This page is an introduction to roleplaying: how to do it, what's expected, and so forth.

This is an adult game of Let's Pretend. Two or more people sit around and create an evolving story about their interactions, centered around some plot event. They take turns, though not necessarily in strict order, explaining what they do or say.

Thought

It all starts from your character's motivations, the Four Questions of Babylon 5: Who are you? Where do you come from? Where are you going? What do you want? Think of these things and consider what your character would say and do in these circumstances.

Speech

Roleplaying is normally done in open chat, with what you type being considered what your character says. Some people like to put their own words in quotation marks. Though that seems redundant, it's a matter of personal style.

Out-of-character speech is normally placed in parentheses or brackets. This is for communication about the game, but what your character says.

Actions

If you want to write a sentence like "Timberwoof looks at himself in the mirror," type "/me looks at himself in the mirror." The /me gets turned into your name. Don't write /me looks at myself in the mirror" because that comes out like this: Timberwoof looks at myself in the mirror, and that makes no sense!

Avatar Actions

Back in the days of D&D with books and paper maps, some players placed little pewter statues on the map to indicate the positions of their characters. This helped players keep track of where everyone was. Second Life is such a rich 3D environment that it seems like a waste of its potential to just have avatars standing around playing D&D. Use poses and animations to illustrate what's happening.