Get the most out of Star Trek RPG  

Successful communication requires all the crew to provide interactive and accurate choices to be given out so that captain can use to make decisions, and in return the Captain can make   interactive, clear and simple environment to follow orders based on the action at hand.

In our group we define our role-play as two or more personnel interacting when the participants are IC (In-Character). But from start to finish this would primarily involve a member in our Star Trek USS Gallant group, it may also involve visitors with permission to be involved. Many of our group know the terminology and tools specific to their branch and duties. For other that are willing to learn as we roleplay, we have members to lean on and study formats so they can take part in role-playing in an effective and non-disruptive way.

Star Trek role-play depends on the foundation known as “canon”—a well-known and well-established set of baseline activities and knowledge—there are unique aspects that helps them to follow a foundation. But also look forward to Gene Roddenberry the vision of Star Trek      “Space: the final frontier......... to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”  there are continuing new ideas beyond canon that has never been explored yet.  This list of tips may assist you in being a better role player.

1. Be involved and attentive

Most role-play scenarios on the USS Gallant can be one to two hours. 

Most are prepared before logging inworld to Second Life. Doing what needs to be done before roleplay, having any reference material required ready, and being in your position at least fifteen minutes before the scheduled start time.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE READ YOUR MISSION AND DEPT NOTES BEFORE ENTERING ROLEPLAY  

This helps roleplay run more smoothly and not hurt the time set to roleplay the story

Once the role play begins, pay attention to what is happening in local chat, and in any role-specific group chat(s), as we using a communication device crew can read what is going on anywhere on Second Life grid, so be prepared to respond if called upon.

When the Captain orders something to be done (example : Tactical officer to raise shields, lock the phasers on target and fire!   It hurts the roleplay time finding out the Tactical officer is away from their keyboard. Extended long term response times to critical story and the way it should go is extremely disruptive.   

2. Sorry to inform you that you are not the only smart one in the room.

During our role-play, ((Local chat. Repeater chat and or Grid/SIM Communitions device chat )))  please Listen and engage your co-players in your planned actions. They may have ideas you don’t. At a minimum, this will help keep personnel from saying things that has nothing to do with the roleplay "contradictory things."

Our characters are important to us. We spend a great deal of time creating and crafting a roleplay , then even more time writing their stories. It's inevitable that we eventually become attached to them. Because we gather and care about our characters, we often want them to do well and succeed. We want to showcase their skills and adventures as much as possible. But within a collaboratively-written role-play environment, no single character takes priority over another. Our roleplay characters are not special nor are they exceptional; they are (hopefully) competent officers within a larger story and the joy of playing them comes from role-playing their specialties within the story arc  (the episode). Understanding your character's role within the story is paramount, as is understanding that your character is not the center of attention.

3. Star Trek canon is not written in stone being "right" Do not obsess about it !

In our Star Trek group, time to time you will hear roleplay that you know is simply not correct.  Foundation of canon in some way is just not correct. its NICE TO EXPLORE IDEAS but sometimes It may be something you know is ridiculous. It might be a  simple mistake or error, ((( example :  Captain forgetting to drop out of warp))) think to yourself, “how will this role play be improved if I point this mistake”? Will pointing it out *improve* the rest of the roleplay ?    

But there are times where scenarios where is not going right “being wrong” may affect the roleplay story.  

Captain might ask someone to do something! 

A Officer might respond to the captain's order that does not make sense to that situation.

Another Officer (realizing the Officer is vastly overstating that situation): Captain, I have analyzed that expected outcome of that (situation), and it will be ok to do it is way instead.

A different way to resolve this without anyone losing face would be to privately talk via IM to that officer  to tell them they are overstating the effect of a of this (situation) and let that officer revise their estimate:

Officer: “Captain, I have re-evaluated the possible effect (situation) and I am confident it will not affect (situation)"

** If you feel you must always correct an “error”, think of a way to do it that addresses the point without making someone else look bad. Think of yourself in that same position. In this example above, we turned a that Officer who does not appear to understand the (situation), into a cautious one, warning the Captain about a possible negative outcome of roleplay every time. ***

4. Operate inside the branch you are assigned to.

Before roleplay begins a general Synopsis of the story will be handed out that everyone will know the basic story arc.  Each branch will be handed out a format of goals to accomplish with their role.

 In our roleplay.   Your role for this period of time is to be an engineer, do not try to insert yourself into also being a tactical officer, Doctor or a helmsman.  Center yourself on doing the best you can at the job you are assign to. and let your fellow players do theirs. Unless the captain assigns  other dept to help out each other that will connect a better roleplay outcome. Then it is up to both branches to merge their goals of the roleplay.  PLEASE DO NOT BE FOOLISH in the way you behave.   ( EXAMPLE: "Think of yourself. We are on a away team, your partner gets hurt and is on need of medical treatment like first aid. It would be common sense e for you to take your emergency med kit and help your partner until your beam out or more expert help arrives.  It would be wrong to say Sorry I am an engineer not a doctor and refuse to a least use the med kit to help their wound)

5. Your branch may not have a part in Story

When the Story Arc is created that part of the story scenario for the Officer, Dept. or  away team, etc to do something.  This Story part   where your branch/role needs to be involved. Sometime other depts. is operating normally, do not feel you have to insert yourself into the roleplay just for the sake of having something to say.    Ask the Captain in beginning of the story if you can be in sickbay for a checkup or sick. Engineer team also need to check ship systems daily.  Tactical must do their security checks around the ship . If you are not interfering with the main story, find a mini roleplay to do while the main story is happening.  You're on a starship and there is must more that happens each moment of the day than bridge duties

Using our new unity max Hud you can earn experience, wisdom, strength points just by doing extra things if you're not a part of the main story

6. Do not place your roleplay in a negative way

This can include a lot of different angles  

• Insert unnecessary, inappropriate, and off-topic talks during roleplay time.

