Roleplaying in WoW Forever

Everything a roleplayer needs before logging in: where RP players gather in Forever, how to use the new two-part names, which languages your character speaks and hears, the commands for emotes and dice, and what your character would and wouldn't know.

The Half-Pint Tavern loading screen from the WoW Forever client — The Half-Pint Tavern: a loading screen from the Forever client.

Ruleset: Roleplaying (no realm list: you pick a ruleset)
Names: Two parts, unique in your region
Factions: Both on one Roleplaying account; no cross-faction groups
Language quirk: Skyborne of both factions know Darnassian

The Roleplaying ruleset

Forever has no realm list. You choose a ruleset instead: Normal, PvP, Roleplaying or, later, Hardcore. Each ruleset is one large shared space rather than a single realm, and roleplayers gather on Roleplaying. Blizzard describes it in one line:

Roleplaying: For players who want to lean more deeply into the fantasy of Azeroth and seek out like-minded adventurers.
Blizzard: Choose Your Ruleset in World of Warcraft: Forever (Blizzard)

You can play both factions on the Roleplaying ruleset. Only PvP limits you to one.
Groups stay inside a ruleset. You can group, run dungeons and raid only with characters on the same ruleset. Battlegrounds can mix rulesets (except Hardcore).
Horde and Alliance still can't group together. Blizzard keeps the factions apart to keep the "war" in Warcraft, which matters for cross-faction RP (see languages below).
You can't move a character between rulesets. To play on another ruleset you make a new character there.
Legacy Points and collections are account-wide across rulesets (Hardcore works differently). The client's list of Legacy Challenges covers Normal, PvP and Roleplaying realms alike. See the Legacy calculator.

The client still has the realm-list description it has always shown for roleplaying realms. It's the best statement of what the ruleset expects, though Blizzard hasn't published Forever's own rules for it yet:

This ruleset has strict naming conventions and behavior rules for players interested in immersing themselves as a character in a fantasy-based world.
From the game client: The Roleplaying ruleset's description in the WoW Forever client (GAMETYPE_RP_TEXT)

Speculation: Blizzard lists only four rulesets (Normal, PvP, Roleplaying and Hardcore). The client still carries text for a "Roleplaying PVP" ruleset from older realm lists, but nothing says Forever will have one. Expect the Roleplaying ruleset to follow Blizzard's usual naming and behaviour policy until Blizzard says otherwise.

Our write-up of the rulesets and names is No more realm list: how rulesets and two-part names work.

Two-part names

Every Forever character has two names, like a first name and a surname, and the full pair must be unique in your region. That's a gift to roleplayers: the second name can be a family, a clan, a place or an epithet.

A second name can suggest a family, a place, a reputation, a title-like identity, or another word that helps the full name feel right.
Blizzard: Create a Name of Your Own in WoW: Forever (Blizzard)

Families and clans. Blizzard's own example is a family of three sharing one surname. An RP guild can do the same for a household, a warband or a clan.
Places. A second name taken from where your character comes from (a village, a valley, a ship) tells other roleplayers a story before you type a word.
Epithets. Orcs, trolls and tauren often suit a deed-name rather than a surname; a Skyborne might use the name of a village on Zephras Isle.
Rules still apply. Blizzard checks both parts together, so a banned word split across the two names is still banned. Don't use real-world names or anything that reveals who you are.
Hide it if you like. You can switch off your own second name in the game world (Options, Nameplates, "My Secondary Name"); it still shows in chat.

Each race page has naming ideas that fit that people's culture.

Languages

Every character speaks their faction's common tongue and, for most races, a racial language. When someone talks in a language you don't know, the game shows you invented words from that language's word list instead of their text. The table comes straight from the client's language skills:

Race	Faction	Languages
Human	Alliance	Common
Orc	Horde	Orcish
Dwarf	Alliance	Common, Dwarven
Night Elf	Alliance	Common, Darnassian
Undead	Horde	Orcish, Gutterspeak
Tauren	Horde	Orcish, Taurahe
Gnome	Alliance	Common, Gnomish
Troll	Horde	Orcish, Troll
High Order Skyborne	Alliance	Common, Darnassian
Windshaper Skyborne	Horde	Orcish, Darnassian

From the Forever client: the language skills each race starts with (SkillLine and SkillRaceClassInfo).

