Original Post: Ember, December 11, 2015
Individual roleplaying websites and communities use a wide range of terminology and definitions, this guide includes the only words and definitions that are used on this website. Warriors specific terminology can be found here.
Basics
Roleplaying (Role-play, RP): A form of collaborative writing in which participants control characters and use in-character interactions to form a coherent storyline as a team.
Roleplay: The concept of roleplaying; a specific roleplaying website; a specific plot within a roleplaying website.
Roleplayer (RPer): A person who participates in a roleplay; occasionally used interchangeably with “member”.
Navigating the Website
Navigation bar: The horizontal bar of page links found between the header and the main page area of all pages.
Sidebar: The vertical bar of links on the right side of the home page.
The Clans Page: Where the maps, mentor-apprentice lists, and clan information is listed. Not to be confused with "The Clan Pages" which include character information.
The Clan Pages: The MoonClan, SunClan, EarthClan, and EclipseClan pages listed across the navigation bar on which all active characters are listed. Not to be confused with "The Clans Page."
Character Updates Page (guestbook): Where any changes that need to be made to the clan or help pages are posted.
Monthly Meow (MM): The website’s monthly newsletter containing an introduction describing of the in- and out of character events of previous month, a main body devoted to a new topic each month (ex. discussions on various leaders’ impacts on the clans, descriptions of how the maps have changed over time), and the ceremony lists.
Ceremony lists: A list of all ceremonies scheduled to occur within a specific month, separated into early- mid- and late- month ceremonies and listed in every Monthly Meow.
Character list (profile character list): A mandatory up to date list of a roleplayer’s characters located on their profile page.
Private message (PM): A form of private and direct communication between roleplayers, either individually or in a select group. Private messages can be found in the “inbox” section of the member’s area.
Profile (profile page, about me): A public profile found by clicking on a roleplayer’s username. Roleplayers often use this page to describe themselves and hold out of character conversations.
Status box: The “speech bubble” at the top of each profile page reading in which roleplayers write brief questions or comments.
Profile picture (avatar): A picture chosen by a roleplayer to appear beside each of their posts, often a picture of the roleplayer’s main character.
Post: A single instance of roleplay, written by one roleplayer. Can be an initial, starting post or a reply to another post. Can also refer to any specific instance of communication out of character.
Thread: A string of posts organized by in-character location.
Character description: The description and history field of a character form; a paragraph-long description of a character’s backstory, personality, and physical appearance.
Character redo: A rewritten or updated character description.
Affiliates: Other roleplay groups that our website supports.
Categories of Roleplayers
Site owner: The person who runs the roleplay. Their duties involve maintaining records, updating the website, and enforcing rules.
Moderators: The group of people who help the site owner manage the roleplay. They support the owner in maintaining records and enforcing rules.
Member: An ordinary roleplayer. The term “member” can also be used to refer more widely to any roleplayer, including moderators and the site owner.
Rules
Godmodding: Taking control of another player’s character during roleplay; making decisions for another roleplayer as to how their character reacts; unfairly determining the outcome of a situation, particularly during battles.
Powerplaying (powergaming): Playing a character with unfair and unrealistic skills.
Metagaming: A type of powerplaying in which a character makes use of knowledge that the player knows but character does not have the means to be aware of.
Activity: How often a roleplayer is online; how often a roleplayer posts or participates in various features on the website. An “active” roleplayer is one who is online and posting regularly.
Multi-accounting: One person creating multiple accounts on the website, often with the intent of holding an unfair number of high-ranking characters.
Double posting: Posting twice in a row in a particular thread, with no other roleplayers posting between the posts.
Fade to black (time skip, hand-waving): Skipping over a scene because it violates website rules or participating roleplayer’s comfort levels (often as the scene contains mature content). The content of scenes faded to black are assumed to have happened without being explicitly written and are agreed upon by participating roleplayers beforehand.
Realistic: Consistent with the Warrior Cats Universe and the expectations for of the roleplay; a reasonable situation.
Plots
Site-wide plot (major plot): A storyline encompassing the entirety of the website, often involves wars or natural disasters. The site-wide plot is planned on the plot planning pages and is recorded on the history page.
Side plot (personal plot/subplot/minor plot): A storyline encompassing a small number of characters, either does not affect the site-wide plot or supports it. Most roleplaying involves side plots.
Characters
Character (cat, charrie, char): A fictional cat created for the roleplay.
Throw away character: Loners, rogues, and kittypet characters that are played for brief periods to progress certain scenes, but are not be claimed as an official character and therefore aren’t posted on the Character Updates page.
High ranking character: A character holding power in the clan hierarchy; a leader, deputy, medicine cat, or medicine cat apprentice.
Adoptables: A character intended for another character to “adopt” or claim as their own, separate from the adoption system. These are often posted on the art pages, organized as the litters of expecting queens.
General Roleplaying Terms
Profile stalking: A common way to pass time while waiting for in character responses entailing reading other roleplayer’s pages and responding to statements on profile pages or questions posed in status boxes.
Poof (poofing): When a member suddenly and without warning goes offline. Often a result of an offline occurance.
Out of character (OCC): Anything that a roleplayer, speaking for themselves, is saying. On the forums, out of character comments are enclosed with parenthesis and placed, commonly, on the top or bottom of posts. Out of character chatting takes place throughout the website, however is limited in the forums.
In character (IC): A character’s actions and thoughts. All in-character interactions take place in the roleplaying forums.
Canon: The original source material; all events and characters which expressly exist in the original work.
Ship: Short for relationship, a particular pairing of characters. Particular ships are often given silly names created by combining the two character’s names, such as “Phold” to refer to Phantom and Coldstar.
Shipper: A roleplayer who supports a particular character pairing.
Doll maker: An online dress-up style game in which a unique character appearance is generated by choosing attibutes from a number of given options. For example, Neikoish's "Create a Cat" game.