Terminology

A quick reference to language used in StarForgeRP roleplay, character dossiers, shared continuity, and Old Republic history.

Asynchronous Roleplay

Roleplay conducted through exchanges that do not require participants to respond at the same time. A scene may develop over hours or days of real-world communication while representing a much shorter period within the story. Participants should coordinate reply expectations and the scene’s place in the fictional chronology.

Character Agency

A player’s control over their character’s important choices, thoughts, responses, and development. Agency allows danger, failure, and lasting consequences within the boundaries and resolution methods participants have agreed upon.

Consent

Agreement between players about participation, boundaries, or developments affecting their characters. Agreeing that a consequence is possible does not require deciding that it will happen. Boundaries can be clarified or changed as play develops.

Game Master / GM

A participant who facilitates a scenario by describing circumstances, portraying supporting characters, and coordinating challenges. Their authority to resolve contested outcomes depends on the participants’ agreement. Roleplay can also proceed without a GM.

Godmodding

Deciding another player-character’s significant actions, thoughts, reactions, or outcomes without agreement. Describing an attempted strike allows a response; declaring another character defeated removes that choice unless the outcome has already been agreed upon.

IC — In Character

What happens or is expressed within the fiction, including a character’s actions, speech, experiences, beliefs, and knowledge. An IC statement may be mistaken, deceptive, or incomplete.

Metagaming

Using information known to the player as though their character knows it, without a believable in-universe source. Reading a concealed affiliation in a dossier does not establish that another character has discovered it.

NPC — Non-Player Character

A character portrayed as part of a scenario’s supporting cast rather than as a participant’s player-character. A GM or another participant may portray an NPC. Supporting characters can be original creations or established setting figures used appropriately.

OC — Original Character

A character created outside official Star Wars material. An OC may be a player-character or a supporting character. “Original” describes their source, not their importance within the story.

OOC — Out of Character

Communication and decisions made between participants outside the fiction. OOC discussion helps coordinate scenes, clarify boundaries and knowledge, and resolve misunderstandings.

Origin Story / Combat Style

In SWTOR, an Origin Story determines the character's starting narrative, while a Combat Style determines how the character fights in gameplay. These terms replaced the older class and advanced class labels, respectively. Neither choice automatically establishes a StarForgeRP character's personal history, training, rank, or roleplay capabilities; those depend on the character's established background and experiences.

PC — Player Character

A character a participant plays as their own within a story. PC describes the character’s role in play; OC describes where the character originated. A character can be both, and a participant may portray more than one PC.

Player Knowledge & Character Knowledge

Player knowledge includes information available outside the fiction. Character knowledge depends on what the character has experienced or could reasonably have learned within it.

A publicly readable page does not make its contents public knowledge in the galaxy. Private relationships, restricted records, concealed motives, and undiscovered information retain their established boundaries.

Powergaming

Using abilities, resources, authority, or narrative control to prevent meaningful resistance, failure, or contribution by other participants. Exceptional capability alone does not establish powergaming; the issue is how that capability is used in collaborative play.

RP — Roleplay

Shared storytelling through the portrayal of characters. StarForgeRP roleplay may take place in SWTOR, Discord, or another agreed format, with consequential developments preserved for future stories.

Scene

A focused interaction or situation within a story, such as a negotiation, investigation, or confrontation. A scene can be important to its participants without needing a separate permanent record.

Session

These terms describe story formats, character information, and continuing records. They help organize shared roleplay without requiring every story to follow the same sequence.

Active Roleplay / Current Storyline

An ongoing story or developing situation, from a personal relationship to a larger campaign. Current Storylines provides an overview and links to the records that explain individual developments.

Affiliation

A connection to a group through membership, employment, service, allegiance, patronage, or another established relationship. Distinguish current affiliations from former ones when relevant. Affiliation does not establish agreement with everything a group believes or does.

Campaign / Story Arc

A continuing narrative connecting multiple scenes, characters, missions, or events. It may be planned in advance or emerge through play. Campaigns & Story Arcs collects these longer narratives.

Character Dossier

A continuing reference for a character’s identity, circumstances, history, relationships, and opportunities for interaction. Character Dossier Guidelines explains how to make the record useful to other players and shared continuity.

Current Status / Archive Status / RP Availability

These describe different aspects of a character record.

• Current Status: The character’s condition within the fiction, such as alive, missing, imprisoned, deceased, destroyed, or deactivated.

• Archive Status: The dossier's recorded archive classification, when one has been specified.

• RP Availability: Whether the player is open to additional scenes or connections involving the character.

A living character may be unavailable for new roleplay. An inactive or historical dossier can still preserve information essential to an ongoing story.

Faction

A grouping defined by political power, allegiance, ideology, or another significant division within the setting. A faction may encompass several institutions and communities whose interests do not always align.

Flashback

A scene set earlier than the point currently being portrayed in a story. A flashback follows the circumstances, relationships, and knowledge applicable at that earlier time. Its place in shared chronology depends on when its fictional events occurred, not when participants played or recorded the scene.

