Roleplaying

From Reflections WOT Wiki

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Before You Roleplay 2.1 DESCRIPTION 2.2 HAIR, EYES, HEIGHT and WEIGHT 2.3 Outfits 2.4 Extra Descriptions 2.5 GLANCE 2.6 LOOK 2.7 Other Stuff 3 DOs and DON'Ts of Good Roleplaying 3.1 RPSEEK 3.2 WHERE RP 3.3 DOING 3.4 IC Location 3.5 Forced Emotes 3.6 Bullet Emotes 3.7 Respect 3.8 Emotions 3.9 Multiple Alts 3.10 Location, Weather and Time 3.11 Skills, Stats, Weaves and Equipment 3.12 NPCs 3.13 Players Dying 4 Roleplaying EMOTE Commands 4.1 EMOTE 4.2 SAY 4.3 WEMOTE 4.4 REMOTE 4.5 CHANEMOTE 4.6 SCENT 5 Roleplaying Education Commands 5.1 TEACH 5.2 PRACSKILL 5.3 STUDY 5.4 TRAIN 5.5 EXP 6 Summary

Introduction

Roleplaying is the means of adopting a person on a fictional base. The actions to the particular world, situations and other fictional characters, as she or he would, not as you, the player, would be. The actions of the character is portrayed in detailed EMOTEs. Remember that while SAYs and EMOTEs ARE different, both are to be considered In character. Knowing that, a SAY cannot let other know the feelings and thoughts of your character based on his actions as an emote can, using says should be limited. There are several different types of emotes available on Reflections.

On Reflections of the Wheel, the Emote command is used for much more. As you Role Play your character in the world of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, you will use the Emote command to describe the actions of your character, and avoid describing your characters feelings, for there is no way for someone to know how your character feels. The following is a good example of an emote here. The emotes should be fairly long and describe your character's actions, not his feelings.

 > emote rests his hand lightly on the hilt of his sword, eyes scanning
 the crowd for signs of danger.  For his size, he manages to gracefully
 weave through the crowd, seating himself at a table in the corner from
 which he can see the entire room, yet still have easy access to the door.

When interacting with other players it is customary to let each player in the scene have an emote before you emote again. When role playing with others there are a few options you have. You can RP for the experience, or you can learn things from your time as well.

Before You Roleplay

Before you start your journey into roleplaying, you need to do a few things. First thing that comes to mind is what you look like. This is very important, so people have a 'feel' for who you are. Do you look like a begger or a prince? Are you wartorn or are your clothes new? Are you so disfigured that no one wants to talk to you?

So first thing you should do is GLANCE at your self. This can be done by typing glance self like this.

 > glance self

If you haven't already done anything to your character this page should be almost blank with several place holders like "none". So we need to remedy this. Remember that certain Stats, Advantages and Disadvantages affect how you would look. A poor person would not be dressed in silks. If you are missing a body part, normally it would show. Also not every one looks like Barbie and Ken. This page is a good place to make yourself different from everyone else, or you can blend in and not be remembered. Also things like [Age], [Race] and even [Skills] can affect how you look. A person about to shoe a horse would not be dressed in silks either.

DESCRIPTION

First thing that we come to is to create a DESCRIPTION of you character. A DESCRIPTION is what another character would view if they glanced at your char. This should only be a physical attributes (Clothing should be described in Outfits), so places normally always clothed would need less of a description if any. I normally go from head to toe, because that seems to be how most people look at someone. But, the order makes little difference. Remember to use as many adjectives as needed to give as much of a picture as possible. For your HAIR, EYES, HEIGHT and WEIGHT, you have three options. Put them in your DESCRIPTION, use the individual glance location or you can use both. DESCRIPTION uses an in game text Editor which will be described there. DO NOT posture your character in a DESCRIPTION. Posturing is setting facial and body expressions. If you say in your description that you are always looking like a thief (Shifty eyes, dressed in all black with a mask over most your face), you might get arrested everytime you walk into the oval or maybe watched alot more closely. Also posturing belongs in emotes so that it changes as time and your situation changes.

