Before this guide begins it should be noted that the chatroom which you land in upon clicking the "chatroom" link, is an out of character chatroom meaning that it is a place for players to hang out and talk and plan roleplay scenes.
Never should players interact in that room as their characters.
Joining an Chat Roleplay Scene
Most chatroom roleplaying will be announced in advance as taking place at a certain location. To cut down on confusion or the creation of two different rooms to represent one single location, the the offical list of channels is on the bottom of the chatroom screen. You can type
/join (roomname) to enter a room. On chat game nights be sure to have the appropriate channel (vampire challenges or werewolf challenges) open as well as the in character location so that you can particpate in challenges and hear storyteller announcements.
Entering the Chatroom
On a non-game night, any night of the week or year, you can go to our IC Chatrooms and play your character visiting one of our city areas or locations and socialize with other characters IRREGARDLESS of whether or not a storyteller is present. This means anytime you and another player want to play... HAVE AT IT!
However, you should take the time to read up on the city locations (each location is described inside it's individual forum as well as on our
wiki) so you know exactly what your character sees when he/she arrives because the minute you enter chat it's treated by everyone as if your character just stepped through the door.
Describing Your Character
There are things you can type called "Commands" that will make the text you type appear in a certain way.
For example: If I type: /me sings loudly. You would see: (DeAnna) sings loudly.
By typing /me and putting anything else after it, it will automatically insert whatever you typed right behind your name. So, for the sake of describing your character, take a moment to type up a few sentences in notepad (no more than 1500 characters, that's letters and punctuation NOT words) about what your character is wearing, their apparent emotional state (if any) and don't forget to mention if you look inhuman or not (those on a path and those with very low humanity will want to note this...) as that's important to how people will treat you.
Example: /me enters the room wearing a black ballgown and long opera gloves. She stands 5'5" tall and has long flowing black hair past her waist with bright green almond shaped eyes.
Additionally, you might chose to insert a link to where a picture of your character is on the internet (such as on our website) or to your profile page so others can easily refrence it and learn what they would know about your character without disrupting rp.
Challenges On Non-Game Nights
On nights when there is no game scheduled players have two choices, they can either
a) consider Chat to be just like the forums where there can be "no non-consensual challenges." By this we mean, if you and the other player can't agree on the end result of a challenge (ie: who would win and what would occur because of that) WITHOUT playing rock paper scissors... then your character is unable to initiate the challenge or simply believes that he or she has failed.
Example: DeAnna wants her character to read Randy's character's aura on a non-game night while in chat together. Randy doesn't want his character's aura to be read because he's secretly a diablorist ... and since there is no storyteller present, DeAnna must accept that Randy does not HAVE to agree to tell her what she'd see. Instead, DeAnna plays as though her character tried to aura read Randy's character and failed.
Another Example: Randy's character is really super angry at DeAnna's character for saying his ma-ma is so fat that she sits AROUND the house and he'd like to hit her despite the fact that the museum is elysium. It's "what his character would do" ... since there is no storyteller present and DeAnna refuses to relent to Randy's character hitting her character successfully and Randy refuses to let his character have missed her... Randy plays as though his character has suddenly had a wash of peaceful feelings come over him very mysteriously and all desire to be agressive is gone. This mechanic is curtesy of an unknown elder in the city who is keeping the elysium safe from frenzied or agitated vampires... of course, the characters don't know that and so when Randy's character suddenly becomes unnaturally placid all the sudden, both characters are confused and more than a little unnerved. Randy decides that his character would take this opertunity to leave and DeAnna's does the same.
or b) for any NON-COMBAT CHALLENGE (see below for information on combat) use the the following command to iniciate challenges `rps. By typing `rps the chatroom will randomly generate a result of rock, paper or scissors just like you'd have if you were face to face throwing rock paper or scissors.
COMBAT SHOULD ONLY OCCUR IN THE CHATROOM ON GAME NIGHTS WITH A STORYTELLER PRESENT. If both parties wish for combat to occur they must use method a) and story out between them the end result. In any case,
no character death should occur on a non-game night - PERIOD.
If the staff is approached by players who disregarded any of these rules the scene is subject to a ret-con where the least amount of damage will be done and none of the players will recieve player point compensation for the retcon.
Game Nights Challenges
When a player wants to declare a challenge against another player's character they announce it in the room like this:
((I'm making a physical challenge against Randy's character Azrael.))
Notice how I used the ((double brackets)) around what I wrote? This let's everyone know you are speaking as a player and making a request and it should be paid attention to even more than what characters say and do.
