Terminology

A practical reference for terminology used throughout StarForgeRP, collaborative roleplay, continuity discussions, and the SWTOR-era setting.

Some terms describe how players interact or organize stories. Others describe the way StarForgeRP preserves continuity, distinguishes sources, dates events, or refers to major parts of the Old Republic setting.

These terms describe common distinctions used during collaborative roleplay. The definitions here provide quick reference; Roleplay Guidelines provides the fuller expectations surrounding player cooperation, character agency, boundaries, conflict, knowledge, and consequences.

Character Agency

A player's meaningful control over their own character's choices, intentions, reactions, and development.

Agency does not make a character immune to danger, failure, injury, opposition, or consequences. It means other participants create circumstances for that character to answer rather than unilaterally deciding the character's important choices, thoughts, relationships, or final outcomes.

Consent

Out-of-character agreement concerning participation, personal boundaries, or significant developments affecting a roleplay situation.

Consent does not require players to predetermine every in-character result. Stories can still contain uncertainty, disagreement, failure, conflict, and consequences while participants communicate about matters that substantially affect one another's characters or boundaries.

Game Master / GM

A participant who facilitates or coordinates a particular story, mission, event, or scenario.

A GM may establish circumstances, portray supporting characters, describe environments, provide information, or coordinate a larger situation. StarForgeRP does not require every roleplay to have a GM; many stories develop directly among the participating players.

Godmodding

Writing another player's character as though important actions, reactions, thoughts, injuries, or outcomes have already been decided for them.

An attempted attack, deception, threat, or other action can create something another character must answer. Deciding both the attempt and the other character's final response removes that player's meaningful opportunity to do so.

IC — In Character

Dialogue, actions, perceptions, beliefs, or information belonging to a character within the fictional setting.

Something presented IC represents what the character says, does, believes, notices, or reasonably knows rather than what the player knows outside the story.

Metagaming

Using out-of-character information to influence a character's actions when the character has no reasonable in-character way to possess that information. 

A player may know something from another dossier, campaign record, Timeline entry, or private discussion without their character knowing it. Character knowledge should arise through believable circumstances such as conversation, observation, investigation, reputation, research, records, or prior experience. 

NPC — Non-Player Character

A character portrayed primarily in a supporting role rather than as one of a participant's principal player-characters in the story. 

NPCs may be original supporting characters or, when appropriate, established SWTOR characters. They may be portrayed by a GM or another participant according to the needs of the roleplay. 

OC — Original Character

A character created by a player or community rather than an established character originating in official Star Wars material. 

An OC may be a player-character, supporting NPC, historical community figure, or another original person established within StarForgeRP continuity. 

OOC — Out of Character

Communication, information, or decisions belonging to the players rather than their characters. 

OOC discussion may coordinate a scene, clarify intentions, establish boundaries, distinguish player knowledge from character knowledge, resolve confusion, or discuss continuity. 

PC — Player Character

A character directly portrayed by a participant as one of their principal characters in roleplay. 

PC and OC describe different things. PC describes a character's role in play; OC describes the character's origin outside established Star Wars material. 

Player Knowledge & Character Knowledge

Player knowledge is what the person participating in the roleplay knows. Character knowledge is what their character could reasonably know within the fictional setting. 

StarForgeRP is primarily a player-facing archive. Information being visible to a player does not automatically make it public or accessible to every character. When the distinction matters, consider how the character could reasonably have observed, learned, researched, remembered, or been told the information. 

Powergaming

Playing a character in a way that consistently removes meaningful uncertainty, vulnerability, opposition, or opportunity for other participants to affect the situation. 

A powerful, experienced, wealthy, influential, or highly skilled character is not automatically powergaming. The problem arises when abilities, authority, resources, or narrative claims make meaningful failure, resistance, or counterplay effectively impossible. 

RP — Roleplay

Collaborative storytelling in which participants portray characters within a shared fictional setting.