Common is the Alliance's shared tongue and Orcish the Horde's. The Skyborne follow their faction: the High Order speak Common, the Windshapers Orcish.
Darnassian is shared across the factions. The client gives it to night elves and to both Skyborne orders. It's the only racial language that an Alliance race and a Horde race both know.
Humans and orcs have only their faction's tongue. Every other Classic race has a second language of its own.
Gutterspeak is the Forsaken's own language; only the undead learn it.
Shen'dorei is a new language in the Forever client (Classic Era's client has no such language), named for the Skyborne. No race learns it as a skill, and its word list is almost the same as Thalassian's.

Speculation: Whether a Horde Windshaper speaking Darnassian can be read by Alliance night elves and High Order Skyborne is decided on Blizzard's servers, not in the client. The client gives both factions the language, and some sites report that it works; we haven't confirmed it in the beta ourselves. The Shen'dorei language is most likely for Skyborne NPCs, since no player learns it (our reading).

Tip: To speak a language, open the chat menu (the speech bubble next to the chat box) and pick Language, or use the drop-down in the chat box. Your racial language stays selected until you change it.

Emotes and commands

These are the commands roleplayers use most. Every one below is in the Forever client's list of slash commands and emotes.

/e: A custom emote: /e leans on the bar shows as "Name leans on the bar" to everyone nearby. Also /emote and /me.
/say: Speak aloud to people around you (/s). Your chosen language applies.
/yell: Shout, heard further away (/y).
/whisper: A private message to one character (/w Name). Handy for out-of-character notes.
/roll: A random number from 1 to 100 (/roll 20 for 1 to 20). The standard for settling contests and fights. Also /random.
/party: Talk to your group (/p): good for a scene's out-of-character planning.
/join: Join a chat channel, for an RP guild's or event's own channel.
/who: Find players, for example everyone in a zone.
/afk: Mark yourself away, so others know you've stepped out of the scene.
/dnd: Do not disturb: whispers get your message back.
/dance: Dance. Each race has its own; the Skyborne's is new in Forever.
/bow: A bow to someone.
/kneel: Kneel, before a king, a shrine or a grave.
/salute: A soldier's salute.
/wave: Wave hello or goodbye.
/sit: Sit down: at a tavern table, a campfire or on the ground.
/sleep: Lie down to sleep.
/pray: Pray.
/mourn: Mourn the fallen.
/read: Read a book or scroll.
/talk: Talking animations: /talk, /talkex (excited) and /talkq (a question). Useful to show who's speaking in a crowd.
/point: Point at something or someone.
/eat: Eat, for tavern scenes and campfires. /drink too.
/cheer: Cheer.
/forthealliance: The Alliance battle cry; /forthehorde for the Horde.
/introduce: Introduce yourself to someone.

Blizzard's Skyborne article also highlights /laugh, /flirt, /silly, /applaud, /bye, /hello, /cackle, /cry and /no. Forever's Camping lets you build a campfire that others can join: a natural stage for a scene on the road.

What your character would know

Forever is set in Year 1 (see the timeline). Some rules of thumb:

Recent wars. The Third War is recent memory. Your character may have fought in it, lost family to the plague of undeath or fled Lordaeron.
Faction leaders. Thrall leads the Horde from Orgrimmar and Cairne Bloodhoof the tauren; Sylvanas leads the Forsaken. Stormwind has a child king, Anduin Wrynn; Magni rules Ironforge and Tyrande Whisperwind the night elves (all from the client's faction texts).
The Scourge is still out there in the Plaguelands, and the Argent Dawn fights it.
No Outland, no Northrend. The Dark Portal is closed and nobody has sailed north. A character who knows those places is out of time.
The Skyborne are unknown. Nobody on the mainland has met them before Forever; they are also meeting Azeroth for the first time. A Skyborne character asking basic questions about orcs, gnomes or the Scourge is in character.
Forsaken paladins are new and distrusted, even by other Forsaken.
Lands are opening up. Mount Hyjal is recovering from Archimonde's defeat, Dalaran is in trouble and the Riverglades are a frontier. Travelling characters have fresh news to bring.
Gilneas is behind its wall. Nobody from outside knows what happens there; anything more is Speculation. See Gilneas.

Finding other roleplayers

The guild finder has a Role Playing interest, and the client explains it simply:

Role Playing is a specific type of gameplay where players stay in character at all times.
From the game client: The guild finder's Role Playing interest in the WoW Forever client

Make a channel for your guild or event with /join and share its name out of character.
Taverns and inns in the capitals are traditional meeting places. The places page has a note for each capital.
World events make good backdrops: the Lunar Festival, Hallow's End and the Darkmoon Faire all have lore of their own in the client.