The potential of Roleplaying in this game is seemingly boundless compared to other games that I’ve played. Plenty of possibilities, plenty of social hubs, and most importantly, the environment to endowing your character with a unique personality.

First, I’ll start off with some questions that are usually asked!

Q: What does it mean to “Roleplay?”

A: “Roleplaying” is where you essentially get into character, and act out your character. Everything from their dialect to their behavior, but there are do’s and dont’s in Roleplaying

Q: What are the benifits to Roleplaying?

A: Roleplaying is a great way to ensure that any game you play is more than grinding, questing, etc. Roleplaying is a great way to make friends and/or rivals, inspiration for artwork and stories, and most importantly, Immersion!

Now the big question is “Where do I begin” right?

You begin the instant you create your character! From their appearance, their size, their origins, to the very little details such as facial features, you’ve already taken the first step into roleplaying! Even if one makes dramatic features on their character for the purpose of looking goofy, you’ve half-intentionally created a character that would fall into a Comic Relief category. However, before you start going off imitating Jar Jar Binks, it’s important that we cover the Do’s and Don’ts.

Developing your character is important, but keep in mind that it’s a multiplayer game. Other people will be interacting with you, and if the characters name, backstory, or canonical presence doesn’t make sense, it will not only confuse those that you interact with, but also offset any roleplaying potential that could have been had.

This is a quickly-thrown together example of a Charr Elementalist. He has a backstory that validates his chosen profession, he sticks to the tradition of charr being a military culture, and his traits are realistic.

This is a quickly-thrown together example of a poor RP character. Notice the name. The name is the first thing people see when they interact with you. The character’s age is unrealistic, the bio isn’t kept in the Guild Wars 2 universe, the charr worships a god irrelevant to the GW2 universe, ridiculous size and description, and most importantly, is “Immortal.” These are examples of Lore Breaking.

Lore Breaking is essentially disregarding the boundaries, lore, culture, and base of which your character passively inherits. For example, it’s possible for a charr to worship a god, but it would likely show as a sign of weakness within the charr culture and result in them either becoming a Gladium or being stricken from Charr history. No player, by any means, no matter how much you respawn, can be considered “Immortal.” It’s also lore breaking (Or more appropriately referred to as Fail RP in this case) to enter a room and attempt to “Dominate the minds” of other players. "

It’s also important to remember that you cannot kill/permakill/permainjure another player in RP.