HAIR, EYES, HEIGHT and WEIGHT

As stated above there is seperate one line (80 characters) short descriptions for your HAIR, EYES, HEIGHT and WEIGHT. These are a good reference to your character, but do to your limited space, there may not be enough room to describe every detail of each. DO NOT posture your character in a these. Note the same way you can modify formatting and color in the Editor for DESCRIPTION and Outfits, you can change any of these, but each character of formating goes against you 80 character max.

• HAIR you should have atleast the color, but length, hair style, male facial hair or even the lack of hair can be placed here.
• EYES you should have atleast the color, but shape, eyebrows, eyelashes, eyepatches and a more detailed info can be placed here.
• HEIGHT you should say what approximately your height is. so a range or using a work like 'about' would work.
• WEIGHT you should say what approximately your weight is. so a range or using a work like 'about' would work. But weight is a little more complicated. Placing basic body build would be helpful. An example of a weight description might be.

 "About 185 pounds of pure muscle"

Outfits

You have 3 Outfit slots OUTFIT1, OUTFIT2 and OUTFIT3, to describe what you are wearing. This would include clothing, jewelery, weapons and other equipment. For weapons and most items, it is normal to describe them here in their 'stored' location. IE don't describe your charcter with a weapon drawn all the time, in the description have it in its sheath. It is upto you how what you put in the three outfit slots. Some people also copy and paste their outfits in and out of wordpad or other program for storage so they can have several more outfits and can change them for the time of the year, weather, time of day, celebrations, ic location, disguises and such. They might also change it for when they put on something like a Aes Sedai ring and/or shawl. But just like a sword drawn, an Aes Sedai's ring or shawl can be as dangerous to display. The same text Editor is used to write these descriptions.

The CHANGE command allows you to change outfits on the fly. Just type change then 1, 2 or 3 for which outfit you want to wear. So to change to OUTFIT2 you would type.

 > change 2

Extra Descriptions

To prevent super large DESCRIPTION or Outfits there is another way to describe certain parts of each. You do this by the EXTRADESC command. To add a new one type extradesc and the keyword(s) associated with that item. You may only use a keyword once so say you are wearing five silver pieces of jewelery and want to describe each one differently, silver would be a bad keyword. Use this when something when someone looks at you would catch their eye. A good example would be the ring of an Aes Sedai or something with fine detailed work or something maybe not obvious right away, but when you look at it more, you see it in a new light.

 Usage: extradesc <keyword1> <keyword2> ...

Examples:

 > extradesc eyes
 > extradesc ring emerald right pinky

This will bring you to the text Editor where you can describe the object you want to. You have plenty of space to describ it as much as you want. You can use just extradesc by itself shows you all your currently defined "extra descriptions" and their keywords for other players to glance at.

To remove an existing Extradesc, use extradesc remove <name>

You can also add extradescs to specific outfits, using extradesc outfit1 (or outfit2 or outfit3) <keyword

GLANCE

Now that you have yourself described. You should now be able to GLANCE at yourself. Prior to going into a roleplay, make sure you are wearing the outfit you want to be wearing for it. Also you should GLANCE at the other people you plan to roleplay with so you can respond like your character would when you meet them. By the way to GLANCE at someone else.

Usage: glance self
      glance <name>
      glance <name> list
      glance <name> <keyword>

Some players and mobs will have "Extra Descriptions" that you can glance at. To see what ones, glance <person> list. After that, you will see the keyword(s) for these descriptions and you can glance <person> <keyword>.

Examples:

 > glance nori 
 > glance karis list
 > glance karis eyes

LOOK

GLANCE is different then LOOK when looking at a person. When you LOOK at a person you will see the equipment that he has equipted and if you have certain skills you might be able to see into a container of the person.

Usage

• look - Describes the current room your character is in
• look <direction> - Describes the room to the <direction>, or the door on the <direction> side of the room if it is closed.
• look [in | at] [the] <item> - Describes the item
• look <person> - Gives a list of what the person has equiped

Examples
 > look
 > look AT the ogier
 > look IN the bag
 > look south (May give some information as to what is south)

Note that if you LOOK AT CORPSE you will not see its inventory. To see what's inside a container (i.e. a corpse) use LOOK IN <object>.

Other Stuff

• To get the most APs out of a session, it is recommend you check your AP Bank. You will be using up this fairly quickly when you roleplay. If possible try to keep this high so you are ready to RP at all times.

