Citizen Roleplaying Guide

Many people will join a serious roleplaying server for the first time (especially Half-Life 2 servers) and ask about being MPF/Resistance. Well, first off you need to know one thing - there is more to RP then having guns and being an officer or a resistance member; RP is meant to develop a character as well as you can and of course to enjoy it not sit around on a barricade yelling at other citizens to back up while you wave your shiny new 9mm at them you can't even shoot; Get yourself an apartment from either an MPF unit or a CWU worker (it depends on the server, mostly you can just buy them yourself), after you have an apartment after coming off that long train ride and have settled down, get to know people. As you'll see on your right side of the screen one of the messages are ..."misery loves company", so true not to mention making friends ICly will improve your RP experience and help you develop your new character. Once you've met some people, it's really as easy as going up to someone and saying "Hi", chat with them a bit if you haven't already now is a perfect time to develop a backstory through RP... tell them of where you used to live, your family, you job and such, bam you've just developed your character a little. Of course keep in mind when talking to other citizens Civil Protection officers may overhear or just get generally annoyed so speak quietly and do not speak of any illegal actions in public, also be sure to stray from having a military background if you do decide to make a backstory on the stop (the combine killed all military personal) so either you'd have to be a ghost or a liar; but I will get into developing a character later.


So you've gotten yourself an apartment, made a few friends and developed your character a little; well now you might think to yourself "how can I make this a better place for me and others?" Well you can do plenty by asking a local MPF unit alone if there are any odd jobs that may need to be done e.g cleaning windows, cleaning the street, dumping trash, and many more activities. But one of the best ways you can help your community and essentially get yourself something to do other then talk to people is by visiting the CWU. The CWU will always have work available for citizens wanting to help out the community, you can even put in an application to join the Civil Workers Union and thus developing your character some more and making your RP more lively. Just one thing to remember is although in many ways you are above other citizens in social standings it does not mean you are exempt from crimes and can disobey an officers orders. Many people may find working in the CWU fun and the best part is most get extra rations. Remember even if you don't want to join the CWU but you do want some nice passive RP or just something to do other then sitting around watching users enter and exit the server you can always go there to ask for work, best part is they'll reward you.
So you did some work for the CWU and you may think "Well I've done my part." Well you're wrong, unfortunately there are those who wish to sabotage the social structure and injure you or other fellow citizens and along with being a member of the active community in your district comes the responsibility of reporting these anti-citizens. If you see an anti-civil activity happening one may be urged to seek Civil Protection although right now this guide may be sounding much like an IC guide made by the Universal Union in all reality a part of citizen RP is realistically RPing, think to yourself for a moment, if you saw someone rob a bank would you approach them and try to stop or join them? Or would you call the police, would you run? It's important to also know what your character would do and to fear RP, now think from the stance of a citizen in Half-Life 2; They see someone kill a Civil Protection officer they would not approach this person normally even with the circumstances that Civil Protection is generally seen as "evil" or "bad" chances are they would run and tell no one or run to an officer, you should do the same rather then thinking the person is going to give you something for talking to them, you're more likely to be stabbed, and best part is if you do tell an officer you are now contributing to the community.


The one thing that makes serious RP different from DarkRP is it's neccissary to be realistic in serious RP, to be as realistic as possible in RP you have to know and cover alot of topics such as what metagaming is, how to Pain and FearRP, and how not to powergame, covering only a few topics.
Many people will agree it is extremely annoying and agitating when someone forgets or fails to FearRP properly such as hitting a CP. If you do not understand how to FearRP or at a moment someone tells you you forgot to do it then an easy way to fix your fail is by thinking what you would do, and no you would not hit someone aiming a gun at your face. Fear is a natural thing we all experience IC and OOC, meaning do not make a badass character that will fistfight gang members who are simply trying to mug him, it's a straight up horrible idea (you'd lose your things anyways AND die) another way to properly fear is to think "could doing this action get my character perma killed?" Fear RP covers a wide range of things some people don't even realize such as simply walking into the slums, with gangs, disease, death and violence would you really want to go there? Think of alot of your IC actions and whether or not someone might be afraid to do it, even if truly is something simple like walking past a checkpoint.
PainRP is a shortly covered topic because it is very general, if you get shot in the leg you really wouldn't keep running right? No! You'd probably fall from the pain, for some reason people have trouble with painRP getting a nail in your hand and simply laughing and spitting in the person who did it's face is far from RPing pain. A real person would yell in pain and ask to stop rather then acting as if someone just simply insulted you.

Aw yeah