Welcome to The Old Republic and to Universal Investigations. This guide is for players interested in joining our roleplay guild. The goal is to help create a group of characters that not only work well together, but are fun to play and fit well into the Star Wars universe.
Please keep in mind this is a guide, not a hard set of rules. There are exceptions to everything and they will be evaluated on a case by case basis (unless otherwise stated). This is also not a critique of anyone's roleplay style or existing characters. This is for those wishing to create new characters in UI or for those wishing to see whether existing characters would do well with us.
1. Character Race
Please use the existing races that are in the game. This makes it easier not only for you, but for everyone who interacts with your character. If you look like a human on the screen, everybody's first reaction is going to be that your character *is* a human. They are not going to buy that you're really a hutt, gremlin, or rancor. It's also pretty rude to force other players to not believe what their eyes are telling them. You as a player don't need a crutch like that to make a good character.
A note about near-humans: this is a grey area that will be looked at on a case by case basis. The guideline really is whether that race look significantly different than what appears on the screen, or whether that race gives an ability that isn't reasonable. Bottom line is that the more you make other players have to do mental gymnastics to RP with your character, the less it will fly.
2. Career
Just because your in-game class is smuggler doesn't mean your character actually has to *be* a smuggler. Characters can have any reasonable profession they wish. The trick is to choose a game class that is as close to what you want your character's job to be. For example, Rasos is an investigator. The closest in-game class is smuggler. He does not smuggle anything in-character, and you don't have to either. Just keep it reasonable and you can be whatever you wish as far as career goes.
3. Abilities
TOR is a game of equality as far as power is concerned. A Jedi can reasonably get his ass kicked by a smuggler if things are right, and vice versa. Your best bet is to base your character's skills and abilities on what the game says you can do, since everything on that list is valid in-character for that class. What you don't want to do is go over the top and give your character abilities over and beyond what the rest of the characters are able to do.
A note about the Jedi mind trick: it does *not* work on player characters. It only works on weak-minded people, and no PC is in that category. Please don't attempt to do this to other people.
4. Equipment
Your character can be assumed to be carrying anything reasonable in their pockets for the career and background they have. A trooper is likely going to have thermal detonators on them, and Jedi are likely to be carrying light sabers. Anything that is large and obvious that isn't on the screen should probably be avoided, since people will forget it's there at best and ignore it at worst. Leave the heavy-duty ship-destroying tri-laser autocannon on your ship.
As far as ships go, it's reasonable to assume every character has their own vessel of some kind. Whether a fighter or freighter is up to the player. What is not reasonable is having a galaxy-class capital ship, death star, or other extremely large vessel.
5. Lore
There is lore. It's rich and detailed with lots of places and cultures to pick from. There really is no reason to go outside of what's already established as canon for the setting we're playing in. If you want to play a Zabrak from Iridonia, that's fine. He or she can also be from Coruscant, Corellia, or anywhere else established. What you shouldn't do is make up a completely new planet or system for your character. It forces other players to have to learn yet another culture when they've already got hundreds of others they'll need to look into from other characters. Don't add to the burden.
6. Don't make a troll
Can someone actually be a troll in-character? Yes. It's one thing to play a brooding or taciturn personality. It's quite another to play an insulting or antagonistic character. There is a huge difference between a good RP character and a good story character. Story characters don't have to play with other people.
You do. Bottom line is if you make a character who is anti-social or hates other people, you're going to be roleplaying alone, and that defeats the purpose entirely. You don't have to make Miss Congeniality, but at least make the character able to be in a group of others and not antagonize them.
7. Keep in mind the guild.
UI is a private investigations company. Yes, it has elements of SIS (Republic Intelligence) in it, but characters don't have to be part of that aspect of it. The idea here is that there should be a valid reason your character is with us to begin with. A researcher or investigator works perfectly fine. Spy? No worries. Enforcer or muscle? Sure! Informer works fine too, as do administrative people or slaves. What may not work are enlisted soldiers (retired is ok), government officials, or others that just don't have a real reason to be there.
8. Slavery
Yes, it exists in lore and it is a major part of the game's universe. If this bothers you as a player, you're probably playing the wrong game. Slave characters are fine in UI, as the operations are based a lot out of Nar Shadaa and Hutt space in general. In many situations, *not* having slaves would be considered strange.
That being said, mistreatment and abuse IC isn't going to fly. Rasos wouldn't allow it and characters who would do that sort of thing are not likely to fit in well. Also keep in mind that if you play one or own one, you *will* get abuse IC and OOC from other players outside of UI. There's nothing we can do about that other than just try to ignore it. Fighting about it won't change minds and isn't fun anyway.
9. Don't Mary Sue
Google it if you're not sure what this is. Remember that the more attention you take for your character, it takes away attention from everybody else. People *will* resent that sort of thing. The key to being a good roleplayer and having a fun character is to help others look good. It reflects back on you in time and makes you a fun person to play with. You don't need to be overly special to have an interesting and fun character.
10. Be flexible
RP is ever-evolving, and mistakes will be made -- both IC and OOC. Better to learn from them and move on, improving your RP through experience, than to flounce/guildquit and leave everyone with THAT as their lasting memory of you. Having characters fail and lose is a big part of growing them, and making mistakes as players is to be expected. Don't retcon, don't rage, don't worry about it. It's just a game and anything done in character can be fixed in character. Talk to someone or come to me if issues come up and we'll work it out.