Roleplay

Despite RP being completely optional, it makes up a lot of our group and our website features additional opportunities like virtual currencies, markets, and character profiles.

Roleplay Rules and Formatting

This will cover some basics if you are interested in our roleplay and lore. Don’t hesitate to ask about details or things beyond what is mentioned here.

Our roleplay happens in our in-character channels, starting with a 💎.

1. Every full member of our group is invited to join our roleplay with their CMDR, represented by their Discord account and their account on our website. Citizens can join too, decided on a case-by-case basis. To start the process, we would like you to declare your interest in being part of it. Feel free to discuss character ideas and lore in our RP discussion channel. Kevin Massey also does an intro thing for new players
2. While styles can vary, a general recommendation is to use *italics* for narrative and “quotes” for speech. It is also a good idea to avoid using both on the same line. This helps create a more comfortable reading environment. For the sake of navigation, please title sessions or chapters with character development or multiple participants.
3. Make attempts and leave time to react. If an action affects other players, do not narrate what happens and avoid so-called “power gaming”. Instead give a heads up, for example by stating what you do as tries instead of successful actions. If you are responsible for leading the narrative of a session as game master (GM), while you have more freedom to steer things, be equally respectful, for example by having an enemy aim before they shoot. In conversations with multiple people, allow everyone time to react as well, for example by having round-robin conversations.
4. Avoid “metagaming” by not having your character know things in-character (IC) that you only know out-of-character (OOC). If you want to join a story and be involved, discuss ways of how your character might know about it and reasons on why they get involved.
5. Dice rolls add dynamic to the narrative. An acting GM can request rolls to determine the outcome of your actions. You can also use them to add some variable chance on your own. Attacks should always involve some kind of dice roll. Likewise, there are several diamond market items that have rolls and well-defined outcomes associated with them.
6. In any case of doubt: communicate. If you are not sure if a session is open for you to join, just ask nicely in rp-discussion. If you are not sure if an action is okay or if you are planning to do something that might go against other players, talk about it upfront. Especially when it comes to PvP situations, communication is key in finding some middle ground that can make the RP more enjoyable for everyone involved. Respect what vision and wishes others have for the narrative and be open-minded to talking about how to make it work, if possible. PvP should be consensual.
7. Be aware of the consequences of your actions. Everything you do can have an impact on other players’ as well as the main storyline. If you are needlessly reckless and ignore warnings, consequences can include your death - and you will only have one character. Try to be reasonable and think about how your actions affect others. Also, be very careful if you want to play some badass character with villainous facets.
8. Our RP features a cast of (manually controlled) NPCs to support our story. The core NPCs are controlled by Kevin Massey. There can be additional NPCs with a Bot tag, controlled by a Herald or an active GM with the corresponding access level. Some other NPC accounts are run by other players, as approved alt-accounts based on experience, trust, and narrative function. Do NOT join the RP with alt accounts unless they have been approved. It is fine to create minor characters or reference free-for-all characters as part of your own narrative by using a blockquote format.

Example:

“I would like a ticket please.”
> **Lady at the counter:**
> “One ticket, that makes 20 diamonds, please.”

The rules can also be found on Discord - Open in Discord Desktop App / Browser

Feel free to ask in #rp-discussion or follow practices used by others.

Roleplay Reporting

In the mission_report channel, players will report their RP sessions.

• +1 signifies the session quantity
• Next is the channel the session took place
• Followed by the session's title, you use ** before and after the title to bold it.
• Next is a link to the beginning session post
• Last are the players participating

Example:

+1 RP in #💎rp-raven-square for **::FORGING NEW BONDS::** on 3307-06-28
https://discord.com/channels/205356098293727233/660383759459155970/859149587868549160
(With Mystler and Marina)
||In which Catherine visits Marina and Gloria for tea and a special personal request.
After some difficult talk of trauma, Catherine asks Gloria to be her child’s guidemother and the three have a touching moment.
[Gloria Howell, Vice Warden Catherine Edmunds, Senator Marina Yao]||

Notes

Adding a session summary in spoiler tags is optional, as is including the date. The summary can include a list of IC characters in brackets.

Editing Comments

to be removed later

blurb text in italics is added by me (Dawn, pending input from Aurian, maybe Marina :3), non italics is from the opening post. Intention is for the blurb to be posted to some report channel (either the existing missions_report/citizens_report or preferably something new such as rp_session_report) with some link to the original RP, potentially following the same format as the mission report. e.g.

Reasoning: If people can engage in roleplay and report activities in citizens_report without being able to view or otherwise access missions_report then there should be a centralised reporting location to avoid duplication. Would also recommend for people interested in writing the summaries to provide an initial message and later edit in the summary to avoid potentially multiple people writing summaries at the same time.

Marina: One way to do this would be to either move RP reports to this channel too. Then, people could leave a specific reaction icon on a RP report to indicate they are writing the summary for it. Perhaps :rp_alert: to indicate they are going to work on it, which they then chance to :rp_accept: when they finish and post the report.

This is also not a substitute for the rp report, but rather an additional post. The RP report would list players (with deduplication for bots/npcs). The summary report however would list all characters whether they are player or NPC. Listing all characters would also allow for searching anything related to a specific character (player or not, particularly with the [bot] characters in can be hard to search for them).

Dates may help with timeline, and being able to sort summaries by date order if/when transferred to website. When reporting, CGT would be preferred for consistency, but it shouldn't make a huge difference if it is not.