A Guide To Serious Roleplay
This guide will serve to help both new and not-so-new players with quite a few things in regards to general roleplaying, how to roleplay effectively, things you should likely avoid and more. I'll be breaking it down into a summary to make it easier to navigate and it will constantly be updated and improved upon where necessary.
This guide will serve to help both new and not-so-new players with quite a few things in regards to general roleplaying, how to roleplay effectively, things you should likely avoid and more. I'll be breaking it down into a summary to make it easier to navigate and it will constantly be updated and improved upon where necessary.
New Players
Welcome to the Bayou Of Chicago! There are endless opportunities to engage with the community on the server, whether you play a civilian character or join a faction, all of the pointers below will help direct you in steps what you should be focusing on and prioritizing.
1. Character Creation - The first step of any new character is of course, making them, before you jump into character creation in-game there are a couple of things you should do, you should ask yourself who the character is going to be, what's their backstory? what's their strengths and weaknesses? knowing these things before you create the character physically will massively help you shape your character into who they will be. Remember that you should keep this realistic, making a character who is a millionaire, drives expensive cars, has pearly white teeth and is an avid body builder would be a very boring character and would fit the stereotype of a "mallrat".
What is a Mallrat? - A mallrat is essentially a character who's backstory means very little typically and their character somehow owns multiple expensive cars and generally focus on generating in-game currency to buy and flaunt expensive things with little to no character portrayal of owning them or character developments. As a new player you should avoid falling into this trap at all costs, just because you have the in-game currency doesn't mean that your character can actually afford that expensive Audi, there is a lot of freedom given when it comes to currency on this server to allow players the opportunities for open ended roleplay, regardless of how much in-game cash you have you are still always expected to be properly portraying your character realistically to the best of your capabilities.
2. Where is the Roleplay? - The roleplay can quite literally be anywhere, but a good place to start would be to utilize the menu by pressing "F1" opening your phone and checking the list of open businesses. Engage with other players, meet new characters, discover new things, and much more.
Focus on these two things to start and much more will naturally uncover for you the more time you spend on the server.
Remember to read over the server rules here.
Utilize our Discord in the #newbie-help channel and the /helpme ticket system in-game for any questions or help needed.
/report is if another player has broken a server rule against you, in which case the admins will investigate. /report is also used if you run into any bugs, or if you need some kind of admin assistance in general.
Welcome to the Bayou Of Chicago! There are endless opportunities to engage with the community on the server, whether you play a civilian character or join a faction, all of the pointers below will help direct you in steps what you should be focusing on and prioritizing.
1. Character Creation - The first step of any new character is of course, making them, before you jump into character creation in-game there are a couple of things you should do, you should ask yourself who the character is going to be, what's their backstory? what's their strengths and weaknesses? knowing these things before you create the character physically will massively help you shape your character into who they will be. Remember that you should keep this realistic, making a character who is a millionaire, drives expensive cars, has pearly white teeth and is an avid body builder would be a very boring character and would fit the stereotype of a "mallrat".
What is a Mallrat? - A mallrat is essentially a character who's backstory means very little typically and their character somehow owns multiple expensive cars and generally focus on generating in-game currency to buy and flaunt expensive things with little to no character portrayal of owning them or character developments. As a new player you should avoid falling into this trap at all costs, just because you have the in-game currency doesn't mean that your character can actually afford that expensive Audi, there is a lot of freedom given when it comes to currency on this server to allow players the opportunities for open ended roleplay, regardless of how much in-game cash you have you are still always expected to be properly portraying your character realistically to the best of your capabilities.
2. Where is the Roleplay? - The roleplay can quite literally be anywhere, but a good place to start would be to utilize the menu by pressing "F1" opening your phone and checking the list of open businesses. Engage with other players, meet new characters, discover new things, and much more.
Focus on these two things to start and much more will naturally uncover for you the more time you spend on the server.
Remember to read over the server rules here.
Utilize our Discord in the #newbie-help channel and the /helpme ticket system in-game for any questions or help needed.
