A GLOSSARY BY THE ROLEPLAYGROUND
Use ctrl+f to jump to different terms.
1×1
1-1, OneOne, 1on1 etc. This refers to roleplays where there is only two players.
A4A
Any for Any. Common partner search term. Usually used when a person is willing to play either male, female or other and has no preference on what their partner chooses to play.
Advanced Literate
AdvLit, Advanced Lit. This refers to the type of roleplaying where the writers enjoy going into detail/depth with their roleplays and value proper grammar, punctuation and vocabulary. Usually refers to talented writers.
Anthro/Furry
Anthropomorphic. A character that shares both animalistic and human features, often: Bipedal, covered in fur/feathers, wings/other appendages such as tails and animal ears, animal head, etc.
AU
Alternate Universe. Non-canon universes.
Auto
Short for “Automatic” to auto someone is to put in your post what they did, whether it be “they fell” or “they walked out if the room.” A sanctioned ‘auto’ would be a player who couldn’t continue scene or participate at that time so other players moved them to carry on. Other autos should be discussed with players prior.
Auto-Hit
Assumption within a post that an attack will land upon an opponent character, often includes assumption of how much/what type of damage said opponent will receive.
Canon
Canon refers to material related to the storyline that is considered “official”, either by the story creator(s) or the audience. The flipside is something being non-canon: this happens when something is created and is not official.
Char
Short for ‘Character.’
Character Bleed
When a players real feelings become entwined with or dependant on their characters. Character bleed is common and something all roleplayers should watch out for.
Closed
(See “Open). When a roleplay is closed, that means that it is not presently able for someone to join in.
DM
DM can be used in reference to either “Direct Message” (private message/PM) or “Dungeon Master” (see GM)
DnD
Or D&D. Dungeons and Dragons. The Original tabletop roleplaying game that heavily influences a lot of written roleplay today.
Edgy
In RP edgy typically refers to a character with an overly tragic, depressing, or dark backstory.
ERP
Erotic roleplay. Any roleplay with erotic themes at the forefront.
F4M
Common partner search term. Usually used when a person playing a female is searching for a person playing a male; sometimes used when looking for said genders irl. F4F, female for female. F4A, female for any, F4T female for Trans, F4Futa
Fandom
A love for a particular community, often books, games, movies, comics and other media. If someone is roleplaying a fandom they will take on attributes from that culture ie; Playing Harry Potter and having the setting be Hogwarts.
FC
Short for “Face Claim”. A FC is a visual representation of your character’s appearance, such as art by you or by someone else.
Fluff/Filler
When a roleplay response is filled with pointless words or descriptions to lengthen the size of the post.
Forum or Forum RP
A forum RP is a RP on a concrete website (such as RP Nation) or hosting platform (such as jcink) with its own setup, graphics, and rules. There are multiple different forums to RP on and are sometimes difficult to find. On a forum, replies are sometimes expected to be longer.
Freeform
A style of roleplay without strict guidelines in relation to: length or format of posts, usage of characters, plot or determining the success of actions including combat.
FTB
Short for “Fade to Black” typically used to close scenes out or insinuate that characters had sexual relations without actually roleplaying them.
Futa
Short for Futanari, the Japanese word for hermaphrodite but when used in roleplay is a MYTHICAL CREATURE. These characters have both female and male genitalia, most often having unrealistic proportions.
G4A
Group for Any. This is a group looking for any type of player or character to join.
GM
Stands for Gamemaster. Also referred to as DM (Dungeon Master) This is a person who is in charge of weaving the story for 1 or more roleplay participants.
Gary Stu
The male version of ‘Mary Sue’. Often but not always a self-insert character that is meant to be desired by all within the plot. Is typically more powerful than other characters, and has high plot importance. Gary Stus are often Adonis like in looks, unrealistically intelligent, and deft. Always lacking in flaws and are “too perfect” (See OP)
Ghosting
Although not always intentional, “Ghosting” is usually used when a player is too coward to tell their partner they are moving on or can’t continue. Ghosted is the act of being left. Ghosting is frowned upon in the RP communities.
Godmodding
A character whose abilities are limitless. Often acts of forcibly causing something to happen, i.e. making someone else’s character move without consent, is godmodding. (See ‘OP’ or ‘Auto’)
Hammer-Space/”Bag of Holding”
The use of inventory that was not established upon a character’s person when the roleplay first started, IE suddenly pulling out a gun without having brought it.
HP
Hit points. Used in tandem with ‘Stats’ and refers to how much life a character has.
IC
In Character. This refers to anything and everything said and done in character in the roleplay group or chat.
Immersive/Immersion
Immersive is a word used in roleplaying to describe a level of deep involvement with a play or character.
Interrupting/Interruption
The prevention of another roleplayer’s actions through reasonable time to perform a counter/response action.
IRL
In Real Life. This is something someone will say in reference to anything happening in real life and not in the play or online.
M4F
Common partner search term. Usually used when a person playing a male is searching for a person playing a female; sometimes used when looking for said genders irl.
M4M, male for male. M4A, male for any, M4T male for Trans, M4Futai
Mary Sue
Often but not always a self-insert character that is meant to be desired by all within the plot. Is typically more powerful than other characters, and has high plot importance. Mary Sues are often gorgeous in appearance, unrealistically intelligent, and deft. Always lacking in flaws and are “too perfect” Gary Stu is the Male version.
Main Character Syndrome
(or Protagonist syndrome) When a player makes everything about themselves or actively tries to steer the story to revolve around themselves.
