Basic

• Avoid closed emotes involving doing something to another character without giving them the chance to react, such as “Lien grabs Usako by the shoulder and shakes her”.  Words like “tries” and “attempts” help avoid this. 

• Do not use emoticons or leetspeak in in-character interaction.

• Avoid forcing thoughts or feelings on other players.  This involves emotes such as “and you feel happy” or appended character descriptions including things such as, “making you think how beautiful she is.”

• Avoid telling your own feelings in emotes.  Feel free to speak them.  An emote such as, “looks like she is thinking about her lost love” would be inadmissible as other players, beyond telepaths, have no way to know this.  Show it instead with emotes such as, “drops her smile completely, looking down to the floor.”

• Keep mobs (npcs) in mind.  If one is present, they saw you steal/kill/whatever else you may have done in their presence.

• Accept even negative role-play for your character as gracefully as possible and play it out to the end.  If there is a policy question involved, that can be decided later.

• Stay in character.  Whatever the feelings you as a player have, you are not your character.

• Remember what your character has done.  If sitting, stand up before moving to the next activity.  If you have something in your hand, remember you can’t have something else there.

• When logging off, give an in-character excuse for the departure.  This is especially important if someone is present who may be offended by lack of formalities such as an important personage.  It is still legitimate role-play for them to be angry.  Conversely, keep in mind that there are times it may be impossible to give such warning and someone may be required to leave immediately.

• Never use out of character information for in character purposes, or react to it.  Information regarding in character events and situations should not be shared by out of character means anyway.  This includes keeping separate what each alternate character may or may not know, and information from a previous character if a character is dead.

• Plans for a character may go awry, just as in life.   Be flexible.

Advanced

• Consider the five senses.  What is the character seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching?

• Interact with the elements – if it’s raining, it’s wet.  If it’s dark, it is difficult or impossible to see without a light.

• Give characters a flaw or flaws, or weaknesses.  Perfection can be boring.

• Aim for creative emotes more than says or socials.

• Keep in mind how the character moves and interacts with their environment.

• Role-play with a wide variety of people, including newbies, provided your character would do so.

• Personality quirks help make a character memorable, such as “trademark” actions and key phrases.

• Have a well developed character background and back story.  It is as important to know where your character has been as where they are now and will be in the future.  Be creative.

• Try to keep the character different from your real self in at least some ways.