/report is if another player has broken a server rule against you, in which case the admins will investigate. /report is also used if you run into any bugs, or if you need some kind of admin assistance in general.
What Is Roleplay
Roleplay is the ability to engage with other characters in a fictional world where player freedom is limitless, the very thing that pulled me into roleplay all those years ago was how much of a sandbox it is and how engaging it can be with other players, your character could be enjoying a drink at a local bar, then all of a sudden a man gets stabbed right next to you, something which happened to me on my first night on the server. The possibilities are quite literally endless and that is the biggest appeal of roleplay, it is a massive open book that continuously gets new pages every single day, and you have your own stories to tell within said book.
Roleplay can get very immersive, engaging, demanding and even frustrating at times, the most important rule of thumb to always remember while roleplaying is that you are playing a game, a fictional character, never break character by going out of character (OOC) even if things didn't go the way you wanted or had planned for, the true beauty of roleplay is that this can happen and it is never a "loss" even if you lose many items such as guns or lots of drugs, these type of moments provide you with perfect opportunities to further develop your character, telling your characters story in roleplay should always be the priority and not a bunch of pixel items! If you can do this then you're already on your way to being a good roleplayer, if you cannot do this? then you are simply a bad roleplayer.
Roleplaying isn't always about your character, no single character on the server is a "main character" and should not act like one, if your character gets into a fight and loses and is badly beaten, you should roleplay that out to the best of your ability for the sake of stellar roleplay. You have that ability to shape how good or bad a roleplay scenario will go depending on how well you roleplay out the situation, people will commend you for good roleplay and seeking revenge on another character isn't always the best way to move forward, in most cases it actually is not, there are far more ways to develop combative roleplay than seeking revenge physically, use your head and don't immediately seek to player kill (PK) other characters out of the roleplay, develop, escalate and prosper with good roleplay and memorable scenarios.
Roleplay is the ability to engage with other characters in a fictional world where player freedom is limitless, the very thing that pulled me into roleplay all those years ago was how much of a sandbox it is and how engaging it can be with other players, your character could be enjoying a drink at a local bar, then all of a sudden a man gets stabbed right next to you, something which happened to me on my first night on the server. The possibilities are quite literally endless and that is the biggest appeal of roleplay, it is a massive open book that continuously gets new pages every single day, and you have your own stories to tell within said book.
Roleplay can get very immersive, engaging, demanding and even frustrating at times, the most important rule of thumb to always remember while roleplaying is that you are playing a game, a fictional character, never break character by going out of character (OOC) even if things didn't go the way you wanted or had planned for, the true beauty of roleplay is that this can happen and it is never a "loss" even if you lose many items such as guns or lots of drugs, these type of moments provide you with perfect opportunities to further develop your character, telling your characters story in roleplay should always be the priority and not a bunch of pixel items! If you can do this then you're already on your way to being a good roleplayer, if you cannot do this? then you are simply a bad roleplayer.
Roleplaying isn't always about your character, no single character on the server is a "main character" and should not act like one, if your character gets into a fight and loses and is badly beaten, you should roleplay that out to the best of your ability for the sake of stellar roleplay. You have that ability to shape how good or bad a roleplay scenario will go depending on how well you roleplay out the situation, people will commend you for good roleplay and seeking revenge on another character isn't always the best way to move forward, in most cases it actually is not, there are far more ways to develop combative roleplay than seeking revenge physically, use your head and don't immediately seek to player kill (PK) other characters out of the roleplay, develop, escalate and prosper with good roleplay and memorable scenarios.
How To Get Better At Roleplay
There are a few things that will set you apart as a good roleplayer, we'll focus here on some of the more simple ways which in my opinion are some of the most important.
1. Utilizing Chat - Using correct grammar obviously plays its part, use the correct commas and full stops where appropriate to the dialog.
2. Utilizing Emotes - Using /me and /ame correctly also plays a big part, /me's should be used for most emotes whilst /ame's should be used for shorter less meaningful emotes especially if in a busy environment. The more effort you put into emotes to express your character the more impact they will have, see the two examples below;
John Doe laughs.
John Doe howls a squeaky chuckle.