Information Access

The circumstances under which a character can obtain or examine information within the fiction. Access may depend on personal experience, relationships, authorization, research, or an established discovery. A record available to players may remain restricted to characters, and access to one source does not automatically extend to related evidence or an entire investigation.

Mission

Roleplay centered on an objective or problem that characters attempt to address. A mission may involve investigation, negotiation, rescue, repair, exploration, or conflict; neither combat nor formal orders are required. Missions explains the format and provides access to its records.

Organization

An identifiable group with a continuing purpose or identity, such as a company, crew, military unit, order, or research institution. Organizations and factions can overlap; an organization may also operate within a larger faction without representing everyone in it.

Participation

Information about whether and how additional characters can join a story. Participation is separate from story progress and from a character’s in-universe knowledge or access.

Missions and RP Events explain their respective participation labels. Check the individual record for applicable circumstances. An opening for players does not automatically give their characters an invitation, security clearance, or knowledge of a secret operation.

Roleplay Hook / RP Hook

A believable opening for interaction, such as a request, rumor, obligation, relationship, opportunity, or unresolved problem. A hook gives characters a reason to become involved while leaving their responses and the outcome open. RP Hooks provides guidance and listed opportunities.

RP Event

Roleplay organized around a shared occasion or situation, such as a reception, memorial, competition, meeting, or emergency. Participants may have different reasons to attend and pursue different aims. RP Events provides access to these gatherings and their records.

Shared Continuity

The established history and circumstances that StarForgeRP stories inherit and develop. Relationships, discoveries, decisions, losses, and other consequences may shape later roleplay long after the original scene ends.

Story Archive

Records of concluded roleplay whose events or consequences remain relevant. Story Archive preserves those accounts. A finished story may leave unresolved questions or provide the starting point for another.

Story Status

A description of a story’s progress, such as whether it is planned, underway, paused, or concluded. The available labels depend on the story format.

Status and participation answer different questions. A story can be active but closed to new participants, and a concluded mission may have ended in failure or withdrawal.

Timeline Event / Timeline Entry

These terms distinguish sources, established information, proposed additions, interpretation, and unresolved questions. A source can establish that a claim was made without establishing that the claim is true.

Branching SWTOR Outcome

One of several incompatible results available through a game choice. An individual playthrough does not automatically establish the shared outcome. StarForgeRP may adopt one branch or leave an outcome unspecified while recognizing that the game offers alternatives.

Canon

Material treated as authoritative within a particular fictional continuity. Identify the relevant continuity when the distinction matters: official publication, applicability to SWTOR, and adoption into StarForgeRP are separate questions.

Continuity

The connected circumstances and history of a story or setting. Continuity concerns individual facts and how their timing, relationships, and consequences fit together.

Continuity Conflict

Established claims that cannot both be true under the same circumstances. Differences in date, location, scope, or perspective may explain an apparent conflict. A character’s mistaken account can coexist with an objective description of what happened.

Era-Appropriate

Supported by, or reasonably compatible with, the historical period being portrayed. A title, practice, technology, or institution appearing elsewhere in Star Wars does not establish that it existed unchanged during SWTOR.

Established SWTOR Lore

Information established by SWTOR’s narrative or closely related official material. This provides StarForgeRP’s primary external foundation. Evidence must still be read in context, including whether it presents objective information or a character’s limited perspective.

Gameplay Mechanic

A rule or abstraction that makes the game function, such as character levels, cooldowns, respawns, or inventory limits. These systems do not automatically describe in-universe reality. Narrative information conveyed through gameplay can still establish lore.

Headcanon

A personal interpretation or imagined detail that has not been established by the relevant sources or adopted into shared continuity. It may inform an individual concept without becoming something other participants must accept as fact.

Interpretation / Extrapolation

A conclusion drawn from evidence that does not directly establish the answer. Its reasoning and uncertainty matter when other characters or stories depend on it.

Creating a new character, event, or personal history introduces original material. Plausibility alone does not turn that invention into an evidence-based conclusion.

Lore

Information about the fictional galaxy: its history, inhabitants, cultures, institutions, places, technologies, and traditions. StarForgeRP’s Lore section provides subject references, while timeline and story records explain chronology and unfolding events.

Lore-Compatible

Able to fit established setting information without necessarily appearing in an official source. An original settlement or organization may be lore-compatible while remaining community-created material. Compatibility does not by itself establish adoption into shared continuity.

Proposed StarForgeRP-Created Material

New character details, places, relationships, events, or other original material offered for inclusion but not yet established in shared continuity. A proposal can fit existing lore without becoming confirmed history.

A proposed connection involving another participant’s character does not establish their character’s actions, feelings, decisions, or obligations.

Retcon

A retrospective change to previously established continuity or its meaning. An ordinary later development changes what happens next; a retcon revises how earlier material is understood. Consequential revisions need enough explanation for connected stories to remain coherent.

