Here you are, standing alone in a starting town on the world of Telon (or Norrath, or Azeroth, or wherever else!). You have personality, history, and you’re on a great copy of the world that fits your needs and has proven to be a great community. You have established the mix of whatever various role-playing types you prefer, and you know what kinds to consider and develop for future reference. Finished, right?

Not quite. There are several “do’s” and “don’ts” of role-playing which you should keep in mind, in order to enhance your experience as a player and the experience of your fellow players around you.

DO’S

• Role-play as often as possible in order to increase the immersion aspect of the game.
• What would your character do? Live your character.
• It’s the golden rule of gaming as well as life: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
• Try to influence others through RP. Certain events can possible trigger another person’s character into changing a significant personality trait about them. The same can be said for your character, if someone else influences them in some way.
• Encourage the role-playing among everyone, even RP n00bs.
• Choose a name that is appropriate and realistic.
• Use emotes for role-playing. Emotes can be a hoot to mess around with!
• Attend as many role-playing events as possible. They are a great way to meet with fellow serious role-players, an amazing socializing and role-playing opportunity, and are a blast to attend! No RP events lined up? Organize one!
• Join an active role-playing guild whose members support RP wholeheartedly.
• Don’t forget what you’ve learned: stick to the lore canon.
• Try your best to use decently proper English. There are obvious exceptions in the unusual case where your character doesn’t use language in an adept fashion, but you get the gist of it. Commas, proper punctuation, capitalization: all are components of language. U2 hav seen that sort of thing.
• Above anything and everything, HAVE TONS OF FUN!! That’s the entire reason you are role-playing, is it not?
• Use the ((OOC)) brackets if you have to post something out of character in an undesignated channel.
• Be descriptive while role-playing. It really adds to the feeling of immersion.

DON’TS

• Be cliché.
• Aggravate/annoy/harass/etc. You could use the excuse that you are role-playing your character, but that just isn’t true. You are doing this just to bug people, and it isn’t polite at all. If your character really is annoying, though, role-play it out in better ways that don’t involve game mechanics.
• Godmod. It really pushes people‘s ugly buttons, and for ample reason.
• Blow off RP newbies or become one of those who feel as if they have role-played for so long that they are superior to all others.
• DO NOT use 1337 (leet) speak. *sarcasm on* Everyone speaks leet. It’s the coolest thing ever. You should speak 1337 at all times. Leet speakers are like those people in real life who have a booming stereo, big wheels, gold teeth, and you can hardly understand them. Yah, you all are so very cool. *sarcasm off* *glares*.
• Be afraid to approach others in-character. Even if they aren’t role-players, sometimes they will join along. Other times you will approach a role-player who is too afraid to start role-playing.
• Be the “one and only” in the spotlight while role-playing. Keep in mind that there and others who are role-playing alongside you.

Try and keep in mind all of these things while role-playing. Most are fairly obvious, and should be little more than common sense. They are important to remind yourself about occasionally, nonetheless.

Sadly, it has come to the point where my Role-Playing Series must draw to a close. Whether you are a non-role-player who wanted some insight into role-playing, a RP newbie, or a veteran of role-playing, I hope you have enjoyed the series and have found a portion of the discussion to be helpful. If there is interest, perhaps a more in-depth focus on role-playing as an ongoing column or series might be appropriate.

All feedback is great, and feel free to disagree with anything I’ve said! A large component of RP involves personal opinion, though as a general rule of thumb these articles are the basics of role-playing. Stop by the boards and give us your opinion on role-playing and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.