Jane Doe looks at Hector.
Jane Doe peers towards Hector, squinting her eyes and scrunching up her nose in a snarl.
As you can see, showing more effort in these can very easily show more expression with your character and instantly helps you to display a more expressive character, utilizing these is a huge key point in improving your roleplay.
3. Roleplay Around Your Surroundings - If something happens around your character, roleplay around it accordingly, there's nothing worse than when someone gets shot, stabbed or other highly intense situations when your character will stand there doing little to nothing, get engaged in the roleplay at hand, show fear and shock, and let it linger, don't go right back to dancing at a club if someone was just shot or even if you heard shots, think about how you might act in real life and use that to your advantage when roleplaying around your surroundings. It doesn't matter if you experience these way too much, the ability to constantly display realistic reactions when they do happen is what sets you apart from a good roleplayer and a not-so-good roleplayer.
4. Realism - To be a good roleplayer you need to display realistic behavior from your character, if you take a drug like meth and then just walk around acting your usual self, you're not roleplaying realistically, same goes for any other type of drug, even marijuana. Use things like drugs as a way to display the altered state of your character, but make sure you do so in a realistic portrayal to the drug effects, there are plenty of resources online to study, even a brief study of something you're unsure of will improve your roleplay surrounding it tenfold. This applies to literally anything you're currently doing, when your character displays unrealistic tendencies then it can very easily break the immersion of other players. This can even be something like your characters age, your character at 20 years old is not likely to own a business or be all that successful in life yet, approach everything realistically and develop your character accordingly.
Focus on these four things and you will quickly become better at roleplaying. I also suggest reading over some of some players character stories and faction threads, not only are they fun to read, you'll also naturally learn from already experienced roleplayers who are showcasing their roleplay with the community. You can find them here.
There are a few things that will set you apart as a good roleplayer, we'll focus here on some of the more simple ways which in my opinion are some of the most important.
1. Utilizing Chat - Using correct grammar obviously plays its part, use the correct commas and full stops where appropriate to the dialog.
2. Utilizing Emotes - Using /me and /ame correctly also plays a big part, /me's should be used for most emotes whilst /ame's should be used for shorter less meaningful emotes especially if in a busy environment. The more effort you put into emotes to express your character the more impact they will have, see the two examples below;
John Doe laughs.
John Doe howls a squeaky chuckle.
Jane Doe looks at Hector.
Jane Doe peers towards Hector, squinting her eyes and scrunching up her nose in a snarl.
As you can see, showing more effort in these can very easily show more expression with your character and instantly helps you to display a more expressive character, utilizing these is a huge key point in improving your roleplay.
3. Roleplay Around Your Surroundings - If something happens around your character, roleplay around it accordingly, there's nothing worse than when someone gets shot, stabbed or other highly intense situations when your character will stand there doing little to nothing, get engaged in the roleplay at hand, show fear and shock, and let it linger, don't go right back to dancing at a club if someone was just shot or even if you heard shots, think about how you might act in real life and use that to your advantage when roleplaying around your surroundings. It doesn't matter if you experience these way too much, the ability to constantly display realistic reactions when they do happen is what sets you apart from a good roleplayer and a not-so-good roleplayer.
4. Realism - To be a good roleplayer you need to display realistic behavior from your character, if you take a drug like meth and then just walk around acting your usual self, you're not roleplaying realistically, same goes for any other type of drug, even marijuana. Use things like drugs as a way to display the altered state of your character, but make sure you do so in a realistic portrayal to the drug effects, there are plenty of resources online to study, even a brief study of something you're unsure of will improve your roleplay surrounding it tenfold. This applies to literally anything you're currently doing, when your character displays unrealistic tendencies then it can very easily break the immersion of other players. This can even be something like your characters age, your character at 20 years old is not likely to own a business or be all that successful in life yet, approach everything realistically and develop your character accordingly.
Focus on these four things and you will quickly become better at roleplaying. I also suggest reading over some of some players character stories and faction threads, not only are they fun to read, you'll also naturally learn from already experienced roleplayers who are showcasing their roleplay with the community. You can find them here.
