Greetings! As this seems to have become an actual thing now, I thought it was time to bring this topic here.
This is about, as the title says, defining the terms and overall rules of the role play events.
We'll start with defining this one:
Starting point.
Starting point is the base of a role play session. Its purpose is to create a base for a role play, from where players can start improvising the play further with the given information of the environment, and abilities & attributes according to their characters. Starting point is not a plot, but only a point where the story begins. And the story itself will be developed in the cooperation of all the participating players.
The character
The very base of starting a role play after the starting point, is to create your character for it. You almost have a totally free hand in creating a character, as long as
It supports the idea of the given role play
According to the class you decide to pick,(sith, jedi, smuggler, and so on) you should keep the character's abilities realistic. For example: if your character is a Jedi padawan, then you should create it to be like one. In saber fights, avoid using your full potential. Hold back, pick a stance you don't know so well and use Force powers with caution.
It's always good aiming to be descriptive with the character. Having a background and personality helps with improvising in situations where dialog takes a strong dominating part during a certain scene, and develops your character further later on.
About the death of a character: Of course, we all aim(or at least we should? 😉 ) to keep our character created at the start, alive as long as possible and they should only end up dying if it fit the on-going story and if the events foreshadowing it led to the situation naturally.
Because of this, the character deaths will not be counted if they're randomly caused by the environment(COUGH doors COUGH), by accidentally hitting "kill" bind or if another player just suddenly jumps at you from behind the corner with a spinning wiggle and one shots you.
For this reason, major saber hits and gun shots are by basic considered as a temporary stun. Should the hit ''kill'' you, it means you have been rendered unconscious for a short time with a non-lethal take down. When such situations occur, you should aim to act accordingly.
Also, please avoid using splash, or any high damage/AoE weapons in combat situations, especially in close-range combat because using them without caution will lead to confusing situations that abort the flow of the role play entirely. No one will like it. Use them only if it really supports the on-going situation.
In action-oriented role plays, try to keep this detail in mind: Categorizing the rp to be 'action' is not an excuse for anyone to become trigger-happy. Even when the rp is supposed to rely on action-oriented situations it still is lead forward by drama and interaction between the characters. There likely will be situations where fires are shot more often than not, but even those situations have to be orchestrated carefully, so that it doesn't make the situation confusing and obstruct the flow. When you see that people are clearly typing out sentences for their characters to say, even when the situation is menacing, you might want to wait for them to finish and then, if you want to start shooting, warn them about it so they at least have a chance to react to it 😉
And remember this, guys: role plays live and improve by the drama. Don't be afraid to engage in or instigate heated situations; play to get beaten, but not to die :p
- Bringing a character back to life: Unless agreed otherwise, each RP sessions are their own and separated from the other ones. This means literally, that if your character dies in a role play, you can bring them back each time a new RP session begins. It is also possible to, under certain and observed circumstances, bring your character to life for a sequel role play or even in an on-going one.
It all depends on how your character first died, their possible abilities that could ease the resurrection/recovery and how you had planned to bring your character back.
If your character dies, write a line about how and why they survived, and the fellow player(s) decide whether it makes sense or not. If the others agree, the request to resurrect your character is accepted.
Without the chance of resurrection/recovery, putting effort and time in a character would be pointless and constantly running from a fight would be the best option (and also a boring solution) to not to have your character killed.
Note that people can always agree about outcomes between their conflicts in advance and make deals: when you go in a fight with the other player, you could, for example, agree that the player who gets killed, doesn't die, but ends up unconscious, or abducted?
About using the Force: Using Force powers won't be forbidden, but always depending on the character, use them with caution and reasonably; don't abuse or spam them.
Force powers can also, with certain classes, work as active non-force abilities, like with the bounty hunter and mercenary classes, force heal and force protection can be accepted as a part of their equipment as devices that help them to maintain themselves physically. They're obviously not allowed to use powers like force lightning or force grip tho :p
This thread will be updated every once in a while when the future role playing sessions initiate any contradictions that should be clarified, and everyone are welcome to add rules and suggestions if anything comes to one's mind.
