NDRP Mute Character Guide 2.0
Before starting out playing a mute character, There are a few things that we need to go over in regard to this type of RP.
This type of RP is mostly reserved for those who are mute or non-speaking IRL, however, there are players who wish to try out a character with this style.
Currently, these characters are limited to those who need the character due to IRL medical/physical/mental reasons.
Why play a mute character?
Playing a 'mute', or 'Non-Speaking Character' extends roleplay by introducing an adaptation to English. Where it does require a character to slow down to engage with certain characters.
It can add another layer to RP, but those individuals who are Mute / Non-Verbal / Non-Speaking IRL can use it as an option to be able to RP on a voice-only server.
It allows for interesting story arcs where some of the following examples happen:
The character loses their ability to speak either fully or temporarily due to injury
The character is learning English
The character is unable to speak from birth.
The character is unable to form words after a traumatic event. and cannot seem to speak, even though physically they would normally be able to speak.
Pros vs Cons
There are a lot of positive results possible; however, there are some issues that can arise from this type of RP. We hope to cover a fair amount of common issues with this guide.
Be warned that this type of character is not an easy one to play. You will need to have patience and understanding while playing the character.
As well as an understanding of how to express your character's feelings and emotions by using body language and facial expressions. There will be times when someone might not wait for you to finish writing/typing.
This can be frustrating and disheartening and can make you feel left out but it’s important to remain patient. This effect can vary based on your typing speed
For those Players who are able to speak, and are not Mute IRL.
You need to be aware that Playing this type of character is a privilege and NOT a right. Rule breaks occurring on mute character, Misuse of the mute character, and/or Major Toxicity could cause you to lose your Mute character perms. And in turn, result in loss of ability to play that character.
This is not an easy option - this requires a large amount of knowledge and understanding for how to express the emotions of a character through body
Everett Enderby from WWRP suggests - Don't be anxious but rather take the time to embrace the difference with the character. Embrace that things need to be a bit slower-paced. Embrace not just using the /write but also attempting to emote your character's meaning. People misunderstand people with tone and inflection all the time, it's okay for people to misunderstand non-verbal communication as well. -
((IRL Mute / Non-Speaking Players are exempt from loss of mute character status))
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Permission Types
First and foremost, you will need to submit an application via a staff ticket and be approved by the designated staff member to be able to start playing.
There are 3 different application categories
1. IRL Mute / Non-Speaking due to Physical, mental, or medical issues
This application is for those who are unable to play a speaking character in the server due to any number of issues IRL that prevent them from being able to speak or properly form words.
This application never closes and remains open even if the main apps are closed.
Reasons cannot be related to tech issues or you would need to fill out application #2.
2. Single - Mute / Non-speaking character
Fill this application out if you meet the criteria for the following:
- Currently, Mute characters are limited to those who need the character due to IRL medical/physical/mental reasons.
Able to speak IRL and play a speaking character.
Been whitelisted in the community and actively playing for 60 days
No warning Points or Bans within the last 3 months
(You can still speak with a member of staff to see if you would be able to apply due to the warning points against you)
No accusations of rule breaks in an open player report or tickets (that you are aware of)
(Reports against you will need to be concluded and closed out before you apply)
Be aware that getting in trouble for certain rule breaks could cause your approval to be revoked
Limited slots and are first come first serve. Must be active.
3. Temp - Mute / Non-Speaking Character
Temporary IRL issues with speaking. A few examples are: Being physically ill, having surgery, Injury, etc… Would be in a short time span such as a few days to a month.
Role Playing out injuries in the game for a short time span, which would be for a few days to a month
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Guidelines and Community Expectation
As a mute character, this means that your character will be unable to speak. Either Vocally or through /me's. You cannot use ‘/me says yo whats up’. It would need to be ‘/me writes ‘Yo, what's up ’
((Special note is that those who are mute / Non-speaking IRL will have certain allowances for being able to play a 'speaking' character. This will be further explained later on))You are required to carry a notepad, clipboard, or item to write on or communicate with others at all times.
Your mute character must be active within the span of 90 days.
