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Seriphyn · **05-05-2015, 02:41 PM**

So, I am very particular about my RP, and have my tastes. Some of us have stricter tastes than others, and that's fine. But my ultimate rule is that I will RP with anyone, without fail, assuming they do not break any fundamental laws of roleplaying that apply to any setting. That's not necessarily a "RP with them and be passive-aggressive at their lorebending", either.

For example, over a year ago, me and some friends went out to see the Grindstone, wearing Flame overcoat gear. Some dude comes along and in-characted declares we're 'pretenders' for wearing the overcoats outside city walls. Like, not real Flames, or some shit. I called him out for that BS in /tells, but he proceeded to dismiss me and shut me down by insisting it was all in-character and I was making it out-of-character...utter bullshit, of course. By its passive-aggressive wording IC, it was clearly designed as a meta-assault on me and my friends' RP.

That is not something I think anyone deserves as a roleplayer. We all have our interpretations, although I don't necessarily believe we should be compelled to accept one player's interpretation over another. What many people fail to realize is that it is extremely easy to reconcile differences during contact (which may or may not be inadvertent) by using...well, basic social skills, really. Or just surprise in other cases.

The oft-mentioned Miqo'te Dragoon or some other irregular race/culture combo can be reacted to with a simple "Well, that's strange. Anyway, would you like a second drink?". More belligerently, another response might be "A cat in service to the Holy See? How preposterous". At most, you just ignore them. If you're socially retarded, you proceed to declare to the whole Quicksand how this PERSON MUST NOT OBVIOUSLY BE THIS THING BECAUSE THIS OTHER THING SAYS SO.

I like to use the analogy 'Punting the Puppy' for this. Some roleplayers are a lot less intense in their commitment, perhaps more casual and not so serious. As such, they might pick a character build which is not as accurate as some others may like. They might not even care that much, not necessarily in a bad way, but just because of their lifestyle they probably have better things to do. As such, yelling at them IC about how wrong they must be is effectively dropkicking a puppy. They're just there to have fun and roleplay, not BUILD THIS REALLY PRECISE CHARACTER THAT COMPLIES TO THE LORE HNGHH. Because any moment you challenge someone's existence IC, there is automatically going to be OOC implications. I would never insult someone's intelligence and /tell them by saying "it's all IC!". Because it really isn't. I'd just say something like "My character is just reacting to something that seems strange to him [according to my interpretation of the lore]".

Anyway, this is probably a whole lot of "No shit, stupid", and a lot of roleplayers who are lore-strict already do this. But I figured it was worth mentioning, in defence of 'elitism'. See you out there!

Warren Castille · **05-05-2015, 02:50 PM**

(05-05-2015, 02:41 PM)Seriphyn Wrote: Because any moment you challenge someone's existence IC, there is automatically going to be OOC implications.

This is incorrect and takes away from your whole dialogue.

While it's possible someone's using the IC shield as a means to be a dick to people, it's equally possible that that isn't the case. Assuming you know the "truth" and writing people off as lying to you does nothing to rectify any sort of wrong-doing.

Beyond that, I tend to go along with whatever scene is happening while I'm present for it, then judiciously apply the Retcon Cannons later. People claiming to be the Dimensional-Hopping Child of Loki and the Sun God Thalasuar from their novel set in their Dark Suns D&D Campaign becomes Dude I Spoke To For Five Minutes. The chosen fifteen year old decorated war hero becomes Child With Big Imagination. The person telling me that no, my uniform isn't allowed and I'm just masquerading as a paladin becomes Guy With Stick In Ass. I'm pretty adamant in not letting random chucklefucks spoil my fanfiction, and I try to not spoil anyone else's.

ArmachiA · **05-05-2015, 02:52 PM**

Generally what I do really depends on the situation as a whole -

1. If the person is not in my FC. I don't expect anyone not in my FC (Or roleplaying closely with my FC) to follow our rules about lore. So if I see someone out and about and I'm talking to them IC and they call themselves the DREADED White Mage or whatever Armi will make a comment (Since she's from Gridania) of disbelief and the scene will continue. That's it. Once the scene is over and if the person isn't lore compliant I just won't try to rp with the person that closely again, though if I see them in a public setting I'll acknowledge their presence ICly.

2. A person is in my FC If it's blatant lore breaking (And not just a different interpretation of lore which happens WAY more often than you think it would) the officers will pull them aside and tell them to change a certain thing, then work with them to make sure the character isn't destroyed in the process. We have to do this, since all players sign a lore compliance agreement when they get in, it actually isn't fair to let lore breaking sit on ANYONE. I'm even subjected to scrutiny.

I don't think all IC arguments about what is and what isn't are Passive Aggressive IC/OOC snipping but I have seen plenty of RPers get upset OOC and use IC anger as a way to channel it (Then pretend they aren't upset OOC and so above it all T_T). A lot of the time though, it can be just... the character disagreeing. My character would certainly not believe someone is something, its okay if she expresses that disbelief. Yes, I may not believe it's lore complaint but it doesn't mean my character can't have that disbelief because of my stance. It's perfectly within the realm of her character.

