Common Acts of Moding
by: Not Sure but not me

Whether you "think" you already know all about what moding
is and all the ways in role play that are "acts of moding", it will
be best that you read this page reguardless.


MODER: A character that has been fairly killed in RP,
that seems to keep coming back, or decides not even to
acknowledge that their character was killed at all.
A character that has "god-like" abilities, preventing it from ever
being killed, or even harmed in any way.
A person who doesn't follow the proper guidelines of online
role play that can cause an act of moding in various
different forms (as described in this page).

MODING: The act of a moder.



Most Common Types of Moding:

More often than not; role players, even the best of them,
unknowingly mix real life knowledge with their role play and/or
someone elses'. Although this isn't as much of a problem and
controversary, as other things in online role play, it can and does
cause problems. Not to mention, it is not the proper way to role play,
and is even a serious act of moding.
We have all done it, certainly more than once in our time here, but
that is because sometimes it is hard to "remember" that you cannot
use certain information on a character, that you obtained OOC
(out of character).

Every role player must realize that while playing a character, he/she
must always stay true to the events that his/her character have and
have not encountered. This meaning that a role player must
remember he/she is "playing a character", and the character is the
only one who should react to knowledge it has.

Here are some examples. These examples are the most common, in
which role players cannot differentiate OOC and character knowledge.

#1...The MOST common
"Greeting & Acknowledgements"

Let's say that you are in a chat room. In enters a character with
the name "Donovan_Volar". With your character, you type in,

"Greetings Donovan".
Now Donovan is a character that you (or your character, either or
both) have never met. So the correct way to have played out the
greeting him, would be to NOT use his name. A situation like this,
often results in the unknown character asking your character,
""What....are you psychic or a mindreader??"
Don't take that as he "just making conversation", because it is
most-likely a sarcastic remark, due to your character happening
to know the name of someone they have never met or seen.

You cannot use your real life knowledge, of seeing a characters name
entering a chat room (or even on a message board), to your
"characters" advantage. You are playing a CHARACTER
in that room, NOT yourself.
I was in a situation once where I was playing Serenesta.
A character entered the room, and Serenesta proceeded to say,
""State your name and your business in my Fortress."
The character then typed in,
""Dumbass, you see my name on the screen".
I then had to explain to the idiot that Serenesta; being a
CHARACTER, and that being a ROLE PLAY room, did
not know his name because they had never met previously.
This happens all too often, and it is sad that people are further away
from truly knowing how to role play than they think. Just because
you are good at typing some creative lines, does not mean that you
know what you are doing by any means.

#2...
"Real Life Knowledge of Character Profiles"

MSN profiles, although a near necessity for any role play character,
are hardly ever used in the correct way. This will be rather
complicated to explain, but I will do the best that I can.

MSN profiles are NOT there, to give other "characters"
knowledge of the character. Profiles; whether they be the little
ones in your chat profile, or entire profile pages that we all type up
on the history, abilities, etc. of our characters, are ONLY there to
"lay claim" to our characters, and provide others OOC, the
knowledge of what we have all established to be "ours".
Profiles are also there to have something as "proof" OOC, when
a situation involves OOC, needing to "clear something up" that
happened in role play.

Here is an example.....
Donovan_Volar has established for his character, the history of
being an illegitimate son of a Roman Caesar. He created for his
character, a direct bloodline to this Roman Caesar, and was later
embraced and made Vampire. Now one day, someone comes
online playing the actual Roman Caesar that Donovan_Volar is son
to. Now, no matter what the circumstances, the person playing the
Donovan character, has every right to role play out that his character
is son to that other character. His proof....in his profile.
In a situation like this though, it is NOT recommemded that you try
to create ANY character or storyline, off of someone elses'
"all original" creations. That is a way of dictating, and/or altering
what someone else created on their own, and you have no right to do
that. That is why some people prefer to make everything up about their
character, the character's history, powers and abilities, rather than
using something that is widely known, or something from a movie.
Role players have no rights to those characters, as one who created their
character from scratch would, and you should always take that into
consideration, before you try making ANY role play off of
someone elses.


A more likely example....
Donovan_Volar has a power he obtained from a curse, that
causes anyone who touches him, to become deathly ill.
Now if while in a chat room, someone walks up and lays their hand
on his shoulder, and Donovan proceeds to role play out telling that
person they are going to become deathly ill for touching him, and they
refuse to comply with that storyline, they can be called a moder.

Another way that people misuse character profile knowledge, is
OOC reading about a characters history, abilities, and other such
things, then proceeding to role play with their character, that they
know all of this information on him or her.

The only time "OOC" profile knowledge should be used with a
character, is when it is "visible" knowledge.
Visible knowledge is being able to "see" what that character looks
like, what kind of scars or tattoos a character may have, if the
character is male, female, a child or a little old lady, or many other
things that your CHARACTER can see if another character is standing
there near him/her.
We look at peoples profiles many times, to see if a certain character in
a room is a male or female, because sometimes a name can look like
both, and learning and using THAT OOC knowledge is perfectly
acceptable. Because then we can type using "him" or "her", in place
of their name, if our "character" has not learned the name yet.

Think of this in a real life situation.
You are in a grocery store at the check-out, and in front of you is
a woman reading a magazine. "Visibly", you can see what she looks
like, and you can see that she is female, BUT you have never met her,
so you know NOTHING "about" her, other than what you see there
standing before you.
It is no different with a character. If a character walks into the chat
room, your character IS able to see him/her, but until your character
learns more about him/her, the characters appearance is the ONLY
thing you should role play out that your character knows.
You cannot role play out that your character knows Vlad Dracul just
walked into the room, unless your "character" knows what Vlad
Dracul looks like, and knows that it is in fact him.
Of course, there are also in many circumstances, that a character is
so widely known about by other role players and characters, that
even some characters that have never met that "known" person,
they may know what he/she looks like, and "assume" that it is
him or her. In a case like that, it is fine, but "known" characters
are usually characters who have made a mark with their
storyline, or characters who are considered "famous", or even
"villians".

#3...
"Counteracting Role Play Events with OOC Knowledge"

This act of moding, is also one of the most common, not to
mention, used in a form of actually knowing you're moding.
So many times, someone will tell someone OOC about a plot or
plan that someone has with their character, and the person being
told this OOC information, will proceed to use his/her "character" to
try to counteract the plot or plan.
This is one of the biggest, "DUH!" situations that I have ever seen.

Example....
A friend you role play with online just called you up to tell you that
so-and-so is planning to use their character to kidnapp your
characters child. Although it is all part of a storyline, you proceed to
use the OOC information you obtained on that storyline, to have
your "character" counteract the event.
DUH! YOUR CHARACTER IS NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW
ABOUT THIS PLOT! YOU, were told of the plot OOC, your
CHARACTER was NOT told.

This is one of the main reasons why it is best to never "talk over"
your role play intensions OOC with ANYONE, unless you are
telling someone who knows how to keep it seperate...and I'm here
to tell you, there are not very many people out there that do.
Besides, a "surprising" storyline is much more interesting than one
where you OOC already know what is going to happen. Kind of like
going to see a movie. You don't want to be told what happens, or it
basically ruiens it.
Anyway, getting back on the subject, never, ever use OOC
information that you have obtained about ANY storyline, to work
against, or even "for" a storyline. Not only does this cheat all
characters involved; even yours, but it cheats the entire basis of
role play itself...and all that it stands for.