(09-08-2015, 05:57 PM)Val Wrote:(09-08-2015, 12:17 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: Put this on a banner and hang it in the rafters. There's sometimes a lot of conflict that stems from this sentiment. There's nothing wrong with being the main character in your own story, but RP is a collaborative effort. As soon as you begin to interact with others, you cease to be the main character. Some people resist or resent this, and feel entitled to being comparatively powerful or capable because their written-and-vetted-by-one-person backstory says they should be.
I think far too often people forget that they're writing and playing with other people, and instead are trying to write at them. When you realize that it's meant to be a collaboration and no one is really meant to have the spotlight, I think it becomes a lot easier to simmer your character down and just have fun with it rather than being mad about getting beaten in a story and so on and so forth.
In some people's defense its hard too though. For instance in an RP I've often become the center of attention not because I was doing anything particularly spectacular or anything, but because usually two of the key characters way of interracting with mine promoted him to the spot light. For instance if some guy was creeping on a girl my character would have no problem putting a blade to his neck and telling him if he ever saw him around the girl again, no one would ever be seeing him again. One of my two characters would recognize this as my character being extreme and dangerous and needing to calm down before he hurt someone. The other wouldn't get involved, he would note his disagreed with the harshness, but as a general rule the guy was a problem who needed to be dealt with.Â
So we end up with, this other victim guy, my character, a guy who staunchly believes what my character is doing is wrong, thus causing a scene giving my character a spot light, but because of their friendship not immediately being willing to fight him, and yet another character who while he disagrees with the action thinks there should be SOME action, but is unwilling to get his own hands dirty to do so, so instead he'd just let his friend do the morally wrong thing, but effective thing. In that regard I can become a "main character" very, very easily because of the types of relationships my character has, its easy for him to become the center of attention. That doesn't mean he necessarily hindering anyone else's RP.Â
I do think however, that there are people (there's an entire FC of these people but I wont name names, PM me if you want to know though I'd love nothing more than to continue my Crucification of them as this shit mixed with metagaming, godmodding and their shit has now driven several friends from RPing entirely on FFXIV) that RP with people who think their characters are Gods, then also make themselves gods to compete and don't realize why this is a problem. Hell Godly characters persay aren't even an issue, they're annoying and not very fun to play with, but a super strong, terrifying character who's RP'd by someone who's considerate of others isn't necessarily someone who's so skilled they have to be avoided. Its the RPer who has all that "power" and just wants to feel mighty.
