Introductory Guide to Roleplaying on Toro! | Everyone Read!

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Tdf88
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Introductory Guide to Roleplaying on Toro! | Everyone Read!

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Hello everyone! I’m Tdf and I’ve been tasked with making a little guide on how to roleplay properly in Toro League. Now, you might be asking “But Tdf, I’m a great roleplayer! Why do I need to read this guide?” Well my friend, that may be true, but this is a guide for both the experienced roleplayers and the folks who have chosen Toro League as their first roleplaying experience, such as myself! Toro is, above all, a roleplaying server. Understanding how roleplay is set up on this server, even the little details, is the key to a successful and fun time for everyone on the server. Roleplaying well means more happiness, and more happiness means more friends, and more friends means more roleplay. It’s a vicious cycle in the best way possible. So, without further ado, sit back, relax, and allow me to guide your hips into the world of Toro roleplay.

(NOTE: If you find the forum topic a bit difficult to read, here's the link to the google doc. It has the same information, but maybe it's more appealing to the eyes. Either way, I strongly recommend everyone read this guide! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zu2 ... sp=sharing)
  • Make sure you are typing in the correct channel.
When it comes to roleplaying, we have three ranges of space that your character’s message will travel in:

Typing /w will put you in the whisper channel, which means everyone in a 3-block radius will be able to hear your character’s message. While in the whisper channel, your character is whispering.

Typing /t will put you in the talk channel, which means everyone in a 20-block radius will
be able to hear your character’s message. While in the talk channel, your character is
speaking at a normal volume. Beginning your sentence with an emote by using * will
always put you in the talk channel, regardless of which one you initially typed.


Typing /s will put you in the shout channel, which means everyone. in a 40-block radius
will be able to hear your character’s message. While in the shout channel, your character
screaming.

Typing /ooc broadcasts your message in the out-of-character chat. Everyone on the
server will see this chat, and it is only reserved for out-of-character conversation. When
you join Toro, you will be put in the /ooc channel. You only need to type one of
above commands once to be put in another channel.



  • Put all of your character dialogue in quotations.

For example: “Hi! My name is Bob.” It allows people to distinguish between what your character is doing and what your character is saying.

  • Put all local out-of-character chat in parentheses or brackets.
Sometimes you might have something to say out of character but don’t want to broadcast it to the whole server. In that case, begin and end your sentence with parentheses or brackets ((I personally use double-parantheses for all my OOC chatter)). These will indicate to the other players that your character didn’t say that sentence, but you did.


  • Use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

I love nothing more than to see punctuation and good spelling when a character speaks. It looks so much more professional, puts emotion into what the character is saying and doing, and overall it’s a nice habit to keep up! I mean, let’s be honest here. What looks better:

“hi myname is jim wood u like to be my frind”

versus

“Hi, my name is Bob! Would you like to be my friend?”

Personally, I’d much rather be Bob’s friend. The exclamation mark invokes excitement and enthusiasm, while the correct spelling and punctuation makes the sentence look more professional, bringing an air of "My rp is worthwhile."

If you aren’t the best speller, that’s okay. However, I do recommend looking up words that you do not know how to spell.


  • Try to pair your character’s dialogue with some sort of action or expression!

Trying to guess what your character is doing on just dialogue alone is difficult. To help with this, we type things called emotes, which are a character's actions and expressions. I cannot stress this enough: Use emotes! Use emotes! Use emotes! When your character turns their head to face someone, say that. When your character walks into a place or walks away from someone, say that. When your character is expressing some kind of emotion, say that. Even when your character is emotionless, say that. Put yourself into the mind of your character. Should they be smiling right now? Should they be angry and pounding their fists against a table? The more description you put into each of your sentences, the more engaging the roleplay becomes! Beginning your sentence with a * will eliminate the colon mark when your message is broadcasted. The * is used when you want to begin your sentence by having your character perform an action. You don’t have to use a * to emote, but it’s generally what I do.

Here are a few good examples of how to properly type a sentence while combining both actions and dialogue. The sentence in italics shows how each typed message will be displayed:

*walks into the building and spots Jim. He walks up to him and waves. “Hi, my name is Bob! Would you like to be my friend?”
Bob_Smith walks into the building and spots Jim. He walks up to him and waves. “Hi, my name is Bob! Would you like to be my friend?”

