(08-29-2015, 11:30 AM)FreelanceWizard Wrote:(08-29-2015, 10:36 AM)Oli! Wrote: I don't really know if this is valid.
While yes, not doing it in public is the easiest solution at first glance, the problem arises of where to have it in the first place. Not everyone has a private location such as a house readily available, and it's entirely possible that the RP that you just want to have with yourself and two friends might call for a specific location.
Sometimes people respond to presence, even if all dialogue is in Party, or a linkshell.
There's also the fact that public spaces can be used for whatever the public wants; this includes Private RP.
I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you shouldn't.
When a person does their private RP in a public location, they're continuing the general perception of cliques in the RP community, they're ignoring IC consequences for IC actions, and they're essentially establishing that the other players there are merely an audience for their RP (particularly if they're RPing in /say and /em and telling people they can't get involved). So, yes, while anyone can certainly do whatever they want, doing private RP in public spaces is, in my mind, inappropriate. When you RP in a clearly public place, you accept the IC consequence of someone else interacting with you. If you don't want that, go somewhere else.
The reason I say "clearly public" is because there's areas that are in public but aren't clearly so. Let's consider Camp Dragonhead. There's the rooms on the walls. If you want a private scene, you can head up there and go into /party. Now, since you're out of the way of where people normally go, you're not in a clearly public location, and at that point I'd say someone stumbling across you should assume that the scene is private until noted otherwise. Yes, there's a judgment call involved here, but I think most people are sensible enough to be able to tell the difference between a place where people should expect potential walk-ups and places where they shouldn't. Near an Aetheryte? At the Bismarck? In a tavern in a town? Those are public. Hermit's Hovel? A cliff out in the field? A side room in Camp Dragonhead? Those aren't (though private RP should be in /party to make it clear).
Note that in all of this, I'm referring to the sort of private RP where those involved ignore others who show up or tell them to go away OOCly -- particularly if they're using /say for their RP. There's nothing wrong with responding to a person showing up and asking them to leave ICly. ICA = ICC, after all, and an IC consequence to trying to strike up a conversation with someone can be being told to buzz off.
Anyway, to get back on topic, to the OP: based on your subsequent posts, the person who went on the tirade in tells is wrong, IMO. It's entirely lore compliant for Ishgardians to look down their noses at outsiders, and from your emote, there's no establishment of any of the things they complained about.
I still can't really see this as valid. People are free to do what they want in a public location. Additionally, one of the central unspoken tenets of any RP community is the idea that you don't have to RP with anyone that you don't want to. This would be in violation of that tenet.
If you were to walk up to a group of friends playing Monopoly in the park, ask if you can play, and then get denied, you can't say, "well this park is a clearly public location, and you must therefore let me play Monopoly with you." Similarly, if someone has their Ferrari parked in a street, you can't say "you have to let me drive your car, because you parked it in a public location." They're using private property in an open spot. Having someone play Monopoly with you, or driving your car when you don't want them to isn't a consequence of being where you are. Yes, you might be able to avoid these unwanted advances if you parked your Ferrari in a garage, or played Monopoly in your living room, but you also don't have to accept these advances just because you're in a public place. Just because something is out in the open doesn't mean that you are automatically allowed to partake in it.
In the context of this game, the Public Area is The Game, and the Private Property is Your Roleplay. Just as I am free to play Monopoly in the park with my friends and exclude people if I wish, other people are free to Roleplay in public with their friends and exclude people if they want to. It is even possible to turn the Consequences theme on its head, and say that if you decide to try and get involved in things that other people are doing, then you have to accept them excluding you as a consequence for your actions.
I also don't think that the concept of IC Consequence Avoidance applies here anyway, because they are not asking for anything; if I were to sit out in a bench in Ul'dah ICly, and someone Roleplays sniping my character and killing them without my approval, with their reasoning being "well, that's the consequence of sitting on a park bench in an area without security," I think that everyone here would be willing to agree that that would be at least slightly unreasonable. It's the same thing with Private Roleplay; if some people just sit out in the middle of a place talking about something, and someone comes over and tries to join, then I don't think it could be seen as Consequence Avoidance for them to say, "actually this is just between us, sorry."
It would be different if the scenario was such that they did ask for it, such as making it public and then making it private later, or giving someone permission to overhear them and deciding against it later, but those are both instances in which the Roleplay is no longer private, and therefore does not apply to the circumstances that we're discussing.
As far as turning people into an audience goes, I don't think that this is so at all. No one is forcing anyone else to do nothing but watch, and you are entirely within your rights to leave, roleplay around them, pretend they're there anyway, pretend they're not there, use them as barstools, or whatever else you may fancy.
