Since there are a number of guides that already get into this I'll just skim through this section

Shorthand for Roleplay. If you're looking at RP guides you should really know this already bruh.

Shorthand for "In Character" and is whatever you post that is what your character is doing and/or saying.

Shorthand for "Out of Character". Anything you post that is not your character's action. During a Roleplay these are normally seperated through various uses. Examples would be: ((Out of Character)) / OOC: / ((Out of character

Just a misc. mish mash of tips when creating a character

Especially if it's your first character or if you're just starting out. It's often best to just make sure the character can fit in the lore rather than make them connected to the lore itself.
A character is a person. People aren't defined by their abilties, they are defined by how they act. Basing a character's personality on their powers alone often leads to a bland, overused character.
Having a character who's both super friendly but grim dark, both out going but extremely shy, generally leads to bad characters. It's not to say people act differently between friends and strangers/co-workers/acquaintances. It's more you can't basiaclly decide on a whim if a character is obnoxiously cheerful or annoyingly broody at a moments notice. That's called having mood swings and most people don't have those.
By forcibly hugged I of course refer to a crime many people use for their character's backstory (specifcally female characters). People do it a lot. All the time. There's other things that are traumatic that can happen to women too.
Make sure to properly format it. If you don't it'll be a wall of text no one wants to read. At the end of this guide is a link to a different guide that lists all the code that can be used for formatting a bio. (And a few that don't work) Don't forget, if you decide to use colored text, for the love of all that is holy and decent (And even the demonic and indecent), use a color that one can actually read. Nothing too bright. Not the blackest of black. The point of a bio is to have something another can read to get a grasp for your character so using an illegible color will defeat that purpose. Remember the preview button doesn't actually show you what other's will see when reading your bio. To get a proper idea target yourself and use the command, "/TargetInfo"

Since this is apparently an actual problem in the roleplaying community somehow, this section will be explaining how you must respect the setting your character resides in. This means being logical to the extent of the universe you're playing in. In CO this means having basic human common sense and being at least a tad bit believable. Somehow people don't accomplish this. Now, you may be saying, "This is a game, do we really have to bring real life into RPing?" Well, eeeeeh. That arguement holds up for RPing in the DnD universe or Star Wars or whatever. But CO is meant to heavily mimic our world. It's basically a somewhat campy version of us but with super powers. That means that in this specific case, you do indeed need to bring real life into it.

In short, CO is meant to be as close to real life as it can get, so think of it like a normal person would. At least to some extent because aliens/demons/monsters/ect.

If you have a problem adhering to this, pherhaps try a different character until you can get into the groove of things better.

What is C.O.R.P.? Well it stands for Champions Online Role Players. It's a forum site for the various Roleplayers of CO to sign up for. What exactly is it for though? Well, nothing specifcally. It's like any other hobby forum. People get together to talk about it. There's even a CORP channel on CO for the chatbox. The actual forum in question can be found here.[championsonlineroleplayers.shivtr.com]

C.O.R.P. has it's pros and cons and I suppose I should list them like I've done with other things in this guide.

• Community with a same interest.
  
• Eases the task that is finding Roleplayers to play with.
  
• Nothing to lose by joining up

• A number of members are just plain awful. Either taking some elitist mind-set or forcing there e/RP onto others.
  
• Mods refuse to deal with issues made by said members if a non-member is the one putting forward the complaint.

Every community has them. Some minority that feels they're better than the rest for one reason or another. Thanks to the bio system they're normally pretty easy to spot. Most of the elitist in this game will place certain key words/phrases in there bios such as...

• C.O.R.P. Membership
  
• CoX/V/H refugee
  
• ect. number of years roleplaying
  
• Any mention of how literate they are.

Now keep in mind that having any of this information doesn't automatically mean the player has an elitist mind-set and that these things are just often times used by those that do. What should you do about elitists though? Ignore them. They're purposfully trying to seperate themselves from others so that's exactly what they want.

Godmodding is such a heinous act I had to dedicate a whole section for it.

