Roleplay Guidelines
This guide serves as an attempt to provide a north star for Legend of the Jedi's roleplay standards. LotJ caters to a wide range of playstyles, and different situations call for different degrees of involvement with others. However, whether you're a Jedi or Sith, clan leader, or lonely bounty hunter, these guidelines will offer information and guidance on how to improve roleplay and create an even more immersive experience for yourself and other players within the LotJ community.
Roleplay
Imagine that you are a ruthless Mandalorian bounty hunter tracking down a criminal for money. Or perhaps you are an industrious Neimodian crafting weapons and armor to aid the Trade Federation in defeating the Republic. What about a Chiss Admiral commanding an entire fleet of Star Destroyers? Roleplaying affords you the opportunity to perform all of these roles.
Roleplay is mandatory on LotJ. Players must create a character which has motives, goals, and mannerisms separate from your own, then go out into the galaxy and breathe life into that character.
Good RP vs Bad RP
For most In Character interactions, there is no good or bad RP - only RP and breaches of RP. The overall idea, however, is that there are many different flavors of roleplay, and each of them can be enjoyable to someone. Some players enjoy emoting in paragraphs all day, some enjoy the militaristic gameplay, and some even enjoy prison roleplay. Do not worry overly about whether your roleplay is good or bad. If the staff comes across abhorrent or "failRP", they will review and take action as necessary. For more on that, take a look at the other roleplay guidelines concerning powergaming, godmodding, etc.
Immersion
The goal of LOTJ is to give players a fun Star Wars environment that is immersive, competitive, and lets them tell their own adventures. To that end, it is important to keep things as in-character and on-theme as possible so that you are able to maintain that immersion. After all, even something as simple as cursing is different in the Star Wars universe. Always give some thought to what you are about to say and ask yourself: Does this fit? Would I say this IRL?
Scenarios
This can cover a very wide range, but in the simplest of terms, think of how jarring modern-day memes that you occasionally see on comm 0 about "We're going to build a space wall and the Rebel Alliance is going to pay for it!" can be. The more common occurrence that you will note are players referencing the staff or laws/rules ICly in a method that does not make sense. A good rule of thumb is that if you are attempting to hinge a statement on a word or phrase you feel is clever at referring to an OOC mechanism, it likely breaks immersion.
Additional Help
If your roleplay partner has difficulty understanding what you are attempting to describe, you can then follow up with a tell to the player explaining the situation a little more, or point them towards a help file. For anyone looking for a way to IC say something which is rooted in OOC knowledge, please try reaching out to the RPC first instead of OOC. Not only will they be able to help you, but they will be able to keep it internal so that the entire MUD won't know about the IC situation you may be trying to refer to.
Staff Interactions
Very rarely, a member of staff might have to suspend roleplay as they look into something that requires immediate attention. Generally, you will know this because when they appear in the room, a message will say that the area is now OOC. You can use say normally during this time with them. However, as soon as they leave, it is right back to roleplay.
Developments
This section of the guide gives examples on how one might talk about Developments in-Character.
Example: "I'm going to pray to the Gods about developing cloaking."
Rephrase: "Let me conduct some research and think about the possibility of making our ships invisible to scanners."
Example: "The Contractors said no to cloaking. What about banthas with rocket launchers on their heads?"
Rephrase: "I don't think that technology has advanced quite enough to be able to cloak our ships from sight. What other ideas do we have?"
Rules & Policies
This section of the guide gives examples on how one might talk about rules and policies in-character.
Example: "No, we can't go shoot down the Republic's orbital because of space law."
Rephrase: "Unfortunately, the Republic's planetary protection cruiser is kept too well-stocked by fuel tenders to be damaged significantly. We will have to wait until their prominent pilots get onboard and make a mistake in handling it."
Example: "We can't hold Telestrial as a prisoner for more than 7 days because of galactic law."
Rephrase: "It is time to let Telestrial go. It's been a long week already and we haven't been able to get any useful information out of him. We'll let him go and see if we can get him again after he knows a little bit more about the Empire's affairs. If we wait any longer, they will likely start to get suspicious and tell him nothing useful to us in the future."
Example: "She signed an NDA with BlasTech so she's not allowed to slaughter them mercilessly like the rest of us can."
Rephrase: "Let her be. She used to work with BlasTech, so I'm sure she has tough memories to face and friends over there that she doesn't want to see hurt because of her actions."
Staff Interactions
This section of the guide gives examples on how one might talk about staff interactions in-Character.
