Terminology

There is a small amount of terminology that goes along with roleplaying; however, it is important that everyone understand what is being said in a conversation when these terms and abreviations are used.

Free Form--
The type of roleplaying done on message boards (including this one) that does not require the role of dice to determine the success or failure of desired actions is known as Free Form Roleplaying. The greatest hazard of such playing is that there is no luck of the draw (dice, DM, BM, etc;) to determine what a character may or may not do. This allows the actions to become incredibly unrealistic.
Often with newbie players there is a tendency to power play or be a munchkin. The benefit to this form is freedom.
When used wisely and responsibly, this form of roleplaying gives the greatest freedom for creativity due to the lack of rules and restraints.

Mun--
The person behind the character than controls the character and posts for the character. You are your character's mun.

PC (Personal Character)--
Your character, which can only be commanded by you (the mun).

NPC (Non Personal Character)--
Characters that exist in a setting such as pets or miscelaneous creatures that may be commanded by anyone. ('Your' pets are not really yours. They are NPC's which anyone can post for and claim that they did the desired action without first asking your permission. Their nature may change depending on who is including them in their post therefor it is good to make them animals and not intelligent beings such as NPC humans.)

OOC (Out of Character)--
When OOC is typed before a statement or phrase, or the passage is inclosed in double parenthesis...(( blah blah )) the statement is understood to have been said Out of Character. This means this statement is being made by the mun. The character that the mun controls has no relevance and is not concerned in any OOC comments.

Objectivity--
In all forms of roleplaying that call for the mun to assume the identity of the character there is potential overlap between the real and RP world.
Many roleplayers, especialy newbies, have a tendency to take actions done against their characters as a strike against themselves.
It is important to understand that no matter how much like the mun a character may be, an action against a character is not an action against that character's mun. If people that are aquainted outside of the RP environment RP together, objectivity becomes even more important that completely anonymous online RP.
Complete and total objectivity is the mark of a truly great roleplayer. It takes time and experience to accept this concept and work within it.

SL (Story Line)--
The individual stories that are available for response are called story lines. The capacity of a board is limited by the number of people meaning the more characters participate on a board...the more difficult it is when too many story lines are active at one time. If there are lots of SLs running/active at once, try to hold you idea for a new SL untill the board slows down. During down times boards may run slowly and be devoid of good action. This is a good time to rack your brain and get things moving with a new SL.

Battle Character--
Battle Characters are characters that are useful and effective in combat. Many characters are designed for such purposes, however some such as loonies have little effectiveness. In such a case as this, muns will often have an anonymous character that they introduce during a time of war. In this way it is the case that nearly every mun has a battle character whether it be that this is their actual PC or a character designed for battle and nothing more.
It is a mun's battle character that is used in attacking foreign boards. The risk to the life of the character is high, therefor it is uncommon that the mun's actual PC will be used.


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