((If you are not active within this timeframe and there is no conversation with staff about it, you risk losing your spot to play a mute character. More about this in the Allowance removal section))
You will need to learn to express your character’s feelings and body language through /mes. As /me “is thinking about apples” wouldn’t be something another character to interact with. However, something like /me “sees the apples, and grows a wide smile on their face” is much easier to read and interact with.
At no time are players allowed to communicate with sign language. It is not a common language and results in a type of meta information.
The expectations set forth by the Management team, are as follows:
Playing a Mute Character is a courtesy given by the Admin+ Team. It can be revoked at any time for any violations of guidelines. As well as other rule breaks within the server.
It is expected that you will use the appropriate commands to indicate your character's actions or communication. Such as having a notebook out while using `/me writes:`.
You are held to a higher standard while playing a mute character. As such, any rule breaks or community violations across any character can lead to consequences for your mute character permissions. (not IRL disability related)
To follow all other rules of the community as you normally would. Playing a mute character, or being unable to speak IRL can provide some unique challenges when it comes to initiation and other more conflict-oriented scenarios.
Any violation of the guidelines, abuse of mechanics and commands, or violation of the community rules could result in the removal of your mute character permission.
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How is Mute Character Permission Removal handled?
Anytime there is misconduct of a mute character or its player’s other characters it is handled on a case-by-case basis by the Admin+ team. We understand it can be frustrating to be confronted with the potential loss of your mute character permissions. However, it is important to remain civil should your permission to play a mute character be challenged. Things will only work out better for you if you remain civil and have a constructive conversation. Toxicity will not be tolerated and could lead to far more than just the loss of your mute character perms.
If your mute character permissions are being challenged, or revoked, a member of the Admin+ Team will reach out to you and discuss the case and open that line of communication with you.
If your character perms were revoked due to rule breaks, you will need to wait for 1-month minimum before you can ask to reapply for a mute / non-speaking character. (Unless otherwise stated by the Admin+ that revokes the character perms)
Inactive Mute Character
There are limited slots open for playing a mute character if you don’t have an IRL condition that makes VoiceRP difficult. Limited slots are available. As such, we would like to ensure that those who are playing mute characters are remaining active on the server.
If you lose your perms due to inactivity, a member of the Admin+ Team will open a ticket with you, and discuss your activity and possibilities going forward. This will be the same avenue used to inform you that you are losing your mute character approval. You won't have to reapply again, as we will still have all of your info on file, however, you will still need to open a ticket to speak with us first.
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High-Risk Rule Breaks
NVL - Immediately pulling out a notepad while guns are aimed at you could be seen as reaching for and pulling a weapon. You must find a way to communicate with the other person that you cannot speak, and must get a pen or paper. Having a friend with you that can help you communicate can also be a good aid as well.
RDM - Initiation is a huge thing that becomes problematic when playing a non speaking character. You must find ways to properly communicate hostile intent. Generally speaking if your mute character is hostile, or intends to be hostile, it can be good to pair with a character who can speak to help communicate intent and initiate hostilities.
Defensively, you want to indicate hostility or intent to be violent in defense. Communication goes beyond just talking. Using gestures like STOP or other hand motions and gestures to indicate intent can help bridge the gaps with hostile roleplay.
Generally Speaking, it is wise to try and avoid seeking conflict, as mute characters are faced with very difficult challenges when it comes to initiating hostilities. Generally these situations are at a high risk for rule breaks. However if conflict comes to you, you have to make the best of the situation, and communicate using body gestures, expressions, and other forms of communication to avoid NVL/RDM situations.
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MedRP
About the same as standard RP - add more notes here though
During medRP, you will be very limited on what you can do as oftentimes you will be too hurt to be writing on a notepad. However, you are able to try and use hand motions to signal things. Such as if the medic/doctor asks where you are hurting, you can point to areas and direct their attention to the problem spot and then hold up the number of fingers to give them the pain scale(if able).
If you are at the side of a friend who is injured/being helped by the medic, your friend likely would not be in the capacity to constantly be looking at what you are writing. Instead, you can use actions to give them comfort.
