Anaris Family/Anton's Tome/RP vs OOC
Roleplaying, In-Character, and Out-Of-Character
There are various levels of roleplay in BattleMaster. The simplest distinction is between "in-character" and "out-of-character" speech and knowledge. Right now, I am speaking out of character, because I'm talking about things like characters, and the game--things that your characters themselves could not know about. (I'm not using the out-of-character message type because it can be hard to read long messages on it) Any time you're talking about things in the real world, you're talking out-of-character. Your characters can only know about things they are told, or things they see, which obviously doesn't include the computer you're sitting at.
Generally, you will want to talk in-character. As I said, there are various levels of this. The one many, if not most, people use is sort of a "light" speech, with gameplay terms like "character" and "turn" interspersed with more normal in-character terms. My preferred level is a little deeper than this: staying away from gameplay terms, and using the terms your characters would themselves use, were they real medieval nobles--instead of "character" or "troopleader", use "noble", and instead of "turn", use "sunrise" or "sunset".
Going deeper still, there is what I would characterize as true roleplaying speech: talking with the other characters in-character about events in the game that may or may not have anything to do with the game's code. For instance, Raziel2's pancake addiction (though it is more than a little overdone sometimes...). Often, these can provide opportunities for character development.
At the far end of the spectrum from out-of-character, there is full narrative roleplay, where you describe actions your character is taking, and put dialogue in quotes. This can often be quite long, and is not something all players do (though I quite enjoy it myself). If you like this kind of thing, you should consider subscribing to the Roleplay List, which you can do from your family page, under Edit Data. There, a lot of narrative roleplay from all the different continents of BattleMaster is posted for everyone to see.
Finally, a word of caution: as I said earlier, your characters can only know things that they learn through in-character ways. That means that if I send a roleplay to the whole realm about Anton talking to himself in his private chambers, none of the other characters in the realm actually know anything that he said there, even if he revealed a plot to assassinate the King. That kind of knowledge cannot be used in in-character messages, or for in-character purposes. In the extreme, using knowledge gained through out-of-character means--for instance, one of your friends plays in another realm and tells you in real life--can be considered cheating, especially if it is used to the detriment of anyone in the game, and can result in characters or even accounts being deleted by Tom, the GM.
