[Moved] Cerce's Rant on Roleplay: A Guide

[Cerce]

OK... so... here I go...

(Oh, and I didn't post this in the Guides section of the forums, as I don't think I'm supposed to withought permission...)

I've noticed that a surprising ammount of people on this roleplaying server, when asked if they enjoy roleplaying (or even know how to do it), don't like/don't know how to roleplay! Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to rant a bit about the summery and what-to-do/not-do's. Hopefully this will encrourage the regulars of kiwike to roleplay.

General Roleplay

Disclaimer
I would first like to point out that, even though I am doing this, I am not, in any way attempting to ruin roleplay, get recruits for Cerantia (By the way, look at my sig!), or start a flame war reguarding what is and isn't roleplay. Everyone roleplays differently, and you may or may not like or agree with what I post.

Identifying Roleplay
Firstly, I will answere the unasked question: What is roleplay? In a simple explenation, it is playing a role. 'Duh, I know that; That's why its called roleplay!', you might be saying. But the obvious always needs to be stated before we can delve into what it truly is.
Roleplaying is anything and everything you do within the game. From cutting a tree to punching a pig (or vice versa), you roleplay, however passively. Every single player of minecraft roleplays at this basic level.
Roleplay is the life your character lives, with no real connection ot your life (except when your character is based off of yourself). The words you speak, the actions, choices, weapon of preference, your living space and creations, everything you could possibly do in Kiwike is considered roleplaying.

What not to do as a roleplayer
There are a few things you should not do as a roleplayer. For example, you could roleplay as a bow-wielding allien berserker with a house in the shape of a pig, but no-one will take you seriously, and may charge you with not roleplaying. This is because this is, from what I understand, a server based on light fantasy midevil roleplay. So, therefore, you could also not roleplay as an evil paladin who wears nothing, lives in a dirt hovel, and fights with a hoe, as it is simply not in the genre of roleplaying that this server practices.
You also can't use roleplay for an excuse to break rules. Even though you might be 'evil', you can't kill and grief everyone you see, as that is against server rules. If you are a 'demolition expert', you can't go around randomly blowing up houses.
You also must remember that your life and the life of your character are not the same. They know nothing of black ops, or of last night's foorball scores, or how Susie is doing in her relationship with Carl. Therefore, you must always keep in mind that you would not be talking about such things. If you truly need to talk about them, however, I would suggest reading into my 'Proper usage of OoC' section.

Proper usage of OoC
OoC, or Out of Character, chat, may come in to your roleplay occasionally. For example, it may provide a prompt such as after you have dropped a piece of paper, you may say "OoC: Read it!" or something allong those lines. Also, OoC may be used to explain something that has no connection whatsoever to do with the game, such as last night's football scores and whatnot. Proper OoC comments should be started with (( or OoC. Example: "((Hey, do you know what last night's scores were?" or "OoC: You should come to my house, dude.". OoC is commonly said over world chat.

Establishing a Character

Your Character and Roleplaying
Now that we've cleared up exactly what roleplaying is, and what you shouldn't do as a roleplayer, we can move on to the next important question. Who, exactly, are you roleplaying? Are you a huntsman protecting your forests and living in seclusion? Maybe you are a man withought a family, moving from city to city, living off of whatever you can find? The personality, background, and goal of your character must be established if you are to have a successfull roleplay.

Your Character's Background
For a character's background, anything (within the acceptable peramitters of light fantasy/realistic midevil roleplay that this server practices) can happen. You could be a settler from a far off kingdom set to establish a new civilization, or a noble from its ruling family. You could be a native of kiwike, living your daily life. If you can't think of something original or use the above steriotypes, you could simply be someone who woke up knowing nothing of themselves.

Your Character's Personality
A personality, in my honest ipinion, cannot e written. However, you can still establish one successfully. Aks youreslf, what makes my character mad? Happy? Sad? You should always stick with a personality, otherwise you might not know how to respond to a situation as your character would. Eventually, as your roleplay goes on, your character's personality will evolve to a point that it is not comparible to what it started out as, or to your personality.

