Roleplaying Chat - Character Considerations

Roleplaying chat is a very specific type of game,their real life. While this is often frowned upon as
where people use a pure textual interface to"breaking the spell" it may be necessary in order
engage in acts of collaborative imagination.to tell other players that you are going to be
Characters are assumed by the variousaway from the keyboard, or to inform them that
participants, and stories are told throughyou aren't feeling well and need to take it easy.
interactions that occur between those characters.When stepping out of character, people are
Within the chat, each person possesses a virtualgenerally instructed to encase their words in what
avatar. There is no physical representation of thisare known as ooc marks. Ooc stands for Out Of
avatar, instead it is the duty of each participant toCharacter. The marks usually take the form of
imagine themselves, and the other players, andparenthesis which can then be placed around the
the relative positions each one has to the other.words. (Thus this would be considered an out of
While this sounds utterly complicated at first, incharacter statement).
general position doesn't matter nearly as much asIn a good roleplaying chat environment, out of
action, and after a little practice it almostcharacter remarks will be kept to a minimum, or
becomes second nature to create a mental maprelegated to private messages, where they won't
of where everyone is supposed to be.interrupt the flow of the game. Part of being a
During a roleplay chat session each participant isresponsible participant in such communities is
supposed to assume the role of a character.knowing when it is appropriate to use out of
However sometimes people feel the need to stepcharacter statements, and when to maintain the
out of that character, and say something aboutillusion of your characters identity.