Role-play is the act of playing a role as a character. Role-play in Clockwork usually consists of multiple game modes including HL2RP, New Vegas Roleplay, etc. When you are roleplaying you are essentially an actor, you're acting out the actions of your character you created.

Serious roleplay is a much more serious and official roleplay then other GarrysMod gamemodes. The first noticeable difference is that you do not use your microphone in serious roleplay, its all text based. You act as your character, there is a noticeable difference between out of character and In character in serious roleplay.

Being in-character basically means that you will roleplay how your CHARACTER would react to a situation, not how you're out of character self would. lf for example, in HL2 Roleplay, a Civil Protection catches your CITIZEN character swearing. Your citizen character would be scared of the unit, and succumb to the punishment.

The easy way to think of this, is if you are an actor and you have to pretend to be your character in every way, if you are acting as a bearded man who had a wooden leg you would act as this person, think what your character would be thinking and what your character would say, try to tell a story and convey a personality by the actions you do. Remember similar to acting you should pretend to be your character and not your real life self.

To talk in character in ClockWork just type as usual. Remember microphones or voice is not used in ClockWork its all text based. Typing is what your character is saying. If you want your character to say “What a beautiful day” you would type, “What a beautiful day”, this simulates your character talking.

To yell or shout in Clockwork use the command “/y” this simulates your character yelling. Other characters will be able to hear you from a larger distance when you are yelling. To whisper in clockwork use the command “/w” this simulates your character whispering and only people near you will be able to hear.

Your character has a physical description. When you are making your character you should have a full name. E.g “George Jameson”, “David Lowgreen” “Sigmund Roberts”. Your characters physical description is how you would describe your character physical appearance. It should only contain information about how your character looks and not contain information about personality or history.

When approaching another character you will see there character description. This is because your character does not know there name. You can ask the character for their name, once you know there name the other player should press “F2” so that you can see their name.

Being Out of Character, this is everything to do with you and not your character, for example in Hollywood an actor acts as his character after he finished acting he would take a break and be as himself. You being as yourself is you out of character hence the name.

In Clockwork the Out of Character command is “//” this allows you to speak out of character to everyone on a server usually most servers only allow you to speak once every 10 - 30 seconds to stop the out of character being spammed.

Local out of character command is “.//” this is similar to global out of character yet local out of character is only in the proximity close to your character.

In Half Life 2 Roleplay If some citizens are messing around in LOOC [Local Out of Character], you will react also OOC, not make your character react to something that technically doesn’t exist/isn’t physically possible in the universe of your roleplaying gamemode.

Roleplaying actions, also known simply as /me’s in the roleplaying community. /me is the command used to describe an action that your character is doing. Here is an example that you type in the chat: /me sits down on the bench, and yawns. That is your typical commonly used /me. /me is used to do ANY action that is important to describe, such as a fist fight, melee combat, throwing, carrying, taking items, every action that is of importance that can mean something to other people around you.

Another command used to describe actions, is /it. /it is used for describing things such as the weather, or what happens to a can when you throw it. Here is an example: /it A strong wind is brewing in the plaza, as papers fly around. Or, another example : /it The can lands on the ground with a small ‘clink’, but not hitting the person, as it missed.

As you can see, Roleplaying Actions are the FOUNDATION of RPing in general, as they are used to describe all sorts of actions. Make sure to use this system for every important action you do, even for simply menial tasks like cleaning a window, or taking a dump.
Depending on the servers different methods will be used during roleplaying the most common one is rolling. If your character wanted to punch another character in the face or wanted to run away from another character he would have to use a “/me” to show his action then a “/roll” which generates a number 1 - 100. The other character would have to do a counter action if he wanted to counter the other person action which then he would have to roll. The highest roll would win and there action would take place opposed to the other action.

The second most common method is play to lose which means when you are roleplaying an action you take into account the situation and the likelihood of your character winning. If you were to punch someone in the face the other person would be punched in the face as you are constantly playing to lose.

Be careful not to power game. Power gaming is where you use an action to force something onto another player. Such as /me kicks the man and kills him. This is power gaming because you are trying to force the player to die with your action.

