Everybody either really enjoys DarkRP, or hate it with a burning passion. I am both.

For those who dislike DarkRP, the gamemode represents the worst part of the community: low effort, low skill server owners whose “””community””” is a front for money grabbing. Their pest-like prevalence choked out the diverse range of experiences in GMod and left a smoking ruin devoid of creativity. And to that end, I find that assessment correct.

But it also isn’t that simple. Roleplaying servers of all varieties take up the majority of active GMod servers, with some even claiming it’s what’s holding the game together. If it’s such a low-effort ordeal, why do people still flock to it and stick around? At the end of the day, these servers offer a social multiplayer experience that is hard to find elsewhere, and there are interesting elements of design that go into it. Some six odd years ago, I started running my first DarkRP server out of sheer spite, and I’d like to put down some thoughts I have about roleplaying (and DarkRP), as well as what “designing” one entails.

Let’s make some definitions

I should first advise readers to treat “roleplay” as a descriptor for GMod servers as meaningful as “RPG” is for action games – that is to say, it only describes a superficial part of the experience. In general however, roleplay servers share some similarities. Players tend to have some sort of job or role that is either assigned to by an admin/another player, or chosen freely. Such job or role usually has mechanical features (such as a Gun Dealer’s ability to buy weapon shipments) and a narrative role (such as being a gangster or police).

In addition to laws enforced by certain jobs or roles in-character, there are usually server rules that enforce roleplaying (or “enforce roleplaying”, if you prefer). The strictness of the rules generally define the “type” of servers, and they largely fall into five archetypes:

“Lawless” servers that have almost no gameplay restrictions. While much more true to DarkRP’s original form, these servers are very niche.

“Modern” servers (this is a personal definition). These servers almost always have RDM, NLR and raid advert rules. (I will explain these below). These take up a significant portion of the roleplaying servers.

Military / combat servers (including most StarWarsRP). Players generally have to follow a hierarchy made of other players, and participate in combat against another faction.

“Semi-Serious” servers that are more restrictive on player interaction. Some jobs like the police require admin approval to become. Many themed roleplaying servers follow this category.

Serious servers that emphasize roleplaying. These servers are much more similar to pen-and-paper roleplaying, with large amounts of text-based and dice-based interactions, combat being handled in roleplay and not through shooter gameplay, and admin supervision. The most notable variant is HL2RP, themed around Half-Life 2 lore.

DarkRP is only one of several gamemode choices for a roleplay server, although its flexibility, early arrival and ease of use contributed to a lot of its popularity and notoriety. The majority of servers in the first four categories use DarkRP, and its mechanics are worth examining and critiquing.

I will mostly be talking about the “Modern” types of servers, as they are the most abundant kinds, most associated with the name of DarkRP, and the type I have the most experience hosting and playing.

What’s the deal with DarkRP?

In its out-of-the-box form, DarkRP is a “restricted sandbox”. It is based off sandbox, meaning that players can spawn props and use most of the tools from sandbox. Players can freely choose one of 9 jobs, which largely define what the player can (and is expected to) do: Gun dealers sell guns, hobos beg for money, gangsters do crime, and cops enforce the law. There are very few mechanics in place, but the most crucial one is the money system.

In vanilla DarkRP, there are only two ways to generate money: passively gain salary, or the money printer gangsters can buy. Because of this, money becomes a conduit for interactions. Almost every job is expected to get money from other people, who gets their money from other people. It’s like that joke where every artist hands the next artist the same $100 bill around buying commissions. While having more money allows the player to easily get guns or start printing more money, there isn’t an ultimate goal. The core of the gamemode, after all, is roleplaying (or at the least, social interaction). Many a player have changed their name to Adolf Hitler, tried to become the mayor, and start a little Third Reich right in rp_downtown_v4c’s police station. And to be honest, that’s funny every time.

However, this “restricted sandbox” philosophy is very old school, and largely faded into history. “Modern” DarkRP is a vastly different beast, with added mechanics and rules changing the fundamental draw of the gamemode. The most common addition is more ways to get money. To “balance” it out against the venerable printer, these money-generating mechanics generally require some effort. For example, one script allows you to clean trash. To do so, you have to roam around the map, using a tool to interact with trash spots, then go to a machine to sell them off. Notice that during the entire process, you do not need to interact with any other players. Even if the rate of money gain is limited, it is much more reliable and convenient than hoping someone else will drop you a tip when you sing Wonderwall for the fifth time. There are mechanics that do involve player interaction though, one popular addition being some sort of bank robbery mechanic where you can try to heist a large sum of money while the cops try to stop you. While doubtlessly more interesting mechanic-wise, it is a simple, hostile interaction that starts with shooting each other and ends with one side being shot. While this is possible to resolve, most servers don’t do this for a simple reason:

Social interaction is no longer the core of DarkRP. It still exists, and is still a selling point for almost every player, but it is not the ultimate goal anymore. Instead, players have become accustomed to an experience all about acquiring money. In a sense, modern DarkRP to old-school DarkRP is almost like GTA Online to FiveM, although I cannot speak for the latter that much.

Another crippling blow to social interaction in modern DarkRP are the “Big Three” rules. All of the “Big Three” pertain to whether you are allowed to attack another player. Anyone who’s actually been in a DarkRP server will know these by heart and are rolling their eyes as they read, but for the rest, I will briefly explain what they are and why they harm the experience.

• RDM: Random Deathmatch. Under this rule, you are not allowed to kill someone unless “you have a valid reason”.
• NLR: New Life Rule. This rule literally means that you are expected to play as a new person after dying, but more practically prevents people from returning to their homes/bases after getting raided or revenge killing.
• Adverting: When someone attacks a base or home, or when they rob someone, they must announce it publicly. The intention is to let admins keep track of raids and enforce the two aforementioned rules.

In theory, these rules are a necessary evil that prevents some jerk with a gun from recreating the average American’s day in your server. In practice, not only do all three rules restrict the range and depth of social interaction, they also do not make the server any less unregulated. When any kill can be a potential rule violation, an admin will need to step in and drag two or more people away to resolve the issue. It also doesn’t allow for interesting social scenarios. What if a bunch of gun dealers proclaim they’re making an independent state and are defending a corner of the map with every gun they have? If they actually shoot anyone, it’s RDM. Mayor announces anyone with a gun out is shot on sight? Nope, RDM. And while the admin power trips over every decision they have to make, the server is not any less chaotic than it would have been. The overall outcome is a miserable experience for everyone.

So, what do we do about it?

There’s an adage in game design I’ve paraphrased, and it’s that “players don’t know what’s right, but they always know what’s wrong”. Despite my adoration of the old playstyle, it is impossible to resurrect it when the players expect something significantly different. Instead, the gamemode should be designed in a way that aligns with the player’s goal of acclimating money, while subtly encouraging them to interact with each other in meaningful ways; and the rules should be changed to

Most servers do not tread this ground because they are content with mediocrity that pays, but I am not most server owners. I remember, with incredibly hazy memory, the days where I played on DarkRP servers that were chaotic yet fun. It was these memories, contrasted with that one incredibly scummy server I played on, that drove me to my server hosting endeavors. From the first server to the current (and possibly the last), I hoped to create an experience that was enjoyable. In the future, I will slowly start documenting the mechanics I have added, the rules I have enforced, and my retrospective on them.

I’m writing some stuff for a new DarkRP server, too. Possibly my last, as I’m fully prepared to jump ship onto S&box the day it launches. But I do feel incomplete without giving RP a proper farewell, one last hurrah where I do everything right.