Roleplay SMP server setup: DreamSMP and QSMP style guide

A roleplay SMP is not just a server with a "speak in character" rule. It is a separate sub-genre where storyline, factions, and lore arcs matter more than outfits and farms. Below we cover how to build one from scratch: from the Discord application to Twitter syncing of events, from the Lore Bible to immersion plugins.

What an RP SMP is and where it came from

An RP SMP rests on three pillars: characters with backstory, factions with conflicts, and scheduled story events. The player does not just build a base, they play a role: the hero has a name, background, goals, allies, and enemies. Actions in the world are read through that role, not as "I am Vanya123, I am bored, time to grief".

The genre took shape around three shows. DreamSMP launched in April 2020 as a closed 32-person whitelist and produced several arcs over two years (L'Manburg, Doomsday War, Las Nevadas), each with dozens of hours of streams. QSMP by Quackity started in April 2023 as a multilingual server with players from the US, Brazil, Spain, France, Korea, and the Philippines, with automated chat translation through a plugin. Empires SMP by Aypierre and Smajor1995 went a different way: each player rules their own empire, and conflicts resolve through war events.

If you launch your own RP SMP, remember: this is a media project as much as a server. Without writing work (Lore Bible, event schedule, faction descriptions) you end up with a generic whitelist SMP that players abandon in a month.

Whitelist and Discord applications

An open RP SMP does not work. Random players kill the atmosphere in one evening: one starts griefing, another posts "lol cringe" in chat, and the lore collapses. A whitelist is mandatory, and the filter has to be strict.

The standard scheme: a Discord server with an #applications channel, a form with required questions, review by a 2-3 person team, vote for or against. Minimum question set:

• Character name and brief backstory (200+ words)
• Character goals on the server and their weaknesses
• RP experience in Minecraft or other games
• Attitude toward OOC (out-of-character) behavior
• Willingness to attend events once a week
• Age (16+ usually, 18+ if the lore is heavy)

Applications are best handled through Discord Forms (a built-in forum-mode channel) or a Tickets bot. In practice 60-70% of applications get filtered at the reading stage: one-line answers, "wanna try rp lol", incompatible backgrounds (paladin in a cyberpunk setting). This is normal and even desirable.

After approval the player gets added to the whitelist via /whitelist add <name> and receives a Discord role that opens closed channels: #lore-archive, #in-character-chat, #event-schedule.

The Lore Bible: the server's main document

The Lore Bible is the canon document everyone reads before joining the world. Without it RP fragments into 5-6 unconnected stories.

Minimum Lore Bible structure:

• World history: what happened before the players arrived, what catastrophes, what ancient civilizations
• Geography: main regions, factions, neutral zones, dangerous lands
• Magic and technology: what works, what does not, the limits. If there is no magic, write that explicitly
• Gods and pantheon (if relevant): names, domains, symbols
• Timeline: time scale, current era, major historical events
• NPCs: key non-player characters with descriptions
• Languages and cultures: if factions are split ethnically or culturally

The most convenient place to keep a Lore Bible is Notion (free tier for teams up to 10 people) or Obsidian Publish with read-only links. Google Docs works too, but slows down with lots of images.

Update the Lore Bible after every major arc: a war between factions ended, add the outcome to "Timeline"; a new NPC appeared, give them a page.

Plugins for immersion

An RP SMP without plugins looks bare. Players come for atmosphere, vanilla falls short. The base stack:

Citizens for NPCs that hold dialogue. Useful for quest-givers, vendors, lore guides. Creating an NPC:

/npc create Hermit_Aldric
/npc skin --url https://example.com/skin.png
/npc command add say Welcome traveler, the gates of Eldoria are closed at night.

MythicMobs for custom bosses and skill-equipped mobs. Arcs need enemies more unique than zombies and skeletons. Mob config in MythicMobs/Mobs/custom.yml:

ShadowKnight:
  Type: WITHER_SKELETON
  Display: '&5Shadow Knight'
  Health: 200
  Damage: 12
  Equipment:
    - DIAMOND_SWORD HAND
    - NETHERITE_HELMET HEAD
  Skills:
    - skill{s=ShadowSlash} @target ~onTimer:60

ItemsAdder or Oraxen for custom items with models: artifacts, faction weapons, symbols of power. ItemsAdder needs a Geyser-compatible ResourcePack, and on a 30-60 player server the repack takes minutes.

