July 9, 2013 - 4:28pm — BlindedHope
I was recently strolling through the community, skimming through other users' bios, but then a thought came to me, "Do I have to play as a character? Can't I just be.. myself and still interact with other deer?" You might find this weird, but I kind of find character RPs confusing and strange, due to the fact that I've never participated in any kind of Role-Play, ever! I have so many questions about role-play in TEF, but I can't write them down here, because they're too detailed ;A; !
I'll try my best to list the questions here, all answers are appriciated!
1. What do users mean when they refer to,"OC deer/OOC deer?"
2. If you can't talk in-game, how are you role-playing then?
3. If you're role-playing in the community, then what's the point of playing in-game?
4. Does my deer have to be a character that does role-play?
5. Can my deer just be my... deer-sona, or represent me?
6. How do users recognize other characters (in-game) just by looking at their picto? As if they read all bios and remembered all the pictos.
That's all, I think. I'm deeply sorry if they're too confusing, I'm just totally new to the Character + RP thing.
Hi there, don't worry about
1. OOC stands for Out Of Character; this means someone is playing the game as just themselves, they are not pretending to be someone/something else. OC stands for Original Character; this is an imaginary person or thing that the player has made and pretends to be when they play.
2. Role Play in TEF usually takes the form of non-verbal body language. Someone playing In Character will act as they imagine their character would respond, instead of how they themselves would act. For example, I might play as a character who is afraid of the dark. I myself have no such fear, but I act out this fear through my deer, perhaps by cowering and hiding should the forest become dark.
3. Like you mentioned earlier, there isn't any text In Game. Role Playing on The Community allows players a level of depth they otherwise wouldn't be able to give their characters. It is also a good way to keep in touch with the players of characters your character has interacted with, and can be used to solve In Game disputes (such as making sure your character isn't bothering other players).
4. Nope! TEF wasn't originally designed to be a Role Play game but has evolved so that players can either form characters or simply play as they want. At no time will you be forced to play as a character.
5. Usually that is what an Out Of Character deer is. For example I have my 'Tera-deer' who is my personal representation within TEF. It acts out my moods and feelings, without being a character with feelings of it's own.
6. I can't speak for the entire community but I usually only remember deer that I have interacted with many times. I know people by a number of traits; how they behave, how their deer looks, the pictogram they use, and if they have a character on TEFc I will obviously associate them In Game with whatever information they post in a bio. I would never expect someone to know every single character/player/pictogram in TEF, especially since we have new people joining all the time.
1: OC = Original Character.
OC = Original Character. It means a character that is not based on an exciting character such as Micky Mouse or something. Instead they created the character design and idea from their own imagination.
OOC = Out Of Character. Meaning the person is speaking for themselves and not currently playing as the character.
2: People RP in forest by moving and acting as their character would. Some act very feral, like a wild animal would. And then people react in Messengers or on the Community with their characters commenting on what happened physically in the Forest.
3: RPing in the game/forest gives you a more physical, reactive feel. It's a new kind of experience for a RPer use to more narrative RPing.
4: No, your deer does not have to be a RP character. There are plenty of none RPers around. They just tend to not be as 'loud' and noisy as us RPers. Heh.
5: Of course. A lot of RPers even have OOC deer which represents them and not a character. We even started a OOC list to help pin-point none-characters and goof off with each other.
http://endlessforest.org/community/node/74088
6: Some of us have played here a long time and find it a bit easier to recognize who's who from having interacted with them before. You will learn to recognize people easier too as you grow use to the game/forest. Looking at a deer's sets (antlers/masks/pelt combos) also help with remembering others when connecting them with the pictogram for the first few meetings.
Also a lot of RPers, myself included, do not mind their characters interacting with a none RPer's deer. But some of us do have odd and sometimes aggressive characters. If we do not know your deer is a none-character we may treat it as a character and react to your deer as if it was another character. That means sometimes a character-deer may act aggressive to your deer. No one really means to be mean to the player behind the deer so don't feel like you are being rejected by another person. They may just not realize you're playing as yourself! Think of RolePlaying as an actor playing a character in a movie. That's the very basics of RP. You don't really think Darth Vader's actor is a villain do you?
And hopefully that all made sense. Typing this with a lot of distractions this morning. XD
Welcome to the forest!
Edit,
Oh, hi Terabetha! <3