💥 Bleed, Metagaming, and FailRP

Bleed, metagaming, and FailRP are all serious issues that can affect old and new RPers alike. The most important part of RP is learning to establish a wall between yourself and your character, and understanding that your character failing in some way is not a reflection of you.

Quick jump links:

➡️ IC/OOC Bleed

➡️ Metagaming

➡️ Showing Fear and FailRP

➡️ Injuries and Ailments

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IC/OOC Bleed

IC means in character and OOC means out of character. OOC is you—the person at the keyboard, chatting in public chat, making storytelling decisions. IC is how your character interacts and perceives things, through their own eyes.

It's normal to feel a lot of feelings when you’re RPing a character. You have put a lot of work into this character and you may be attached to it, and RPing something emotional can often be deeply affecting.

For that reason, it’s important to have a good IC/OOC wall in place. This means maintaining the knowledge that the things characters do IC are not a reflection of who a player is OOC. When you feel big feelings about something that is happening in-game and it starts to affect how you interact with the players OOC, that’s bleed.

Examples of IC/OOC bleed:

• In-game, a character flirts with yours a little. OOC, you become attached to the character, and resentful/petty with the player when the relationship doesn’t go the way you want it to (or worse, you start developing romantic feelings for the player based on something their character does. Down. Bad)

• A character says something unfavorable about an experience with your character. You’re very upset by this because your character’s reputation may take a hit, and you start to snub that player on the Discord, shit-talking them in DMs with your friends and preventing them from RPing in good faith going forward.

• You refuse to ever let your character lose a fight, because losing a fight wouldn't make you feel good, and you might have to confront some scary ideas about failure and mortality and such. Instead, you endlessly search for ways to make your character the biggest and baddest around so that they can never ever lose, and you fight OOC with people who suggest otherwise.

Ideally, everyone would talk the situation out OOC and come to an agreement going forward, and that should always be your first step with you have encountered something you don’t like IC. But often, you will have to treat an annoying IC situation as just that—and annoying IC situation, and deal with it IC accordingly.

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Metagaming

Metagaming is having your character know something IC that you learned OOC, often to give the character an IC advantage. This could be things like sending your character to rob a base because you saw the location of it on Discord, or having your character learn a secret about someone because a player spoke about it in public chat.

To avoid metagaming, it’s important to put yourself in the eyes of your character and ask what they should realistically know. For example, character bios have alignment types that players can see… but your character can’t. Your character has no idea that Bob Smith is secretly violent, because they can’t see a floating bio that says VIOLENT over the top of Bob’s head.

Metagaming can happen even when you don’t mean for it to, because you forget what you know OOC versus IC. I recommend keeping a little document of character knowledge, and when your character learns an important fact about someone IC, write it down.

Examples of metagaming:

• A character introduces themselves as “Vortex.” You, the player, can see that their name is written as Vortex [Bob Smith], per the nickname rules. Your character later refers to them as Bob Smith, even though they never learned the name IC.

• A character is part of a faction called Zombenshmirtz Evil Inc. The members of the faction are careful not to tell anyone IC that they are a part of it, but you can see their Discord role and know they’re a member of an evil group. Your character treats their character with hostility and distrust because you “know” they’re evil (even though nothing of the sort has been disclosed IC).

• You are being robbed by someone, but you can see that someone is an NPC because their name is “[NPC] Bob Smith.” You act far more recklessly with this NPC than you would with a player, because you know they’re not “real.” (Your character can’t see that NPC tag, so why should they act different?)

When in doubt, if you’re unsure if your character would know something, ask OOC! It can be more fun to have your character not know something than to know everything all the time.

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Showing Fear and FailRP

When confronted with dire situations, RP can be far more enjoyable and interesting if your character doesn't stare down the barrel of the gun like a badass in a film… because unlike the main character of a film, your character doesn't have plot armor, and could realistically die there.

When outnumbered, outsmarted, or outgunned, whether by other players or by staff-run events, it's important for your character to show appropriate levels of fear, caution, or respect for what is happening. Your character doesn't have to be sobbing on the ground at the first sign of trouble, but being stoic often means you are giving nothing to the scene.

A lack of respect for a scene might mean you get ticketed for FailRP. FailRP is when you react so unrealistically to a situation that you are making the experience less enjoyable for the people around you.

Examples of FailRP:

• Your character was shot in the gut yesterday. Today, they're attending a party like nothing is happening (instead of still being confined to a hospital bed somewhere).
• A NPC approaches your character; your character shoots them on sight (you wouldn't do that to a normal player, that's dumb).
• You repeatedly disrupt a group RP scene, especially one that a Storyteller is running, to take focus from the narrative and make your character the center of attention.
• Someone aims their gun at you and demands your character hands over their valuables. Your character acts unimpressed, and then pulls out their own weapon. (It's not really FailRP if you're playing someone who is dumb and suicidal, I guess. Get ready to be shot.)

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Injuries and Ailments

PvP is a beast of its own that you can read more about here, but for the most part you should know that this server is not a PvP-focused experience. If you're so inclined, you might be able to go your entire experience here without engaging in PvP at all. If you do engage in PvP, remember that it is most important is to make a good story, not to win. If your character is "fatally" injured in a fight, you can always apply for a miraculous "Second Life", so don't panic if someone shoots you. Just RP it realistically.

Outside of PvP, there's a lot of PvE out there. The injuries you receive from the infected do not have to be RPed out. Mechanical injuries and deaths can be treated as OOC if you wish, or taken IC (as long as you don't claim to have survived the infection itself).

When you roleplay out an injury, be sure to consider just what the recovery path will look like for that injury. People treat stab wounds and gunshot wounds like they're no big deal sometimes, but in the apocalypse? You're just asking for a fatal infection, unstoppable internal hemorrhaging, etc. Failing to properly RP an injury can fall under FailRP: You don't need to know all the details, but you shouldn't be walking off a bullet to the leg in three days. Also, don't ask your doctor to reattach your severed fingers. It's the apocalypse.

(When in doubt, ask ChatGPT how the injury is treated and the recovery process. It's not a perfect source, but it will do in a pinch.)