Throughout the day I've posted some explanations of RP as defined by various credible sources. It sort of evades the real question, which asks how do -we- define RP. My answer to this is as simple as it is complicated.
Roleplay is, to me, a state of mind above all else. I don't feel it can really be qualified or quantified in any particular way. And, like art, it often means different things to different people. To some it is a way to escape life. To others, an extension of life, or possibly even a way to enhance some elements of their own persona. Some people enjoy RPing characters who are very similar to themselves. Others like to venture into unfamiliar territory and explore what it might be like if [insert conditional here]. When I RPed as Dyterium, I got to not only breathe life into a character, but I got to shape him and his course in a way I saw fit. He was in many ways similar to me, and in other ways an embellishment of my own persona, where he would say or do things that I would never have dared - but may have wanted to. I might even go so far as to suggest that the character that I created, in some ways, helped mold my own personality.
While I don't feel the definition of RP is as important as the distinction between types, it is important to have some sort of a description for what we collectively do - even if it is as broad and all-encompassing as Merriam-Webster's.
That distinction will probably reveal itself through the individual communities/guilds that crop up. Like-minded roleplayers are going to RP together in the manner in which they most prefer to do so. I personally have always favored either the (parentheses) or ((double parentheses)) to denote out-of-character speech. I've felt anything besides this a pithy attempt to gain attention or express nonconformity or whatever. I did use [brackets] to indicate tone when speaking.
e.g. <Kes> [sarcastically] Oh, I was unaware of that.
Also, I RPed in all channels - and used parentheses to denote I was being OOC in all channels as well - and by all channels I include /tell, mostly out of habit sometimes when it wasn't even necessary. The only times I really went out-of-character outside of parentheses were events such as pickup xp parties or groups where non-RPers were present. Mostly I did this out of respect because I learned pretty quickly that the general non-RPing population perceives our emotes and our behavior as a kind of "chat pollution." And I'll freely admit it... I didn't want to be 'that guy.' As a linkshell, we were probably more to the 'hardcore' end of the spectrum. We seldom went OOC unless something really significant was going on. A few of the events which spurned some OOC dialogue (which was still enclosed in parentheses) were the day that train was bombed in England a few years back, when one of our members graduated high school, the first job that dinged 75, etc. Easily 99.9% of [non-mistell] linkshell chat was in-character, and enforced as part of our rules. The rule should be dependant upon the guild, and generally would be to go with the consensus. A casual RP group might designate certain times for IC events and use the LS as an OOC chat medium. A more serious group might require that all OOC be left off of whatever FFXIV's equivalent of a linkshell channel will be.
Really, like most of what we've been discussing here, it's all open to interpretation and very abstract and subjective.
Roleplay is, to me, a state of mind above all else. I don't feel it can really be qualified or quantified in any particular way. And, like art, it often means different things to different people. To some it is a way to escape life. To others, an extension of life, or possibly even a way to enhance some elements of their own persona. Some people enjoy RPing characters who are very similar to themselves. Others like to venture into unfamiliar territory and explore what it might be like if [insert conditional here]. When I RPed as Dyterium, I got to not only breathe life into a character, but I got to shape him and his course in a way I saw fit. He was in many ways similar to me, and in other ways an embellishment of my own persona, where he would say or do things that I would never have dared - but may have wanted to. I might even go so far as to suggest that the character that I created, in some ways, helped mold my own personality.
While I don't feel the definition of RP is as important as the distinction between types, it is important to have some sort of a description for what we collectively do - even if it is as broad and all-encompassing as Merriam-Webster's.
That distinction will probably reveal itself through the individual communities/guilds that crop up. Like-minded roleplayers are going to RP together in the manner in which they most prefer to do so. I personally have always favored either the (parentheses) or ((double parentheses)) to denote out-of-character speech. I've felt anything besides this a pithy attempt to gain attention or express nonconformity or whatever. I did use [brackets] to indicate tone when speaking.
e.g. <Kes> [sarcastically] Oh, I was unaware of that.
Also, I RPed in all channels - and used parentheses to denote I was being OOC in all channels as well - and by all channels I include /tell, mostly out of habit sometimes when it wasn't even necessary. The only times I really went out-of-character outside of parentheses were events such as pickup xp parties or groups where non-RPers were present. Mostly I did this out of respect because I learned pretty quickly that the general non-RPing population perceives our emotes and our behavior as a kind of "chat pollution." And I'll freely admit it... I didn't want to be 'that guy.' As a linkshell, we were probably more to the 'hardcore' end of the spectrum. We seldom went OOC unless something really significant was going on. A few of the events which spurned some OOC dialogue (which was still enclosed in parentheses) were the day that train was bombed in England a few years back, when one of our members graduated high school, the first job that dinged 75, etc. Easily 99.9% of [non-mistell] linkshell chat was in-character, and enforced as part of our rules. The rule should be dependant upon the guild, and generally would be to go with the consensus. A casual RP group might designate certain times for IC events and use the LS as an OOC chat medium. A more serious group might require that all OOC be left off of whatever FFXIV's equivalent of a linkshell channel will be.
Really, like most of what we've been discussing here, it's all open to interpretation and very abstract and subjective.
"One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others." Â ~ Lewis Carol
Eva's Journals  |  Eva's Wiki Page (coming soon)  |  RP Handbook
Eva's Journals  |  Eva's Wiki Page (coming soon)  |  RP Handbook