StarForgeRP roleplay may take place through SWTOR, Discord, or another format agreed upon by the participants. The website preserves the characters, relationships, locations, stories, discoveries, and consequences that may remain important afterward.

Scene

A distinct period of in-character interaction centered on a particular situation, location, or group of characters.

A conversation, confrontation, investigation, journey, meeting, negotiation, battle, or other focused interaction may constitute a scene. Most scenes do not need their own permanent archive or Timeline entry.

Session

A practical period during which participants conduct roleplay.

These terms describe how StarForgeRP organizes characters, developing stories, opportunities, and persistent continuity. They are reference and archive tools rather than rigid stages every roleplay must follow.

Active Roleplay / Current Storyline

Roleplay whose situation, outcome, or consequences are still developing within the shared continuity.

A current storyline may involve a campaign, mission, event, investigation, relationship, political development, personal problem, local dispute, or another continuing thread. Scale does not determine whether a story is current; what matters is that something important about it remains in development.

Use Active Roleplay for a broad view of developing stories while detailed records remain with the appropriate campaign, mission, event, character, organization, location, or other entry.

Affiliation

A meaningful connection between a character and a faction, organization, institution, community, or other group.

An affiliation may represent membership, employment, military service, allegiance, partnership, patronage, association, or another established relationship. Affiliation does not automatically imply complete ideological agreement or unquestioning loyalty.

Campaign / Story Arc

A connected narrative that develops across multiple characters, scenes, missions, events, locations, or periods of roleplay.

StarForgeRP uses campaign and story arc broadly rather than enforcing a rigid distinction between them. Some are deliberately coordinated; others emerge gradually as separate developments become connected. Campaigns & Story Arcs preserves these longer narratives without requiring a predetermined ending.

Character Dossier

The primary StarForgeRP reference page for an individual character.

A dossier preserves the information most useful for understanding who the character is, where they fit within the shared setting, which relationships and circumstances continue to affect them, and where believable opportunities for roleplay may exist. See Character Dossier Guidelines for fuller guidance.

Current Status / Archive Status / RP Availability

Three separate kinds of information that may appear on a character dossier.

Current Status describes the character's in-universe condition, such as alive, deceased, missing, imprisoned, destroyed, deactivated, or another meaningful circumstance.

Archive Status describes how the dossier is categorized within StarForgeRP, such as active, inactive, retired, or historical.

RP Availability describes whether the player is presently seeking new scenes, connections, or story involvement involving that character.

These labels answer different questions. A living character may be unavailable for new roleplay, while an inactive, retired, or historical dossier may remain important to established continuity.

Faction

A broad political, military, ideological, cultural, or allegiance-based power within the setting.

On StarForgeRP, faction is primarily a reference category. A faction can encompass multiple governments, institutions, organizations, communities, and individual viewpoints rather than functioning as a single uniform body.

Mission

Focused roleplay organized around an objective, assignment, investigation, expedition, conflict, or problem.

A mission gives characters something concrete to act upon without deciding their methods or whether they succeed. Missions may stand alone or connect to campaigns, events, or hooks. Existing records can be browsed through Missions.

Organization

A specific named group with an identifiable purpose, membership, structure, leadership, or continuing identity.

Military units, companies, crews, intelligence services, criminal groups, religious orders, research bodies, political movements, and community-created groups may all qualify. An organization is normally more specific than the wider faction or political environment in which it operates.

Participation

Practical information describing whether additional characters may become involved in a piece of roleplay.

Participation is separate from story status. A mission, event, campaign, or other developing story can already be active while remaining open to additional characters.

Labels vary according to the roleplay type. Missions may use Open, Limited, or Closed, while Events may use Open, Coordinated, or Closed. These labels describe access to the roleplay rather than a character's in-universe importance or any guarantee about the outcome. 

Roleplay Hook / RP Hook

A circumstance that gives characters a believable reason to meet, become involved, or begin a story.

A hook may involve a rumor, professional need, contract, investigation, obligation, relationship, missing person, opportunity, local dispute, or unresolved problem. It establishes a possibility rather than a predetermined result. Open opportunities can be found through RP Hooks.

