SWG Tales

These basic guidelines for beginner role players were created and approved by a group of dedicated role players at the SWGTales.com forums. They are an attempt to provide suggestions for all beginning role players with no previous experience"not to regulate or superimpose ideas about role play onto others, but to help players without any experience discover and develop their character.

Please note, this guide is meant for beginner role players. Guidelines for suggested etiquette for existing role players is still being discussed and approved, and will be released as soon as it's ready.

The first step in role playing (RP) is creating a character to play. You can't very well respond to situations without knowing how your character would react, now can you? This basic guide will go through some simple steps towards making a character that's easier to RP.

1. Your Character's Background
2. Your Character's Personality
3. Your Character's Appearance
4. Questions to Ask Yourself
5. Extra Challenges

--Introduction--
The suggestions I'm about to give you in the following guide are just that--suggestions. Role playing is different for everybody, and creating a character is a very personal process. Sometimes a character can develop out of how it looks, or instead the appearance is selected after the personality. None of this has to be decided all at the same time, and character biographies can grow and change a little bit here and there. What's important is having a basic structure to work with. This guide is simply meant to give suggestions to those who aren't sure where to start.

1. Your Character's Background
Your character's background is one of the most fun things to choose. Say they're a slicer now. Were they a pilot before? A street rat? Are they a desert wanderer? A rough ranger all their life, raised by eopies? I list background first because this really gives your character shape. It gives your character something to talk about. And it can give you the possibility to affect your character. If your character used to be a politician but they're a smuggler now, what made them leave politics and go into smuggling? How did they get where they are now, basically?

2. Your Character's Personality
Most people begin role playing a character that has their basic personality with a few differences. This is the easiest way to get into role playing. If you have a background selected, however, you'll notice that as you start RPing and continue to RP, your character will start to change and develop away from your basic personality. This is normal, too.

3. Your Character's Appearance
Your character's appearance is the first thing you choose in Star Wars: Galaxies. Having a unique appearance is important to some people, and others it's not. After getting to know your character's personality and background, you might want to change your character's appearance to accompany that. This can be in clothing or even as drastic as using an ID to change your hairstyles or body type. This is completely optional, though think about it--clothing is one of the ways we identify and stereotype personalities and people in real life. Instead of just slapping a dancer's leotard on your lady or composite armor on your man before RPing, consider--what would an ex-pilot wear? What would a politician wear? What would a desert hermit wear?

4. Questions to Ask Yourself
Here's a few questions to consider while creating/developing your character, or while thinking of role play ideas.
--How does your character's background affect their personality?
--How does your character's background and personality affect their appearance?
--How might their appearance/species affect their self-esteem or feelings about other people?
--How might their faction affect their feelings on different matters?
--Do they have old grudges? Secret crushes? Secret fears?
--What are their goals in life?

5. Extra Challenges
One of the most challenging things in RP is to play a character that has the opposite personality as yourself. If you're a very shy person, it might be difficult to play a very outgoing person. If you're a very sexual, outgoing person, it might be difficult to play a modest, shy person.

--End Notes--
Remember that role playing is for fun, and that these are just suggestions to get you started! Characters can come about in any order or fashion. Anything that doesn't feel right to you shouldn't go into your character. This is your creation! Happy character-creating!

The Galactic Civil War affects all of our characters. The question might be, how? I'll briefly go over some topics that deal with faction and RP.

a. Why are they a part of that particular faction?
b. Who else is the same faction?
c. What does your character know about his/her faction?
d. How does it affect your character overall?

a. Why are they a part of that particular faction? The easy answer for your character can be very canned. If the Rebellion, their parents or friends or home was destroyed by the Empire. If Imperial, perhaps they have a similar story about aliens that got them into a feeling of strong anti-alien sentiment. What could be more interesting is crafting a different approach. Perhaps a weaponsmith selling weapons to the Rebellion because it creates better business for him--he can charge what he likes since it's under the table, and he begins to sympathize with their cause. Perhaps an Imperial is simply drafted, and reluctant--but after seeing the help a dedicated company of troopers can do for loyal citizens of the Empire, he becomes a steadfast and hardcore loyalist himself.

b. Who else is the same faction? You may think this is a simple question--why, whoever shows up purple, of course! When RPing, you must ask yourself to differentiate between what YOU know and what your character knows. YOU may know that Doctor Shmoe over there is a Rebel, but your character might not. If you want your character to know, just be polite and ask in a /tell. Say, "Hey, would it be okay if our characters knew each other were Rebels?" It's a common courtesy that may seem silly when playing among friends, but it's important to remember when playing with new people.

c. What does your character know about his/her faction? You may or may not want to RP your character's actual factional rank in the game. This also goes for having completed factional theme parks and having met high ranking factional NPCs. Consider what your character might actually know and have responsibilities as if they were really a Major or just a Private. Consider if they would actually have met and known characters such as Thrawn, Vadar, and the Emporer--while it may be entirely possible, many people claim this. It might be more fun to imagine other, new characters, or perhaps less-used characters from the original movies.

d. How does it affect your character overall? Small things to consider about factional differences. Members of the Rebellion will be more likely to call themselves members of the Alliance. They're a little more spread out--one Rebel may not know another Rebel by sight, even in the same town, due to possible poor communication and cell-type leadership. Their bases of command are constantly on the move. Everyone will be very hush-hush--you don't want to go around parading the fact that you're a Rebel or talking about it freely! That is, unless you want to get in trouble with the Imperials very quickly.

Remember that Imperials at this time have a very strong and wide-spread anti-alien sentiment, and abuse is wide-spread, though probably just as much from ill training and bad leadership as it is the policies. There are still good troopers and good officers out there, looking to make a difference--the Imperials aren't always the bad guy.

Most importantly, remember what you're fighting for!