One of the biggest things to avoid is using the /me or /writes to communicate with people whom are down. They are not in an appropriate place to be having a discussion with you
— Example: /me watches with worry on face and squeezes their hand tightly.
This conveys that you are worried about them and wanting them to get better without having to write it down on paper.
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Communication in cars, trucks, trunks, general vehicles
There must be extra caution taken when you are on/in a vehicle. You must remember to abide by communication ranges. For instance, if you are in a car
One of the things that you have to take into consideration when you are using a notebook or writing utensil while on a vehicular type device, whether it be horse or car, you need to take into consideration how that other person is going to look over and read what you wrote.
Are you close enough to them that they will be able to actually read it. Will they be able to see it at the angle they are at? One thing to consider is if you are in a vehicle that is traveling at a high rate of speed, that person will be taking their focus from in front of them and potentially cause danger or harm to the party. As such, it must be properly RP'd out. This includes someone being across the room from you even on foot. Think about the situation and how you can roleplay showing them what you are writing.
In addition to this is making sure that the people that you are communicating with are within range even while on foot. If somebody is across the room from you, they are not going to be able to read what you wrote. This makes it to where you should be walking over and showing them what is written on the notepad.
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Commands to use - Proper use of them
Communication types/styles
To start off, There are a few different communication methods
Main communication methods:
/notes - NDRP
Open the in-game chat box and type in /Notes
This will open an in-game notepad that you are able to begin typing into. This should also put you into the emote of holding a notepad
/me of writing on a notepad - NDRP
- Open the in game chat box and type '/me writes: ' and then include your message that is being written.
- You must always have `Writes: ` as a prefix to anything that you type in your /me message.
- Must be holding a notepad, clipboard or something to write on.
Text Messaging someone in the group who can speak for you - NDRP
Learning the curve where you have to figure out where it's easier to use `/me`'s vs `/notes`
- Being able to quickly discern which one a character should use in the situation can be a bit of a struggle.
- Example: You are standing really close to someone so a `/notes` should suffice however the person is sitting so if they pick up your note it will break their sitting animation every time. In Times like this, you can get their phone number and use text messages to continue your conversation as it doesn’t break emotes but allows for having a private conversation.
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Veronica Corvus explains some tricks for getting faster with your writing commands:
Your writing doesn't have to be perfect. Making it super simple is one of the things I've learned IRL that kept a lot of conversations quick.
So things like `~writes~ meet red garage 10 min`
instead of `~writes~ meet me at red garage in 10 minutes`
~writes~ Name Veronica - You?
~writes~ Home 10 min
~writes~ Feeling better - more therapy - takes time
Just examples of keeping the writing simple. Of course, you are not limited or restricted to what you want to write. If your character can write fast enough then so be it. The cool thing about writing is that you can also add smileys and all of that too which in reality, is something you CAN do if you wish.
~writes~ Hello 
~writes~ Sorry to hear that
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Interruptions
You may find yourself in a situation where you are engaged in a social situation, typing a response, but then being interrupted and the conversation changes, resulting in you having to delete what you were typing.
When this happens, try to remain calm and keep from being frustrated! If you are almost done typing up your response, go ahead and put the note down. This will help other RPers know that you may need the conversation slowed down. That is the fun and artistic form to muteRP; it brings a slower pace to RP which can unfold into better and more in-depth stories.
Lina Devos from WWRP expressed that it may be good to find someone who can look over you and remind people of your impairment. Find someone that cares. They can help slow people down and in many cases, remind those people that you might still emote or write.
Other than that, patience is important.
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Meeting someone new:
When meeting others in RP for the first time, it can be a bit different than what they are used to role-playing with. One important thing is to give them a heads up that you will need patience from them so that you can write answers.
Some players who are not used to the pace of a mute character are highly likely to get impatient and not wait for your answers. This can cause problems when dealing with hostile/tense situations.
Before approaching someone, type up how you want to start the conversation (ex: /me smiles and waves to the customer).
To do this, type up your /me, and then activate CTRL+A (Select all text) and CTRL+X (cut). This /me has now been saved!
