Some of you may be old hats, and were around for those old RP servers, or maybe you play ttrpgs and know how to RP through that, or maybe you're fresh and new like a dusting of snow on christmas morning, and this is your first toe dip into RP. This is a handy guide to help you slip into your new character flawlessly and a good reminder for those who are dusting off the spellbooks of yore.

1- Mary Sue- Man f**k that bitch right? No one likes Mary Sue, she’s sooooo perfect, and she took classes on this and that, and oh she worked there too so she knows those people, and her parents have a lot of money so she can buy anything she wants, and did you hear that her hair stylist actually asked her for advice, and she’s just so perfect and she’s friends with everyone.

We don’t want to be a Mary Sue. Flaws give characters depth. No one is skilled at everything, it takes a lot of time to master skills. Not everyone is or is going to be your friend. Your character will have internal struggles, and will be incompetent at times. Remember, self insert fantasies are for fan fics, this is meaningful interaction with characters everyone has put thought and work into, solving the problem because ‘you’re just amazing like that’ breaks people's immersion and fails to let everyone participate.

2- Metagaming- Using outside RP character knowledge for in character gain. Your friend told you that they heard the neighboring town was going to attack you and steal some cows that they believe were stolen from their stables. IC, you have no idea, you didn’t steal cows, your cows have your brand, so you know you didn’t pick up some strays accidentally. Metagaming would happen when that town comes in the middle of the night and suddenly your little village has a stone wall surrounding it, fortified and guarded. You didn’t have walls on your tiny village before. You used outside knowledge of an impending attack to gain an advantage IC. Do not metagame. It takes away the fun, hurts people's feelings, causes drama, and makes the staff have to step in and mediate.

3- Powergaming- Watch the difference in the following interactions.

“You’re not going to get away!” I sprint forward and grab the back of your shirt, you cough as you’re stopped and start to yell about the stolen goods.

“You’re not going to get away!” I sprint forward and lunge for the back of your shirt, trying to grab fabric to prevent your escape.

Powergaming means controlling someone else's character. No one gets to control anyone else's character. Get into the practice of potentials, offer pathways for different actions, and take responsibility for yourself. Maybe the person you’re chasing is willing to get caught for a story reason, or maybe they want to get away for another IC motivation you don’t know. Never feel bad for taking it (OOC) and seeing if (Hey man do you wanna /roll to see if i catch you since it seems like both our chars are pretty even athletically) or (hey dude, do you mind letting my guard catch your thief, you RP him as an old man and my char is young and in shape) RP is more fun when everyone is participating with full sentience, and every interaction is a surprise. If you want to control all the characters, then write a book. Not sarcasm, it’s good to write as practice for RP!

4- Godmodding- This is the character who would, in our previous example say (no man, idc if im old, i get away from you) People who godmod ignore pain or overwhelming emotion, and make their characters have impossible abilities and invulnerabilities.

“That didn’t hurt!” The old man laughs and slips out of your grasp, feeling no pain.

Doing this breaks immersion, removes RP repercussions and consequences, and in a roundabout way also removes other players' own agency. While you would need RP consent to catch the thief, there still has to be RP justification for the thief to get away, such as losing the /roll and you make your guard trip on a stone, or the person tells you oocly something that makes you choose to trip on the rock for creating a good story that you know will come back around again when you two next interact!




1- Don’t forget senses! You don’t have to do this in every single reply, but sprinkling some environmental observations in during RP will help fill the world and give it life around you. For example, smelling rain before it starts if you’re outside, or seeing dark clouds moving in, and taking the RP indoors. Or, during a RP fight, writing about tasting blood after a landed punch, or smelling your opponent's sweat as he tires from the struggle.

2- Show don’t tell!

Don’t write, “I am so tired, can we take a rest?”

Instead write, I wince and heave as I look down at my sore feet, then back up at you imploringly, “Can we take a rest, it’s been a while.”

Although you might not want to stop oocly, sitting in that forest for a little break is surely a good RP idea. I’m sure this is a perfectly safe and bandit free forest.

3- Use those synonym rolls just like grammar used to make. I promise they’re delicious, and everyone will like them. Especially when multiple people are talking at once, it helps to have everyone using punctuation and quotation marks for dialogue!