“Hi Bob, my name is Jim.” He grins widely. “Sure, I would love to be your friend.” He holds out his hand for a high-five.
Jim_Johnson: “Hi Bob, my name is Jim.” He grins widely. “Sure, I would love to be your friend.” He holds out his hand for a high-five.

*cheers loudly and high-fives Jim.
Bob_Smith cheers loudly and high-fives Jim.


  • Don’t interrupt! Take turns and wait for the other person to finish their sentence completely!
Nothing annoys me more than when I’m trying to type out a long emote, and the other person is rattling away with their own sentences the entire time I’m trying to type. Think about a real world conversation. Would you constantly talk while another person is trying to talk? When you want to type for longer than the chat will allow, put a dash ( - ) at the end of the chat. This indicates you are not finished typing yet! When you see someone end their sentence with a dash, they haven’t finished typing yet! WAIT for them to finish typing before you type your sentence. If your character is one that interrupts people a lot, make sure you emote your interruption. Remember what I said, we all love detailed emotes!


  • Be willing to lose in roleplay occasionally, and don’t powergame or metagame!

No character is without flaws or weaknesses. If they are without flaws and weaknesses, they’re called Mary Sues and nobody likes those kinds of characters. Understand that occasionally your character might be completely outmatched, and that’s completely fine! Losing on occasion allows for character development. Again, you have to think hard about the situation you’re in and what would happen to your character. If a level 100 Munchlax is using Body Slam on your level 5 Totodile, your Totodile will faint, regardless of how strong your Totodile is supposed to be. If you suddenly get punched in the face really hard, chances are you’re going to be knocked down and won’t be able to immediately recover and retaliate.

  • Do not powergame to give yourself an unfair advantage in roleplay.

Powergaming is forcing a character into a situation and preventing them from being able to respond or react.

This is an example of powergaming:
Bob_Smith ties Jim up and knocks him out.

The person playing Jim wasn’t even give the chance to react to being tied up and now he’s suddenly knocked out! What a bunch of bologna! Here’s how that sentence should have been written:

Bob_Smith ambushes Jim. He tries to trip him. If successful, he would attempt to tie Jim up.
Now the person playing Jim has been given the chance to Bob. Now this is where you would have to think about your character, and disconnect yourself from the situation and what you want the outcome to be. If Jim is the kind of person that would fall after being surprised and tripped, and then wouldn’t be able to resist being tied up, you should emote that Jim has been tied up. At that point, Bob is then able to continue with the rp.

Also, do not metagame to give yourself an unfair advantage. Metagaming is using information obtained out of character to influence decisions in character. You might know something is about to happen, but your character will have no clue. Your character cannot predict the future. You have to think about the things your character knows versus what you know. If you know where a certain place is but your character wouldn’t, you shouldn’t be able to go to that place until your character discovers it. If you’re supposed to be hunting someone down whose location you should have no clue on, you can’t use the livemap to immediately run to that person’s location. The example of the livemap is not totally set in stone, however. If you’re on the server and you’re bored out of your mind and want to go roleplay with someone, go ahead and use the livemap to find out where they are. However, you better have a good excuse as to how your character found something if you discovered it on the livemap.

  • Last, but definitely not least, have fun and try to find interesting things to talk about!

A roleplay conversation is not much different from an actual conversation. Try to come up with different topics to talk about. Someone always has something interesting to say and people love to talk about what they’re doing. If a player emotes that their character entered somewhere but hasn’t said anything to anyone yet, that means they want to start roleplaying with someone, so take them up on that opportunity! Don’t be afraid to talk with many different people. It helps you to flesh out and understand your character better, allows your character to develop, allows relationships between characters to form, improves your roleplaying skills, and it’s simply fun to do. If you’re not perfect at it yet, keep on trying. You’ll improve with each rp you have. Things might be awkward at first with new characters, and that’s to be expected. If you stick with it and keep conversation flowing by talking about many different things, you’ll become much more comfortable.

Welp, I suppose that’s all I have to say on the subject for now. Have fun, everyone. I look forward to roleplaying with you all!
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