| Front Page | Archives | Search | Staff | Services | Submit |
Medievia Homepage |
||||||||||||||||||||||
A guide to Role-play - by GimsFrom what I see, players of Medievia fall into two categories: those who bring reality into their fantasy, or those who choose fantasy to escape reality. As we each bring unique personalities into our characters, there lies an unspoken responsibility to hold true to who you are. For those who bring reality into their characters, you might be exactly who you are in reality, a funny companion, a stoic leader, a studious scholar. And for those who play Medievia to escape reality, you might be exactly who you want to be in real life, a malicious thief, a cleric of faith, or a warrior of fortitude. However it is imperative to understand that every action you take affects the fantasy of Medievia. As Tiar stated in his 'Basic Elements of Roleplaying', March 23, 1999, "the responsibility of roleplaying falls upon us".Take for example: Player X, a current evil thief, chooses to align good not because his character persona has good tendencies, but rather because he thinks good equipment will make him stronger. Thus, player Y, a clan member of the same class and of evil alignment, forms with player X, sees that indeed player X seems to be stronger, and then chooses to realign himself. And finally a good cleric player Z, recently neutral player killed by player X and Y, decides that players of good alignment don't really help people at all, decides alignment is a joke and goes completely evil. This situation is exaggerated, however, this example clearly demonstrates that people can and will be affected by the choices we make. This one decision caused two other players to change their views on alignment, whether player X intended to or not. Unfortunately, roleplaying is a dying trend: out of a short survey of ten players, only one partially roleplayed their character. But, upon the firm belief that Medievia is not just an enhanced chatroom but rather a depth-filled arena loaded with creative players and inventive personalities, I believe roleplaying will rise once again. It is your choice of who and what you want to be. Mold yourself, delve into your imagination and create a unique personality that defines you. Just as you aren't defined by one quality, do not define your character with one quality. Now you might be asking, what defines a well role-played character? Simple attributes of a well role-played character include a detailed description, a suitable appearance, a defined speech, and a careful alignment. Background The reason your character came into existence. Questions to ask yourself: Who are you? And why are you? Are you a brash warrior who charges into fights? Are you an evil mage whose intelligence is the mastermind of his actions? Did you come from a lineage of wealthy predecessors? Or did you have humble beginnings? If so, why are you that way? Do you have a history behind your life? Is there some reason why you kill janitors for fun? Be original, be creative, you can be anyone you want to be in Medievia. Implementation: Treat your character as you would a person, analyze its nature and give it memories. Use the Description function: two hundred and forty characters are sufficient enough to make a lasting impression. Make titles and descriptions wisely, Medievia gods work hard to make Med an original fantasy realm. Don't exploit the Brief mode. Use it to reduce lag, don't blast through the details of a zone just because you already know the walkthrough. Enjoy the atmosphere that they've created. Take my own personal description for example: A diminutive figure slowly raises his gaze to meet your eyes. You can see his pupils neverously darting back and forth as if he thought that through eye contact you would steal his soul. As you can read there is more than a simple description, rather a sense of personality that engages a player. Appearance The fashion of your character. Questions to ask yourself: What are you? And what do you look like? Who says we're all human? Have you chosen a race for yourself? Does your nature fit into your appearance? Do you look like an orphaned child? What do you dress like during different occasions? Do you wear your armor when you go to weddings? Of course its not feasible to run into cpk (chaotic player killing) zones with your black silk panties that you've always liked, but perhaps you're a player whose going to socialize in Medlink, make a dress mode for yourself and go have fun. Implementation: Utilize the Mode function. Create armor sets of different caliber for different occasions: hit point and mana modes for battle, dress modes for socializing. Combine the usage of Aliases and Room functions. Does the surging crowd in a pub clear the way when you enter the room? Aliases can be useful for both setting an atmosphere for where you go, and also for preparing for battles. And if you've used your twenty Aliases, use the room function to describe the scenery around you. Medievia has given you the power to change the atmosphere around you: make use of it. A simple attire: A baby-blue leisure suit.. YOW! This gives more meaning to the clothing that mobs wear, useless equipment give way to fashionable trends. Speech How you speak and what you say. Questions to ask yourself: Am I educated? Do I talk like I'm educated? Do I talk about Medievia things or do I talk about U.S. politics? If I drink out of a wine chalice everyday do I talk like I'm intoxicated? As far as speech goes, creating another language probably isn't the best way to go. However, you do decide what you talk about. Try to leave real life away from the conversations. Perhaps you haven't been on for a while due to work, do your friends need to know this? You could have stated that you were on a secret mission in Xanthal for all they know, both are still believable, only one utilizes fantasy in place of reality. Be inventive, being able to think and then typing out a response gives you, the player, a creative power like none other. Implementation Find out the multitudes of Socials that can be used. Do we all roll on floor laughing after a joke? Or are you the kind of person who smiles impishly? There are over five hundred Social commands to choose from, take your pick. And if you can't find that wonderful social you're looking for, take advantage of the Emote function. Emote yourself poking someone with that fantastic cattle prod you've picked up. Emote yourself daintily revolted trudging through oil pits of the Dark Escarpment. Emoting feelings brings excitement to every adventure, destroying the habitual run. An Emote command: Gims writhes in eager anticipation of another successful trade run. Ask yourself whether it was better to say your happy the run is over, or whether it was more interesting reading an inventive sentence. Alignment I believe this is definitely the hardest of the four. A careful alignment is consistent with your appearance and your background. Questions to ask yourself: What was your first impression of Med? Were people willing to help you out? Or were you backstabbed in a npk (neutral player killing) zone? In essence, you could rationalize alignment changes: a recently converted evil thief who wishes to be a good cleric, this is an acceptable role-playing change. However analyze the results: Am I still constantly realigning? Do I act like a good cleric, ready to jump to anyone's aid? Or do I still attack anyone that stands in my way? Since your alignment is constantly changing from the mobs you fight, it is difficult to maintain just one alignment but then try to probe around the nature of an alignment. Does a good cleric kill good mobs? If you're constantly realigning to good because you've been killing those janitors for fun, you might not have the personality of your alignment. An Alignment Example: A neutral thief with evil tendencies would never help anyone unless there was some reward, and then there are the times where he just stabs at the player. Compared with a pure evil thief who rather enjoys stabbing other players. Both thieves are true to their nature. A good thief would never stab an innocent victim, however he might try to purge the world of evil and neutralic community members. Finally ask yourself: Am I working within Medievia's system? Am I disturbing other people's gameplay? Do I take the fun out of Medievia? Though freedom of character depicts absolute roleplay, stay within the rules. Be tasteful and wise in the choice of your attributes and then try to stick with it. Just as any individual with depth will mold, shape, and touch the world for futures to come, any shallow qualities will be remembered, logged, and forgotten in the past. What you do now echoes for an eternity. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||