RP Event

Roleplay centered on characters gathering around a particular occasion, place, or developing situation.

An Event may be a ceremony, reception, political function, competition, military assembly, criminal gathering, celebration, emergency, or another circumstance that gives characters a reason to be present. Unlike a Mission, participants do not necessarily share one objective. See RP Events.

Shared Continuity

The accumulated history and circumstances treated as established within StarForgeRP.

Shared continuity allows later stories to inherit earlier developments. Relationships can change, organizations can evolve, locations can be altered, missions can leave consequences, and older events can continue influencing characters years later.

Not every scene needs permanent documentation. Preserve the developments that later roleplay may reasonably need to remember.

Story Archive

The collection of concluded roleplay preserved because its events or consequences remain useful to StarForgeRP continuity.

Archived does not mean erased or outside continuity. A concluded story may still matter because of changed relationships, discoveries, unresolved conflicts, damaged locations, reputations, obligations, losses, or other consequences it left behind. See Story Archive.

Story Status

A label describing where a story or roleplay record stands in its development.

Exact labels depend on the record type because a mission, event, campaign, hook, or other developing story may require different distinctions.

Story Status and Participation answer different questions. Status describes where the story stands; Participation describes whether additional characters may become involved.

Timeline Event / Timeline Entry

A chronological record of a development whose timing or consequences are useful to the wider shared continuity.

StarForgeRP distinguishes where information comes from so that SWTOR material, compatible supplementary lore, community-created continuity, interpretation, and uncertainty are not presented as though they have the same source or certainty.

These terms concern provenance and confidence rather than whether an idea is interesting or useful for roleplay. The full framework is explained through Continuity & Canon.

Branching SWTOR Outcome

An outcome produced by an SWTOR player choice when the game permits mutually exclusive possibilities.

A result from one personal playthrough does not automatically become universal StarForgeRP history. When a branching outcome matters to shared continuity, StarForgeRP may leave the question unresolved or deliberately adopt one version.

An adopted outcome becomes a StarForgeRP continuity decision. It should not be described as though SWTOR itself offered no alternative.

Canon

A broad term for material treated as officially or authoritatively established within a fictional continuity.

Because the word can mean different things in wider Star Wars discussion, StarForgeRP normally benefits from more precise distinctions such as Established SWTOR Lore, Supplementary Legends Lore, StarForgeRP-Created Material, Interpretation / Extrapolation, and Uncertain / Unsupported.

Continuity

The body of events, circumstances, relationships, and setting information treated as established for a particular story or shared setting.

Lore describes what exists or is established. Continuity also concerns how those facts, characters, and events fit together across time.

Continuity Conflict

A situation in which two established claims cannot reasonably both be true as currently recorded.

Before treating something as a conflict, check whether the difference results from chronology, location, scope, terminology, changing circumstances, or different continuity levels. Genuine conflicts should be clarified or deliberately resolved rather than silently combined into a new version.

Era-Appropriate

Consistent with what reasonably exists or applies during the historical period in which the story takes place.

A government, organization, species, technology, title, institution, cultural practice, or tradition may exist somewhere in Star Wars without existing in the same form during every era. Later Star Wars circumstances should not automatically be projected backward into the SWTOR period.

Established SWTOR Lore

Information directly established by Star Wars: The Old Republic or closely related official SWTOR material.

This provides StarForgeRP's primary external-lore foundation. Where SWTOR directly establishes a significant historical event, institution, character, location, or condition, community-created material should normally work within that foundation rather than replacing it.

Gameplay Mechanic

A system or abstraction used because SWTOR is a video game rather than necessarily because the fictional galaxy literally operates that way.

Character levels, cooldowns, enemy respawns, inventory limits, repeatable content, interface systems, combat balancing, and simplified map scale are examples of mechanics that should not automatically become in-universe facts.

Narrative material presented through gameplay may still establish characters, events, locations, technology, or other lore.

