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HOW TO: Amplify your Roleplay by adding Depth

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Improve your Roleplay by adding Depth

 

OVERVIEW
This guide is here to help players improve their roleplay, ultimately creating better roleplay scenarios for everyone involved. This thread will not teach you how to roleplay, if you need help learning how to roleplay, this guide is not for you.

Recently, ECRP Management made an announcement clarifying the use of /do and /me based on what these commands should be used for, and what they should not be used for. For a long time, most players would use /me to perform a quick action, and then ask with /do if they were successful in doing so. While this has never been the correct use case for these commands, since the clarification was made, I've seen a lot of people ask questions about powergaming, and how not using /do to ask for permission to complete actions would be considered powergaming. Explicitly asking for permission in /do would mitigate some level of powergaming, but the actions that you roleplay should allow for responses by other players, not simply "/do Yes/No". Taking time to roleplay out your actions can, and should replace asking for permission with /do, and this guide is here to show you how you can take a moment to roleplay out your actions and improve everyone's experience while also ensuring that you do not powergame your actions.

OPEN ENDED VS. NON OPEN ENDED ROLEPLAY
One of the biggest ways to improve roleplay between yourself and other players is by ensuring that your roleplay is open-ended. By open ended, I mean roleplaying your actions in a way that is open for response by other players involved. This will ultimately ensure that you're not powergaming.

 

WHAT NOT TO DO:
ACTION: /me attempts to search the man.
RESPONSE: /do no resistance.
ACTION: /me would attempt to punch 83.
RESPONSE: /me would fight back, punching him.


The two commands that I listed above are roleplay actions that are technically not against the rules, but promote a poor roleplay experience for the players involved. Think about the actions you would have to take IRL in order to accomplish what you're doing, and then roleplay out those actions, rather than trying to speed through a scenario.

 

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO:

ACTIONS:
/me would pat around the individual's waist and pants legs as he begins searching the individual.
/me would then pat around the individual's torso, searching for any pockets on their shirt.


RESPONSES:
/me would show no resistance, holding his arms out as he's searched.
OR:
/me would show some resistance as he attempts to turn around, facing the individual that's searching him.

As you can see, the actions here are detailed out in multiple commands, giving the other person involved in this situation time to react and roleplay their actions accordingly. While not directly asking if you're successful or not, this still provides enough time for the individual you're roleplaying with a chance to respond therefore actions like this would not fall under Powergaming.

 

HOW DO I KNOW WHAT TO ROLEPLAY?:
In order to understand what you need to act out, think about everything that you would need to do in order to accomplish the action you're wanting to complete. Most of the time, you need to do several things in order to accomplish your end goal. While that might seem confusing, I'll provide some examples of actions that have several steps that need to be completed in order to successfully completed.

EXAMPLE:


Tying someone's hands behind their backs:
In order to complete this action, you'd need to get rope/handcuffs/zip ties, gain compliance from the individual you're trying to restrain, tie / secure those items around their wrists, and then your action would be complete. Roleplaying these steps would be how you'd add depth to your roleplay, rather than just doing a singular command and then asking if you were successful or not. What would Roleplay like this look like?

/me would reach to his back pocket, grabbing a set of zip ties.
/me would then reach forward, attempting to pull the individual's hands behind his back.

/me keeps his body still, allowing his arms to be held behind his back.
/me places the zip ties around the individual's wrists as he tightens them, ensuring they're tight enough.
/me would try to move his wrists around in the zipties and would fail due to how tight they are.

The important part here is that you roleplay out these actions realistically, and that includes timing your actions appropriately. Speed-typing or using macros to roleplay out these actions in succession super quickly also would count as powergaming. At the end of the day, roleplaying these actions and giving the other person the ability to respond to your roleplay is what's important, not gaining affirmation that you're successful with your actions.

REALISTICALLY ROLEPLAYING INJURIES
There's currently another roleplay guide posted specifically about Medical Roleplay, which can be accessed by clicking here. The other guide will tell you what appropriate responses are vs. invalid responses. This guide will tell you how to add more depth to your roleplay when you're injured requiring medical attention.

WHAT MOST PEOPLE DO:
When being treated, first responders will always ask what your visible injuries are. This allows them to determine what actions they need to roleplay in order to stabilize you so you can be transported to the hospital. It's important to remember that first responders, especially LSEMS, are only exposed to the roleplay that you're conducting, and their roleplay experience is based off of the experience you provide them. A majority of the time, they're exposed to the following roleplay scenario:


MEDIC:
/me would kneel down, laying their BLS Kit down next to them as they look over the injured individual for visible wounds.
/do What would I see?
INJURED:
/do broken leg.

Roleplaying a broken leg every time you get injured is not providing a positive roleplay experience for the people that are involved in treating you. You should take the time to roleplay out your injuries properly, as this will allow the players treating you the ability to roleplay out the steps your injuries require in order for you to be stabilized.

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO:
Roleplay out how your injuries would realistically appear. For example:


MEDIC:
/me would kneel down, looking over the injured individual for visible wounds.

INJURED:
/me appears to have a broken leg, along with scrapes and scratches going up the side of his leg that appear to be bleeding.
/do you would see part of the bone in his leg sticking out slightly to the side, indicating a serious break. The scrapes on his leg would appear to have debris from the road lodged in his skin.


The roleplay described above will allow the person treating you to take on the steps needed to stabilize you so you're safe to transport, such as cleaning your scrapes with saline, bandaging them and also securing your leg properly.

CONCLUSION
This quick guide was created with the intention of teaching you how to level up your roleplay, and to answer the question "Isn't it powergaming if we don't ask in /do?". In providing the examples above, this should give you enough information to think about the steps you would need to take in order to complete the actions you're wanting to complete, while also giving the other people involved in your situation chances to respond with roleplay as well. One final takeaway from this should be this; Do NOT use macros/hotkeys to speed through roleplay, as this could be considered as powergaming if you're not giving people the appropriate time to respond to your actions.

 

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