I decided to add this section due to the amount of players who are un-aware of what FearRP and InjuryRP are.

FearRP
Fear Roleplay, is roleplaying the element of fear. Your character during serious roleplay can never be invincible to fear. Your character will always feel fear to some extent unless it is an OTA. If you are roleplaying a Citizen in HL2RP it is important to always FearRP this means you must roleplaying be afraid when your life is in danger.

Examples
**James Jameson screams at the gunshot and runs away
**George Jameson says "Please, P- Pl- Please Sir, Leave me alone".

Failure to FearRP on most servers will get you a short ban. (Depending on the server)



Injury RP
Injury Roleplay is when you are injured you must roleplay you are injured an example is if you fell off of a building then your character would roleplay having a broken leg or roleplay bleeding. If you are shot your character would not be able to run or walk away he would be in pain so its important to roleplay this.

Examples
**James Jameson screams in pain as he is shot, his leg is bleeding heavily and he cannot move.
**George Jameson holds his leg in pain as he yells out "Arggh!" as he feels his bone has broken.

Failure to InjuryRP on most servers will get you a short ban. (Depending on the server)

// - Used for Global OOC
[[ or .// - Used for Local OOC
/y - Used to yell, increasing the range that people can hear you.
/w - Used to whisper, decreasing the range that people can hear you.
/me - Used to describe an action that you are doing.
/it - Used to describe your surroundings, or the status of an object.
/roll - Used to randomly generate a number between 1-100.
/changefreq [freq] - Used to change the frequency of your radio, if you have one.
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Admin Commands. [Basics]

/plykick [name] [reason] - Used to kick out a person from the server.
/plyban [name] [length] [reason] - Used to ban a person from the server for a certain amount of time, or just type -1 to ban them permanently.
/plygoto [name] - Used to teleport to a person. Note: This command is slightly bugged during early version of Clockwork.
/plybring [name] - Used to bring a person to your location. Note: This command is slightly bugged during the early version of clockwork.

When you join for a first time you will be asked some questions. Some servers modify the questions to make them harder, the general idea of this is to stop people joining who have no knowledge of the gamemode so they cannot ruin it for others.



The default questions are:

You do not need weapons to roleplay, do you understand?
This is designed to show players that if you are joining the server that you do not need any type of weapons to be able to play the game. Serious roleplay is usually based on developing your character and not on who can get the biggest weapon first. If you have any intentions of getting the biggest guns first I do not reccomend this gamemode, I suggest you try DarkRP which is much more suited to your needs and you will find it much more fun. This question is asking you a simple yes and no answers. The answer is of course Yes.

Can you type properly, using capital letters and full-stops?
It is important for you to type capital letters and full stops. People with good grammar and spelling are important to this gamemode. The answer is of course "Yes, I can."

What do you think serious roleplaying is about?
This is an important question to make sure you realize that you are suppose to develop your character as I said earlier its important to give your character a story and personality, the answer for this is obviously. "Developing your character."

What universe is this roleplaying game set in?
This is to test you have at least some basic knowledge of the game. The answer is "Half Life 2"

You do not need items to roleplay, do you understand?
This is to make sure you realize that roleplay can be passive, you can roleplay with fake items as long as its not power gaming or stupid. The answer is "Yes."

IC - In Character
OOC - Out of character
LOOC - Local out of character
Roll - The act of rolling to get an outcome.
Metagaming - Taking information you have gained from out of character and taking it into character. An example is if someone told you a secret door in the map you know this out of character yet IC your character does not know about this door, therefore if you showed any signs of knowledge of that door in character you would be metagaming.
P2L - Play to Lose
S2K - Shoot to kill, this is where you can shoot somebody and kill them without having to use any roll’s or other deciding systems.
S2I/S2H - Shoot to Injure is where you can shoot somebody to injure them yet you have to roleplay killing them.
S2M - Shoot to miss is where you shoot and miss the person on purpose so that you have to roleplay killing them.
M**ge - This offensive word which is the definition of female gentials. Is what people out of character call players who do not know how to roleplay correctly.
RDM - Random Deathmatch

Additional Credits:
Thanks to Nickorai for the information on S2H.