Headcanon

A personal interpretation, assumption, preference, or explanation that has not been established by available source material or shared StarForgeRP continuity.

Headcanon can be useful for exploring a character or an unanswered part of the setting. It does not automatically become something every participant or reference page must accept.

Interpretation / Extrapolation

A reasonable conclusion, reconstruction, or expansion used where established material leaves a useful gap.

Interpretation should remain compatible with better-established continuity wherever possible and should not be presented as information directly confirmed by SWTOR or another source. When the evidence cannot support a reliable answer, leaving the question uncertain may be preferable.

Lore

Information describing the fictional setting: its peoples, governments, organizations, cultures, histories, locations, technologies, beliefs, conflicts, and other established circumstances.

On StarForgeRP, Lore primarily explains what something is. Timeline material records when significant developments occurred, while Roleplay preserves the stories through which community continuity develops.

Lore-Compatible

Able to coexist reasonably with established lore without the idea itself needing to appear in an official source.

A minor original character, business, organization, settlement detail, local custom, or community event may be lore-compatible when it occupies space the established setting leaves open. Lore-compatible does not mean officially confirmed.

Retcon

A deliberate retrospective change to something previously treated as established.

A retcon may be used when shared continuity deliberately revises an earlier decision, corrects an established error, or responds to stronger evidence that makes an earlier version untenable. Changes that materially affect existing characters or stories should be documented clearly enough that outdated versions do not continue creating confusion.

StarForgeRP-Created Material

Original characters, relationships, organizations, locations, events, discoveries, consequences, and other developments established within StarForgeRP continuity.

Community-created history can matter at personal, local, organizational, planetary, or regional scales. It exists alongside the external SWTOR foundation rather than becoming official SWTOR lore merely because StarForgeRP has established it.

Supplementary Legends Lore

Compatible information drawn from broader Star Wars Legends material and used to supplement SWTOR where appropriate.

Legends sources can provide useful context when SWTOR leaves a subject incomplete, but historical applicability still matters. Information established centuries or millennia earlier or later should not automatically be assumed to describe unchanged Old Republic conditions.

Uncertain / Unsupported

Information for which available sources or established StarForgeRP records do not provide a reliable answer.

Unknown information may remain unknown. When evidence is incomplete or contradictory, preserving uncertainty is preferable to turning speculation into established fact.

StarForgeRP distinguishes whether an event is established from how confidently its exact date can be placed. Something may be known to have happened even when the source does not provide a precise calendar year.

Confirmed

A date directly established by an appropriate source or by the documented StarForgeRP record of the event.

Approximate

A date or period for which the general chronological placement is reasonably known but an exact date is not reliably established.

Reconstructed

A date inferred from established chronology, story sequence, surrounding events, or other available evidence rather than directly stated by the original source.

A reconstructed date is a chronology decision and should not be presented as though the source itself supplied that exact date.

Uncertain

A chronological placement for which available information supports only a broad range, period, or sequence.

Continuity Anchor / Present-Day Anchor

The chronological point StarForgeRP uses as its shared present for ongoing roleplay and archive organization.

The anchor allows characters and developing stories to share a historical reference point without requiring every scene to occur on the same fictional day. The current anchor and its level of date certainty are maintained through Current Setting.

Story Baseline

The extent of established SWTOR narrative that StarForgeRP treats as having already occurred before its shared present.

The Story Baseline answers a different question from the continuity anchor. The baseline identifies which SWTOR story developments belong to StarForgeRP's adopted historical background; the anchor identifies where the shared present is placed chronologically.

The adopted baseline is maintained through Current Setting rather than repeated in this glossary.

In-Universe Date / Play Date

The In-Universe Date is when an event or scene occurs within StarForgeRP continuity. The Play Date is the real-world date on which participants conducted the roleplay.

These terms commonly appear in Old Republic histories and StarForgeRP records. The definitions below provide enough context for interpreting the archive; more detailed histories belong with the appropriate Lore or Timeline material.