As your character approaches the customer, open the chat bar and activate CTRL+V (Paste).
AFAIK even if you didn't send a message, you can also just hit up on the arrow keys
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Crim RP
In a hostile situation where gunfire may be exchanged, it is best to wait for one of your fellow gang/crew/family members to verbally handle the initiations.
However, if you are in a hostile situation with a hostage, where the environment is calmer for you and your crew, you can utilize notes and /mes.
For example:
The hostage has pled his case, and after you and your fellow crew members discuss it, you decide you will shoot him. If your character is the one to shoot, you can do /me cracks neck and pulls for the gun while another member of your crew verbally initiates to the hostage that they will be taken out now.
You can also do a /notes “Your story does not line up with the story Tony gave, and now it will cost you your head. Send Drake our regards”.
This MUST be given extra time for the other party to pick up said note and to fully read it or have the others properly assist you with the talking. It is very much suggested to have someone else do the talking for you.
If you are in a situation where a group approaches you in a hostile manner, Your first priority is to comply with the demands and put your hands up. After this, you can attempt to make an indication to the person that you need a pen and paper.
You wanna avoid just reaching for a pen and paper out of the blue as it could be misunderstood as reaching for a gun. You can gesture to your mouth and shake your head or make a gesture of writing on something so that they understand you are needing to use something to communicate.
After that you can /me carefully reaches for pen and paper, making no sudden movements. Again, it is very important that you comply with the demands and attempt to show that you are listening to them but cannot respond without pulling out a notepad and pen.
Don’t ever just go straight to whipping out a notepad if you are being held at gunpoint as it could be seen as FailRP since the act of reaching for something could get you shot.
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Surroundings:
When picking up a note, a player must hit the “e” button.
This is the same button for opening locked doors and garages. While not always in your control, it’s best to get people away from doors before dropping a note.
If an issue does happen, it’s no worries! Below is a situation that happened with a community member, and how they navigated through it:
A felon who was locked inside the hospital got through a door that should never have been unlocked.. Try to get people away from doors before dropping a note but sometimes the interaction zone is pretty big.
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F8 Menu Keybinds
Learn how to do your f8 menu keybinds (create a possible f8 guide in the future), having a numpad or stream deck filled with macro's anything from `/e wave3` , `/e wait` are pretty small things.
You can obviously also stack or combine emotes plus `/me`'s so when your character is displeased they can with one but both shake their head and `/me` express a facial expression that normally isn't possible with a single emote.
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Preparing your character
Before starting, make sure to plan out the personality and backstory of your character
Please think on How your character became mute.
Have they lived this way all their life?
Did a specific event cause them to lose their voice?
How recently did this happen?
It can be a bit of a struggle to figure out the
Hopes
Fears
Motives
Goals
It is extremely helpful to understand your character to help assist with figuring out actions, facial expressions, body language, etc...
For example, when your character is scared of various things. The ways of depicting this fear are usually based on the character’s personality/background.
“/me jumps and brings hands to face” or
“/me eyes dart to the nearest exits and shaking”
“/me raises fists, glaring”.
If using stream-deck buttons, You can take your reaction a step further by setting up some reactionary emotes, emotions, and such to go with your /me commands. This can be super beneficial to bring a higher level of immersion to the RP.
One thing to remember is to please be patient with yourself and others!! There will be times when you might not type as fast and it might cause some frustration trying to convey things through RP as well.
Whether you are OOC mute and have played mute characters for years, or this is your first time exploring muteRP…
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Making MuteRP more accessible
Stream Deck - mapping common sentences/phrases for ease of access
Does it make sense in muteRP to have a saved /me brings clipboard out of backpack - yes!
Map commands for common situations:
Meeting a person for the first time
Being pulled over by an officer
Entering a social event
Being taken as a hostage
It can definitely be intimidating being thrown into a scenario you weren’t expecting as a mute RPer, so it’s critical and highly recommended that, with the role, comes pre-sets. These greatly help you prepare when these unexpected situations occur! And, as fellow RPers, we know this is quite often.
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If there are any questions, please open a support ticket on the NDRP discord.
