Helpful Roleplay Information

The Eight Steps of Roleplay is a comprehensive essay on the eight main factors of Roleplay. Written by FP Forum Users Snake and Remi and edited and formatted for the wiki by Forum User Lionel Joseph, this has been placed here for you're use through out your Dark RP life.

The Eight Steps of Roleplay
1. What is RolePlay? RolePlay is usually defined as a server, or something like that, but it really isn't that, it is what is used inside of the server. Unluckily the DarkRP script is a little too leniant for people to RP whether they like it or not. The best RolePlayers, or as we call them "RP'ers" are nice people. Roleplaying is really like acting. Which the word describes perfectly fine. You have to play a role. For example, you play as a Civil Protection. You will act like a cop in-game. You talk like a cop, you act like a cop, whether you believe it or not. Whilst you are a cop, other people might be arms dealer or pilots etc. This way we create a ‘world’. This world is designed, we hope, to reinact what would happen in life if we did this situation. Believe it or not, this is linked to a type of computer science, called "Modelling" (no not making models for your friend Gringer who wants a model of some kind of cat or something.) Modelling is basically, trying to simulate what would happen in real life, in a computer which doesn't allow the variable of lets say "death," but it can simulate it. Simulators are basicly Models of the real world. Enough of the maths part. I shall give you a great example of some nice roleplay, and introduce you to a chat command function called /me. Garrys Mod doesn't have the animation to kick someone in the groin, or to cry unfortunately, so the fact is, we can make it up by using /me. Here is an example of /me in use.

Scene: Dark Alleyway"Nicolai Mart: Hello my friend..." "John Smith: H- hey..." "Nicolai Mart: Why so scared, friend..." "John Smith: Becau-" Nicolai takes something out of his pocket and holds it behind his back. "John Smith: Wha- Whats that?" John Smith backs away and trys to run. Nicolai Mart grabs John by his jacket and aims a pistol at his head, he whispers. "Nicolai Mart: This is going to go smoothly, I'm going to get your wallet, and you are going to live."

John Smith gives Nicolai his wallet.

The italialicized parts are all the stage directions or the /me parts.

2. New Life Rule: NLR
Main article: New Life Rule Meaning

NLR is a rule which was made for the simulation to repeat the process of death virtually. Basically, when you die do you respawn and go right back to where you lived? No ( well maybe but yeah. ) No, you simply don't. NLR is basically making you a completely new person, making you forget anything that ever happened. A good example of breaking it is showed here:

Scene: A Warrant for an arrest, for posession of drugs. "Officer Bradley : This is the police, open up! We've got evidence of you owning drugs, and we've got a warrant for your arrest" "John Smith: No, I do not have anything illegal, go away! RANDOM SEARCH." "Warrant: Position of Illegal Substance" Officer Bradley smashes the door down with his battering ram John Smith takes out a gun and fires at the Officer, but Officer Bradley reacts quicker and makes the kill before Smith. 30 seconds later... John Smith has returned to his previous death scene and broken NLR, and then revenge kills.

NLR means you cannot return to your death scene, preferably after around 5-10 minutes, but when Remi has time to RP and doesn't get RDM'd ( wait for the definition on that, its the next step ) he will literally, kill off the character, he will remove it from existance and use his other characters. You forget everything that lead to your death, prefarably anyone you met before your death. And if you get killed whilst buying a weapon, you cannot return and say "I want my gun now plox"

3. Random Deathmatch : RDM
Main article: Random Deathmatch Meaning

Considered to be the worst point of DarkRP, RDM is consistantly happening repeatedly every single day. This is a really annoying aspect, and it is really, and I have to discriminate here, really only done by people who are new to the server.

They come on, turn CP/Gangster, get a big gun and decide to kill every, single, god, damn, thing that has a face.

Tbh, the CPs deal with it by arresting them (civil protection) the gangsters deal with it by killing them, causing even more chaos.

The right way to deal with it is by calling a member of staff, and letting them fix them, and tell them what they have done right or wrong.

Do you know whats even better then that? Learning how to RP from Snake or Remi and not ever doing it in the first place. But sometimes, sometimes people just can't stop. Random Death Match, is killing people without any Roleplay (reason). So basically, it’s just walking up to someone, take your gun and kill him. If you want to kill somebody, you have to RolePlay this. So, for example. You walk to the guy and say: 'Hey you idiot, why did you break my window?' and the person who did it, replies, and then a arguments starts, then a fight. Then it result to the guy who broke your window, grabbing his baseball bat trying to hit you. Unfortunately, he don't know that you're armed so you take out your pistol. And then a little speech before you put a bullet trough his head.

''Now you had a reason for killing him. So don't go around being a noob RDM'ing people, because you're certain to get punnished/banned by a staff if you do.''

4. Metagaming : MG
A quite infamous term, but an important one nonetheless. In our model of the real world, we have a communication for people who don't want to talk about something IC because it has no relation and they literally, can't know about it. This is called OOC, "out of character." This rule is not like RDM, or NLR, and it is followed almost perfectly, you don't see alot of raids happen because someone says something in OOC like

"BLHASHDISA I HAVE DRUGS IN MY HOUSE BLAH BLAH I THINK IM COOL."

