REQUIEM WIKI

When you first arrive in Requiem, it's recommended that you have a fairly solid idea of who your character is going to be: determining “who they are” is essential before thinking about “how they communicate”. Do they slur? Do they have a lisp? Can they even talk? Indeed, some madmen choose high-quality RP shards such as this one to play mute characters. The challenge of making your thoughts and feelings known purely by body language is very steep, but the experience is also quite rewarding when it's successful.

By default, typing on your keyboard will make letters appear on the horizontal field just above the inferior boundary of the main interface (the screen where your character is visible):

Everything you type will be “said” by your character once you hit the <ENTER> key. In other words, every sentence you enter will appear on top of your character's head as if they just said it. That's the beauty of Ultima Online: the immersion they bestow on your playing experience due to the choice of having speech appear close to the character as opposed to a main bar with an identifier like a global chat. There is no other engine that provides such an experience and it's no wonder Requiem is based on software that came out in the early 2000s. You can set custom colors for your speech in your options, located on your paperdoll menu:

The dialogue and emote will appear over your characters head and while simultaneously being recorded in your journal (which the default shortcut to open is “Alt+J”).

This is probably the most useful section of this brief guide: the shortcuts. Just as we don't talk the same way in every situation (compare your tone of voice when discussing popcorn arrangements inside a movie theater to hitting your bare foot on a rock), there are a few modes to let your character's actions known to others. The following shortcuts must be inserted before anything else or they won't work as expected:

• Speech: the standard mode. Everything you type will be displayed as normal, leveled speech. No shortcut needed;

• Whisper: your character takes care to utter something so under his breath that only other characters immediately close to them can hear. Mechanically, a character needs to be 1 tile away from the whispering character, otherwise they'll only see the word “*whispers*” appear on the screen. The shortcut for whispering is “;” (a semicolon) followed by a space: this will add the word “whisper” as a prefix to the speech bar;

• Yell: contrary to the above case, a yelling character can make his voice heard in a much larger radius than by mere speech. To yell, type “!” (an exclamation mark) followed by a space. This will add the word “yell” as a prefix to the speech bar;

• Emote: quite different from the other cases, an emoting character is portraying an action instead of saying something. Examples like “*ties his shoes*” or “*opens the limousine door for the troll*” are events that happen in the world, carried out by a character. Usually emotes are what add color to the playing world, being the mark of expert roleplayers who translate their character's actions with ingenuity and creativity. To emote, type “:” (a colon) followed by a space. This will add the word “emote” as a prefix to the speech bar.

You can set custom colors for your different styles of dialogue and emotes from your options menu, which can be accessed by your paperdoll:

“Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” is an old adage that suits us very well when regarding what is good RP (and what is not). Some people value long, exquisite sentences uttered by scholarly characters while others appreciate short, slapstick emotes that makes them laugh. Whatever the case, save for extreme circumstances, nobody was ever appointed RP Judge as far as I remember, and this is the case for the Requiem playerbase. If we are here to experience fun gaming sessions roleplaying with each other, then let them be fun for everybody.

You may be wondering “what about extreme circumstances?”. Well, unfortunately those exist. A good example is seizing another character's freedom by oppressive emotes. When a character “*tries to smash Bob's head with a box*”, everything is fine. If the same character “*lifts the mansion, attempting to smash Bob with it*” is also fine, considering he is indeed able to lift an entire mansion. However, the action “*punches Bob three times and kicks his groin*” is certainly not fine because Bob did not have any say in the matter before suffering such punishment.

Even journeymen roleplayers may fall for these pitfalls from time to time, let alone those who are starting out. I'll try to identify a few behaviors to avoid for the better enjoyment of the game and that of your fellow players.

1. When you create your character, aim for round characters rather than flat ones. Round characters undergo transformations and offer more complexity to the world, while flat ones are fairly uncomplicated and hardly change throughout the story. A resolute warrior that withstands both merry and perilous events with the same demeanor is probably flat and likely not that interesting to be around;

2. Even when creating a round character, moderation here is key. Overplaying a good personality trait can rapidly become tiresome and predictable, regardless of how creative it was in the beginning. A retired blacksmith failing to keep the bottle away is much more interesting than one who is simply drunk every single time;

3. Whichever your choice of character, splice a few other elements to make them feel alive; nobody is just a paladin of justice. They had parents, an upbringing background, desires which may have been achieved or not and so on. On the other hand, bad guys fall in love too and reclusive wizards may abhor what they do but have little choice. Thinking of the “why” is just as important as the “how”.

You probably have seen before that character relations are not the same as player relations. While characters can nurture unsavory dispositions towards one another, the players who control them should ideally maintain a bond of respect at the very least. It's plausible (and quite common) to have players in good standing who control characters with mutual hatred, but I've never seen the opposite.

Moreover, be careful not to put yourself in a box as a lot of writers do: if you play a character a certain way that would limit their responses too much, it's possible you won't like to play with that character anymore because there is no way to force them to do what you (the player) would like without breaking the concept you based them on.

I'll leave the final note for the lone wolves out there, that type of character that opts for a quiet dwelling, afar from city folk to be on their own and do their thing. While this is a perfectly valid approach and everyone should play the game they want to, maybe that's not the best way to extract maximum enjoyment out of an enforced RP shard designed for player interaction such as Requiem.