing the digestive tract and the whole cellar smells *awful* for weeks after, so your character stays outside the cellar to stop people from going in? This is a great way to roleplay failure in a way that's fun, inclusive, and realistic. Someone who is working hard constantly and trying to keep up with everything will eventually burn out - and this can be foreshadowed with signs like bags under their eyes, evasive behavior when told to take a break, and similar actions. Try and play your character as if dying has real consequences - more on that in the next section.

#### Never Getting Hurt / Not Valuing One's Life (Powergaming - Part 3)

It's easy to forget sometimes that even though this is a game and you have infinite lives out-of-character, your character still only has one life in-character. Everyone gets hurt sometimes, especially in a place as dangerous as the Wildlands! Ignoring this fact is another form of *powergaming* that typically involves ignoring mechanical deaths as if nothing had happened, or engaging in highly reckless behavior with seemingly no regard for your character's life.

**Why It's Bad For You**

Medical roleplay can be a lot of fun if it's done right, but missing out on those opportunities isn't even the main problem here - by playing a character that can never get hurt, you remove nearly all risk from your roleplay. Suddenly, problems that involve weighing the risk and reward to your character are no longer even problems - they're obstacles, to be plowed through easily. This leads to stale roleplay with little to no conflict. Even conflict between characters is no longer meaningful and impactful, because your character is invincible and can handle the Wildlands all on their own - why should they want to maintain relationships with their fellow settlers, if they don't need anyone else to survive? Conflict and drama are amazingly fun to roleplay, but it's easy to remove the stakes and end up with a stale, flat experience.

**Why It's Bad For Others**

Like characters who are good at everything, characters who are invincible make characters who can believably die and get hurt seem fragile by comparison. Moreover, it breaks the believability of the story - in other words, it breaks immersion. Imagine if you saw someone take on five wolves with a stone spear and some rocks and come out without a scratch in real life - wouldn't you start to question the very fabric of the universe, perhaps even assume that person has some sort of secret superpowers that you before thought impossible, or think you made up the entire thing in a dream? Try and apply that same logic to the game, and it'll help to understand why this might disturb other's enjoyment.

**How To Avoid It**

When your character dies mechanically, you respawn in the clinic - take this opportunity to roleplay out a near-fatal injury. Most likely, there will be a physician of some sort available to help treat your wounds, but if not, this can be interesting roleplay as well! Having inexperienced people forced to deal with a medical emergency can be fun roleplay, but it's not for everyone - so, if there are no medics online, you have the option to tone down your injury to a less severe but still debilitating injury in these circumstances. Even outside of mechanical deaths, your character should still suffer an injury now and again - especially when learning a dangerous new skill, such as butchery or combat, or when fighting against dangerous odds, such as a lone soldier against a whole pack of wolves. Moreover, consider the consequences of your character's actions when considering doing something dangerous. Is there a significant chance this might lead to death or pain? If the answer to that question is yes, then you should weigh that risk against the potential reward to your character. Humans naturally shy away from pain, no matter how tough they are in the face of it - it's still an unpleasant experience that is best avoided. Is this reward really worth the risk taken to get it?

#### Pretending Something Didn't Happen / Happened Differently (Retconning)

Sometimes, it can seem convenient or just easier to pretend something that happened in roleplay didn't happen, or that it happened differently than it actually did. This, however, is a form of bad roleplay behavior also known as *retconning.* Note that having a character misremember events or spreading misinformation in character about exactly how an event occurred is *not* considered a retcon, and can actually be an interesting form of roleplay when those misaligned viewpoints create conflict between characters. What we're referring to, however, is when someone changes in character events through out of character means. It is worth noting that retconning isn't *always* bad, but it should be done in a limited fashion. Staff may use a retcon to avoid letting a situation that makes a player very uncomfortable play out, or to handle rule breaking behavior that would otherwise change the narrative in a negative direction. However, retconning cannot work unless all involved parties agree on it out of character beforehand, and in general, should not be done without staff approval. If you're unsure if a situation qualifies for a retcon, submit a ticket on our discord describing the situation. *Do not* retcon events without prior staff approval.

**Why It's Bad For You**

Retconning events can cause a lot of confusion - not just for others, but for you as well. Once you start retconning, it can be difficult to remember what actually did occur and what didn't. Even if you think you can keep it all straight, when the events that you consider to have occurred are different from the events that other people consider to have occurred, everything has to be sorted out in the moment, which can be stressful for everyone involved, including yourself.

**Why It's Bad For Others**

When someone else retcons without it being agreed upon by all involved parties in advance, this creates confusion when it inevitably comes up. Even if you say, "By the way, that didn't happen earlier." There may very well be other parts of the narrative that would be affected by that change that you aren't aware of. The narrative is like a piece of woven fabric - if you pull out a thread, you might just end up with a missing thread. But more often than not, that thread will pull other threads out with it, and you'll end up with a massive hole right in the middle of the fabric.

**How To Avoid It**

If something happens in character, it happened. If, for a valid reason, you need to alter events that occurred in character in any way, contact staff first. They can ensure minimal damage to the narrative and make sure everyone is on the same page ahead of time.

#### Using Information Your Character Doesn't Have (Metagaming - Part 1)

This is one of the easiest mistake for new role players to make, and it can often even affect experienced role players! It's hard to keep straight what information your character has learned, and what information you only know because it was told to you through out of character means. However, mixing this information up is a form of *metagaming* and is generally to be avoided.

**Why It's Bad For You**

WIP

#### Taking IC Conflict OOC - And Vice Versa (Metagaming - Part 2)

Note to self: Detrimental to mental health of involved players.

#### Being *TOO* Antisocial

WIP If your character is disliked by *everyone*, you're likely playing it wrong. There *are* some great antagonistic characters out there in roleplay, but they are very hard to get right and the setting of the server does not have a lot of room for them in the first place. If you're playing an character with poor social skills, they should still have some friends on their side, even if they're more likely to have a small group of close-knit friends than a large group of friendly acquaintances.

#### Not Giving Others Time to React

WIP Leaving a conversation without giving others time to react - when it's okay and when it's not. Also quickly and abruptly changing topics for no IC reason, or interrupting / interjecting into RP very suddenly with a new topic unrelated to what was being discussed.

#### Is This A Mistake?

WIP This is a questionaire people can ask themselves to determine if what they are doing is bad roleplay. Questions like: "Is this character motivated or is this game motivated?" "Does this take away from another players experience?" "does this lessen consequences and Drama?" "Could this upset someone OOC?" "would i rather be playing single player?"

### Take What You Learned!

WIP A sort of multiple-choice questionnaire posing various potential RP situations and asking people to pick out the one example of bad roleplay from three other potential good roleplay responses. Answers in spoiler tags along with explanations of why it's bad.