ABY / BBY

ABY means After the Battle of Yavin. BBY means Before the Battle of Yavin.

Because the SWTOR era takes place thousands of years before the Battle of Yavin, SWTOR-era dates expressed in this system appear as BBY.

StarForgeRP uses BBY as a common archival reference system. Characters living during the Old Republic do not need to use BBY as their own in-character dating convention.

ATC / BTC

ATC means After the Treaty of Coruscant. BTC means Before the Treaty of Coruscant.

SWTOR's Galactic History uses the Treaty of Coruscant as its chronological dividing point, with the Treaty at ATC 0. StarForgeRP may therefore use BTC or ATC when that system provides useful Old Republic historical context.

Cold War

The period of uneasy peace following the Treaty of Coruscant, when the Galactic Republic and Sith Empire remained formally at peace while political rivalry, military preparation, covert action, territorial disputes, and localized conflict continued.

The term is especially useful for the political circumstances surrounding the beginning of SWTOR's original class stories. It should not be used as a generic name for every later period of Republic–Imperial conflict.

Empire / Imperial

Unless another period is clearly identified, Empire and Imperial normally refer on StarForgeRP to the SWTOR-era Sith Empire.

This should not be confused with the Galactic Empire that arises thousands of years later. When discussing another historical period, identify the relevant government clearly enough to avoid ambiguity.

Galactic Republic / Republic

One of the principal galactic powers of the SWTOR era, governed through the Galactic Senate and historically allied with the Jedi Order.

The Republic and Jedi Order remain distinct institutions even where their histories and interests are closely connected.

On StarForgeRP, Republic normally refers to this Old Republic government unless the surrounding context identifies another era.

Great Galactic War / Great War

The major war between the returning Sith Empire and Galactic Republic that preceded SWTOR's opening circumstances and ended with the Treaty of Coruscant.

Its effects extended far beyond the battlefield, shaping governments, military careers, occupied worlds, displaced populations, families, trade, political relationships, and the tensions that followed the treaty.

KOTOR

Common abbreviation for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

KOTOR takes place roughly three centuries before the SWTOR-era conflict surrounding the Treaty of Coruscant and provides important historical background for Revan, the Jedi Civil War, the Mandalorian Wars, and other developments remembered during SWTOR.

Institutions, governments, cultures, and political conditions appearing in KOTOR should not automatically be assumed to remain unchanged centuries later.

Sith / Sith Pureblood

Sith is a context-sensitive term. Depending on the subject, it may refer to members of the Sith Order or tradition, individual Sith Lords, historical Sith civilizations, or the ancient Sith species from which the name originated.

For clarity, StarForgeRP normally uses Sith Pureblood when specifically referring to the SWTOR-era species or ancestry, while Sith may describe practitioners and institutions of the Sith tradition when the intended meaning is clear.

Official SWTOR species material explains that the name Pureblood is not genetically literal. The modern population developed through generations of intermingling between the ancient Sith species and the Dark Jedi who conquered them.

Being a Sith Pureblood and being a Sith are therefore related but not interchangeable descriptions.

Sith Empire

The Sith-led galactic power that opposes the Galactic Republic through much of SWTOR's history.

The Sith Empire contains far more people than members of the Sith Order alone. Its society also includes military personnel, intelligence services, administrators, specialists, workers, civilians, and other Imperial subjects.

Where ambiguity is possible, use Sith Empire for the state and Sith for the Force tradition or its members.

SWTOR

Common abbreviation for Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Within StarForgeRP, SWTOR may also be used as shorthand for the game's historical era, setting, or directly related body of lore when the intended meaning is clear from context.

Treaty of Coruscant

The peace agreement that ended the Great Galactic War between the Galactic Republic and Sith Empire after Imperial forces attacked Coruscant during the peace negotiations.

The resulting agreement forced major Republic concessions and became a defining chronological reference point for the period. SWTOR's Galactic History uses the Treaty as ATC 0, dividing BTC dates from ATC dates.