HoloDisplays or DecentHolograms for floating text. Great for "Here fell Lord Veynan, 23rd day of the third era", labels above NPCs, region descriptions.

WorldGuard, not for anti-grief (this is not anarchy), but for faction borders and protected zones. Commands for the capital region:

/rg define eldoria_capital
/rg flag eldoria_capital build deny
/rg flag eldoria_capital pvp deny
/rg addmember eldoria_capital g:eldorians

Chat: channels and RP formatting

Default Minecraft chat does not fit RP. You need channels: local (heard within 50 blocks), global (for OOC), faction, whisper. And you need RP formatting for messages.

VentureChat or DeluxeChat plus PlaceholderAPI is the standard stack. VentureChat config for the /local channel:

channels:
  local:
    color: gray
    chatcolor: white
    distance: 50
    format: '&7[L] &f%player_displayname% &8» &f%message%'
    permissions: false

For the /global channel:

  global:
    color: yellow
    chatcolor: white
    distance: -1
    format: '&e[OOC] &f%player_displayname% &8» &f%message%'

The [OOC] prefix matters: on an RP server all messages are in-character by default. If a player wants to say something as themselves (a question about settings, an IRL joke), they use the global channel with an explicit tag.

For a proxy (BungeeCord/Velocity, if you run multiple servers) install ProxyChat. It keeps channels in sync across the network.

Events: schedule and Discord integration

Without events an RP SMP is dead. Players come for the shared story, not to farm iron alone.

A minimum cadence is one big event per week plus 1-2 micro-events. A big one is 2-3 hours of story with 15+ players: faction negotiations, a major battle, the opening of a new location. A micro one is 20-30 minutes: a strange NPC appears, an artifact found, a natural anomaly.

Schedules live in a Discord #event-schedule channel via the Sesh or Apollo bot. Players RSVP to events, the bot reminds them an hour before. In parallel, admins post story updates between events in #lore: "The Council of Eldoria has declared mourning for those who fell at the Battle of the Black Lake".

Twitter/X integration works the way DreamSMP and QSMP did it: players tweet in character, and those tweets count as canon. There is no actual server integration, it is discipline: the character's owner decides what their hero "wrote" to the in-world newspaper. When the community picks it up, meta-arcs grow at the real-world layer.

Builds: spawn, regional hubs, faction bases

Builds on an RP SMP carry lore weight. The spawn area should hint at the world's history at first glance: ruined walls of a past empire, a statue of a forgotten god, a portal to faction lands.

The standard scheme:

• Spawn is neutral territory, usually a "crossroads of worlds". Protected with WorldGuard build deny
• Regional hubs are portals or roads to major factions, themed in their aesthetic
• Faction bases are built by players, but inside a designated WorldGuard zone and within style rules from the Lore Bible
• Dangerous lands are PvP zones, ancient ruins, locations for adventure events

For spawn you usually hire one or two builders from the community with WorldEdit rights and creative mode through Multiverse. A quality RP spawn takes 40-80 hours of work.

Moderation: rules on metagaming and powerplay

RP moderation differs from regular. Banning for griefing or hacks is obvious. But RP introduces specific violations newcomers do not always recognize.

Metagaming is using information the character does not have. The player read in Discord that faction X is planning an attack, and his character "happens" to be ready. This is forbidden: separate player knowledge from character knowledge.

Powerplay is forcing another player's character into actions without consent. "I tied you up and am taking you prisoner" only works if the second player agrees. Without consent it is a violation.

OOC in IC channels is writing in local chat "lol can't you see", "yo open the door plz" instead of "Guard, I have returned from the border". First offense is a warning, repeat is a temporary mute.

Cringe overload is a rare but real violation in big RPs. A player intentionally writes absurd romantic or dark scenes that pull others out of their roles. Solved with a private conversation.

These rules are written in #rules-rp separately from technical ones (no griefing, no cheats) and checked at the application stage.

