(continued from Roleplaying Page)

The most important thing to remember in a roleplaying environment is courtesy and respect. Even if you do not feel respect for a player, he should still be treated that way. Players should always use care when dealing with other players. Remember, behind that character that you may hate is a human being with very real feelings that can be hurt by thoughtless comments.

This is even more important to remember in a text-based medium because there is no tone of voice to tell the player on the other end how you meant it. They cannot hear laughter in your voice to know that a comment was not meant to be serious. They cannot hear your sarcasm. All they have is what you wrote on the screen on their own intelligence to interpret your comments with. Frequently this can lead to misunderstandings but if we always strive to treat each other with courtesy then we can minimize those kinds of disagreements. It is also important to remember that the player behind the screen may be nothing like the character they are portraying. The most bloodthirsty slitch on the grid could be played by a complete sweetheart so do not let your anger at a character spill over into your dealings with the player.

Those of us who are no longer newbies need to remember patience and think back to when we were new to MUSHing and how we just wanted someone to show us the rules so we could stop making fools of ourselves. At the same time newbies need to remember that they are new and that they probably don’t know half of what the more experienced players do. They should accept help graciously and not constantly pester people with the same questions over and over. If you are going to ask people to help you, the courteous thing to do is make a concerted effort to learn so that you one day no longer have to ask and can turn around and repay the favor by showing some other newbie the ropes and providing a good RP environment. No one likes to be told how they should RP, whether that be being told how to pose, or how your character should act, or how you should behave OOCly, but in order for us to get along together and tell good stories together there have to be certain standards of how to behave. Again, patience is a good rule of thumb. Do not keep posing just because your partner is a little slow in typing. Do not write monster poses with no regard to the things that people might want to respond to. Do not try to force other people to behave in a way that is convenient for your character through OOC means. Their character maynot be a nice person. This is Shadowrun after all.

Another point of etiquette which may not seem like courtesy at first but really is, watch your spelling and grammar unless you are intentionally mistyping to represent a brogue or other speech defect. It is a text based medium where all we have to judge each other on is the words that are put on the screen. If those words are sloppy, through poor spelling, lack of capitalization, or lack of grammar, it tends to reflect badly on the player who typed it. Now we’ve all had those days when we couldn’t spell right to save our lives or when the keyboard was sticking, but it is easy to tell the difference between someone who is having an off day and someone who just doesn’t care. Do not be the latter. It makes RPing with you hard at the best and painful at the worst. At the same time, some people may not be native speakers of the English language and these may be honest mistakes sobefore you write someone off, take the time to check.

Which leads into my next point. Don’t make assumptions. Do not project your own motives onto what other people do. What would have been a biting comment coming from you might have been entirely innocent coming from someone else. If you think the other guy is being unfair, talk to him about it. Do not assume how another person is going to react ICly and pose accordingly because they may react completely different from what you expected. Do not assume what a place is like if you have never been there before. Read the desc carefully and read the room’s +lhelp. When you do look at a person’s desc, even if you’ve looked at them a million times do not just scan the first few sentences because the UMD makes it really easy to change things around and chances are you’ll miss something important that way.

Be courteous in your moving about the grid. Do not go into areas which are obviously guarded or private unless you are intending to break-in and have a judge with you or the owner’s permission. Do not pick up things you find laying around unless you go through the trouble of ICly stealing them with a judge there. Do not just walk past a person without at least making a brief pose of what you are doing. Do not walk into a room and then just walk out again without posing if it is occupied unless you’ve walked into a timestop and been told to leave. Do not go out in public and start a scene when you know you are goingto have to leave soon without warning your RP partners first.

Just because your +sheet says you can do it, does not mean you need to be rude about it OOCly. Do not pose something happening to your opponent unless you have been instructed to do so by the other player or a judge/PrP GM. Always pose instead what you are doing and then let your opponent pose the outcome based on the appropriate +rolls. While some newbies and other poor RPers may not always handle this appropriately, most people handle it just fine and you can always call a judge if the other player refuses to play fairly.

In short, remember how you would want to be treated and act accordingly. And if you don’t mind people treating you badly, remember that other people do mind being treated that way. Your character being a jerk is no excuse for you being one. Treat others with kindness and respect and you will see the same come back to you and you will be a better RPer for it.