StarForgeRP-Created Material

Original characters, places, organizations, relationships, events, and other developments established within StarForgeRP. They form part of the shared setting without becoming official SWTOR material. Their absence from external references does not invalidate them.

Supplementary Legends Lore

Compatible material from the broader Star Wars Legends continuity used to provide additional context. Its relevance depends on the subject, historical period, and available SWTOR evidence. Current Star Wars canon does not automatically apply to SWTOR or Legends.

Uncertain / Unsupported

Uncertain information cannot presently be resolved with confidence. Unsupported information lacks an adequate basis for the particular claim being made. Neither description necessarily means false.

An event can be established even when its exact year is unknown. These terms describe the evidence and precision behind chronological placement, separately from whether an event comes from SWTOR or StarForgeRP continuity.

Confirmed

A date directly supported by the relevant source or established community record. Identify what provides that support when the distinction matters. A confirmed community date does not independently establish the dates of surrounding SWTOR events.

Approximate / Circa / c.

A date or range whose placement is supported in general terms but lacks exact precision. “Circa,” often abbreviated “c.,” means “approximately.” The size of the uncertainty depends on the available evidence.

Reconstructed

A date calculated or inferred from other evidence, such as dated events, narrative sequence, or stated intervals. A precise-looking year may still be reconstructed rather than directly given by a source.

A reconstructed date can also be approximate: reconstruction describes its basis, while approximation describes its precision.

Uncertain

A chronological placement is uncertain when the available evidence does not securely establish where an event belongs on the calendar.

Sequence Only

The relative order of events is established, but their exact calendar dates are not. The longer designation “Exact Date Uncertain · Event Order Confirmed” expresses the same distinction. A sequence-only entry preserves the known order without assigning an unsupported year or assuming how much time passed between events.

Continuity Anchor / Present-Day Anchor

A reference point used to place connected events within a shared chronology. A present-day anchor establishes the time adopted as StarForgeRP’s shared present. It gives ongoing stories common context without requiring every scene to occur on the same day.

Story Baseline

The extent of SWTOR’s narrative incorporated into StarForgeRP’s historical background. The baseline identifies which story developments have occurred; the present-day anchor places the shared setting in time. Current Setting maintains both.

In-Universe Date / Play Date

These definitions explain names and dating conventions encountered in Old Republic records. The linked references provide fuller histories and relevant institutional context.

ABY / BBY

After the Battle of Yavin / Before the Battle of Yavin. StarForgeRP uses BBY to date its Old Republic history for readers.

Larger BBY numbers indicate earlier years. This is retrospective archival dating; contemporary Old Republic characters would not ordinarily name their calendar after a battle thousands of years in their future.

ATC / BTC

After the Treaty of Coruscant / Before the Treaty of Coruscant. SWTOR's Galactic History places the treaty at ATC 0 and presents BTC/ATC as a dating system adopted by the Galactic Senate. StarForgeRP's Galactic Timeline places the treaty at 3653 BBY and displays BTC/ATC dates alongside BBY. Unlike retrospective BBY dating, BTC/ATC belongs to the Old Republic setting itself.

Cold War

The uneasy peace between the Republic and Sith Empire after the Treaty of Coruscant. Espionage, proxy struggles, localized conflict, and preparations for renewed war continued. The term describes the period surrounding SWTOR’s opening stories rather than every later Republic–Imperial confrontation.

Empire / Imperial

In StarForgeRP’s SWTOR context, these usually refer to the Sith Empire and its people or institutions. Name the particular empire when another is intended or when the context could be ambiguous.

Galactic Republic / Republic

The Galactic Republic is an interstellar government represented through the Galactic Senate. Its longstanding relationship with the Jedi Order connects two distinct institutions. In StarForgeRP’s SWTOR context, “Republic” normally means this Old Republic government.

Great Galactic War / Great War

The Republic–Imperial war beginning with the Sith Empire’s return and ending with the Treaty of Coruscant. Its losses, occupations, and political consequences shaped the Cold War that followed. “Great War” refers to this conflict when used in that context.

KOTOR

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Its story takes place roughly three centuries before SWTOR’s opening era. Familiar names, places, and institutions connect the settings, but their circumstances may have changed across those centuries.

Sith / Sith Pureblood

“Sith” can refer to a dark-side tradition, its followers, associated institutions and civilizations, or the ancient species. Context determines the intended meaning.

The Sith Order is an institution. Sith Pureblood identifies the SWTOR-era people descended from the ancient Sith species and the Dark Jedi who intermingled with them. The name does not mean genetically unmixed ancestry.

Species, tradition, and institutional membership are distinct descriptions. Ancestry alone does not establish a character’s beliefs or allegiance.

Sith Empire

The Sith-ruled state opposing the Republic through much of SWTOR’s history. Its population includes military personnel, administrators, workers, and other civilians alongside Sith. Being Imperial does not automatically mean belonging to the Sith Order.

SWTOR

Star Wars: The Old Republic. The abbreviation may refer to the game, its narrative material, or the period and setting it portrays.

Treaty of Coruscant