Keeping OOC Speak out of RP

"By the Eastern Stars."

On November 18, 1883, America's railroads began using a standard time system involving four time zones: Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific. Time Zones are established, and do not need to be referred to as if we were all Sailors in the early 1700's. The server lore exists in the Eastern Time Zone, so having to reiterate the time zone is redundant, and you just sound silly. If you say "The store opens at 6pm" it should be understood by all that you mean 6pm Eastern.

 

"What's your Lucky Number?"

When passing items to other players, trading horses, or paying someone, you need their Player ID Number in many of these transactions. But asking people what their lucky number is is just so off-putting to many players, and in most cases, completely unnecessary. You don't need to ask. If you press and hold Z or right-click and focus on the person in question, their player ID will be shown.

 

"I need to go in my head for a minute."

Sometimes we need to take a break from RP for a myriad on reasons. Food intermissions, Bathroom Breaks, needing to let the dogs out for a bio break, etc. However, no one says 'I need to go in my head' IRL without catching funny looks, so it just sounds bizarre in roleplay. If you need to excuse yourself, come up with a valid reason you can bring into RP, tuck yourself away somewhere, and do what you need to do. Here's some examples:

• "I'm getting hungry, I'm gonna head to the saloon for a bit." - Then you can find a place to sit your character, somewhere out of the way, and go get your food.
• "Hey, I need to rummage through my satchel for something." - This is a perfect one if you only need a brief moment to handle something before resuming rp.
• "Man, I'm getting tired. Think I'm gonna turn in." - Even if you're not actually tired, sometimes something comes up that you need to log off to deal with.

This is better that saying things like "The dogs in my head are barking" or "I have nightmares in the morning". Granted, by now we all know this is a player trying to say that have work in the morning and need to get some sleep, but by introducing OOC reasoning into RP, it creates a situation where a character seems more like a self-insert. Even saying something like "Sorry, I was day dreaming. What's happening?" sounds miles better than "I was in my head."

 

» However, we do understand that sometimes emergencies happen and there's no way to explain in an IC way that you need to log off. This is where utilizing the /OOC feature or reaching out via DMs helps foster communication without breaking immersion.

 

Explaining Commands and Keybinds.

This can be a tough one because everyone wants to be helpful and tell newer players how to accomplish something. However, saying things like "Flex your X Muscle", "Think about 'slash pvp' to get feisty", and other things of this nature just sound unnatural because this isn't how people speak IRL. There's plenty of ways to explain certain mechanics in an In-Character way that doesn't sound awkward in RP. However, if you're struggling to find away to explain something, you can always DM the person in question the link to our 'Emotes, Keybinds, & Commands' guide.

References to Streaming.

There should be no reason to make a reference to your stream while in roleplay. References to 'Twitchy Eyes' or 'Voices telling me to do something' is both immersion breaking and encourages metagaming or stream sniping.