There are a few very simple rules of etiquette when it comes to role playing. Many are things players will talk about in private, complaints, what have you. We decided to just go ahead and put this up in hopes of bettering the role play experience for everyone. Below are the most commonly complained about things concerning role play.

Among the top things players want to remember in role play is don't power play, don't god mode, and don't be rude.

Text based role play is basically telling a story therefore chat speak and or chat abbreviations such as u, ur, 2, etc are highly frowned upon. You wouldn't pick a book off a shelf, open it and see such things.

Be patient! Most players in Arcane post in paragraph form, many times really long detailed paragraphs which take a while to type. Please allow us time to finish our posts then greet you if you enter the room or ask a question. If there are active nicks in the room, you will be greated, but sometimes it takes a few to even several minutes to finish a long post to do so.

Yes, sometimes you might come into the room and there are several nicks but no one or only one person is active. There are many reasons behind this. Sometimes a player has one or more nicks in the room and they had to run afk for a short or even a long period of time. The players all have real lives, things to attend to, and can't always log out or even say they have to run afk. They might be spending time with their sweetie, their kids, their pets, on the phone, getting food, whatever, and that is normal. Sometimes emergencies happen. Give others time to react to you.

One of the strangest things noticed in online RPG’s is impatience. People will walk up, say something, wait about 0.0001 seconds and run off. The person they talked to would barely have had enough time to read what they said, let alone respond to it. This also happens in conversations. People will say something, wait a very short amount of time, then keep going as if they think the person they were talking to didn’t hear them or isn’t going to respond. In most cases, the other person was going to respond but simply wasn’t as fast as expected, and loses the chance because the conversation has moved on without them. There’s no need to hurry so much, just relax and enjoy the interaction. Just please be patient. If we are at our computers we WILL greet you. Calm down. Real life doesn't move at the speed of light.

Communicate. It seems silly considering we are all on computers, but communicate!! When you first enter a room find out where everyone is, and always ask before jumping in on active role play. It's irritating to be in the middle of a story line and have someone barge in and upset the tone. Players would much rather you ask if you can join in as opposed to just doing so without asking. Some role play here takes place in private settings such as a home, and your character may or may not know where that is, nor would they very likely just walk into the home and begin interaction.

If you have a partner that you usually or always role play with, communicate with them about what characters or story lines you might like to play. Don't just assume that because you logged in under a specific character they are willing or in the mood to play that character of theirs that they play with you. Perhaps they are in the mood for something else. Assuming your partner wants to play something or even making them feel like they have to is frustrating, and leads to many rp partner breakups. Don't always be the one to pick who and what you play.

Let your partner do that an even amount of time. Also, if you are right in the middle of rp, don't just switch characters on your partner. Talk to them before hand and if they want to continue, maybe continue longer with them, if they want to switch then switch. It's give and take, a compromise. Work -with- your partner not against them and you will really enjoy what comes out of it. If they have to run afk for a short time, be patient, chances are you have to do it sometimes too. Again we all have real lives. Communicate with those you are actively role playing with. If you have to go for the day or night, let them know as far in advance as you can like "I have to go in half an hour." That gives you a chance to possibly bring that session to a plausible close, a stopping point.

It's aggrivating to a player for another player to poof on them without warning over and over, and eventually they will just stop playing with the person that does that. Of course real life intervenes and we can't always give a warning but at least say "good night" or "gtg" or something ooc if you possibly can.

If you are feeling burned out and feel the need for a short or even extended break from rp, at the very least communicate this want or need to your partner. Few things are more frustrating to a player than to have their partner just disappear, and have a ton of characters tied up with theirs and it seems like nothing can be done with them.

Be open and honest with your rp partners, otherwise when you come back from that long break you may just find they supposed you to be gone for good and moved on, pairing their characters up with someone else's. Common courtesy is a beautiful wonderful thing in role play. Treat your partner and other players with the same decency and respect as you would want them to treat you.

Ask questions. When new to the game or starting out for the session, a good rule of thumb might be to ask ooc where everyone's characters are. Just because you can see the nicks on the screen won't necessarily mean your character will be able to see them in character. A lot of rp in Arcane takes place in private settings such as someone's home, not to mention there are two totally different settings.

Use proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. If players can't read what you are trying to convey to them chances are their character can't or won't respond. Sure we all typo, and none of us are perfect, but we are writing a story.

Be creative. Don't start every character off after having some horrid life threatening incident. Also if you do this don't expect there to always be a knight in shining armor to save your character. This is an obvious scream for attention, and many players will ignore it. Not all characters are nice or helpful. There have to be the bad guys in role play or it would be boring.

On the same note of being creative, use characters you created yourself, not something from a movie, a comic book, a television show, etc. Your character should be solely something of your own creation. Also, don't so closely mimic another person's character that it seems like a direct rip off. People go to a lot of trouble to create their own characters and frown on others taking the easy route by stealing their ideas, character pics, characters, story lines etc.

Don't harass people ooc or in pm because no one responded to your character the way you think they should have. Let everyone play their own characters the way they see fit, and they will allow you that same privilege. Harassment to get players to role play with you, to do certain things, sexual or not, in anyway shape or form can get you kicked from the room. If a player sees your character and wants theirs to react to yours they will. You don't have to coerce them to.

The mechanics of role play:

When actively role playing with someone in the room it should go like this-- One player types up what their characters actions and speech is, then you respond. Now, this works best when you either type it all out at once in one paragraph, actions and speech together. If character and line restrictions are being asked for, please note at the end of a paragraph by some means such as (more) or (c) that there is more coming. If the person you are playing with is sitting there and you do this... /me stands up then /me walks over to her. {then} /me smiles and bows. {then} "Hello my lady." They are sitting there watching all of this pop on the screen one line at a time and never really know when you are finished and it's their turn. Do everything in one paragraph, or note more is on it's way and it will be a much easier more enjoyable session for all. Be as descriptive as you can. We are writing storylines, and like it even more when you paint us a detailed picture so we can better visualize what's taking place.