Presentation and Etiquette
As in real life, call before you come visiting; roleplaying etiquette does, at times, mimic real life etiquette. Not only is it good to remember that one's character will likely not know the name of a new character until introduced, but the player of a character with whom you wish to roleplay a significant scene may not have the time to do so if you wander by and simply commence it, when the other player has to leave in five minutes to pick up a child from school. Along these lines, too, it's always best to conclude a scene before leaving the game or logging off the character, or agree beforehand to continue the scene at a later time. Just as one would not leave a dinner without thanking one's hostess, when the roleplay has a critical effect upon one of the participants, it's very frustrating and off-putting for future roleplay opportunities to have one's character growth thrown into limbo by a roleplaying partner who suddenly realized she was supposed to meet a friend for dinner five minutes ago, and disconnected from the game without first excusing her character via roleplay. That player may then not log on for another week or more, leaving significant issues unresolved for the other participant.

On roleplaying-based games, punctuation and spelling does matter; players are expected to have a working knowledge of such in the game's language (typically English), so correct use of periods, ellipses, dashes, other punctuation, and spelling makes a difference to the quality of roleplay and the concentration put behind it. Everyone typos from time to time, but an effort should be made to spell correctly (not phonetically). If in doubt, pull out a spellchecker, dictionary, or just ask in the game's acceptable OOC manner. Not only does this make you more easily understood to players whose native language may not be that in which the game is staged, but, when used judiciously and appropriately, mis-spellings and changes in punctuation can provide color to how a character's speech flows; at other times, simply describing the effect or pattern of a character's speech via the emote (whether pose or say) may work better. Bearing in mind that a person's actions don't trail off into nothingness, nor does speech habitually do so, it's good form to use a period at the end of a sentence instead of another string of ellipses.

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