Godmodding (Or sometimes shortened to GMing) is more then just simply having an overwhelmingly powerful character. Although it is a big part of it the way you RP plays a big role as well. Even if your character isn't overwhelmingly powerful you can still Godmode with him/her/it. This can be accomplished through actions like your character being able to use any weapon reguardless of how foreign it may be. Or maybe they're just knowledgable on a wide array of subjects despite having no reasoning behind it.

Now Godmodding isn't simply the over powering character creation. How you have your character react to attacks matter as well. If you can effectively dodge, block, or parry every attack thrown at you without a good reason then you're still Godmodding.

A simple and easy way to look at this is that the better RPer will lose the fight. Now don't mistake this as me saying you must lose to be a good RPer. Take it as that in order to win you should have a good, IC reason behind it.

Powerplaying is a form of godmodding that involves taking control of another person's character without their consent.

An example would be: My character punches yours in the face.

This one sentance may not seem to horrible but with it you're giving your RP partner no choice. You are telling them that their character is unable to dodge, block, or parry your character's attack.

A more proper way to do this would be: My character attempts to punch yours in the face.

Another example would be: He annoys you to no end.

A better alternative would be: He's probably being very annoying right now.

Metagaming is using OOC sources of information ICly. An easy example would be someone who read through your bio to see your character's weakness and using this information in an RP without their character having any real IC reason to know this. Using character bios as a way to stay a step ahead or to lead an RP a specific way. Another is transferring knowledge from one character to another. While "legitimate" it's still considered as a form of Metagaming and a cheap way to give your characters an edge-up as it were.

Dr. Destroyer
Gravitar
Mechanon
Firewing
Takofane
The Entire Champion's Team
Menton
Therakiel
Then you're probably Godmodding.

Mary Sues and Gary Stus is a term that describes an idealized character. While not necessarily perfect, they fill their roles perfectly. They can be the most brilliant scientist that's never stumped and knows how every machine/device/robot that comes their way work. The perfect soldier who never fails a mission without any moral issues. The greatest hero who has never failed to rescue a civillian and always catches the bad guy. The person that's good at everything they do. Even the person who's horrible at everything yet everyone loves them.

RPing by level means that you take a character's level into acount when roleplaying. Basically it means that a level 40 character is more capable than a level 20 character. Now I'm going to explain to you every reason why this is horrible and bad for RP in general.

The only people that like people that RP by level also RP by level and are all naturally at level 40 (The level cap). So coincidentally they've placed themselves on a power pedastel above the plebians that don't grind. So in the end they alienate themselves from a chunk of the RP community as they hug each other over how powerful their character's are because of their level.

Another coincidence, many people who RP by level also handle in character fights through the PvP system. Extra coincidentally they normally use the meta powers like Two-Gun Mojo and Throwing Blades. Even more coincidentally they also tend to use cookie cutter builds found off the forums. Another coincidence that's coincidentally their is that said players coincidentally like picking fights with players who are by coincidence a lower level with them. All coincidentally of course.

Using the level system to guage a character's ability in a fight, especially against another player, makes no sense. You're basically saying that the character who has no powers but two pistols is more powerful than a character made of pure stone despite that fact the bullets would most likely have a minimal effect just because they're 5 levels higher.

Time spent grinding shouldn't equal your character's strength. If you want your character to grow stronger do it like a real RPer and write it out. Through interactions with other players have your character become stronger.

Dr. Destroyer and Shadow Destroyer are two different people entirely but can easily be confused with one another (especially if you're like me and barely read quest descriptions) due to the fact the characters in the game themselves are confused on who is who. This part of the guide is soley for helping players differentiate the two without getting to far into spoilers.

The D is for Di-Destroyer. The D is for Destroyer. Dr. Destroyer is known as the most diabolical evil genius in Champions Lore and is the mastermind behind the Attack on Detroit that completely destroyed the city and what led up to the creation of Millennium City. He's harassed the heroes of the world for decades but it's important to note his goal is to rule the world, not destroy it. He has on several occasions helped the heroes of Earth fend off alien invasions. The last anyone has seen of him though was the Battle of Detroit where he disappeared during the fighting.

