Roleplaying
In roleplaying (RP, sometimes also as role-playing) players adopt and act out the role of their characters within the world of Lord of the Rings Online. Players who engage in roleplay are called roleplayers.
Roleplaying Worlds
The following worlds are 32-bit roleplaying worlds:
- [EU-EN-RP] Laurelin (English-speaking European Server)
- [EU-DE-RP] Belegaer (German-speaking European Server)
- [US-RE] Landroval (North-American Server)
The following worlds are 64-bit roleplaying worlds:
Most roleplayers have transfered from 32-bit roleplaying worlds to 64-bit roleplaying worlds.
Previously, roleplaying worlds (RP) had additional rules and policies to provide a more Middle-earth immersive environment, whereas roleplay-encouraged worlds (RE) had fewer restrictions. These rules and policies are no longer enforced, and there is no official distinction between roleplaying worlds, roleplay-encouraged worlds, and regular non-roleplaying worlds from a moderation standpoint. Instead the world labels serve to direct roleplayers to servers with roleplay communities.
Character Biographies
Main article: Character#Bio
Character biographies (often known simply as a character's bio) is a feature on a player's character panel. This section can be accessed by clicking the 'Biography' button on the character panel. The 'Personal Description' field is often used by roleplayers to communicate information about their character.
To view another player's bio, target the player, right click on their player portrait, and select 'Inspect'. You can also inspect other players from the chat window, by right-clicking their name, and selecting 'Inspect'. Character inspection only works if the player is online and is not anonymous (pretending to be offline). You can prevent your character from being inspected (and appear as though you are offline) by going to your social panel, and checking the checkbox for 'Anonymous' at the top.
Note, when other players inspect your character's bio, they cannot highlight or copy text, making long URLs inconvenient to work with for characters with an external profile. If you must share a URL in your character bio, try using URL shorteners, or a platform with a familiar URL format, such as Laurelin Archives' node IDs and profile IDs (see external resources below).
Basic Roleplay Commands
The following chat commands are generally useful and regularly used by roleplayers.
Roleplay Status
/rp on
- will turn your name white and signal to other role-players that you are ready for roleplay or are roleplaying.
/rp off
- will turn your name back to yellow to signal to others that you are not roleplaying.
/rp
- will display your role-playing status.
Emoting and Saying
/e <action>
- will send a custom emote to the emote chat channel. For example, /e does an emote will produce the message <name> does an emote for others. The character limit for {action} is just over 380 characters.
/emote <action> and /me <action>
- are both identical to /e <action> command in functionality. You lose some characters in your character limit, however, as the length of the command is taken into consideration.
/say <message>
- will send a message to the say chat channel. For users with chat bubbles enabled, your message will appear over your head, similar to NPCs. For example, /say Hello Say! will produce the message <name> says, 'Hello Say!' for others.
Dice Rolls
/roll <number>
- will produce a number from 1 to {number}. For example, /roll 20 is identical to rolling a 20-sided die. This command only works while in a fellowship (party).
/random <number>
- is identical to /roll <number>.
Roleplay Chat Tab
It is highly recommended that roleplayers have a separate, dedicated roleplay chat tab. This filters out needless messages from chat, such as World, Trade, or LFF, making it easier to focus on roleplay. To create a roleplay chat tab:
- Right-click on any existing chat tab
- Left-click 'Create New Tab'
- Right-click on the new chat tab named 'Tab'
- Left-click 'Rename' and rename it to whatever you'd like ('RP' for example)
- Right-click on your renamed chat tab
- Hover over 'Change Filters'
- Left-click to uncheck the default filters (Event Broadcast and Regional)
- Left-click to check roleplay-relevant filters (Say, Tell, RP, OOC, Emote, Fellowship, Raid)
- (Optional) Configure message colors and font sizes from 'Change Text Colors'
- (Optional) Enable Timestamps on chat from Options > Chat > Enable Timestamps on Chat
General Tips
The following are some general tips for roleplaying.
- /servertime will provide the server time, the current time of the world you are playing on (instead of your system's local time). Server time is often used for scheduling roleplay events. You can similarly see your servertime by hovering over the bauble in the top left corner of your minimap.
- Insert (by default) will toggle your character between running and walking.
- Ctrl + Left click (by default) will preview a weapon or piece of armor in the dressing room. You can also preview how these items will dye. This is useful for planning out outfits for roleplay.
- You can hide parts of your equipment, including your helmet, weapon, and cloak, from the Cosmetic Outfits section of the Character screen.
- N (by default) will toggle names over character's heads, to help with immersion and clutter.
- Ctrl + \ (by default) will allow you to rearrange your UI. You can save and load specific UI configurations with /ui layout save <layout name> and /ui layout load <layout name>, respectively. Use this to swap between roleplay and gameplay UI configurations.
- You can retrieve previously typed messages in chat by using the up and down arrow keys. This even works for messages that have been submitted, but did not appear in chat due to an error (such as a /e mistype).
- Earn the
Return to Glân Vraig skill by completing Tutorial: Outfitted for Battle in the Ettenmoors (which can be reached from the South Bree stablemaster). Glân Vraig has a stablemaster that links to South Bree, Thorin's Gate, Michael Delving, and Rivendell. Earning this skill gives you easy access to these four locations from anywhere on a one minute cooldown (much faster than milestone or return skills). The ability to travel conveniently is useful for attending roleplay events and reaching roleplay hubs.
External Resources
- Roleplayers of LOTRO (Discord), an unofficial, English-speaking, hub-community for roleplay on Meriadoc.
- Laurelin Archives, an unofficial database for Laurelin and Meriadoc roleplayers to present their characters, kinships, and other associated work
- Bramblebury Gazette, an unofficial, hobbit-centric roleplay news resource
- LOTRO Official Community Forum - Role Playing
- The quick, unofficial guide to start roleplaying in LOTRO by Lina (2015)
- Complete Guide to Role Play, Immersion, and the Lore by Erennor (2015)