(08-02-2015, 06:03 PM)Edda Wrote:I totally agree, and I also agree with what Nero said. Personally I feel the problem is not that the players don't represent the setting, but rather that it seems more important to create conflict in an interesting way. Use racism as a narrative tool to bring insular characters into the same sphere. I think there is enough to support an open-minded, non racist attitude in a PC in the setting, as well as xenophobic hater. What matters more to me is whether or not the player can sell it, not whether everyone is in line and trying to stay appropriately loyal to some Westeros-esque headcanon.(08-02-2015, 05:06 PM)Graeham Wrote:Pretty much this. Obviously, we should not take things too far and respect the OOC wishes of others (communication is key here), but there is definitely value in RPing themes that are not necessarily pleasant. It's not about making things as grimdark and heavy-handed as possible - it's about creating conflict, which is hella fun to RP and really great for character interactions and development. Racial, national, and social tensions are a great way to introduce a good, healthy dose of conflict into your RP whilst fitting in nicely with the setting of the game.(08-02-2015, 05:00 PM)Kellach Woods Wrote: you seriphyn etc.Racist characters are interesting - especially if they have a good reason to be the way that they are. A soldier who fought against the Garlean invaders and lost his comrades during the Battle of Carteanau is very likely to distrust anyone and anything related to the Garlean Empire.
So when that soldier meets a Garlean who happens to be reasonable and morally pure...there's a good deal of room for interesting conflict in my opinion.
For instance, if a character is horribly racist against a certain type, a "biased narrator" within emote dialogue can often hint at a greater, more personal malaise that leads them to lash out irrationally. (It's also been mentioned before that it does a great job at reassuring other players you don't share your character's belief system, if you're worried about that sort of thing.) It is not enough to simply throw slurs. Describing the way they look when they fixate on their xenophobia or how obsessive they are about it could suggest problems in their personal life with people of that race, or an upbringing that twisted their worldview. Maybe that curmudgeonly racist takes the usual, under the skin tension of Eorzea to open hatred levels because her father left her mother for a wandering Sea Wolf, or was bullied by roving bands of lalafell when she was a child. It obviously doesn't need to be that personal, but the point isn't really the content so much as your motivation for writing racism into your character. Are you doing it because it's how you see the setting, or because you want people to challenge your character and create a dialogue between theirs and yours? When I made my character, I *intended* for her to be proven wrong about a lot of things in her world view. People jumped onto the opportunity to "defuse the tykebomb" and tell her she is wrong about violence and the like, without me making any real effort to tell them, OOC, I wanted them to. It is not impossible that others aren't challenging your character's dogma because you're not expressing you want them to have their beliefs challenged clearly enough.
It will be more fun for all involved to slowly bring out that characteristic. It creates a story, where your character's racism is engaged with, and you determine whether they move beyond it, or not at all, and what kind of consequences it has. It isn't about setting building in this case, but rather using the setting to build a plot line. In the former case with OP, I feel the focus is more on getting players to reinforce common views on the setting to create a homogeneous, even playing field with consistent rules, a commonly echoed sentiment on the forums. Before people go and say I'm accusing them of policing, I would argue it's not even anything that effective; more like ineffectual hand-wringing over other people not being NPCs for you. They want to tell their story, not yours, unless you talk to them and meet them halfway. That's why someone suggests that other players want to ignore the setting, I argue it's more a matter of playing style and focusing on what interests the person in question than willful ignorance.
It is difficult to play with rp that confuses or invalidates your own. I get that. A huge amount of my old forum rp was done in a hideously inconsistent crossover setting. It drove me absolutely crazy to see a lot of people ignore the existence of the supernatural when there were people summoning out of the Goetia and wielding shamanistic magic next door. Some wanted to play the world as basically like ours, and others wanted a cyberpunk dystopia. Midgar and Chiba City existed in the same world as New York and Tokyo. Operators with CoD style guns fought alongside demigods and shinigami. It was, to put it in less polite terms, a clusterfuck.
That setting was incredibly bare bones and vague, plus player generated. There was no baseline. Trying to force a baseline behavior among players to fit your own perception of the setting isn't necessary here, though. The game itself already exists. We're all aware, or should owe it to ourselves, to try and pay attention to it, or there is no point in rp in FFXIV. That doesn't mean we've all obligated to play every element, or respond to every element, in the same way as everyone else. Moving away from whether or not someone fits the setting and towards how a character element, informed by the setting, can create interesting conflict, will solve that sticking point, in my opinion. The focus should be on how it can create the framework of a story rather than how to make people fit into the setting properly.
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AV by Kura-Ou
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AV by Kura-Ou
Wiki (Last updated 01/16)
My Balmung profile.