• To get the most of roleplay training, you want to have enough Practices to support the RP so you don't need to waste someone elses time when you are RPing by having to study instead of being taught. Practices are best used in RP. OOC training cost alot more Practices per increase in a skill or weave.

• Learn the background of the Wheel of Time world. And know the customs and such of where your character is from. Atleast have an idea of the background of your character. We would love you to have read the books, but a quick internet search should give you enough information of the game word and customs so you can play.

• Understand the difference between IC and OOC. Actions, location, stats, equipment and other stuff in this mud might be IIC or OOC, if you can't figure it out, ask someone. Example would be "a lucky shamrock" is given out by Kam on St. Patricks Day. I think it is understood that this item is OOC since there is no civilization that is Irish like.

DOs and DON'Ts of Good Roleplaying

All commands will be in all caps.

RPSEEK

• DO remember to use the RPSEEK command if you are actively looking to roleplay and can not find any. Your OOC and AFK flags state should not matter with this command. To see who is seeking roleplay use the WHERE RP or WHO command.

 Usage: rpseek

And here is the example

 > rpseek
 You are now seeking for RP.
 > rpseek
 You are no longer seeking RP.

You may want to consider setting your LOOKUP info to indicate the type of RP that you are looking for, but this is not mandatory. While mobbing or performing quests, or simply sitting in a room with a doing turned on, all are great times to RPSEEK.

WHERE RP

• DO remember to use the WHERE RP command if you want to see who is roleplaying is seeking roleplay. The WHERE RP command is really a sub command of the WHERE command. It is designed to help people find roleplaying.

 Usage: where rp

And here is the example

 >where rp
 Role-Play
 -------
 (Seek) Kam                  - The Center of New Freedom (OOC)
        Aresian              - The Oval Plaza Market Square 
        Llain                - The Oval Plaza Market Square 

In the above example, Kam is seeking to roleplay, but is in an OOC area, while Aresian and Llain is activily roleplaying in the Oval Plaza Market Square. Kam might be ICly in Tar Valon so that he can't RP in the market square.

DOING

• Do use the DOING command to set what you are doing and where in a location you might be. DOING is just like a TITLE but it is local (DOING overrides you TITLE in the Zone you are in) and made to be IC. This helps new characters to the local Roleplaying to know what they see when they come into the RP.

   Usage: doing <what your char is doing>
          doing (shows current doing)
          doing off  (removes current doing)
 Example: doing is sitting on an oval bench strumming on hers lute.
Displays: Marla is sitting on an oval bench strumming on her lute.

IC Location

• DO NOT roleplay all over the place with the same character with no consideration of time. If you roleplay in an area, your character is ICly in that area. So if you last roleplayed in Tar Volan a short time ago. You should not RP in Caemlyn until enough time for you to ICly travel there. The talent of Travelling has been rediscovered, so that would help you reduce travel times if you have it. Also, have an IC reason for being where you want to RP. Example, if you are a Queens Guard, unless you are doing something for the royal family or on leave, why would you have a reason to be someplace other then Andor?

Also, there are several RP Centers scattered in generally public locations such as The Oval. These locations will give bonuses to experience and other gains when RP takes place in them.

Forced Emotes

• DO NOT use forced emotes. A forced remotes is where you as a player emotes something

that "forces" another player into an action. Here is an example of a forced emote.

 > emote swings his sword right at Kam's neck severing it with his might blow.

As you can see this does not give the other player any reasonable way to stop the action or in this case for Kam to loose his head. He had no way to try to dodge, parry, or any other way of response. Forced emotes can be done, normally with the permission of the other player, under certain cases, like the other player is unconcious, but please don't assume what you want to happen will. DO use words like tries to, attempts, urges and so on, so the other character still has control of himself. An example of a better emote is:

 > emote swings his sword right at Kam's neck attempting to sever it with his might blow.

