A player's guide to understanding IC (In Character) vs OOC (Out of Character) interactions .
Joining a new gaming community always takes some time to get used to, especially when the main focus of those communities can be different: PvP, RP, Social or any combination of those or others. What is said and done Out Of Character should not mix or affect what is said done and emoted In Character. Each player should do their best to not mix the two.
Out of Character
- Everything said and done as a player that is not considered roleplay.
- Every OOC comment should be marked as such, either with dialogue beginning with // or contained within (( ))
- OOC comments and chatter should be kept to a minimum in public, whether as a "talk" or a "whisper", because it can be disruptive to roleplay immersion.
- Don't go out of your way to abuse IC interactions, turning your ooc disagreements in character or bully players you might have a problem with.
- Sending a "tell" is an easy way to communicate with others, usually oocly; however, it should not be done to excess. Most players have a note in their bio noting whether they appreciate tells for whatever stated reason, or outright will ignore them. Sending repeated and unwanted tells is considered harassment.
In Character
- Everything which is done by your character, whether mechanically within the game engine or by emoting. What your character says and the action your character says is considered as IC.
- It's generally accepted that everyone emotes using a third person point of view, such as *She rolled her eyes*, as opposed to the first and third person, which would be *I rolled my eyes at you*, which is much more difficult to understand, especially on a multiplayer server.
- Character speech and action tend to be differentiated in a few popular ways, either by enclosing speech in "quotations", or by enclosing action in *asterisks*
- Any interaction within the game between players is generally considered to be in-character, whether an emote, a spell cast, an item trade or pvp combat. In all cases, though, it's expected that there has been roleplay leading up to that interaction, and that it is consensual.
Additional Notes
Every community is different, and even someone who has been a part of the server for a decade can still forget how both ic and ooc communication is preferred here. As long as nothing's done with ill-intent, and isn't repeated incessantly, most players are both forgiving and happy to remind each other, especially when asked.