Shadow Destroyer looks and acts like Dr. Destroyer. He even has access to all of Dr. Destroyer's minions and robots. The three key differences are that...
1. Shadow Destroyer is skilled in the use of magic, something Dr. Destroyer never liked in the first place.
2. As Black Talon will tell you in the Stronghold Questline, Shadow Destroyer treats his minions differently. As Black Talon explained, Dr. D actually treated his mininions with some form of respect and caution when involving them with dangerous tasks. Shadow Destroyer on the otherhand couldn't care less what happened to them so long as he reached his goal.
3. Shadow Destroyer employs Karkaradons, a sharklike humanoid creature from an alternate reality (HINT HINT).

Dr. Destroyer disappears during the Battle of Detroit. So before the game itself starts Dr. Destroyer has been missing for some time. The things that are all happening that are blamed on Destroyer (Qulaar invasion, Kigatilik's awakening, ect,) are all actually done by Shadow Destroyer who has convinced Dr. D's minions that he's the real deal. Infact the only thing that isn't the yearly Destroid invasion event that involves the actual Dr. Destroyer is a secret that I won't spoil in this guide.

Nothing much honestly. It's just there to prevent you from OOCly confusing the two. ICly speaking feel free to confuse the two all you want. There are plenty of those the believe the two to be one in the same. There are also those that believe that Shadow Destroyer is Dr. Destroyer's protogee who was given the title of Destroyer and that is why his minions follow him so easily.

Club Caprice is the go-to location for RP and with reason. It's available at character creation, located right inside Ren-Cen, and is normally highly populated with other RPers already. This of course makes it filled with certain "RPer taboos" that happen requently. For simplicity's sake here's a quick list of not-to-dos.

No, Caprice isn't a villanious get together. While it's debatable if the owner of Caprice, an ex-villain would be okay with allowing the occasional minor neer-do-well, he'd in no way or how allow any actual big time villain inside thanks to both the MCPD and Nighthawk being on his case. Plus, hey, badguys. There's Sher's. Go drink there.

Club Caprice has a number of bouncers, all of which are super-powered to deal with the powered clientle. Chances are, like every real club, they don't like weapons inside the club.
"But Bread-Tan! My guy is a grimdark edgey shooty guy!"
Well that's fine and dandy but chances are your weapons have been confiscated and will be given back once you leave.

Drinks, super powers, and some other third thing equals drunk fights. But as the loading page hint says "Take your fights outside lest you end up on the front page of the tabloids!" There are bouncers who will have no qualms on kicking your ass out if you start a fight. Or at the least, give you a warning. Plus, if you actually take the fight outside you're less likely to be interupted by some sore RPer that goes mini-OP to end the fight quickly.

It's a club. Most clubs have an entrance age of 21 since the main profit margin is alchohal sales (Which is only legal 21+ year-olds for you non-Americans). The lowest entrance age a club will ever have is 18 and are somewhat more rare to come-by. Even then, 18+ clubs will card you and require you to wear a wristban if you're under the age of 21 so you won't be served alchohal. And in the case of an 18+ club, the bartenders/bouncers would be trained to watch for patrons handing drinks to underaged patrons and cut them off. In general, 18-20 is debatable, anything below that is out of the question. (As if those ERPers are going to listen to this)
"But Bread-Tan! There's nowhere for me to RP with a child character!"
The game isn't built around the thought that people would make child characters. This of course made it so there's little places to RP at with one. There are seldomly used areas one could use like the old crafting buildings. Chances are there will never be a high traffic RP area that's good for child characters unless Ravenswood gets an interior added. My suggestion would be to find a way into one of the young teen/child RPSG as it'd be your best bet to not get moody tells.

Let's talk about psychics now. Specifically mindreading and defences against it.

First off, never assume you can succesfully read a character's mind, especially another mentalist character. In a world full of magic, technology, and mutations there can be several ways to defend against mind intrusions such as, but not limited too, Magic barriers, Brain augmentations, and cybernetic minds.
Secondly, even if you can read the mind, if you're reading the mind of a completely different creature you should not expect it to be as easily traverseable as the mind of someone who is of the same race as your characters. A good example would be a human reading the mind of a Hunter Patriots member. Little known fact, Hunter Patriots use a magic ritual to keep a Hive-mind like link with one another. Thus it is very possible that your character would be foreign to the idea of everyone being their own conciousness but at the same time all being of one mind.
Third, never use it as an "I win" button. A good number of RPers using Psychic characters have the horrible habit of using it to win fights and know everything about other characters. The first is a case of Godmodding and the second is a case of Metagaming.
Lastly, Never. NEVER EVER, control another person's character's mind without their consent...
Look at me implying this isn't just used for kinky ERP.