Bullet Emotes

• DO NOT use "bullet" emotes. On some MUDs you are limited on how much you can type at a time and roleplayers from these MUDs get use to short quick emotes firing away at a quick speed. This MUD is setup that an emote needs to be so long before you can recieve a bonus for roleplaying. Another reason for not using "bullet" remotes is sometimes they act like forced emotes when you put them all together, since you do not give people time to respond to each action seperately and they might not see all the emotes before they can respond. Roleplaying is not a race to see who can type the fastest, but two or more players weaving a story together. Ofcoarse don't write a book and make other wait hours either. Bullet emotes can be considered Emote Spaming. Emote Spaming is where you emote several times in order to receive several "bonuses" from roleplaying, this is ofcoarse is frowned upon and can lead to "penalties" to your character.

Respect

• DO respect other players. Figure out where you are in the circle of emotes and try not to emote out of turn. Speaking of respect, please remember that this game is on the web and there is no parental controls in this game besides a small filter for certain words. We feel that you have the right to express yourself, but there might be people on the game that might not appreciate certain references like sexual, drug use, or intruding on religious beliefs. The books of The Wheel of Time uses cusses that should be appropriate for anyone on the mud and would be ICly appropriate. Respect should be considered weither your talking ICly or Out Of Characterly (OOCly)

Emotions

• DO emote as said in the introduction, they should be fairly long and describe your character's actions, not his feelings. But feelings can be shown through facial and body expression. Most people would recognized a worried look or wide eyes and hair standing straight up as being scared. Also there is a SCENT command that allows you to set your emotional state. This is important and should be set just incase there is a wolfkin present as he would know your scent. Also this sometimes counts as an emote, so you might get a bonus.

Multiple Alts

• DO NOT assume if you have more then one character you play or another character has multiple characters that when one character meets another, automatically all characters of both players know of each other. Each character is individual and should RP getting to know each other unless there is a good reason they know each other, like two players might make siblings or each other and they would probably know each other very well.

Location, Weather and Time

• DO use the location for inspiration for your roleplaying and if outside the season and weather. As for time and anything else even the location, weather can be changed to meet with the current roleplaying. Sometimes when you have several roleplayers time may pass slower then the game time, this is fine, as long as no one really cares. remember these are just in the game for inspiration.

Skills, Stats, Weaves and Equipment

• DO NOT play beyond what your character can do. No player (Not including IMMs) are Gods. You will probably get into fights or get hurt. A peasant would most not be able to defend himself against a blademaster. Use these situations as inspiration for your roleplaying and how your character develops. Remember that your equipment, stats, weaves and skills are In Character (IC). If you walk around in a city with your sword weilded because you forgot to put it away after OOC mobbing, then don't be surprised to see guards attempting to put you in jail due to local laws.

• DO use commands like PASSSKILL and SKILLCHECK to figure out what happens in a situation if players do not agree, or they just want to let the MUD decide the results.

NPCs

• DO use Non Player Characters (NPCs) if the situation warrents. An example would be an Accepted could roleplay herself teaching a class in the tower. She could roleplay several novices she is teaching. Be careful when you are using NPCs. The NPCs should be reasonable for the situation and should not be used to do something you can not do or would not be Icly reasonable. Example a known thief would probably would not have a group of Queens Guards doing as hes wanted. NPCs can be abused easily, but also can help especially when the need for more people to be involved in a situation than players availiable.

Players Dying

• DO NOT treat Player Killing (PK) lightly. Yes, it can happen in a roleplay, but often it can be avoided and probably should. This is heavily monitored and has a lot of restrictions. Make sure you read the help file before going down this road. All PK roleplays MUST be logged, and if possible have an immortal present to observe.

Roleplaying EMOTE Commands

EMOTE

The simplest comand to roleplay actions and/or speaking is using the EMOTE command followed by your text. (':' is the shorthand for emote). Also, you can type your characters NAME to perform an emote.

 Usage: emote <message>
            : <message>
       <name> <message>

This command will display your name, then the string. Example: If your name is "Kam":

 > emote lowers his head and puts a frown on his face.
 > : lowers his head and puts a frown on his face.
 > Kam lowers his head and puts a frown on his face.

will all display

 Kam lowers his head and puts a frown on his face.

SAY

SAY works like an emote, but is just for something you say. It's output gets very boring and this command is really only for the beginners or atleast used rarely by most roleplayers in this MUD.

