Hello, friends, and welcome to B'raht's unnoficial guide to roleplay. I am a relatively experienced roleplayer, as I’ve been doing this since I RP’d on neopets forums at the age of, like, 11. I’ve learned some things since then, and now I will try to impart that knowledge as simply as possible. Now, let's get two things out of the way: One, this is intended as a basic set of guidelines, not the be-all end-all of what you can or should do with your roleplay; and two, remember that in the end while your roleplay is your own it also is part of your interaction with your companymates as well as, hopefully, people outside Phoenix Down.

In addition, please note that this may be subject to changes as time goes on.

With that out of the way, lets get started.

SECTION ONE: CREATING A CHARACTER

I wish I could say I get this question often, because this is something so integral to roleplay–you are the character you have created–but I don't get it often, so I'm going to try to answer that question before anyone needs to ask it. An experienced friend of mine once told me to create the characters first and then the story, and I don't think that applies more strongly anywhere other than roleplay. Now, without further ado!

-Step 1 or 2: Backstory

This should probably be either the first or second thing you create for your character, the reason being that your character's backstory should either influence their personality, or it should be used as a way of explanation for their personality. So, what backstory should your character have? A lot of people go for a big, dramatic one, and there's nothing wrong with that, but remember that the character itself should be interesting and not JUST their backstory. The one thing I will say is pretty much necessary for this step is to follow the lore of the world, in this case Eorzea (I referenced http://wiki.ffxiv-roleplayers.com/pages/Category:History a lot when creating B'raht). Basically, what you write here should reflect upon why your character exists as s/he does.

Things to keep in mind:

• Where is your character from? What did they do/what DO they do? From this, how did they end up where they are? This is the basic backstory formula.
• With the permission of the other character’s creators, you might decide that your character knew theirs in the past. How did this happen? I should note that this is a good way to make sure your character already has a foot in the door, so to speak.
• This ties into the backstory, so I’ll put it here pre-emptively since I want to hammer it in early: your character should have flaws. Not just flaws like “physically weak”, though those are also important towards developing your character’s, well, character. With this, I mean flaws like personality flaws, i.e. impulsive, rude, close-minded, etc. Your backstory is a good place to begin demonstrating these flaws and how they’ve affected your character’s life.

-Step 2 or 1: Personality

There’s actually surprisingly little to say about this. How does your character act in given situations? You can go into detail here, with how they act towards specific groups or in more specific situations. The main reason this could be step one is because you decide how you want your character to act before you decide their backstory and want to base your backstory around how they came to be how they are.

Try to make a 3 dimensional character. They ARE supposed to be like people–and like no person is defined by one aspect of their personality, an interesting character shouldn’t be. For example, I once played a Paladin, a guardian of order and justice–but he was also a snarky, disillusioned man who had watched his family die and been forced to slay his own brother’s zombie. Perhaps your character hates the world, except for this one big-eyed puppy who she rescued from a trash can the other day. Maybe your character is a massive flirt but he’s also incredibly scared of actually following through.

A note on insanity: this is difficult to pull off and make realistic, but it can be genius if done correctly.

IMPORTANT: Again, personality flaws. While it is fun to be ‘perfect’, it kind of makes for a somewhat uninteresting character, like a Mary Sue. It stagnates your character’s development if they have no flaw: they have nowhere to progress and therefore no reason to be. This is not to say your character has to be a broken shell of a man/woman (if you want to, though, go ahead). I just mean that you want to create an interesting character who has room for development as their own little person.

-Step 3: Strengths and Weaknesses

This ties heavily into the personality flaws rant that I really like to have, but I think I’ve covered that enough already, so just assume that this applies here in terms of strengths of character and weaknesses of character. Your character can be driven and duty-oriented but they may also struggle to find meaning in their peaceful life. I’ve more or less gone over strengths and weaknesses of personality and character in the personality section, but if you have any other questions please ask and I will do my best to address them.

Now, physical/magical/combat strength. Your character should not be a god. They can be very good at what they do, they can be very bad at what they do, but they should not be amazing and the best ever at it–it makes roleplaying a character in opposition very boring for other players; again, this is not to say that your character can’t be very strong in combat or in weaving or whatever, but something to do in that case would be to focus on the downsides of being so strong in that area, which leads to weaknesses.