Now, with all of the above you must feel like it'd be best to mind-block every mentalist character their is. You wouldn't be the first to do this either. And go right ahead if you have a good IC reason behind it. But don't do this if your character has no reason or ability to do so. Now this doesn't mean you have to deal with other players using their "Uber 1337" Mind reading powers on you. You have every right to decline to RP with a person because you feel they will Godmode or Metagame and use mind reading as some poorly veiled excuse to do so.

We see this everywhere. A person's character being a literal god. Well, according to Champions Lore this is near impossible. Without going too deeply into the lore, the world is affected by something called "The Ban". It disallows Gods from physically entering earth or using their powers to intervene.
"But Bread-Tan you sexy beast! I'm a mythology nut and I want a character that's based heavily of the lore of my favorite God(ess)!"
Well fear not young RPer! The Ban has a small number of loopholes that can be used when crafting a character that's heavily reliant on God(esses).

Well, more like Great great great great great great....
...Great Grandpa. You can always say you have a bit of Godblood in you, but due to how long the Ban is in effect, chances are they ain't your Mother/Father.
"But Breat-Tan! You magnificent B-word! What if they circumvented the Ban and got my mom preggers?"
The only God I can see circumventing the Ban just for some boning would be Zeus. And even so he can only put so much effort before his God-wife smacks the God out of him for not being able to keep his Swan Weenie in his pants.
Artifacts. Gods always have those, right? Well, give your character one. Passed down family heirloom. Stole it from one of those DEMON fellas while doing some normal heroing business. Found it in a pawnshop? A dumpster? The possibilities are endless!
Or that cartoon one on Nick. Avatars are people that a God(ess) has chosen. An example would be Dr. Ka. He and his family gained their magical abilities from the God Osiris. Pherhaps your character was chosen by god to be it's champion. Maybe they decided to take a play from Dr. Ka's book and completely ignored said God.


Regardless of all of this however, A God's power is forever waxing and waning. In CO lore it's based completely on the amount of worship they receive, and as such, most Gods have relatively low power. Often enough to be all powerful in their own domain but on Earth, where most of their already limited power is cut off due to the ban, they're severely weakened.

This is a topic that comes up pretty often due to the high amount of characters that are demonic, alien, undead, or some mixture of the three and much much more. There are basically two different lore friendly answers that players choose for their own reason. For your convience I'll list them both with their own pros and cons.

This is a straight forward one. Non-humans have no rights within the United States. This means that those Vampires, demons, and whatever other weirdos from other dimensions and beyond the stars technically are not protected on equal rights laws and are not considered people by the law.
Pros

• Is explained more in-depth by the actual lore books.
  
• Offers interesting RP hooks based around equal rights.

Cons

• Is technically not the current lore.
  
• Likely to make other players angry if you pull this on them without their consent.

According to this one all intelligent life, reguardless of origin, have limited rights within the United States. This means that while they don't have the same rights as a U.S. citizen they do retain basic human rights.
Pros

• Is the most recent and as such the current lore.
  
• Keeps other players from outright attacking yours simply because they're a robot/alien/demon/ghost/ect.

Cons

• Due to being the most recent it hasn't been written as in depth as the previously discussed answer.
  
• Without owning the actual lore book it can be difficult and confusing to understand how this actually works.

These two answers are near opposites which can and will eventually cause arguements that will either be carried out ICly or OOCly depending on the situation. In the end it's best to not force your opinion on which of the two is the most correct answer. In most cases you should use the second as it's the most recent and thus is the "Current" law but remember. RPing is about imagination. Feel free to have RPs that take place years ago where the law reguarding non-human rights was closer to the first answer.

