First of all a little note. I'm not the greatest rper in the world. I don't know of one. In a way roleplaying is an art form, a creative act in the same way as art or poetry is. And artists and poets always learn from their mistakes and are always growing and always perfecting. While roleplaying (and espically starting) you will make many mistakes (as I have) and have great days where your emotes are flawless and your IC actions create a perfect 'puppet', and other days where you sit there like a nodding dog. As I say I have made many mistakes and have only been roleplaying for just under two years. This text is made up of things I have noticed usefull in roleplaying and also from what I have read on the topmudsites forum and various other sources.
1) Acting as your race would - this is a biggie. Before I go on though, I must say, if you do RP your race differenlty than they are, have a good reason to do so. Two of my characters (Dagaz and Ehwaz) were NOT roleplayed as goblins should be, but I had RP reasons for that. I will freely admit that they not have been great ones, and I am guilty of not RPing my race. Yet we learn from our mistakes and I am a hypocrite :P
If you are thinking about suiciding, or starting a new character, find out about the race beforehand. I have included descriptions of the current races here. Find out as much as you can. Braman's are pacifist's, so try not to create a killer braman. Goblin's are tribal and devious, so try not to create a smilely teletubby goblin (as I did :P ).
When you start in the town, look around, try and speak to the NPC's, get a feel for the race, what our their aims, their hobbies, their fears?
2) IC and OOC - IC is a concept that defines basic role-play. It is the state of being when
you are actively playing your role as a character in this world. This means
that you take actions only as your character would take, and say things only as
they would say. It is a made up personality that you create and represent in
this world. It is not your real personality, or character as exists in the
real world. [From AL help file 'help ic']
OOC is 'Out Of Character'. These are things like talking on the channels or in OOC areas...basically it's you, as the controller of your IC character.
IC and OOC should never be mixed together. They are totally seperate things. Bad use of IC/OOC are things such as using OOC methods to contact or speak with another player about the game. Using a instant messenger to ask another player to come and find your corpse, is very bad IC.
If there are thing's you wish to know about commands, help files and such, these must be asked OOCly. There are three channel's for player use. One is [newbie], which is a channel for asking questions about the game. You cannot speak of IC things here, such as your race, your name, what you are doing etc. This channel is mostly used for asking about game commands, and to get information and help.
If you are a new player, or even an old player the [hints] channel can be very useful. As the name suggestes, it contains hints about the game which can prove most benifical. You cannot however speak on this channel.
[chat] is basically a channel to talk about whatever you want, as long as it is OOC. Normal topics can range from an egg fight to the minimum wage in various countries. Sometimes discussions about subject's raised on the [newbie] channel can be spoken about here.
3) Emoting - emotes can be more powerful then speech. Here is a log of what I consider to be a very use of emoting. People not using emotes can be quite bad for RP. For example, your arm has just been ripped off, and you say 'crap'. Act as your character would. Scream, sob, throw your weapons down in disgust and rage and walk away...
Even small things like when someone's talking to you and your just sitting there like a nodding dog. Try 'nod slowly'. Or 'think' about what the person is saying.
4) Background - whatever race you are, you came from somewhere. You had parents, a history...what is it. This goes hand in hand with '1)'. You do not need to have a great 10 page history of your character before you play, though it could prove most useful. Most of the good characters I have had, I made up their history as I went along and stuck with it. A good thing to do, is keep a lot of logs (if your telnet client will support them) and refer to them if you have just spoken to someone. Keep that infomation in a text file, the bring it up occanisally if needed.
5) Names - Picking a good name is always tricky. This is not a huge issue with the game, because most of the player's have good names...but as always there are a few with popular names from history or books. A good way to think of a name is to use an object or a colour or such....this can be hit and miss, ie. Blade, but name such as Red (if you have red hair), or Stump (a good name for a one legged goblin) could be nicknames instead of names. The name's for some of my character's have come from Nordic runes...such as Isa or Dagaz. I choose these because they fitted in with the way I was roleplaying the character...Dagaz is the rune of change, which the character of the same name was (not being a evil murderer etc).
In the links section, there are a list of name generators...some may prove most useful for ideas.
7) Consistency - Another important one. Unless you are a schzioed character, try and stay as constant as possible. One thing to think of here is the difference's between NPC's (Non Player Characters) and PC's (Player Characters). If you are playing a thief or a killer or anything else for that matter, you should try and not make differcenes between them. Interacting with them can also prove most benificial, some may have quest's for you to do, or even information that you would not know otherwise. If you are playing a killer that just attack's everything on sight (you may not last long unless you a very good) go ahead, and kill NPC's, but also kill PC's.
One thing though, NPC's can take a long long time to create (don't know how long, ask a creator :P ). The NPC's on AL are some of the best, and most intelligent I have ever seen. It is quite rude, and also quite dangerous (you will probeley get hunted if caught by a PC) just to use them as punch bags.
Also consistency with your roleplaying in whole is important. Stealing from someone, the greeting them warmly the next time you see them is just bad (bad example, but you get the picture).
8) Speech and habits - The accent command is a great feature to the game. Basically, if does what it says, it changes your accent and the way certain word's are said. For example, when saying the word 'You' in one accent, it will come out as 'Yew'. Yet in another, it will come out as 'Thou'.
Different town's and areas have different accents. I won't say which ones, you will have to find that out for yourself. If you spend ten, twenty years in a town with an accent there that is disimilar than your own, more often than not, your accent will change. Try and do it slowly, rather than overnight. Change a the way you use a few words after a couple of years...more and more each time.
Also, try speaking without a game accent, and change the words yourself. Isa had a lisp, so she would over egaggerate "sssss's". Not only that, try and change the way words you use. One less intelligent character, may say 'You be fool', while another, more intellgent character may say 'You seem to lack a great deal of intelligence'.
Habit's are a great way to personalize your character. Emotes such as sucking on your bottem lip while thinking or constantly checking your bag to see if anything has been stolen can really give you a certain spark and indivuality.
9) Clothing - Try and think about the way your character would dress as you would your own. Maybe have a spare pair of clothes for special occasions. A full suit of armour may be great for hunting, but will look a bit foolish when worn to a wedding or a festival. Maybe try and get a shirt with a colour that accent's your hair colour.
10) Proir Knowledge - Each time a character is created, it is generally thought that she/he does not know much about the world. When a new character is created, instanatly going up to town 'x' because you know that's where item 'z' is sold, is bad roleplay. Also training your new character to kill 'Mr.B', because he killed your last character, is bad roleplay. Your new character may be the offspring of your last character (this is a kind of borderline between good and bad RP, but many do this) so may know a few things of the world from their parent. But unless you roleplayed your last character to spend quite a long time telling some imaginary child about the world, they would not know everything you do.
It is quite hard to make out you do not know nothing, thing such as the location of a town so maybe make out you heard from someone in a tavern that the town was in this general direction. Leave a few thing's for your new character to work out, or ask about from another player.