Roleplaying

Roleplaying (RPing) is where a player directs their character, acting as if they were the character that he or she plays. Roleplayers may create background stories, talk like they were the character and sometimes choose or restrict specific skills that don't immediately benefit them.

A pirate, for example, might pick digging as the first skill and carry abnormal amounts of rum. The pirate would have a background story on how they came to the island, who he or she was and what they were doing there. The character could speak like a pirate and even slur their speech and act as if they were actually drunk.

Sometimes, a serious roleplayer might go out of his or her way to discredit or insult a particular faction, class or action chosen by another player. They might also create causes that seem controversial to what the main population believes and at times go through great lengths to uphold it in ways that he or she believes the character would act.

Roleplaying in the game is mainly performed through speech and actions. Players can make their characters appear to carry out a wide range of actions within the game by using the /me command in the game. This puts the character's name in front of the sentence followed by any action text you type in the box. E.g. your character is named as Bakenmut. If you type

/me walks into the hut, looking around warily

and click the speak button, then players of other characters in that location will see the output as:

Bakenmut walks into the hut, looking around warily.

In-character and Out-of-Character

These are two terms that people use to describe the motivation behind player's actions and also to separate players discussing things and their characters discussing things:

• IC (in-character) is used to describe motivations that originate with the character. E.g. Armadox the Hunter likes to kill everyone.
• OOC (out-of-character) is used to describe motivations that originate with the player. E.g. Armadox the Player likes playing his character that way.

Imagine Shartak as theater play where actors perform their roles improvising on the spot. IC means a person is playing as hero or a villain (sometimes both in different acts), OOC means he is just being himself. That also means that IC rivalries and conflicts should not spill out to the OOC sphere or affect other unrelated characters in the game, even if they are played by the same actor.