MC
Abbreviation for Main Character
Metagaming
Metagaming is using external factors to affect the game, or go beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game. This includes but isn’t limited to, using outside knowledge to alter your character’s course of action or knowing about conversations your character would have no way of knowing.
Min/Maxer
Prevalent in any game with a defined combat system. A Min/Maxer is a term to describe someone whose sole aim is to create the most powerful character there is with no regard for lore, story, or any other consideration, except for power. This is the type of player who will choose a character purely for the mechanical benefits that each they provide. They will find and abuse any loopholes or broken mechanics at will. Optimization taken to the extreme, in other words.
Mun
The player. The real person behind the keyboard.
Murderhobo
A player character who wanders the gameworld, unattached to any community, indiscriminately killing and looting purely for their own amusement and self-interest. Murderhobo is a common DnD term.
Muse
A Muse in roleplay terms is usually used in reference to their character.
Neko
Characters that are human in nature, though often are younger and less developed; always feature cat/protruding animal ears of some kind and are often act like affectionate versions of the pet they are taking from.
Non-Canon
Something that happens in a roleplay that is not official, or just for funsies but will not be considered serious or part of the official storyline. An example would be a universe in which Batman had superpowers.
Novella
Novella is a style of writing where a reply typically consists of multiple paragraphs and is in storybook format.. These replies are different and sometimes longer than normal Multi-Paragraph replies.
NPC
Non Playing Character. Non playable character. A fictional character created by the roleplayer, administrator, or other roleplayers. Non-player characters are, as their name suggests, not actively played by any one roleplayer.
NSFW
Not Safe For Work. This is anything you couldn’t show to a typical boss in a workplace or want a coworker to look over your shoulder and see/read. Although maybe attributed to just sex, it includes gore, language, violence and other explicit scenes.
OC
Original Character. A character created by an individual and not taken from a fandom or other media.
OOC
Out of Character. Things that the roleplayer is saying. OOC often applies to entire groups — e.g., the chat (OOC Chat) and discussions on a given roleplay are almost always is a separate OOC.
One liner
A single sentence response in a roleplay.
One-Shot
Roleplays that often feature bombastic/crazy plots that in no way affect the development of any predefined characters. Similar to that of having a dream in real life.
Open
When an rp is open, that means that anyone who is capable to can join in on an already on-going roleplay.
OP
An abbreviation for Over Powered. This term is used to refer to a character who has more power (usually physically) than is canonically (see ‘Canon’) logical.
Opener
Or starter. This refers to your character’s first post in a play or group. It is how you introduce your character, and is often but not always lengthier than the average post.
Paper-Bagging
Hiding of powers/results of an attack, or establishing the effects of an attack after they got hit by it. IE: Slashing someone with a knife in one post only to then reveal in the next post that it was covered in poison. Oft relates to metagaming.
Para
Short for paragraph. Usually only referenced in regards to post length.
Post
A single instance of roleplay, typically written by one player. Posts can be initial posts (sometimes called openers or starters, but not usually referred to as anything special), or they can be replies to other posts.
Post Time-Limit
An agreed upon and pre-established time limit within an rp of when people are expected to post. For larger groups, often missing the time limit can lead to your post being skipped and sometimes even a warning, ban or kick from the roleplay entirely.
Powergaming
Powergaming is playing with the aim of maximising progress towards a specific goal, to the exclusion of other considerations such as storytelling, atmosphere and camaraderie. Due to its focus on the letter of the rules over the spirit of the rules, it is often seen as unsporting, un-fun, or unsociable.” This includes but isn’t limited to godmoding/autoing or any play where you gain an unfair advantage by construing the worlds available means.
Protag
Abbreviation for “protagonist”, aka the main character of a story.
Note: Most RPers prefer that there be no distinct, announced, named protagonist. After all, everyone’s character can be a protagonist from their perspective. (see ‘Main Character Syndrome’)
Realism
The agreed upon preface that within roleplays certain standards are set upon what a character can and cannot do within an established plot/setting.
Reply
A single instance of roleplay, written by one player, in response to another player. All replies are posts, but not all posts are replies.
Retcon
Or Retconning. The rescinding of a plot or In Character occurrence; roleplayers acting as if a plot never occurred.
RP
Short for Roleplay. The
RPF
RPF stands for “Roleplay Fighting.”
Self-Insert
When a player models their character after themselves and is essentially just playing themselves in roleplay situation.
Ship
A ship is a romantic roleplay relationship. It’s used two different ways; Some use ship to refer to a set of characters in a relationship who move from one RP setting to the next and continue their story as canon. Others would use ship to refer to a romantic relationship they would support whether canon or not.
Shotgunning
When a player joins a group and messages multiple people the same thing. Usually “wanna rp?” It is considered a bannable offense in most communities.
Smut
Used in reference to any type of NSFW, sexual roleplay encounter.
Starter
Or opener. This refers to your characters first post in a play or group. It is how you introduce your character and is often but not always lengthier than the average post.
Stats
Short for “statistics”. These are numbers that represent your character’s actions and abilities. For example, there could be a stat for agility that you could assign between 1-10 and that would be able to help or hinder your character’s dodge-ability during a fight. It is very possible to have a RP without stats.
Teleporting
Instantly travelling from point A to point B, or the use of speeds beyond the acceptable scale of a roleplay to travel to different locations.
Special thanks to all the anonymous members who’ve contributed and the ones who’ve named themselves:
Wolfe
Naoi
Myriddin
Aura
If there’s any terms you’d like to add, feel free to comment below!
The Roleplayground 