OOC

RPG players use OOC to signal they're talking "out of character." You're likely to see this acronym used while playing Dungeons & Dragons (DnD), World of Warcraft (WoW), or another game in which players pretend to be their characters.

How is OOC used while playing RPGs?

When a player is RPing a character, their chat messages are typically intended to be read as though their character said them. OOC messages, however, come directly from a player - not their character. So if, for example, someone in your party sends "OOC Gotta go to the bathroom," it means that player has to go to the bathroom IRL.

On social media and in online forums, OOC most often stands for "out of context." Posters use this acronym to signal that a piece of information has been removed from its original context, and so might be misleading.

For example, if one user posts statements a politician made, another user might respond with "you're taking those statements OOC to make Jake Politician look bad." In this case, the second user thinks the first is purposefully distorting Jake Politician's comments, by failing to mention the context in which the comments were made.