If your character is amazing at fighting, what suffers as a result? What WEAKNESS have they acquired? Maybe they spent so much time learning how to fight that they don’t have other basic skills. To continue using examples, in the case of B’raht, he is quite good with a spear and can track and run well, but cannot put those skills into their best use without proper guidance. Maybe your character is so strong that their muscles weigh them down. Maybe they have a frail constitution but a brilliant mind for strategy. Maybe they’re a genius at everything but that genius has isolated them, whether intentionally or not, from other people, giving them a bloated ego or a damaged psyche and reducing their ability to work with others.

That’s not to say that every strength or weakness needs a reason. Sometimes people simply are, and by that logic characters can simply BE as well.

SECTION TWO: BASIC BEHAVIORAL GUIDELINES

This is going to be formatted differently than the above, since its more a list of ‘rules’ (again, you don’t HAVE to follow them, I just recommend it) than a guide. The number one thing to remember is to respect your RP partner as well as the people around you.

1. OOC IS NOT IC. OOC stands for out of character. IC stands for in character. Things done in character do not necessarily reflect their player’s actual opinions. To go back to my snarky paladin, he was quite rude to a lot of people, but that didn’t mean I actually disliked them. Building on this, IC relationships do NOT mean that there is an OOC relationship between the characters. If that’s the case, more power to you, but neither party should assume anything. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard of good RP being ruined because one party thinks that the other was interested on an OOC level. It’s awkward for everyone involved. Please don’t do it. On this note, try to avoid first person pronouns when you’re talking about your character. I will be using “you” a lot in reference to your character in these rules but in general you should refer to your own and other players’ characters by their name.
2. Slightly different point: out of character knowledge is different from in character knowledge. Just because YOU, the player, knows something, doesn’t mean your character does. Carefully consider whether or not your character would know something before you play them as having knowledge of it. If all that leaves you stumped, you can whisper the player of the other character and discuss with them whether it is possible for your character to know whatever it is.
3. If your character is planning on doing something violent, or even just potentially unwanted to another person’s character, always ALWAYS ALWAYS clear it with them first, and even if you don’t leave them a way out of it through good RP. Say you AIM your sword thrust at their belly, or you swing your fist at your opponent. Describe the force behind your blow, but NEVER declare whether or not it hits the other character. That is always up to the other player.
4. This leads me to the following: don’t godmode. This is the act of declaring how other characters react to your’s or not following rule number 3. For example, stating that “your eye cannot help but be drawn to Stroganhoff’s nubile nose”, as ridiculous an example as that is, is godmoding. Keep your descriptions simple and don’t state that other people’s characters automatically do something based on it. Turn that sentence into “Stroganhoff’s nose is nubile”. You don’t even know whether or not the other player’s character is attracted to Stroganhoff’s gender.
5. Don’t be pushy. If someone doesn’t want to RP at all or just doesn’t want to RP a certain thing with you, that’s their choice.
6. Game mechanics are not the same as RP. Just because you defeated the Leviathan in game doesn’t mean you can say you defeated him in character. It’s an unfortunate part about MMOs that since everyone has the opportunity to defeat something, saying you did it is impossible. Now, since certain monsters spawn over and over again in the lore itself, it might be different, but that should still likely be avoided. In addition, try to avoid the argument that since your gear is better your character is stronger than someone else’s. That might not fit either of your characters.
7. ERP. Oh boy. I’m gonna be honest. No one should really care what other people do with their time, whether their ERP is the natural progression of a relationship or if its because they just want to do it. Just keep it in private channels, please; accident or not, it’s incredibly embarrassing for everyone involved when you accidentally send a portion of your sexy RP over FC chat. Party chat or whispers are the best for this business, but I’d even recommend party chat the most because you don’t have to keep typing /reply.
8. Last one for now. Be respectful of other people and how they choose to roleplay. Say someone is roleplaying as a big purple dragon. Since, as far as I know, this isn’t actually possible, the best thing to do would be to react in character as if they weren’t a stable person, or just ignore it. If you’re feeling nice, send them a GENTLE whisper explaining what they’re doing wrong, but again they are under no obligation to RP under your own rules.

All right, friends. That’s it for now. Tell me if you have any questions.

Thanks for posting, its really helpful for someone like me who has little RP experience.