The challenge progresses just as a challenge at a game would. In private whisper (double click the other player's name) declare the trait you're bidding and the person should respond in kind. If you want to declare negative traits to one another, do so, settle up the results of that and proceed.
Once traits are bid then both players type `rps in the challenge chatroom, this will show the whole room who threw what.
If the players want to retest they can whisper one another what they are retesting or canceling with until the challenge is completed.
A STORYTELLER ONLY NEEDS TO BE INVOLVED IF... a) Character death is possible, meaning you are throwing physical challenges with intention to kill the other character... not "well maybe it could happen."
b) The players do not trust one another to be 100% honest about what is on their sheet. We work on the honor system but we realize personality conflicts can be a problem so please just ask for an st and don't be a jerk about it.
c) The challenge will require input from an ST for some plot or mechanics reason.
d) The players can not agree on the mechanic of a challenge.
STORYTELLER INFORMATION
Anything from the ST in double brackets
MUST be read and adhered to immediately. Stop typing... pay attention. It's likely important and may effect what you were gonna do or say as your character.
Tips On Chatroom Roleplay
Many people think that roleplaying in a chatroom is harder than roleplaying in person because "there's just not as much to do" ... in truth, anyone who has ever played table top roleplaying games or has sat in a room and just talked to another person, can do this easily.
However, there is always that person who likes to get attention when they show up in chat and since I KNOW you don't want to be the person everyone's snickering at, let me give you a few "DOs and DON'Ts of Chat RP."
1. DON'T decide to have your character show up minutes after a fight or attack. If you show up to the door of the elysium, in the nice part of town, covered in blood and tore up (even if you're wrapped up in your super cool london fog trench coat) you will be promptly escorted down to the sewer enterance by the Keeper, guided through the sewers to your haven by the nosferatu, sent a cleaning bill for the carpet of the elysium (the whole building, whether you bled on it or not), charged a boon by the nosferatu for entering their domain and have to go before the prince to explain exactly why you drew attention or trouble to a sacred place in the city. And if none of that is a deterant... consider this: Kindred view other kindred as potential killers and when they are most weak and vaunerable is NOT when they want to get chummy with one another. Be smart... don't do this.
2. DON'T decide to show up to elysium in a near state of frenzy. Just don't. Again, the beast of a kindred would view itself in danger if it was on the verge of frenzy or looking for blood... in 99.9% of the cases (Assamites being the exception here) the last thing a Kindred wants to do when on the verge of frenzy is look for blood around kindred or be around killers when they are feeling scared. Heck, even Assamites (despite WANTING kindred blood) are smart enough to know that trying to get it while frenzied is a good way to get yourself D-E-A-D. So DON'T walk into elysium all dramatic and angsty on the verge of frenzy... trust me when I say you won't look dramatic, you'll look like a moron when someone bigger than you steals your thunder, sends you home to your haven and then has you go before the prince to answer for your "bad choices."
3. DO talk to people not like they are vampires but like they are people. It's not hard to figure out what your character would say to someone else when they are sitting alone in a room with them... when at a loss, consider what you or any non-shy person might say to another person in the room who you didn't know. In lines of kindred stuff, ask about their past (try to learn stuff that might be useful) hobbies, job, where they are from, what do they drive, have they ever lived in a loft apartment... how about a trailer park?
4. DO consider carefully what you tell others. It may be fun to have a gab session with your new "friends" but remember... these guys may be your pal tonight but what happens in six months once you're the prince? How many of those little secrets that you share tonight will come back to haunt you? Remember... all kindred think like this. Balance how much you share (you have to share to get, after all) with how much you get. You don't have to tell someone your whole character background over the course of three chat sessions to be considered an interesting rp partner.
5. DON'T be afraid to take chances though. Sometimes the best stories come out of revealing something dangerous.
6. DON'T tell someone out of character that what you told them icly *IS* dangerous... see if the player can figure it out themselves. Don't screw yourself when your fellow players are happy to try and do it for you!
Special Chatroom Only Game Mechanics
There are some things that are harder to do in a chat enviroment than if you were throwing rps for them in person; the following are custom rules for met in chat.
- Heighten Senses (hearing): When spying on another person's conversation, you need to PM the ST on duty and do a challenge vs. the number of people in the chatroom to determine if you can make sense of quiet conversation that is going on amidst all the chatter of others in the room.
How to Roleplay In Chat
Linear Mode