Lots of the NPC heroes keep secret identities. (Defender, Blackmask, Nighthawk.) In most cases your character wouldn't know their secret identities.
"But Bread-Tan! Defender's is refrenced like, 5 times!"
Well sure but that's in the game's questline. If we followed the questline completely than Stronghold has had hundreds of major escapes all orchestrated by Menton. As an RPer your general outlook on questlines, unless using them as an actual RP event is that it happened once. There was one Qulaar invasion orchestrated by Shadow Destroyer, Kevin Poe made a mind bomb once, Stronghold had one escape (Technically two but that happens before the start of the game so let's not pay attention to that now.).
"But Bread-Tan! What if we use it multiple times?"
Well I'll just pull a page outta the CO lore primer page you can find at the end of this guide and just tell you to pretend. Pretend it's somebody else doing something else basically. It's not a giant leap of imaginative ability to do so.

Nothing is more of a downer than when you make a character, and give him a secret identity then someone else walks up and goes "MIND READING/SUPER SPY POWERS/STALKER!" and instantly knows your secret identity. Besides the fact that it's pretty much "Legitimate" metagaming it's also pretty bad roleplay in most cases. And now, your PRIMUS officer doesn't have access to a person's secret identity, even if they're registered. How the Primus Database works is that any specific registered hero's information is kept a secret and confidential. Information like this is kept solely as a contingency incase a hero ever goes villain and under normal circumstances is redacted.

Haha, yes an ERP section. No really, if you plan on getting your jollies off through ERP you should check this out first.

To start, let's just say that their are rules. That's right, the devs have put up a number of rules based around ERP due to players bringing up the questionable things people do.

You have to be of age. As in your actual age in real life must be the minimum age of consent for where you reside. Why? Because Cryptic/PWE would be in trouble if they didn't say it's not okay for underaged people to ERP. So, kiddies no standing on your friends shoulder's in a trenchcoat with a fake mustache on. Wait until you're older.

No ERPing in local areas such as Sher's or Caprice. The reasoning should be obvious but this is so no minors can accidentally read it or offend others.

Your character must be of age.
"But Bread-Tan, it's not real so what's the harm?"
Nah, bro just stop. Overlooking the gross implications it's simply the rules. You can't do it so just don't even try to get around it.

Keep IC issues out of OOC.

IC actions will have IC consequences.

While Caprice has actual NPCs acting as the bartender, Sher's does not. This has lead to many players simply pretending there is one there. Keep this in mind when you see other RPers refer to the bartender that isn't actually there.

No. You don't own Caprice nor Sher's.

Device =/= Troll
Do trolls on occasion use devices? Yes. But so do legitmate RPers. So don't instantly freak out if someone slaps you with a fish or nails you with a water balloon. They may actually be IC so you should react accordingly as well.

Remember, if you see someone who's new to roleplaying give 'em some pointers. Link them to guides and/or the lore primer.

Part of roleplaying is making a character and writing their story, another part is having that character react and live in the setting. If you can't respect the setting, or find it difficult to RP as/with a specific character in the setting then you should consider a different character or RP outlet.

Pheromones are scents animals use to communicate with one another. So no, you can't use it as a form of mind control, it's simply not how they work.

Despite the fact they look like frogs, Gadroon aren't amphibians. They're totally reptiles.

/bind r ++walk is your friend. It'll bind whichever key (in this example, the "r" key) to toggle on and off walking when you press it.

You can post into the emote chat plugging in "/emote", "/e", or ";" at the begginning of your post.

I'll pay a cosmic key to anyone that can get me the @handle of the guy that tried eRPing with Grazzlesnorf

Need a quick look at some lore? Check out this CO lore primer[docs.google.com].

For bio formatting tips and help look at this guide[silverage.enjin.com]

Really getting into the RP scene? Maybe make a Primus Database[primusdatabase.com] page. Or just laugh at some of the bad ones like I do.

Wanna know where you can RP? Check out my third guide over here!

Want to know something more about some specific character or group? Bro, have I got just the thing for you. Right here!

Should I add a new section on something? Think something should be expanded on? Maybe something I should write less horribly? Hell, even if their's a typo drop a comment or something. Even come to me door and tell me face to face. I promise I won't call the police.