Preface: I typed this all up in one go, and haven't/wont proof read it at all. Hopefully there is plenty of inconsistency for everyone to get upset about. I hope even more that I messed up on the syntax somewhere, and everything turned into a quote, or everything is bolded, or something stupid like that.

Are you one of the 14 people that still play Carrion Fields? Do you find it increasingly difficult to enjoy the game because nobody else RPs their character properly, which forces you to follow suit?
Of course you are. I'm here to help you. When you're done following the steps of my guide, you'll be so intertwined with your character that you won't even empty your bowels in real life until you emote your character doing the same thing in game. You'll be so intertwined with your character that the pictures you send to IMMs through email to get ahead of the others will instead be ASCII missives, to scale (don't worry, there's plenty of room in the input buffer for you to do this).

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You
But Srev, do you even play Carrion Fields?

No. I don't need to play to teach you the basics of how to roleplay. If Thera ever needs a savior, I'll roll up another nexun bard.

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You
You're wrong about there only being 14 players. I logged in today and there were 33.

Yeah, that's great. If everyone would log out of their secondary (and tertiary, in some cases) characters, there would be 14 of you. Once everyone properly learns how to RP, they can log back in their other characters at great risk to themselves.

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You
Great risk to themselves?

That's right. To truly roleplay your character, you need to not spread yourself so thin. You may think "oh, two characters isn't that many.." but you are wrong. A character that is well roleplayed ought to take your full mental investment. How can you expect to be as creative as possible with one character if your thinking-glands are occupied with more than just that one character?

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You
You're forgetting that characters can grow dull or boring to play all of the time. It's nice to relax and play a different character from time to time.

The character is growing dull and boring because you're dull and boring. You're so used to allowing yourself to become bored with your daily life outside of CF that you let these tendencies affect your CF life as well. Just because you're a boring person in real life doesn't mean that you can't flush all of that out of your system before playing your character. In fact, that brings me to my first point.

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1. Judging by your previous characters and your posts on the forum, I think it's safe to say that your mind is a toilet. Now you just need to learn how to flush it.
Let's face it, you couldn't write a good role if you were signing your name on a croissant. But you could write a good role. Forget all of the characters you've made in the past, if any, in any game (especially CF). Now, try to image the world of Thera. Think of a kobold in a dirty little mine shaft; think of a tower so silent that you can't even mention to someone else that you coded it for personal gain; think of the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland and image yourself looking it square in the eyes and telling it to sleep, only to lay down in front of it and go to sleep instead. In this world, what kind of people do you see inhabiting it? How do they interact? What are they like?

Still having troubles thinking of a character that fits in? You can imagine all of the aspects out of all the people you've ever known, heard about, read about, watched, and so on, and think of what gives you the most emotions out of all of them. Maybe this person is fictitious, a super hero perhaps. That is fine. Just try and think of what you can emotionally (not necessarily good or bad) connect with the most, and use that to write your role. Create your entire character based off of this one idea.

This process is similar to how I write my roles, bad as they may be. I will usually take one stupid idea, whether the idea is original to me or not, and create a story based on it. The original stupid idea usually manifests itself in the form of a character, for which I will roleplay.

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You
Okay. But what does that have to do with getting better at roleplaying?

If you can't connect with the character somehow, even minutely, how do you expect to empathize with it in game? You are putting yourself in your character's shoes. The character must, in some way, be understandable by you, or you will not roleplay it well.

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You
I can think of a character, maybe, but that still doesn't mean I'm good at writing roles.

A good role doesn't have to be an entertaining story. You don't have to have the most creative backstory that CF has ever seen. What matters is that you've written the role to put your character through series of events leading to where it is now, giving yourself many scenarios for which to show how your character's personality has been shaped. Your role does not need to be there to get you IMM experience. It needs to be there to help you flesh out your idea, to get a better foundation for you to think about in every situation that demands RP (which is all of the situations your character will be in when you play). There is another fine point to be made here.

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2. Write your role before starting the character.
Fact: 100% of characters with solid roles written before the character is rolled make a lot more sense than those that are rolled without roles at all.
You're roleplayling, remember? How much sense does it make to roll Hingerdong Budkins the Gnome Whatever-seemed-cool-at-the-time and have him walk around, do quests, rank up, and interact with others when he doesn't even have a reason for being rolled in the first place?

"Gnome, there! What's your name?"
- I'm Hingerdong Budkins, the Gnome Whatever-seemed-cool-at-the-time.
"Splendid. What would you like to accomplish in life? I am an experienced traveler, willing to give you any advice you may need."
- idk retard, I was just born
"Just born? Where are your parents, then?"
- I haven't figured out if I want them to have died in a fire to mages a long time ago or not

This is stupid. Don't put yourself in another character's shoes until you are ready to achieve 100% synchronization with them, knowing what being in their shoes actually means.
Oh, and about having mages burn your village down when you were young...

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3. Do not downplay other people's roles, no matter how generic.
Their family and friends were burnt alive before the character's eyes, and all you can think of is "How typical." Generic or not, that is a very valid reason for someone to have a vendetta against the mages who burnt down the village, which could surely extend to hating mages in general.

This is good advice to remember when writing a role. Remember what I said earlier, who cares if it's a generic role? What matters is the role sets you up for consistent RP. If the role fleshes out the character well, then it's a good role.

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You
I'm an idiot and I don't understand align and ethos?

Okay, fine.

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Carrion Fields Helpfile
Orderly Good: An orderly, strong society with a well-organized government can make life better for the majority of the people. To ensure the quality of life, laws must be created and obeyed. When people respect the laws, and try to help each other, society as whole prospers.