 Usage: say <message>

This will display your name "says with an <country of origin> accent " <message in quotes>. Some countries of origin has unique accents, so they display something a bit different, but all of them get boring and since this emote does not display any actions, you lose alot of creativity posibilities.

 > say oh well

will display if you are Kam and an Aiel

 Kam says with an Aiel accent, 'oh well'

WEMOTE

Another option, WEMOTE works like emote, except your emote will begin with the word WITH.

 Usage: emote <message>

This will not only display the text of your emote, but will place your name at the end, so people know who send the emote.

 > wemote a smile touching his lips, Kam surveys the room.

will display

 With a smile touching his lips, Kam surveys the room.
 [Kam]

REMOTE

REMOTE, or room emote, works in a similiar manor, but displays only the text after it. PEMOTE or the shortcut '\' are the same thing.

 Usage: remote <message>
        pemote <message>
             \ <message>

This will not only display the text of your emote, but will place your name at the end, so people know who send the emote.

 > remote Laughter fills the room, and Kam turns to find the source.
 > pemote Laughter fills the room, and Kam turns to find the source.
 > \ Laughter fills the room, and Kam turns to find the source.

Will all display if your name is Kam

 Laughter fills the room, and Kam turns to find the source.
 [Kam]

The another way to emote, He, She, His or Her will send an emote like an REMOTE but uses that word also.

 > He locks the door with the silver key just beofre the skeleton reaches the other side.

will display

 He locks the door with the silver key just beofre the skeleton reaches the other side.
 [KAM]

CHANEMOTE

CHANEMOTE, is another type of emote and it is a special emote thar can only be used for people who can or is learning to channel the one power. The way to use this is to put a * around the portion of a emote that non channels can see or hear. Women can not see a Male channeler weaving Saidin, and Men can not see a Female channeler weaving Saidar.

 Usage: chanemote *<message that anyone can see>* <message that others who can weave the same type of the one power>

The following example will show how this command actually displays two emotes. A normal REMOTE and then the special one.

 >Chanemote *Anna looks around before she stares at a point in front of her.  A few feet in front
 of her water begins to fall on the yellow flower.* A bright light surrounds Anna as she surrenders 
 to a small portion of the flows that she can handle. She weaves a flow of water and air into a ball 
 and as she tightens the flows water drips down from the ball. 

This will be displayed to all.

 Anna looks around before she stares at a point in front of her.  A few feet in front of her water 
 begins to fall on the yellow flower.
 [Anna]

This will be displayed to all people who can channel Saidar since a woman is used for our example.

 A bright light surrounds Anna as she surrenders to a small portion of the flows that she can handle. 
 She weaves a flow of water and air into a ball and as she tightens the flows water drips down from 
 the ball. 
 [Anna]

SCENT

SCENT is put in the emote command section because basically it is a special command like CHANEMOTE where only part of the playerbase will see it. It is also the only emote type where you should tell you basic emotions and only you basic emotions. Wolfkin and maybe others can smell your emotions. If you see someone with golden colored eyes, or is someone OOCly ask you for your scent, please use this command.

  Usage: scent <message>

This will not only display the text of your emote, but will place your name at the end. And as stated above only certain players will see this emote. Also, this emote type will only give credit when someone detects your scent for experience and bonuses.

 > scent He is very fearful and panic has set in.

will be display to the select few

 He is very fearful and panic has set in.
 [Kam]

Roleplaying Education Commands

All commands listed in this section besides TRAIN you will NEED appropriate roleplay emotes for the skill or weave that is being trained or taught. You can use any emote command listed above with a few exceptions. Please note that not all of the emote must be on the subject, but most every emote while the training or teaching is being conducted should be using or describing the skill or weave. Also SAY is a poor choice for an emote command during training or teaching because you can not show an actions or even how you are saying something. CHANEMOTE is normally the best emote for any channeling skill or weaves. ABUSE of training commands will normally be dealt with by penalizing your character(s) by removing atleast twice of what you gained including but not limited to APs, Practices, Levels, Skill or Weave Ranks and/or Experience.

