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(08-21-2015, 08:06 AM)LadyRochester Wrote: I brought up a discussion to spark debate, predictably, people got offended because they took it as a personal attack. I have never said I was one to judge wit, however, it shouldn't be difficult for anyone with half a brain to properly assess who can properly roleplay at trait. OOC and IC dissonance is easily detectable. It doesn't require an I.Q worthy of MENSA scores to see this.
It's kind of a cop out to act like the people who are disagreeing you are offended by what you're saying. Especially because later in the thread the people you thank for "providing the thread with sensitive arguments that didn't fall to personal insults or the 'Your opinion offends me' spectrum" are the two people in this thread arguing most prominently in your favor.
You say you're looking for a discussion, but when you then discount in this manner the people arguing against what you're saying, it comes off as a bit disingenuous.
My point ultimately is that while this discussion is well and good, this thread is not, in fact, constructive criticism.
It is gatekeeping. It is saying, "if you do not posses 'x' faculty, you cannot do this."
So this raises a number of questions, which include:
1) Who gets to judge whether or not someone has 'x' faculty?
2) Who gets to judge whether or not said person's character portrays 'x' faculty correctly?
You seem to be saying this is a personal attack, questioning YOUR capabilities to determine who is and isn't "witty" or whatever other faculty we're talking about here. You say this is easy to determine. That, perhaps, people are calling you stupid when they call this capacity into question?
But I don't think this question is so cut and dry. I don't think this is an easy thing to determine, and I'm unclear as to what the standards of possessing "wit" are even being defined as here.
Whether or not someone has it or not seems pretty subjective to me. So, whose standards are we going to follow here?
But let's say we all come to an agreement on what this means and who has it. That doesn't change the fact that this entire discussion says, certain people are allowed to play a kind of character and... others aren't.
This IS a form of gatekeeping, and gatekeeping is not a healthy part of an RP community.
As I said before, this doesn't mean you have to play with people who do not play this sort of character convincingly to you. But that doesn't mean you should tell them they can't play their character the way they want to play it.
It's one thing if someone's IC/OOC behavior is harmful. (e.x. if someone's self-professed "lady-killer" character is actually harassing every female character in sight and making other players feel uncomfortable and potentially unsafe.) But no one's being hurt if someone's witty character doesn't quite seem like the bastion of wit they're made out to be.
When we start saying to people "don't play this," we're stymieing an avenue of their creativity. We make them self-conscious of their own abilities and whether or not they pull it off. And as I said before, this is supposed to be a hobby. A fun hobby. Nothing rides on people's characters coming off as smart as they're supposed to be.
The more gatekeeping rules we throw in, the more people start to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. And pushing people away not only doesn't help them, but it makes our community smaller. We become more concerned with evaluating each other or ourselves instead of... you know, just having fun.
Gatekeeping is not a good thing for an RP community.
Which is why I resist, and will continue to resist, assertions that someone just shouldn't play a character because someone else says it is so.