Six lovely lovely things in rp:

***** Consistency, consistency, consistency. I love consistency  roleplayed characters, even if my character despises theirs, is sickened by the sight of them, shudders at the thought of them. And consistency is something that can be hard for a lot of folks. I think consistency is the hardest when you play against who you are personally or when the world atmosphere you are in doesn’t match something you can play easily. And the “flitting” that a lot of folks do tends to mix with serious roleplay, making for very inconsistent characters. And to me, consistency extends to when other folks are not around. I love characters who have “routines”. Things that they do each day regardless if there is someone watching at just that moment, just like most of us IRL do. And it is great when you can as a character, check the time of day, and go, “Oh, So and so is likely working in her garden. I should stop by and have some strawberries.” or “Goodness, so and so’s shop just opened I bet. Lets go get some such and such!”

***** Second  thing I love in rp are mistakes. Real, rped mistakes. When players make the choice to have their character make a mistake, be it large or small. And then follow through with the rp of it. Characters are not infallible, but I think we all make the mistake of having our characters boofs really just be the players boofs. I love when someone sees what would be the smartest path and then sees their character has no reason to see that path and has the character bumble off in the wrong direction.

***** Third thing I adore are detailed, written out backgrounds. There is nothing like a player who knows their character well enough to mention some old friend or relative from pre-game time and then not refer to the same person again for months. And when they refer to that person again, it is the same sort of person. I love that.

***** I adore folks whose characters exist when they aren’t logged on. By this I mean, when the person logs on, they weren’t just sleeping or “out and busy”. They can chat about that interesting talk they had with the priest at the shrine, or mumble a bit about getting lost on the road to the trading village again and shouldn’t those signs be fixed. Or even just say they felt like they were getting short tempered lately and went to spend some time alone and isn’t camping in the lalala forest just lovely?

***** And finally, using mobs/bots as important folks. Why should only other PCs be valuable members of our character’s lives? I love when characters can chit chat about so and so, when so and so is not a PC, but a made up character who fits into a particular area or guild, or a shopkeeper who exists but is a bot/mob. It makes sense for our characters to have relationships others don’t have, know folks others don’t know as well. And for goodness sake, if you have a house/manor/keep/shop, make your guards/servants/etc. real! Give them names, backgrounds, smile and tell them hello as you hurry by, apologize for their rudeness or explain why they tend to be quiet.

Stories, well told and fitting the world are great, but depends on the character. Long emotes have a place and time. Custom, repeated emotes for a specific character give a sense of consistency. Those are nice. Good names without  “sword” or “cloud” in them. Subtle humor. Characters who don’t giggle. Quiet characters who say the most profound/unexpected/perfect things at that moment when everyone else is dead silent. RP is a lovely thing when done well and I applaud everyone who has gotten good at the art of it.

Sapphar