TEACH

With TEACH, you can teach another players charactera skill or weave that you have a higher rank in. This is also the only way ICly that a new skill or weave can be taught to someone. There is no minimum skill rank for the student for this command. As said above, this must be used with appropriate role play. Sparring, fighting with another character not to kill, is one way that you can teach a skill. You do not have to assume that it is an instructional fight, it could be something as simple as a bar fight. But if you are teaching something like Basic Combat there should probably be some sort of fighting involved. With teach, the person(s) learning has to have Practices remaining in order to learn from the role play.

 Usage: teach <player> 'skill'

An example would be:

 >teach Kam 'haggle'

You can teach multiple players at a time, but it would be best to keep the skill to be the same or simular. Like GRASP and RELEASE, or SNEAK and HIDE, so that both teacher and students roleplay appropriate emotes. The teach will tick away as time goes by, increasing the student's skill or weave. While you are teaching, your AP gain is increased and you may gain pracs, gain in the skill you are teaching, and gain experience points.

To end a lesson that has already begun use:

 Usage: teach <name> end

Example:

 >teach Kam end

PRACSKILL

PRACSKILL offers another way while you are IC to train a skill or weave. The skill or weave must be atleast rank 5 before you can use PRACSKILL for it, and ofcoarse you must be doing something that is related to this skill or weave. PRACSKILL allows you to practice that skill or weave, learning as you go. This MUST be used along with appropriate role play. Using 'pracskill hide' while emoting that you are running through the oval is not an appropriate use. If you are hiding at the edge watching the action in the middle, then you could be practicing your Hide skill. With PRACSKILL the character must have Practices remaining in order to learn from the role play.

 Usage: pracskill 'skill'

An example would be during an emoted combat session, Demarko types:

 > pracskill 'Warder Combat'

This command is offered to represent the code knowledge you would receive while, say, working the forms or practicing new Hiding techniques in roleplaying. To end a PRACSKILL training, either start a differe one or PRACSKILL with no skill. Example:

 > pracskill

STUDY

STUDY is a unique learning command, because it is not designed to increase one of your own skills, but a way to gain Practices so that you can have them for improving skills later. This is a toggle so just use the command to turn it on then turn it off when you are done studying or when the roleplay no longer meets the requirements as listed below. This command should not be used at the same time when you are teaching, being taught, or using PRACSKILL

 Usage: study

Policy Note: The Role Play MUST involve the following or you will lose TWICE the number of practices you gain:

• Studying someone who is practicing a skill.
• Labor or work that does not fall under a skill but is difficult.
• Reading or Learning via lecture.
• Travel

When in doubt, speak with an immortal!

TRAIN

TRAIN can be used both in and out of character, and can be used at the same time with the other training skills and no specific emote content needs to be observed for the skill or weave associated with this command. When you are training, any experience points that you gain will go directly to skill advancement - increasing the skill that you are currently training. When you have enough training experience, your skill will go up by a set amount. This increase is free in that you will not be charged Practices or AP for the increase.

 Usage: train [skill name]

An example would be:

  > train basic.combat

You will not gain any experience towards levels until you turn off the training process (using the train command with no skill name). This is handy when you don't want to gain levels. Example:

  > train

If you start TRAINing a new skill all progress to the next gain in rank or increase in % toward that previous skill will be lost. To see how close you are to a gain, usr the EXP command. Use of the TRAIN command applies to combat and role-play experience gained.

EXP

One use of the EXP Command is used to see how many experience is needed to gain a 2-12% increase in a skill or weave, and your progress toward the increase. Your Money is also listed when you do a EXP, but there are several other ways to see how much you got. If you are not training then experience and next is shown as if you used SCORE.

 Usage: exp
 Example results:
 You have 4 silver pennies, 2 gold marks, and 16 gold crowns.
 Experience: 520             To Skill: 680

Summary

As you can see there is a lot of ways to display your actions and speech. Good Roleplaying is key to this wonderful MUD. Be creative, use your enviroment, and enjoy yourself. Don't let TYPOs or anything else get in the way of the fun of telling the story of your Character. So we leave you will another example of an emote that could be used.

 > From the kitchen, sounds of cooking can be heard.  After a while of
 shuffling, Aresian emerges carrying a warm cup of tea, smiling as he
 hands it to Catrina.  "The food will be ready soon.  You still feel
 hungry, do you not?" he says, heading back to the kitchen in a slight
 hurry, as if something might burn if left unattended for long.
 [Aresian]