Your Character's Goal
Every character must have a goal. Otherwise, they would have no purpose to exist. People have such simple goals as living through the night, and such complex goals as becoming the founder and ruler of their own kingdom. They don't simply quit when they achieve this goal; they expand it and guard it untill the day they no longer can. Therefore, always have this goal in mind when you roleplay, lest you become one withought a goal and roam from biome to biome.

So ends my introduction into the basics of roleplaying, as I have come to know it. I would ask that Kubrickb and other renowned roleplayers please comment and suggest as to how I can expand the above and the below paragraphs, as I would like to incorporate all forms of roleplay into this rant/guide. If you would like to know more than the basics and are for some reason not bored of my typing yet, read on!

General Types of Roleplaying

Quest-Giving Roleplay
This type of roleplay involves you being the quest-giver. This could be anything from asking someone to clear the mobs out from under your house, to gathering receources for a project, or anything you wish. Some roleplayers who do this help and/or accompany the quest-taker. Usually, quest-givers reward their heros with something, other times they give them simply for the thrill of adventure.

Quest-taking Roleplay
This type of roleplay involves you being the quest-taker from a guest-giver. This quest could be anything! Traditionally, quest-takers recieve a reward at the end of a quest, but sometimes they do quests simply for the thrill of things.

Daily Roleplay
This roleplay is fairly simple. Almost every roleplayer does this at first. Roleplayers who practice this roleplay simply act out their daily lives. Oftentimes, however, going too far with daily roleplay can get annoying, such as saying every single specific thing you do, so don't go overboard!

Now, remember that there are other types of roleplay; don't just stick to the kinds that I have listed here![/size]

Types of Quests

Retrieval Quests
This type of quest is fairly simple. This quest invlovles asking a quest-taker to go and retrieve an item, and regurn it to the quest-giver. Rewards are typically another item of equal or greater value.

Escort Quests
This type of quest is also fairly simple. It involves the quest-taker escorting the quest-giver to a location, or escorting some other player (or NPC if they are included in 2.0) to the quest-giver. Rewards are proportional to the travel length, usually.

Storyline Quests
These quests range from the simple to the complex. They usually involve multiple interactions with other characters and mental quandries, trying to figure out a story. Sometimes there is no reward save for the quest, sometimes there is. It is rather hard to pinpoint how these quests should go.

Remember that there is no set type of quest! You could make up your own type!

Misc

Classes and Proffessions
Although a proper roleplay is performed with classes and proffessions, it is not required, which is why I have added this on to the expanded guide to roleplay section rather than the basics. Classes and proffessions, in my honest opinion, hinder the ability of most characters. However, I will expand on them reguardless.
Classes are what your character is in terms of combat and what equipment he uses. If he's an archer, he's going to use a bow and most likely have leather and/or iron equipment. If he's a paladin, he's most likely going to use a sword and wear iron and/or diamond armor. If he's a rogue, he's most likely going to have a bow and a week sword, and sneak around a lot, and probobly have leather or no armor. Those three classes are the basic classes of a roleplay, with the exeption of mages, as they are not supported by Minecraft.
Professions are what your character does as a job. Such jobs are things such as explorer, miner, farmer, etc., but really you could have any job that you could think of. However, having one set proffession often hinders your ability to go into other sections of gathering receources/making money in Minecraft, i.e. if your a farmer you don't mine, if your a miner you don't fish, etc. Reguardless, many good roleplayers use proffessions to expand their roleplay, and it often leads to a good experience in the end.

Adult Themed Roleplay
I will not expand on this, as it is, in my honest opinion, a disgracefull way to roleplay and something that puts the rest of us roleplayers to shame. If someone wants to expand on this, do so at their own peril, for I will find you and gut you like a pig in the darkest of nights. Don't roleplay in any way that may look like it is adult themed; you don't know how old the rest of those around you are, and you may not know the roleplaying rules of the server. I highly advies that yotta makes rules prohibiting this type of roleplay!

I will expand on more subjects reguarding roleplay at a later date. Please, inform me of any suggestions that you may have!

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