Orderly Neutral: Also believes in a strong, well-organized government, whether it is a tyranny or democracy. Organization and regimentation bring benefits that outweigh any moral questions raised by their actions.

Orderly Evil: The use of society and its laws for personal benefit. Structure and organization elevate those who deserve to rule as well as provide a clearly defined hierarchy between master and servant. Laws and societies are supported so long as they fit with personal concerns. Laws are obeyed out of fear of punishment.

(the law can be found at [www.carrionfields.net])

Traits of being orderly:
You follow the law.
You want others to follow the law.

Traits of being orderly good:
"When people respect the laws, and try to help each other, society as whole prospers."
-You try to help others so that society, as a whole, can prosper. This does not limit you to only helping goodies. If helping a Red Aura character helps society as a whole, and is within bounds of the law, you should help them. If you think any character with a Red Aura is a bad thing for thera and won't help society as a whole, then deal with them as you see fit (within bounds of the law).

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Going over each of the align/ethos combinations is stupid, actually. Let's look at Chaotic Good and Chaotic Evil as examples.

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Carrion Fields Helpfile
Chaotic Good: Strong individualists marked with a streak of kindness and benevolence. Goodness and right matter, but there is little use for laws and regulations. Their actions are morally good but may not be in perfect agreement with the rest of society.

Chaotic Evil: The bane of all that is good and organized. Laws and governments are the tools of weaklings unable to fend for themselves. The strong have a right to what they want, and weak are there to be exploited. Leadership among CEs is based on power, with the leader capable of bullying his underlings into obedience.

I'm thinking of an anti-paladin. We'll name him Dodongo. Dodongo does not care for laws, or governments. What he cares about is the world being cleansed of paladins, because he has confirm-able evidence that their unleavened bread is slowly turning everyone that eats it in to a mindless drone for the Fortress. Dodongo recognizes this as morally wrong. Because of his goal to cleanse this wrong-doers of the world, and his lack of regard for order, it is easy to see that he is Chaotic Good.

Wait, no, that's not right.

Okay, I'm thinking of a paladin. We'll name Dadompa. Dadompa is the leader of the Fortress. Dadompa does not care for laws, or governments. What he cares about is the world being cleansed of necromancers, because necromancers can raise the dead and he thinks that is wrong. Dadompa tells the other fortress members that they must kill necromancers on sight, or die trying. If they fail to do this, they could lose rank within the fortress. If they continue to disobey, he will remove them from the fortress. Because he has power and bullies his underlings into obedience, it is easy to see that he is Chaotic Evil.

Wait, no, that's not right.

Actually, both are right.

You may define evil one way, but someone else might define it differently. You are both right in Carrion Fields.

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4. Align and ethos are only tools for getting in to cabals.
Carrion Fields benefits from having different characters with different perspectives on morality. Allow your character to define it as your character sees fit. If your character knows it is Chaotic Good but must be in Scion to achieve it's ultimate chaotic good goal, you can do one of two things:

1) Roll chaotic good and fight your whole life to get in to scion
2) Roll chaotic evil, get in to scion, and question all the goodies who kill you over and over despite you saying that you are on their side

Guy made a great post on how he's horrible at roleplaying due to his personal views on morality, and his post fits nicely embedded within this post.

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Guy
A GOOD character does GOOD things and has its mind in a GOOD place. Sacrificing neutral third parties in the name of being good is not good, that is neutral. See Nexus. (Its simple, they are doing it for the good of the world. But their methods make them neutral.)

You see what he has done here? "A GOOD character does GOOD things and has its mind in a GOOD place." is followed immediately by "Sacrificing neutral third parties in the name of being good is not good, that is neutral." So, what's the difference between good and neutral? Capitalization, apparently.

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Guy
He might SEE himself as good, and might attempt to convince other's he is good.

But in the eyes of CF morality. The choices described above make a neutral char, not a good one.

By Guy's definition, the nexus should be Chaotic Good (as defined by the CF helpfiles). That is; laws don't matter to the nexus and they are morally good (same as GOOD).

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Guy
What you are talking about has been tried and failed wallowing in a pool of its own suffering. See Eshval's failed Muhajeen religion. This style of thinking is not compatable in CF's system of morality.
I'm sorry this doesn't fit with whatever system of morality you either think it should, or think it has.

The point is that CF's system of morality doesn't matter. With people from different countries, different upbringings, different environments, and so on, people have different moral codes. You might think there are objective morals such as "killing is bad." You may think that, but why do you suppose everyone else does?

Morals are subjective on earth and in thera alike.

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CF website
In the interest of attracting the right caliber of followers, the gods of Carrion Fields have outlined the following alignments. See where you think you fit in.

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You
Ah, see! The gods themselves have outlined alignments. You were wrong about everything!

What if your character does not believe the gods are capable of making that decision?
What if "See where you think you fit in" is ambiguous enough for you to allow your character to fit in where your character think is necessary?

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Writing this is getting boring, and all of you are still going to roll Chaotic Retard despite what else I write.

Let me summarize everything above, plus what I didn't write, very briefly.

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TL;DR VERSION:
Create a character you can really invest in.

Don't worry about whether or not your role is boring, just that it defines your character well enough for you to know how to make your character act in every situation it can be put in (or, at least it defines your character well enough that you can accurately approximate what your character would do).

Make your character consistent. He should act the same on a day that you log in after just eating the best meal of your life as he would act on a day you log in after just sweating in court all day because you're a fat lawyer who can't stop thinking about how much better the defendant would look as a cheeseburger.

Role before you roll.

Don't log in if you're not currently capable of being someone else.

React in situations how your character should react. You don't have to follow other people's rules (or stupid guides) on how to roleplay. Your character is a product of the story you've made for him, not posts you've read online.

Morals are subjective.

25 commander kills