So... you've just stepped from the portal of fate and the basin is spread before your character's feet. You may have a clear concept of who that character is, and where they're going, or you may wish to simply wing it. Take the Basin as it comes and formulate your personality from there. Either way, if you're new to Lusternia you might not know where to start. Generally the players do a great job of keeping the OOC out of the realm, but what about the deeper roleplay?

It occurred to me that if new players are (much like I have) having trouble getting into roleply in Lusternia, they may need a few pointers.

Lets share some advice and experiences that might give the youngsters a place to start.

How do you get a plot going?
How do you find like-minded roleplayers to share your imaginary life with?
How do you get involved in a roleplaying family, or order?
How do you encourage the people around you to RP?
What experiences really got you excited about RP?

Anything at all that might help the curious get motivated

This is just stuff I've personally found useful...

Here is the Mother of All Character Surveys. Surveys are a great way to develop a character, and this one is specifically geared towards fantasy characters- and it's not lying, it's absolutely massive. I haven't even made a dent in it for Lanath.

As far as roleplaying in an MMO, I look at the RP section at WOWInsider from time to time- while it is for World of Warcraft, it also offers some good advice at roleplaying in a fantasy MMO- their main RP article series, which runs on Sundays, has covered how certain classes might behave, and how to view death in roleplay in a world where it's not that permanent for the players.

Consider your race. Some races have traits you can work with that can help define the RP for you. I've seen quite a lot of that in New Celest lately.

Consider your characters background ahead of time. You don't have to think too in depth on this. Once you have a general guideline for a background, you can consider how your character reacts, thinks, and feels towards any subject you come across. Even if something is improvised, as long as it makes sense and you stick with it, it is RP. It becomes part of your character.

Think about what is RP and what is not. I tend to ignore most everything I feel isn't RP. Unfortunately I see this often enough on MUD. Some people just don't get it! Try not to let it bother you, and just express your character in a realistic fashion. An example of this is the term "reflex". Some people use this term far too out of character. It's used to pretty much say "trigger". "Do you have a reflex?" AKA "Do you have a trigger?". This may pull you out of the RP a bit, but try to get back into it with more realistic wording. "Aye, I can respond plenty quick enough to that!" Just an example! Use your imagination! Watch out for oppurtunities like this one, but not always for things like "reflex". Things such as percent to next circle, even a circle number is off if you ask me! Exact health amounts, et cetera. You should try to make those flow into something more realistic! I don't say in real life, "I'm about to gain a level in my college class, I'll get an A for sure this time!"

Learn about your city and your guild. Take the time to fully understand what your guild stands for, and what your city stands for. Completely understand both! A big problem I saw on Imperian when I played there as a Taekyon was lack of real RP. People failed to fully understand what a monk is, and ONLY focused in PvP. When I played there, my character embraced everything there was about Taekyon. It gave me something to RP! I worked to advance in every place possible simply because it was a ROLE to PLAY. I had my character think, breath, and act like a monk. City's and guilds are there for more than just politics and skills to use. They are a way of your characters life, and they should be acted as such. Remember though to UNDERSTAND it before you try to ACT IT. THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM! I must emphasize this!

I believe I could add more, but class starts soon.. Just remember to have fun, and try to be as realistic as possible when RPing. Keep OOCsh stuff to isolated areas such as tells and messages. Be considerate of the players around you! Not everyone is acceptable with what you think is RP, so it's best to just try and be realistic! It may be more work, but you're sharing with everyone! I try my best, and you all should too!

Hope this helps the confused! Happy RPing!

Oh, uh... yeah, that's what I was going to say, too. Umm... Good work!

I never created "RP plots" of my own. I just stayed in-character, that is both not breaking the IC impression and having a consistent personality for my characters, and RP just happened on its own. As for finding other roleplayers - grammar is a good indication. I'm not saying that if you make a single typo then you're a Runescape noobcake who couldn't RP his way out of a wet bag, but I've noticed that people who don't capitalize their sentences, mistake "your" and "you're" or even, shudder, type "u" instead of "you" aren't usually the ones who roleplay. But seriously, if you find someone not roleplaying, don't stick around them. There's plenty of roleplayers in this game.