What we look for

Are yer interested in joining The Order? Grand! Here’s what we look for in those inquiring about joining.

What we look for

Mature & helpful attitude

We look for players who are friendly, easygoing and mature, looking to have fun playing together with other hobbit characters.

We encourage our members to help each other. It is grand if you join others on quests and adventures, help them plan and arrange events, contribute with ideas for new events or activities, offer trade goods or services, etc.

Regular activity

We look for players who are around regularly in our ‘prime play time’, in other words during EU evenings. We look for active characters, typically main characters that you spend a significant amount of your LOTRO time on. It is no good for either of us if you are only able to turn up every once in a while, just for pre-planned events, or if you have many conflicting commitments in other kinships. If that happens, we won’t really get to know each other or play together.

We also look for players who have a wide variety of interests in LOTRO. In other words, we want you to take part in both social events (concerts, inn nights, markets etc.) and adventures (exploration, quests, skirmishes, instances, etc.). If you are only in it for one aspect of the game, you might be better served elsewhere.

Of course, real-life with family, work and busy schedules takes priority over anything game-related. Thus, we ask that you let us know in advance if you plan to be away for an extended period of time. Else, we’ll just start worrying about what has happened to you!

Roleplaying hobbits

We look for hobbit roleplayers who enjoy the Shire life as described in Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings Online”. The Grand Order spends a lot of time promoting hobbit roleplaying, a lively Shire life and (in many cases) hobbit-only events. It is critical that you have a desire to get involved with hobbit roleplaying, even at a basic level, and want to support Shire roleplaying.

Previous experience is useful, but not necessary. Should you be new to roleplaying, there are a few things you should know:

  1. Relax and don’t worry. Roleplaying isn’t that hard, and we are very forgiving to beginners.
  2. We also have a number of very experienced roleplayers and Tolkien enthusiasts that are happy to offer you advice or assistance.
  3. You can also find some help in this Beginner Guide to LOTRO roleplaying.
  4. The Prologue to Lord of the Rings is worth looking through, since it gives a good overview over hobbits, their traits and their history.

You are welcome to have a couple of hobbit alt characters in The Order, but we limit the number of alts to ensure that we get to know all the different characters well.

We expect our members to follow LOTRO’s policies and codes of conduct, especially the official roleplaying rules, at all times.

Social engagement

We look for players who wish to communicate with each other, not least by being active in our different channels.

In-game, we are mostly looking for in-character (IC) roleplay chat, in order to allow for roleplaying immersion. This means that you should talk like your hobbit would, about things concerning Middle-Earth. You should avoid being Out Of Character (OOC) and topics with a clear reference to real life or modern days. Also note that we avoid using leet speek, internet slang or emoticons in our kinship and public chat channels in-game.

General guidance for some chat channels:

  • /say, /shout, /emote: These are the “public” dialogue areas in-game, where most roleplaying takes place. We ask that you are fully IC in these channels. Going OOC is usually not necessary, and it always undermines in-character immersion. Using ((double-brackets)) in these channels just draws attention to the fact that you know that you are OOC, but that you don’t really care. The one regular exception to this rule is to give event time instructions ((for instance, 7:30PM UK time, see the Bramblebury Gazette at [link])).
  • Kinship chat channel: You should be active in our kinship chat channel, which is a lively mix of primarily in-character (IC) roleplay banter and some OOC game discussions. It is good if you separate any OOC chat here with brackets ((like this)). However, please limit the amount of OOC chat. Else, just be courteous to others, stay mostly in-character, say hello when logging in and goodbye when leaving, and things will be grand!
  • Discord: Outside of the game, we have set up a Discord channel for Laurelin hobbit roleplayers, for easier communication and coordination. We mostly use text channels, but we have a voice channel for the odd bit of chat and some music playing. In here, you can also be OOC, so please save the OOC chat for the Discord.

Applying to join

Does all this sound like you? If so, yer should consider sending us an application!