Role Play in ESO
What is a "Role Play"?
Role Play is a form of playing the game where you act, talk and behave like you and your character were part of the game. Some of you probably heard this term as "RPG" that means Role Playing Game. Role Play allows you to immerse in the world and feel like you are part of it. In ESO, there are plenty of functions that allow you to express yourself such as lots of animation your character can use in-game or the /emote command that can help you express and describe the things that aren't visible or you show in the game itself.
How to Role Play?
It's fairly easy to Role Play in Elder Scrolls Online. All you got to do is to have a concept for your character(s), background and a good atittude. There's plenty of RP groups on servers that you can join in and help them play in world of Tamriel. But you also must
Lore-wise
Every world has it's history. World of ESO has got a very rich and vast history, that you could see in other Elder Scrolls games. That said, you can't just ignore the world around you. You don't have to know all the details but knowing who's who in your Alliance, and other topics. You don't want to look stupid not knownig who Almalexia is or that the events in ESO took place roughly about 1000 years before the events of Skyrim. Same goes with topics you and your character are interested in.
God Mode
The world dosen't revolve around your character (well, the main quest in ESO does, but we're speaking of RP world). Remember that, when you play with other people. Everybody has it's strong points, but also weaknesses. Stating that you can kill everyone in a tavern or claiming to be the best in the world at swordmanship is called goddmodding - which means that a person wants her char to be a star in everything and best in everything. Sure, we understand you want to be good at something, but remember, there are other players who RP aswell and they don't necessary want to be victims of somelse's low self-esteem. Be humble, point out you strong points and weaknesses and try not to claim that you can do everything. Other people want to be good at something too you know.
Backstory
Ask yourself, who is your character. Where did it come from? Do you have parents, siblings, other close persons? Who were you before you started doing adventures? Are you religious? Are you hostile towards other races? Do you have grudges against someone? What are your quirks?
These questions help you built your own backstory, that you can share with other players during your Role Play sessions. You also must balance between cliche and overly original concepts. Sure it's nice to know that you mastered 17 of 23 akaviari love arts, but in the same time orcs/goblins/werewolves/vampires killed your loved ones is a little bit... cranky.
Glossary
Here are some words used solely in the Role Playing community.
IC - In character - when someone says he "goes IC" that means he stops offtopic, and acts and plays as his character. Everytime when you Role Play you play, by default, IC.
OOC - Out of Character - this is what you do most of the time. Quest, grind, Pve, small-talk in chat. Everytime you don't Role Play, yoare in fact, OOC.
RP - Role Play - but you already know this, don't you?
Event - a planned gathering of RP community, where people meet at certain places and Role Play altogheter. It may be a friendly banter in the tavern, or a themed meeting such as campfire stories, witnessing an execution, or meeting in dugeons to plot your agenda.
Additional RP experience
Here is some extra things to help you out with your Role Play.
When IC, try to toggle walk. You can bind a key in the options to do that. Walking people look more realistic than running ones.
NoSpin - a add-on you can use to not interrupt your characters emote animation when you want to check inventory, guild page etc.
TiEmote Extended - a add-on displays to you the list of all possible emote animations in ESO.
If you want to help expand this article, send you suggestions to Alpha!