Performance and hosting

A typical RP SMP runs 30-60 concurrent players, more often near the lower end. This is not anarchy with 200 players, and the load profile differs: fewer chunks ticking actively, but plugins (MythicMobs, ItemsAdder, Citizens) eat memory.

For 50 online with a base stack (Paper plus 15-20 plugins): 6-10 GB RAM, 4 CPU cores at 3.5 GHz+. You can squeeze tighter, but at a 25+ player event in one spot lag will start.

JVM config:

java -Xms8G -Xmx8G -XX:+UseG1GC -XX:+ParallelRefProcEnabled \
  -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=200 -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions \
  -XX:+DisableExplicitGC -XX:G1NewSizePercent=30 \
  -XX:G1MaxNewSizePercent=40 -XX:G1HeapRegionSize=8M \
  -jar paper.jar nogui

view-distance=10 and simulation-distance=8 are normal for RP: worlds are compact, bases close, and large view distance is justified by atmosphere. If TPS suffers at events, drop temporarily to 6 during the mass scene.

DDoS on an RP SMP is rare, but if your whitelist is publicly known (so the IP is public too), prepare for it. The standard fix is filtering traffic at the perimeter so crash packets, bot floods, and amplification attacks do not reach Paper. Services like MineGuard handle this transparently: you point DNS at a proxy IP, the real IP stays hidden.

Streaming and content: closed vs open

RP SMPs split into two schools. Closed ones are not streamed, DreamSMP started this way, with arcs developing inside the community while clips and reactions leaked outward. Pros: less burnout, calmer RP without "play to camera". Cons: no new audience.

Open ones are streamed by participants. QSMP is exactly this: each streamer runs their own channel, viewers see the scene from different angles. Pros: community growth and easier recruiting. Cons: pressure on players, casting becomes about subscribers rather than RP skill.

A hybrid approach works most often: key arcs streamed, daily RP not. This requires discipline ("camera off, we can play the heavy scene"), but gives the best balance.

FAQ

How many players does a working RP SMP need

Minimum 8-10 active. Fewer and events fall apart because half the cast is offline. Sweet spot is 25-50: enough factions for conflict, enough audience for events, still manageable for one or two moderators. 100+ goes beyond a single server and usually splits into linked RP projects.

How to handle applications for an RP SMP

Through a Discord forum-mode channel or a ticket bot. Required: 200+ words of character backstory, RP experience, willingness to attend events, agreement to anti-metagaming rules. Review by 2-3 people, vote. About 50-60% get cut on answer quality.

What to do with character conflicts

Character conflict is content, not a problem. Two factions at war is plot. The problem starts when conflict bleeds onto the players. Separate: character A hates character B is fine, player A DMs player B insults is a ban. Check this at the application stage.

Can an RP SMP run without Discord

Technically yes, in practice no. Discord covers three jobs: applications, event scheduling, OOC chat. Without it you get chaotic admission, empty events, or constant IC violations in game chat. No 2026 alternative matches its channels and roles.

Which plugins are critical and which optional

Critical: WorldGuard (faction zones), VentureChat (channels), PlaceholderAPI (formatting), LuckPerms (roles). Optional: MythicMobs, Citizens, ItemsAdder, DecentHolograms. Without optionals RP feels barer; without criticals it does not run at all.

What to do when the storyline burns out

This happens on every RP SMP at the 6-12 month mark. Fixes: a new big arc with a sharp setting shift, inviting 5-10 new players with fresh characters, or a 2-3 week hiatus with a relaunch on an updated Lore Bible. Do not abandon, the second life of an RP server is often better than the first.

How much do RP SMP servers earn

Most earn nothing, this is a passion project. Big ones like DreamSMP monetized through merch and streamer sponsorships, not the server itself. If you plan a donation shop, do cosmetics only. Pay-to-win kills RP in a month.

What's next

Before opening an RP SMP, do three things. First, write a Lore Bible at least 10-15 pages long, otherwise the first players will not understand what they are playing. Second, assemble a moderator team of 2-3 people before launch, one person cannot carry it. Third, run a closed beta with 5-7 people to catch holes in rules and plugins before the big application wave.