Imagine listening to your favourite show without being about to see the characters or visuals on the screen. This is why emotes are vital in roleplay. And why it is worth talking about how to do them well and avoid doing them badly.
Beyond Basics is a series of posts that delve into different aspects of roleplay beyond the basics of character creation within an MMO setting. For our purposes, this setting is World of Warcraft but it can be useful in others too. This series will look at things like plots, storylines, and conversations. As well as the world and community around you as a player in an MMO. Explaining how you can best make use of that; and how it might differ from roleplay on tabletop games for example. You can find the rest of the series here: Beyond Basics Series Index
What is an Emote
An emote is an expression of action or atmosphere delivered via the ‘/e’ channel in World of Warcraft. Where /say (/s) is used for speech and dialogue, /e is used for actions. It takes both of these channels to create an immersive roleplay scene. If you want to know more about the basics of Rp you can find them here: Getting Started in Roleplay.
If we could only see what characters were saying we might be able to follow the basic gist of the scene or plot but we would be missing a lot of context and flavour. Imagine watching something on Netflix but you are only about to hear it. The story would be vastly less immersive and much more difficult to follow. For this reason, emotes are vital in roleplay.
Basic Emotes
Building a basic emote is fairly simple. It’s a description of actions and usually delivered to highlight any change of state. So if your character does anything, makes any motions or movements then you would use an emote to highlight what it was.
A common pace is to deliver one /e alongside every one /s; as a pair. What the character says and what they do, then wait for your counterpart to have their turn doing similar. This can be a good frame of reference to keep in mind, but don’t get too hung up on it, you don’t need to drop a new fresh emote every single time your character speaks. But every time they speak think about how they are standing or sitting and what they are doing and if an emote might be useful.
Tweet ThisUpgraded Emotes
To really stand out when it comes to writing emotes there are a few things you can keep in mind. A basic emote will highlight the character’s movement. If they sit or stand or arrive or leave and so on. To stand out you need to think about more than just the basic movements your character is making. Think about the atmosphere and setting you are trying to put across. Maybe include extra details in your emotes like sounds, smells and other effects of their setting that helps form the world around them and give the scene around them more flavour.
You can bring extra flavour to the character themselves as well. Instead of just describing how and when they move, bring in the details. Describe how they are standing, their expression and how it shifts, what they do with their hands when they are idle or distracted.
Show Don’t Tell
Remember one of the golden rules of writing; show don’t tell. This means instead of saying; ‘’James has an angry expression on his face as he stands.’’. You could alter it instead to read something like; ‘’James rose from the chair, his fingers curling into fists by his sides and his jaw tensing; tugging the corners of his lips down into a budding frown.’’. Instead of telling your counterparts that your character is angry, you’ve shown them he is but in a much more flavourful and atmospheric way.
Things to Avoid
There are things to try and avoid when it comes to writing emotes. Beyond telling instead of showing that is. Try to avoid using overly purple prose, and huge words just for the sake of huge words, it doesn’t really add anything of value to the scene. Similarly to dialogue in /s you should try and avoid massively long emotes, try and keep your emotes within two 250-limit text boxes if you can.
You may also find some people use emotes to frame some speech. They will put the dialogue within the emote framed in speech marks. While this is usually accepted as some speech is linked to certain emotes, be careful about overusing it. And try and avoid putting emotes into /s. It seems to be one of those things that only works one way.
There is also a debate over the use of emotes to frame things your character is thinking. Some people hate it being used for such and some people don’t mind it, I’ll leave that one down to your personal preference, but with the warning that some people may take issue with it.
Conclusion
Emotes are a vital tool in your roleplay toolbox and used well, they can be the bread and butter of setting the theme and atmosphere to your entire character. They can set you apart as one of the best if used thoughtfully and carefully.
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