Post by Trehmar on Mar 8, 2010 20:37:26 GMT -5
I would like to stress that no one in the guild will tell you how to roleplay. There are many different styles of RP and many different ways to make it work. However, we, as a guild, have found the following points to be very helpful in keeping the RP community strong (both in the guild and the server as a whole) and would ask that you, as members, hold yourselves to them.
The Individual vs The Story
We all have colorful and unique characters. Everyone grows very close to their character through the course of roleplaying him/her/it. There is great value in what you can learn through your character.
However, there is even more value in the story your character is a part of. In the Banepaw Fellowship, we put the value of the story over the value of the character. Not everything is about you, and there will be times where your character takes a back seat as a secondary element of the story. There are times to focus on the individual and there are times to focus on the story as a whole.
Put simply: don't expect everything to always be about you.
Lore
World of Warcraft is a fictional universe held together and created of many different stories, characters and settings. We, as roleplayers, are bound together through this universe. It creates common ground that every single one of us can stand upon. I may never meet - say - a troll toon in the Shadows of Zandalari, but still be existing in the same world she is.
Know your lore. Know about your race's personality and history. We expect every member to respect lore and not contradict it. Lore can be stretched for the sake of good storytelling, and lore can be created. But lore will not be broken in this guild.
"Realism"
Along the same lines as the lore policy, your roleplay should hold a degree of realism within the World of Warcraft. Just because there are fantasy creatures, stories and places, doesn't mean our stories should be entirely unrealistic. Even in the world of gnomes, goblins, and dragons there are physical limitations and universal laws. Just because I can level a tauren to 80, strip naked and punch most characters under level 60 to death, doesn't mean I should RP that, or accept it as truth. And just because it's a game and I can ride across the barrens in minutes, doesn't mean we should RP the barrens as this tiny zone.
Game mechanics do not always apply to RP! Consider your story to take place in a WORLD not a game.
In addition, our characters' thoughts, feelings, personalities, histories, personal goals, relationships, etc should be realistic according to their race and character concept. They may not be real people, but we should strive to make them seem as real as possible.
OOC and IC Conflicts
IC conflicts shouldn't transfer to OOC relationships. If my character hates your character, that doesn't mean I hate you. It's story development, not personal.
Respect for Other RPers
This is all very general stuff, but still incredibly important to the integrity of yourself, the guild and the server.
Respect other roleplayers.
Don't godmod: take control of their character or the situation.
Don't speak out of character in /say. Ever. Brackets doesn't make it okay to have a ten minute OOC conversation in /say. It breaks immersion for other RPers and is incredibly rude.
Don't break character. While it's perfectly okay to 'be OOC' while doing quests your character wouldn't do, doing events which have obviously happened long in the past (see: Wailing Caverns, Stockades, the Icecrown dungeons, The Wrath Gate, etc) or simply being in a place your character is not in their story that doesn't mean it's okay to talk OOC in /say during those times, jump around a bunch of RPers like an idiot or 'pretend' to be roleplaying.
These guidelines are all pretty general. Some might see them as strict but I promise, following them will improve the quality of your RP experience.
The Individual vs The Story
We all have colorful and unique characters. Everyone grows very close to their character through the course of roleplaying him/her/it. There is great value in what you can learn through your character.
However, there is even more value in the story your character is a part of. In the Banepaw Fellowship, we put the value of the story over the value of the character. Not everything is about you, and there will be times where your character takes a back seat as a secondary element of the story. There are times to focus on the individual and there are times to focus on the story as a whole.
Put simply: don't expect everything to always be about you.
Lore
World of Warcraft is a fictional universe held together and created of many different stories, characters and settings. We, as roleplayers, are bound together through this universe. It creates common ground that every single one of us can stand upon. I may never meet - say - a troll toon in the Shadows of Zandalari, but still be existing in the same world she is.
Know your lore. Know about your race's personality and history. We expect every member to respect lore and not contradict it. Lore can be stretched for the sake of good storytelling, and lore can be created. But lore will not be broken in this guild.
"Realism"
Along the same lines as the lore policy, your roleplay should hold a degree of realism within the World of Warcraft. Just because there are fantasy creatures, stories and places, doesn't mean our stories should be entirely unrealistic. Even in the world of gnomes, goblins, and dragons there are physical limitations and universal laws. Just because I can level a tauren to 80, strip naked and punch most characters under level 60 to death, doesn't mean I should RP that, or accept it as truth. And just because it's a game and I can ride across the barrens in minutes, doesn't mean we should RP the barrens as this tiny zone.
Game mechanics do not always apply to RP! Consider your story to take place in a WORLD not a game.
In addition, our characters' thoughts, feelings, personalities, histories, personal goals, relationships, etc should be realistic according to their race and character concept. They may not be real people, but we should strive to make them seem as real as possible.
OOC and IC Conflicts
IC conflicts shouldn't transfer to OOC relationships. If my character hates your character, that doesn't mean I hate you. It's story development, not personal.
Respect for Other RPers
This is all very general stuff, but still incredibly important to the integrity of yourself, the guild and the server.
Respect other roleplayers.
Don't godmod: take control of their character or the situation.
Don't speak out of character in /say. Ever. Brackets doesn't make it okay to have a ten minute OOC conversation in /say. It breaks immersion for other RPers and is incredibly rude.
Don't break character. While it's perfectly okay to 'be OOC' while doing quests your character wouldn't do, doing events which have obviously happened long in the past (see: Wailing Caverns, Stockades, the Icecrown dungeons, The Wrath Gate, etc) or simply being in a place your character is not in their story that doesn't mean it's okay to talk OOC in /say during those times, jump around a bunch of RPers like an idiot or 'pretend' to be roleplaying.
These guidelines are all pretty general. Some might see them as strict but I promise, following them will improve the quality of your RP experience.