Example: "I'm going to reach out to the Lawyers about Klor stealing our blueprints and being a spy!"
Rephrase: "Intelligence Director, please start an investigation into what happened with Klor going missing, as well as our blueprints. I will be doing the same. Let's meet back up when we have any more information or leads."
Dissociation
Dissociating yourself as a player from the character that you play is a difficult, yet necessary, task that many roleplayers strive to accomplish. In an ideal roleplay setting, any player should be able to come across a character played by their best friend, and have no idea who is playing that character. Your character's habits, clothes, accent, responses to the same questions, should shift from one character to the next.
Importance
Dissociation allows you to separate yourself from your character's actions, thereby allowing your character to become unique from every other one you've played before.
Example: "Frump is the kindest man alive, but he roleplays the character Dakka: an evil criminal mastermind who kills dozens of other characters and doesn't think twice about it."
Something we should remember from this example is that Frump is not Dakka. As a community, we often have a tendency to forget and think of Frump AS Dakka, which can bring a negative association with Frump as a player instead of Dakka as a character.
Character Detachment
Work hard to consider the actions your character would take or the words your character would say versus what you as a person would do or say. Sometimes these things do coincide, but oftentimes players just do what they like every time instead of considering how their separate character would act. Crafting and using your charactersheet when making decisions goes a long way towards maintaining this balance.
Cursing
We are an 18+ game, and cursing is sometimes great in making a vital impact for what your character is trying to say! We only ask that you keep it in theme, or canon-appropriate. Please review changes 1713 to expand further upon this policy.
Importance
LotJ maintains roleplay immersion by promoting an environment that makes you feel as if you live within the Star Wars universe. When you watch Star Wars, you infrequently hear similar-but-different slang terms such as "scruffy-looking nerf herder", "moof milker", "sithspawn", etc. - not constant, crude, or off-the-cuff hardcore cursing from real life. As a rule of thumb, consider that some great stories include a well-placed curse or two, but no great characters use "feth" in every sentence.
Godmodding
Godmodding (aka "God-mode cheating" or "Forced RP") is when a player takes control of another character or NPC during roleplay by removing the other character's freedom of choice. Although godmodding is illegal on LotJ (take a look at Rule #5), it often happens in a minor way that most people do not realize:
Example: "Walldo scowls as Ralen refuses to give him any valuable information, so he ...
Poor Idea: ... pulls out his vibroblade and chops off Ralen's arm!"
Rephrase: ... raises up his vibroblade and attempts to swing it down at Ralen's arm!"
NPCs
Players aren’t allowed to impose actions on NPCs/mobs that they can’t control with order/duty/et al commands (droids and called soldiers). This is to ensure that you are held responsible for the actions you are ordering.
Planetary Leaders
It is godmodding to "speak for" the NPC leaders or citizens of a planet. Players must consult with the staff to coordinate actions and events that will reshape the NPC game environment. You may app for an exemption based on certain roleplay circumstances, but only staff-approved planetary appointed leaders (such as a Senator) may speak on behalf of a planet - though we ask that they tread cautiously. Additionally, a major government's clan leader cannot speak for the citizens or ruling councils of each individual planet. Please take a look at changes 1298 for more information about planetary godmodding.
Powergaming
Roleplay powergaming occurs when a player abuses in-game mechanics, external information, or roleplay concepts to heavily favor their own character with unrealistic advantage. We feel that playing a character and telling a story should always be more important than "winning the game".
No Value for Life
NVL occurs when a character does not roleplay fear or value of their character's safety/life in the face of direct danger. LotJ promotes conflict between characters and clans, so this concept can be tricky to discern. However, there is a difference in going to fight in a tough war for your clan, versus a situation where one character is surrounded by ten and still attempting to shoot them all in the face for a personal 'blaze of glory' scene, or run and cheese mechanics instead of surrendering to the overwhelming mob. This is unacceptable.
Excessive Knowledge
These are the characters who know everything IC right out of the Academy. A prime example is George the combatant who has joined your clan out of the Academy and is already putting your veterans in their place with information, answers, and locations. A good rule of thumb for creating any new character is to approach it as you would your first few times playing. You might have to wait for an answer, or you may be sent to the wrong planet to get something. However, just as you have been a mentor for new characters, allow others the rewarding experience of doing the same for you. This encourages growth as a character and as a player.
OOC Coordination
Planning or coordinating roleplay through OOC means is strictly prohibited. This behavior provides the planners with a very unfair advantage compared to everyone else not involved. Please review changes 2152 for a much more expanded view on the topic.
