An Overview of FoE Role-play
Forces of the Empire, LTD. is an interactive role play club. We do most of our role play at a distance, as our members are scattered throughout the country (and the world). So how then, you might ask, do we role play?
A great deal of the role play that goes on throughout the year occurs by mail and email. Someone will come up with an idea, send it to the others who might wish to be involved, who will respond with what their characters would do, and triggering another round of action. Sometimes this kind of thing will happen over the phone, though it does get expensive, and some of our members avoid that by interacting through Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Instant Messaging (IMs). When everyone involved in a scenario has worked out what their characters have done, one of a number of things could happen: Nothing (everyone involved knows what happened, what more do you need?), or they may publish an account of what happened in the newsletter, or they might get together and write a story about it that could be published in the club fanzine, or newsletter, or just distributed to those interested. One of the more popular venues to post accomplished role play is the FoE Cantina Role Play Email List.
We also do live action role plays. This may be as simple as getting together for a weekend and role playing our characters across a dinner table or living room, or as complicated as the Blaster Battle at MediaWest*Con.
Here are some of the things to keep in mind when role-playing with us (rules, if you will):
- You must be able to separate in-character and out-of-character information.
- In-character information is information your character knows or has acquired. Only that persona can act on that information. If you have more than one character, only the character who learned the information can act on it, unless you have a good in-character reason your two personae to have met and shared information.
- Out-of-character information is information you learn from outside sources instead of directly through your characters actions. Information such as that contained in a persona bio, or if someone tells you in advance what they are going to do. Out-of-character information cannot be acted upon by any character, unless that persona knows the information through in-character action and interaction.
- You must get permission from all players who's personas are involved in a story you've written before the club will print it (and you should get permission before you print anything yourself). This is to make sure everyone's personae don't do something out of character in someone else's story. If the person requests any changes in the way you wrote their persona, you must make the changes, try to work it out with them (if what they are doing is vital to the story), or drop that persona from the tale all together.
- You cannot kill another player's persona without their permission. We spend too much time creating our personas to have them killed out of hand.
- Discuss plot lines and stories with everyone involved before and during the creation process. This is just good communication. And besides, it is more fun the more people are involved.
- As the club encourages creativity, it is very important that everyone respect each other's ideas and characters.
- And above all, have fun!.
This isn't really as bad as all the rules make it sound. Once you get into the club, and begin role playing you will get a feel for how things work.
On to A list of In-Character Divisions, or back to Club Structure
Page Design Update: 15 June 1999 by B. Crumb