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Some tips & Hints:
(Originally posted by Bielduwyn!)
1) These are merely guidelines.
Do not take this as absolute, these are all merely pointers and tips for being a more realistic person inside the realm of Middle-Earth based intepretations. If you have a different well founded interpretation, by all means go with that one. Just have fun!
2) Make a personality and stick to it.
Like it says on the box, give your character a set of character traits and quirks and maintain these. It'll be considered poor roleplay if you're a happy pacifist one day and a grouch the next day whose only amusement comes out of kicking Hobbits sky high.
3) Choose a fitting name.
When making your character, also pay attention to the hints given by the game and don't be afraid to run the game in windowed mode so you can look things up (such as flowers growing in Europe to help pick a name for a Hobbit girl). With characters whose names should be in exotic languages such as elvish or anglo-saxon for the Rohirrim it can be fun (for the writer at any rate) to pick a name that matches the personality.
4) Be organic.
Just because you need to stay true to the original concept of your character doesn't mean he or she is set in stone. If for example a dwarf who dislikes elves gets helped by one or more of them he'll probably learn to respect them a bit, even moreso if the elves risked their lives for him. And traumatic experiences will of course have a lasting effect on your character too.
5) Avoid clichés.
No, it's not terribly original if you play a veteran captain from Gondor who lost both his/her parents to orcs when he was just five years old and ever since that day dedicated himself to training. It can be just as interesting to have not a captain from Gondor at all but a simple farmer's son/daughter from Bree who doesn't have any real aspirations for greatness. (Doesn't mean they won't bump into circumstances that'll cause them to grow!)
Speaking of family, it can also add another layer to your character to have knowledge about his/her family, such as their names, ages, likes, dislikes and how they got on with your character.
6) Watch your language.
Try to avoid contemporary slang and terms like "Cool" in its modern context or cursing things with "hell", since hell was never referenced to in Tolkien's books. On the flipside you don't need to overdo it and start talking like a thespian using "thou" and "thee" and so on. The language used in the books is more or less the way people talked at the start of the 20th century. They would use "You are" a bit more often than "You're" and "was not" rather than "wasn't".
And as a final note: No, dwarves do not speak scottish in Tolkien's world.
7) You know what you know, your character knows what he/she knows.
Another important aspect of role playing. Keeping your knowledge, feelings and thoughts seperate from those of your character.
Similarly most of us have no clue about the existence of the Ring or Nazgûl or Balrogs. We do, sure, but our characters unless they are elves wouldn't have the slightest idea about any of these. And of course similarly, the player may know their character's best friend is a traitor, but sadly enough you'll have to keep on acting like there's nothing wrong with the friendship until the friend reveals himself to be a traitor. And of course this'll go with feelings too, you might not like the player behind a character an awful lot, but as long as his or her character does nothing wrong there is no reason for your character to be hostile towards that character.
In a nutshell: You know everything your character knows, but your character doesn't know everything you know.
8) Music.
- Mind that lute, in a real pub it would be pretty rude to just go stand at a table and start jamming away on your instrument of choice, it's no different here, ask if it's okay to play first and if it's not, retreat to a quiet corner if you wish to practice anyway.
- Continuing on from the previous tip, if you do use .abc's try to be somewhat thoughtful about what you play, The Beatles or Iron Maiden don't quite always fit into the lore. Try to make sure that if you play music that it has a somewhat folk-ish feel to it.
9) Hobbit tips.
So you want to be short and have furry feet, fine by me. But it means you have to act a little differently than you would as a human. But first of all don't make the mistake of letting them behave like children or idiots. They might be quaint but the movies harshly exaggerate some of their traits. Hobbits are something of a hypocritical race, largely distrustful for anything that is out of the(ir) ordinary or from the outside. But too proud of their good manners and social standing to get in someone's face about it. Most hobbits also have an absurd fear of bodies of water greater than a nice hot bath (wich exception of the Tooks and Brandybucks).
So it might be worth a giggle to derail group events because your hobbit is too frightened to cross a river.
And as a final tip: Simply read the first few chapter of Fellowship of the Ring, it gives a wonderful insight in how they act, think and talk.
10) Dwarven tips.
You want to be a little less short and have a great big beard to go with it. Good choice. But also dwarves have a few popular misconceptions that you can avoid. For starters, dwarves do not hate elves. For a good deal of the first and second age they even worked together on several projects and even today they still acknowledge each others skills in their respective crafts. It never got to the point where dwarves would rather spit at an elf than shake hands, as the movies seem to imply.
And very important, Tolkien's dwarves do not speak Scottish. They use the same brand of English/Westron most other races in Middle-Earth use. On top of that they aren't exactly drunks either, they might enjoy their drink, but most of them are wise enough to know when to stop.
11) Man tips.
The choice of being the most dominant race in Middle-Earth is a convenient one, since the humans of Middle-Earth are technically our ancestors and as such, largely the same as we are. Basically keep in mind that you are in a setting different from today's where some moral values are different from now and you'll do fine. But there are still some ways to spice up the experience depending on where your character is from:
Bree-men are a folk of farmers and are rather simple in their ways, at least compared to men of Gondor.
The Rohirrim have an enormous superstitious fear of the elves due to their proximity to Lórien, where people have gone into and never come out again, though considering in LotRO elves happily frequent the Prancing Pony no one is going to blame you for omitting that trait. Also, in Rohirric they put honorifics after the name (such as Theoden King, rather than King Theoden) so depending on how well versed he or she is in Westron it might make for a fun speech quirk to keep that. It is also stated in the books that nearly all Rohirrim had fair hair so blonde or redhead is the way to go when making one.
Dale has flourished since the defeat of Smaug and the return of the Dwarves, and in some places the roads have literally become paved with gems. So Dale folk are probably well acquainted with dwarves and hold no particular fear of elves after they all banded together to defeat the orcs in the battle of five armies.
The Men from Gondor have enjoyed the least superstitions and best levels of education. And they usually are rather proud too, what with having kept all of Middle-Earth safe from Mordor in recent times.
12) Elven tips.
The immortal race, and a challenging one to role play. A first tip would be to not confuse them with vulcans. While elves may be rather stoic compared to other races they still feel all emotions we do and can under certain conditions even lose their temper. They also have a completely different concept of time than we do, what is a long period for us is by comparison brief for them. A fun detail is that all elves love poetry, dance and song. So if their is a poet hidden in you, being an elf is a good time to express that part.
The last tip would be to read up on a lot of the lore, the older your elf is, the more of Middle-Earth's past he or she will have actively experienced or at least have heard of due to the news spreading around. And even young elves would have read up on the history of their race due to well preserved texts.
13) Miscellaneous.
If at all possible and when appropriate to your character, try to actively engage in RP. If your character is an extrovert, casually try to start a conversation with people you meet. Also try to go to RP events, especially if they are well advertised (even moreso if the advertising happened in-character) and especially if your character got personally invited. But do not go out of your way to attend all of them if ou do not want to or findi t unfitting for your character.
14) These are merely guidelines.
Do not take this as absolute, these are all merely pointers and tips for being a more realistic person inside the realm of Middle-Earth based intepretations. If you have a different well founded interpretation, by all means go with that one. Just have fun!
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