Quote:
Originally Posted by
Anna Banana 
I think (as far as OOC vs. IC goes), the hardest thing for me to get a grasp on is what my charrie should and shouldn't know in CLASSES. Most classes are presented in a way where a question is asked and a correct answer is at least hoped for. Options at that point are to either play your character as not knowing and therefore handing out some random thoughts...OR play your character OOC and google the answer.
I've played two characters back-to-back that were started in their first year, and option one really only worked for me during that first term for them. I found that after that, most of their peers in the same year were giving out correct answers, and the personal perspective from that was that if I continued to play my charrie as not knowing the answer, she'd be played as falling behind her peers. So from second year on out, I began to shift to a slightly OOC way of answering in class to make it what I assumed was more realistic.
I do have a tough time answering IC in class, because a lot of times, I feel like my charrie SHOULDN'T know what's being asked, yet there are only so many posts I can make where she's simply thinking and not really contributing.
OOOOH YES THIS.
I agree. I think it's tough sometimes trying to find a good IC/OOC balance in classes, because not EVERY first year can be Hermione Granger, but you still wanna participate and get points!
To combat this, I've started making posts where Caleb guesses something that is TOTALLY out in left field, or something that he would logically come up with based off his background knowledge. So that way he isn't just sitting there, but he's at least giving it a shot (even though I know OOC that it's totally wrong haha) but hey, it's something fun for the professor to respond to, right?
In a way, I feel like the RP sort of FORCES us to come up with good explanations as to why your charrie would know all that information about stuff that, technically, they probably shouldn't know IC. So I usually like to have a little write up in the post where I explain how Caleb read that once or overheard it somewhere or saw it at his muggleborn great-uncle's house because he has a TV. You know? Just a little explanation to make it more realistic.