In that situation, the police can't do anything because its in OOC and anything in OOC cannot be mixed up with IC (in character,) since OOC does not exist to your IC. Therefore, you cannot do anything against this man. This is one case of metagaming. Mixing up OOC with IC is Metagaming. So don't go and raid someone cause they said something in OOC. Also, if you speak to someone in OOC, (someone new) you cannot go up to them in IC and know what their name is immediately. RolePlay, say "Hey, whats your name?" This is a good representation of RP against metagaming.

If you hear someone water a drug plant, and then raid them for hearing that, that is also considered as metagaming as the sound is apparantly "OOC" in some way? It could just be rain.

Metagaming, is mixing IC and OOC information. Now you might ask, what is IC and OOC? Well, IC stands for In Character. The person you are, perhaps Officer Bradley, or the criminal John Smith. OOC, stands for Out of Character. That's most likely the guy behind the computer, you of course.

When you mix these two things, it's called metagaming.

Example:

''You're walking around in the streets, you spot a guy. (You've never seen him)'' Above his character you see his name, which might be for example "Crazy Joe Bonanza" Now, of course YOU know that he's called Crazy Joe Bonanza, but not your characther. If you said something like "Hi Mr. Bonanza" or "Hi Joe!" it would be metagaming. You wouldn't know his name without interacting with him. So a clever thing to do would be introducing yourself, and then asking. (Hi, my name is John Smith! I live across the street.) *Shakes his hands* In most RP situations a decent RP'er would respond "Ahh, well my name is Joe Bonanza." if he doesn't then just ask.

Now your character know who he is.

Again, shouting out his name without meeting the guy is metagaming. (You don't know the guy IC so you can't say anything about OOC to him.)

The best way to avoid MG, is to completely seperate OOC from IC.

5. Random Demotions : RDEM
A random demotion is mostly used to protect drug plants, half all random demotions are against the police, and the others are either false, or actual demotions. Lets play out an example

Scene: Drug Raid *after the CP's enter* CP 1 siezes the plants and calls it a day. [OOC] CP 1 is demoted for Random Search?

This is a random demotion, plain and simple, you would not demote a police officer in real life for a random search if the search proved successful. If it is a random search then the officer would've found nothing. If you are found with drug plants, there is no such thing as random search if you really have plants. If he raids you and has nothing, you can demote him. (Civil Protection Only) If he raids you and he siezes your drug plants. You can't. Simple, you want to be a great RP'er? Then don't random demote.

What to do to a random demoter? The best thing to do is to call a member of staff to sort it out, because then it might be a 10 minute freeze and not just a demotion.

Demotions are applicable to the following rulebreaks. But no action will be taken from a member of staff because they have already gotten their punishment, haven't they? You just demoted them!

6. Powergaming : PG
First off, no its not PG tips.

Powergaming is basically, always looking to win. E.g. like "John Smith puts on a super man suit and flies to the moon" A good example of this is:

Powergaming is a very unknown term, and its basically doing a unrealistic action. Its really quite stupid. Like taking a gun, going into the PD, and killing every god damn person in there and letting the jailed people out? Thats powergaming in and out. Its a really ANTI-RP action. And the real RP'er would do something like, buy a silenced USP, go inside to see "a friend" in jail and when he is alone with one man, kill the man and let the person out.

Powergaming is basically doing unrealistic actions, which you wouldn't normally do IRL. Powergaming is also forcing somebody to do something. It’s difficoult to explain, but some examples will do.

Imagine, you are arguing with somebody. Then you decide that you are going to use a /me command. Example: /me takes out a pistol, and shoots him. You never gave him any time, to do something against your action. In other words, powergaming. This is powergaming. You're trying to win a situation, without trying to RP properly. So try to avoid powergaming at all times.

To do this, just think a little smarter and always try to RP your way into a situation, and you don't always have to be Neo from the matrix and kill everyone with ease, you can be Solid Snake and sneak your way in. Use your brains and you wont have to be called a "powergamer"

7. Character Choice
This is a quite custom idea from Toasty. Basically, in this new world, you can be anyone you want! Its all your choice, people don't think thats alot, but it really is quite huge. Using /rpname you can make your own RP name using the Theme of "First Name" "Second Name," or "Rank" "First Name" "Second Name."

People choose their characters, and don't really care alot about them, they don't think about who their characters really are, and their past and even the present.

People really don't take RP that seriously anymore, and if you can successfully do this, and be at the brink of crying if you have to let one of your characters go because you are so immersive towards them, then you are a true roleplayer.

For example, if someone in your family would die in real life, you would cry and be in denial for a long, long time.

If you said your virtual mother and father were dead, you should act just the same. You wouldn't just mention it IC, you would be touchy about it. You wouldn't just scream about it and advertise it (next step) you would always not mention alot about them, and when asked, perhaps be silent about it.

If you did answer, you would go into detail about how they died.

This is how you would act IRL, this is how you act here.

8. Advertisement
Advertisement is mostly used for something you'd like to advertise of course. Perhaps selling your car, or buying a car. Perhaps you're looking for a job.

E.G /advert Looking for a professionally trained mechanic capable of repairing bodywork, /pm me.

You've now made a detailed Advertisment, given all the important details needed. Which you shouldn't do is.

"/advert Selling toolguns!" or "/advert need a Nuclear Equipment"

Firstly, you didn't have enough info in the Advertisment, you either shouldn't put things in an advert you wouldn't usually do (Drugs, Weapons, Whores, Nukes etc.)

This should give you a insight of what Advertisment is.

Thought of and written by Snake and Remi. Copied and edited with permission by Lionel Joseph (Rambo362)