New In Roleplay [READ THIS]

Role-playing-

In roleplaying, participants adopt and act out the role of characters, or parts, that may have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different from their own. Roleplaying is like being in an improvisational drama or free-form theatre, in which the participants are the actors who are playing parts, and the audience.

A role-playing game is a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, they may improvise freely; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the games.

In Character-

In roleplaying games, In Character (or IC) refers to the world of the characters, rather than the world of the players. That is, a character talking to another character is an IC interaction, set within the IC world, while two players talking about a football game or their real lives is an Out of Character ('OOC') interaction.

Most online role-playing communities make allowances for the intrusion of "RL" (real life) by introducing standards of communication, such as insisting that all "OOC" comments are placed inside brackets, or given some prefix. For example, "(OOC) Blast, the phone's ringing again, I'll go and pull it out of the wall."

Out Of Character-

Out of Character (OOC) is a roleplaying term, referring to the world of the players, rather than the world of the characters. Actions in the game that are described from the point of view of the assumed character are referred to as In Character (IC). Actions or discussion of the character from the player's point of view are OOC.

Powergamer-

A powergamer is a player who tries to force others to participate in role-playing they don't want to engage in. For instance, a player who unilaterally describes his character as doing something with (or to) another character that would usually require the other to play along — such as having a fight or a sexual encounter — is considered to be powergaming

Metagaming-

In role-playing games, metagaming is the use of out-of-character knowledge in an in-character situation. A character played by a metagamer does not act in a way that reflects the character's in-game experiences and back-story.

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