• Trying to point out wrong things during a roleplay to others (It is not the time or place to openly say "You are wrong so wrong !)

• Roleplay that dispute or contradicts others. (EXAMPLE : Science ; Scanning for cloaked Klingon ship's(one comes out of cloak )  Captain: RED ALERT ! Raise shields lock all weapons on that ship and fire  Engineer: Can’t do that cause there is still that dead body in the torpedo tube we did not eject out yet. Tac Officer: Aye captain, two torpedoes launched.)

• Another role-player steps into another dept story and takes over with ideas( Ends up hurting that role-player trying to do their best)

7. Modify  your role play to others

Sometimes we ask members to write in ideas to the story at hand.  as an example, you like this role play story to be somewhat the same to your other role-player in your group to extend and give strength.to it! Or extend into the next part of the story

If other in the group are giving more lines that appears on what they are doing in the story, and you are writing a great amount of information, make a choice to tone it down, or to find a condition where others are also writing Information details. This can be even more tricky if you type slow as a role-player

So, talk to the group about how you would like the roleplay to go and finish with modify ideas

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8. Give time to other players to read & respond

Even though some of the stories are action packed at a fast pace, but some are a long journey.

At no time feel that you need to “fill in the silence”.  Make sure you give other role-player time to take up and think about what is being expressed  and or the details of what is happening and give a brief time to response.  Don’t keep pushing to roleplay forward (more so when there is mutli chat formats going on )

But make sure they do not take to long or be away from the keyboard as this hinder the next steps into the story.

9. Be Bendable about things

The greatest honor you can have is others know that you know your job (role) and that you “play well with others”. Don’t try to take the stand or steal the show. USS Gallant Star Trek role-play is a cooperative effort as a family where the members work together as a team to keep the story arc moving on, and the main goal when all is said and done to say to yourself. Today I had FUN ! i   We try hard to be flexible, give others a chance to play, don’t worry about who is right and who is wrong, just relax and have fun. There is a time and place to get serious and there is a time and place to enjoy the fun of roleplay

Somedays there is time the story flopped.  Put it in the trash can and move on!  Nothing worse than doing over a bad story to make it all correct 

10. Avoid Godmoding

1.  A player who tries to control things that are not under their control, i.e. the reactions and emotions of other people's characters

1. 2.  A rude behavior in which a gamer oversteps what is allowed by the written or unwritten rules of the game.

God-modding is where another character assumes the actions of other. Examples are stepping into engineering to take care of all issues written in the story.  auto-firing phaser assume tactical  needed help and killing the creature or simply wielding so much power that they are on God status. God-modding is also an unbalanced form of writing in which a character can affect the Rolyplay but is not affected by the Role-player in return.

These type people like to play the story where roleplay character that comes out on top or have a preconception as to how 'badass' their character should appear, as well as in contrast to the character they are up against. If a player feels that they should easily be able to beat their opponent.  "Do not let this happen in your roleplay" . At the same time however, sometimes with newer players it's just a lack of RP etiquette knowledge 

11. Stay way from Metagaming

Metagaming is a term used to describe a character taking actions based on knowledge that the character can’t possibly have. Imagine a scenario where your Captain has been captured by an adversary and it is known that she is being held somewhere in the region. The region has a collection of buildings and other features, and the away team needs to search for him. The away team splits into smaller groups and spreads out.

Away Team 1 role plays and informs the Captain. “My tricorder is registering anomalous readings 236m to the East .” “Let’s get up on top of that ridge so we can see better”. “There are signs of activity to the South let’s investigate”. Away Team 2  opens their map and literally walks straight to where the Captain is being held. “We found him.”

You may think this example is absurd and that no one would do this. You are wrong. This is an example of metagaming—using information that their character can’t possibly have—a map pinpointing the Captain’s location. Metagaming is almost always to the character’s direct benefit and is to be avoided.

12. RP In Character (IC) vs Out of Character (OOC)

Veteran and new players alike understand the concept behind in-character (IC) and out-of-character (OOC) dialogue and behavior. Generally, in our group, it is expected that if you are in Starfleet uniform, act like one   and speak as an Starfleet officer, behaving in ways that are consistent with the in character you have developed.

If you need to do something Out of Character, you should make this clear by placing the OOC statements for all to know  (( double parenthesis)) in chat for example ((I will be right back. I have someone at my door.)) would tell those present that you have had to excuse yourself for a few minutes for duties unrelated to the roleplay. If real life does interfere, it’s important that you let others know that you won’t be responding to their roleplay.

But also, consider ways to create an idea with this without stepping out of character. “Please excuse me, everyone. I just received some urgent data  with my PADD that I must read and respond to at once, and it will take me several minutes.” All the others present need to know is that you will be unresponsive. They probably don’t need to know the details. 

There is a lot of ways to tell others you will be right back ((do not take to long as sometime the roleplay needs your responds.))   if it is that important inform the captain to reassign that section of roleplay to keep it running smoothly

The knowledge and information we obtain as players and the relationships we make with other players are not the same as our characters'; your player conduct should not be the same as your characters'. All players must be able to separate IC from OOC at all times. To reiterate:

In Conclusion