A Guide to Witten Role Play

There are two forms of role play, the form you take using actions and words with your character in game, and the form used on forums to more creatively express what happens ingame in a way that deepens the concept of your character and stimulates the imaginations of players. It has come to my attention that not many dofus players understand the written form of role play on forums, nor practise it, so I have decided to take the time to write a guide for you all so that you might flame people’s posts less and understand more about the creative side of role play.

Let’s start with a glossary of terms I will use throughout this guide.


1) RP: Role Play. Make believe, nothing is real in role play, you are pretending to be someone else and any actions and thoughts your character may have are only limited by the player’s imagination.
2) OOC: This stands for Out Of Character. These are writen words by the actual player and his/her thoughts on the game rather then the thoughts or actions of the character they are playing.
3) IC: In Character. These posts are writen in a way that the player can express the thoughts and actions of their character.


Guidelines for Role Play

Role play is basically a very long never ending story. Characters may come and go but the story is always continuing. Dofus is a role play based game, each character you agro or group for dungons with or just meet randomly has a person behind it just like you. But it is the character that we humans have created in our imaginations that should be able to make this game more fun. The public boards can be used as RP based in a written form and each post can actualy be the player or the character speaking. The verbal abuse in RP is the character abusing another character. Occasionally though some comments are more towards the human behind the character, this isn’t RP and doesn’t belong in RP threads. If you have a problem with how a human runs there character take it to PM or make a OOC note about the post.

How to write RP

The stories you write are about your characters adventures dofus, the battles, the ones he/she meets, the love, the hate. It is like a movie, crossed between a soap opera, crossed with a fairy tale. Because there are so many different characters involved, and because they are all controlled by different people, it isn’t good RP to control someone else’s character….
An example: I went to the shop and saw Joe there, he hit me. Joe might not want to hit you, he might actually like you, you should give the other player a choice as to how they want to make there character react, consider revising like this………I went to the shop and saw Joe there, I wondered if he would hit me. This gives the other player a choice, does he hit you or doesn’t he. It’s their choice and they can continue on with their characters side of the same story. However the situation might well be reversed. “I saw Joe at the shop and he aggroed me.” Ok it was an action in game that actualy did happen. Joe can either verify if he actualy did aggro you or he can deny it if he did not aggro you. If it did happen and Joe denies it he must be able to proove he didn’t do it.
If you need something to control in your RP, use a NPC. They aren’t player controlled and you can do anything with them. Eg. I walked up to the Militia Warrior and smacked it in the mouth. The Militia Warrior can not argue this statement but you can sure as hell make a great story out of it.
If you see a RP where there is character control you might think.. “but hey they did it, why cant I?” The answer is simple, they had permission from the other player. To make the story more flowing, some people do decide to team up together and write jointly about the same adventure.


RP Relationships


You may also decide that you want a partner or a lover for your character. These relationships can also be Rped not only in the game but also in posts. Once deciding to take a partner for your character, there are a few things to keep in mind. You can RP this in your writings or ingame but always keep remember that it is a game, it isn’t real, it isn’t a real relationship. Your character’s partner/lover may be married in real life, or even you may be, they might be a child, you don’t want what is meant to be make believe and fun, going to real life and causing yourself and maybe others real emotional pain. There are a few cases in which these relationships turn real. Some of them work, but many don’t. (unless of course you are playing the same game with the same person you are married to in game and in the real world)

Role Play is supposed to be fun, but it does hurt us all from time to time. It is great for our imaginations and our creativity. But always remember, there are real people behind every player, and their emotions are much more important than their characters. Be careful not to hurt the players, cause without them, there would be no one to play with.

The Fine Line Between IC and OOC

In any RP game there is a fine line between being in character (IC) and out of character (OOC). When you write your post, you have to decide from the beginning of that post which of the two it is and try to stick to that through out the post. At times it is very easy to mix the two and cause confusion and misunderstandings between your fellow play mates. An experienced role player posting in a thread that is for Rping, will very rarely be OOC and if so will inform players if they are by posting as such, usualy at the begining of the post or at the end. This is a courtisy thing to help your fellow players.
The way to figure if you are posting IC or OOC is to decide if it is your character that is speaking, or if it is the human behind the character.
Here are an example of OOC post.

“Sorry guys I won’t be line, am busy in real life.”
Your character doesn’t know if you are online or not, it isnt real! We move and write for our characters, so we decide what they do, if a post is stating something to do with the decision of certain actions, usually is should be considered as an OOC post.

Follow others’ role play stories, ( I know there isn't many yet but am hoping that will change) these can also be useful in deciding if the post is IC or OOC. If in an RP the character is no where around, as in, they are not in the specific building but rather out training or gone of somewhere doing something, either alone or with another, pop in and speak posts are to speak posts are OOC. Infomation posts should also be considered as OOC as it is the human that is confused or disorientated as they are unsure of how the game is played. Unless a player specifically makes a post with a story line about their characters confusion in the setting, then the teaching post can be answered IC.

Information posts are generally considered as OOC, again unless there is a storyline to the info that is posted. There is a fine line and at times the line is crossed, sometimes it is done unknowingly, sometimes it is done in pure frustration and confusion.

If you are unsure how to go about writing a RP please don’t hesitate to ask someone who can help you, also feel free to drop me a PM if you do not understand something I have written here. I used to do a lot of written RP in another game that was 10% played ingame and 90% written stories, I have missed writing and would love to see more of it here on Imps. So come on Shika let’s get more creative with our posts!!!

(BTW this whole post is OOC!!) lol