How to Interact with Admins, How we RP

[ShiftKnife]

 

Introduction

 

Engineer roleplay is fairly open ended - it should follow common sense, and if possible be based on reality. However, it shouldn’t require actual experience in the real world, though it can be helpful. After all, we roleplay things we aren’t, and if we were only meant to be roleplaying things we did in real life then a very small percentage of us would have earned the merit of roleplaying a soldier, let alone an astronaut, medic, or starship captain.

 

If you’ve ever watched an episode of star trek, you know that its writing is filled with ‘technobabble’ - seemingly mindless nonsense meant to sound complicated or otherwise convey that the characters speaking are intelligent. What a lot of people don’t know is that star-trek’s technobabble, like its languages, are actually based on a system and have a certain believability to them once you look deeper. This is sort of how we do things in SSTRP - we’ve written out how things ‘should’ work, though science fiction, and we go about roleplaying them.

 

Keep in mind it is important that your /me when detailing any action should be detailed, though not too long as to slow down the flow of the mission. We should be working towards improving roleplay quality, and that starts with you. Every engineering action, from building defenses, to working with a computer, to welding with your plasma cutter should begin with a competent /me. The only excuse you will ever have in favor of not writing a /me is when it comes to using the M55 in an S2K scenario - still you should at least follow the proper in character procedure.

 

How to Interact with Administrators

 

When it is important for the event runner to know what you are doing as an engineer, first write a /me detailing the character’s action, and second /pm or /report what you intend to find out, or do. Never repeat your /me in /report - it’s confusing and will often delay response time. Simply “/report I’ve accessed the computer. Do I find anything useful?” or something along those lines. Be clear, and concise, and always say exactly what you need to say to get the answer you need. Keep in mind administrators are not required to know engineering stuff like you and I are, they might not understand how our system works. It can be helpful to include important details about your action that someone without this knowledge may not understand.

 

Example 1:

 

/me lifts his plasma cutter from his belt, flopping his welding visor down with his off hand. He then takes a knee, and engages the plasma cutter, adjusting the temperature with the knob on its side. He reaches up, and begins to cut a large hole in the bulkhead in front of him.

 

Follow up with;

 

/report I’ve just cut a hole through this door. Can we proceed?

 

Example 2:

 

/me swipes his hand across the control interface of the computer, scanning through various surface documents and programs.

 

Follow up with;

 

/report I am attempting to access this computer, do I find anything important?

 

Example 3:

 

/me would reach into her bag, withdrawing a PD-31 detector from it. The device seems to have a scanning arm, which she sways side to side to get a good reading of the ground nearby.

 

Follow up with;

 

/report I am using my bomb detector to search of any signs of common explosives, does my device pick anything up?

 

Uncommon Engineer RP & Conclusion

 

Because we haven’t at this time attempted to create a massive database of fictional technology in SSTRP, there are a lot of things that go unspoken that your character may still have knowledge of; computer systems, communications equipment, complex ship-side equipment, the cherenkov drive and things of these nature come to mind. In situations where you feel your character would have a more detailed knowledge of these topics simply use guesswork. Detail your action as well as you can, and write in report what you are trying to attempt as clearly as you can. There’s nothing wrong with winging it, just try to stay believable. Aside from star trek being a good inspiration for this sort of guesswork, popular science fiction and war films can be good sources to draw upon to believably portray the technology of the future. The Hurt Locker, Aliens, Starship Troopers,  and even Jurassic Park come to mind.