4- Try to involve the other people in the form of your replies, nothing dead end if you can avoid it! (unless that's what you were going for, like a kid stomping into his room)

Instead of saying “I’m getting a drink.” and then walking over to the bar, leaving your RP partner sitting there, instead give them something to work with such as:

“I’m getting us drinks, when I get back we can discuss that issue.” That way when you sit back down it gives them an opening to reply with a “Thank you. I’m sorry we have to be discussing this at all.” I sigh as I stare down into the liquid comfort.

5- Your character is a whole person. Don’t forget to describe them, their facial expressions, any idle action such as tapping on the table, or their tone of voice.

“Can I borrow your pen?” “Yeah, sure”. Pretty straightforward interaction, nothing particularly interesting is happening.

“Can I borrow your pen?” “Yeah, sure.” they replied in a welcoming tone, smiling gently. This interaction shows how B is a polite and kind person, and might also show some kind of positive relationship between A and B.

“Can I borrow your pen?” “Yeah, sure.” they replied, groaning and rolling their eyes. This interaction is the exact opposite of the previous one: it shows that B is a rude person, or that maybe A and B don’t like each other very much.

“Can I borrow your pen?” they sobbed, tears streaming out of their eyes. “Yeah, sure.” they replied in a baffled tone, a look of worry on their face. This interaction shows A having a very odd behavior, and B being rightfully confused and worried by said behavior. Again, completely different from the previous ones.

Describing your character’s body language can also make other types of interactions, like combat, much more engaging.

6- Make your characters react to their environment! Living in this world means things will happen and you are responsible not just for acting but also reacting ( i know i know, opposite of irl advice)

As the dust storm rages by, I cough from the sparks in my lungs, sneaking through the scarf held against my mouth. “I wish we got more warning for these!” I yell over the cacophony at my friend wincing in the same pain.

7- Simple seven. Use ((OOC PARENTHESES FOR THE OOC CHAT)) when speaking oocly in an rp channel. It will save everyone giant headaches. I promise. Please. 




Use the plugins, they’re really cool. All that stuff you just learned up there becomes cooler when tied in with the RP customizations curated for Uros.

For example, think about range, you can yell at someone you're angry at by a ! ex: !”Screw you, get out of my house!” or a whisper with ? ex: ?”Hey, I’m scared we’re gonna get caught, are you sure this plan will work?” Alternatively you can use /s and /w for shout and whisper. There is going to be an ooc global channel and also a general local ranged channel for rp as well that is more default distance than the yell and whisper.

There is also the magic of the asterisk *The old man limps by, not even bothering to ask for help. , use single asterisks for personal emotes, this is great for when you don’t want to actually say anything but want to contribute to the RP, mood, and setting.

And the ~magical~ DOUBLE ASTERISK OF DOOM
Use these for environmental emotes, something that is not your character. **The wind whistles down the narrow alley, music to the rougish types who frequent those hideaways. 

The asterisks need to be at the beginning only.

The emotes done via the asterisks will be colored as well, while chat stays white, which will help to find a dialogue in a very busy multiple person RP. You can pick the emote color at character creation ingame.

Another cool feature of the chat addon is that your range will be dynamic, so at a distance if someone was trying to listen in on your conversation, it would be broken up and they would get bits and pieces.

You can do /roll (default 100) if you and whoever you’re rping with need a couple dice.

You can do /bird charname message to send ic letters. The time it takes for them to arrive is based on distance. They are physical birds, and can also be shot out of the air with a bow and arrow, or even some legolas ass shit punched right out of the air. RIP 

RP messages properly understand speech and emotes, so you can type normally for speech, use * for emotes and " to switch back to speech. Quotes around spoken sections are added automatically. There’s a Chat section in /settings with optional auto punctuation, automatic capitalization of i/I, and controls for how censored words appear. A basic chat filter has been added with separate banned and censored word lists. Banned words stop the message sending, while censored words can be shown fully censored, partially censored or uncensored depending on each player’s settings.

OOC chats can now mention staff teams such as @Admin or @moderation. These use the same permissions and colors as /staff.

Conversation Focus with /conversation or /convo. You can focus up to 10 nearby characters and other RP will be darkened rather than hidden, making busy scenes much easier to follow. Those you include in your focus will be given a prompt to focus you as well. Keep in mind, you blurring others outside your focus will not blur you for them. This is important to remember for RP should you be for example, trying to discuss something in a bar but someone is trying to listen in on your conversation.

There’s also a temporary /drunk <0-100> command. Higher levels gradually affect spoken RP with things like slurring, pauses and stuttering. This will eventually be controlled by the brewing system instead.