The best advice is never act like an ass. You can be respectful about your disagreements. This is a large server and not everyone is going to mesh, but it makes NO SENSE to burn OOC bridges over different RP styles.

Don't forget to be awesome.

Chris Ganale · **05-05-2015, 03:02 PM**

I can't actually speak for IC degrading of my characters based on how lore-compliant they are/not, but I can say that I've been accosted several times (once three times in the space of thirty minutes by three different people) OOC about it.

Hell, I'm incredibly leery about saying anything about what Chao, Garon, or Ghost do and/or work on in their own time to anybody because I expect to be immediately dropped like a cooked grenade. To my pleasant surprise, however, the one person so far I've let slip about her not-precisely-lore-compliant fighting style was intrigued and said "let's go fight, I want to see it".

Mercer · **05-05-2015, 03:12 PM**

Lore and lore related issues have always been awkward in FFXIV. For the longest time, there were so few lore resources that we all just blindly groped at the darkness hoping that Square wouldn't slam a hammer down and negate our character. Even today there are still a lot of lore questions on what's suitable and not for each race, it's not exactly written out what is acceptable or not.Â

Things have changed in the last five years, there are a lot more resources out there and the dev team are a lot more forthcoming on lore. It's also gotten fucking weird. We've got inter-dimensional travelers, mortals sleeping for thousands of years, magically induced bloodlines, sentient weaponry and enough cross pollination from other Square games that there are two major conflicting viewpoints on lore.Â

The people that use and develop characters from other dimensions or games aren't technically wrong now, though they are odd ducks in the community. The flip side are the traditionalists that prefer a more grounded RP setting in the traditional lore. Neither are technically wrong but both sides kind of give one another the evil eye.

When it comes down to it, live and let live. XIV is the kind of game that under the table politics greatly transform the landscape at the same time a giant themepark opens up. Live and let live, it's an absurd world we play in. Strange things are going to happen, either form the devs or players.

Roll with it. The inter-dimensional hopper is just a loon that can't get used to the Aether. That city folk won't listen to your story about how you want to get home to your world, the ignorance of it all. Spin it, fake it and embrace it because the best stories at the bar come from the strangest places.

FreelanceWizard · **05-05-2015, 03:27 PM**

In general, when I run into something that doesn't mesh with my understanding of lore, I try to deal with it IC. Mostly, that means it ends up in one of three categories:

Seems unlikely but could happen: In this case, L'yhta will express surprise and possibly skepticism or interest, depending on what it is. Miqo'te dragoons are an example of that. If she's interacting with one, she'll be surprised to hear about it and want to know more. Someone claiming to be a White Mage will meet with skepticism, but she'd be interested in their story.
Pretty clearly violates lore with no plausible explanation: Here, L'yhta will typically excuse herself, since the person seems nuts. I won't ignore the person, but I'll try to avoid getting involved in RP with them in the future. An example of this would be a recently awoken Allagan chosen by the Twelve themselves as their avatar, or a chocobo turned into hyur form and given intelligence.
Totally out there: The WoD changelings, the mechwarriors, the ghosts in flesh with the powers of the gods -- these concepts are so far afield of lore that L'yhta will think the person is totally mad. If the person seems to be trolling, then yes, I'll ignore them. Otherwise, as above, I'll just have her get out of there ASAP.

So, basically, I do what ArmachiA does. Smile

Now, sure, the exact IC reactions will depend on the character in question; L'yhta typically won't call someone mad to their face, for instance, because she's not generally that unpleasant. I do, however, try to pull the punch and have a character who'd normally spew vitriol just be curt. Largely, though, I just actively avoid classes 2 and 3 above as much as I can by simply not being where they are.

Naturally, inside Mysterium, the rules are rather more stringent, and people have to comply to lore. Anything that's not outright stated needs a plausible, lore-compliant explanation to justify it. However, that's one of the points of an FC -- to bring together players who share the same social contract.

EDIT: Lore compliant, I might note, is a pretty broad thing in XIV. With magic, magitek, Allagan technologies, and the lost lore of civilizations past, there's a lot of plausible explanations for a wide variety of concepts. I'm not saying this is a blanket justification to do whatever one wants, but rather that the lore is... squishy and fuzzy.

Also, one of the biggest problems of playing something that's "out there" from a lore standpoint is that the number of people with whom you can have productive RP is inherently reduced -- "productive" in this case meaning developing a character or a plot, as opposed to debating whether something is plausible or not or rehashing character histories.

Nebbs · **05-05-2015, 03:38 PM**

I'm not sure there is a "Properly" to apply here but basically I just ignore stuff that does not fit, I'll humour people so as to not disrupt things but I may just count them as mad.

If it is RP style I don't like the I'm off. If you can't find a common ground it is best to give each others space.

Khadan · **05-05-2015, 04:01 PM**

I feel I'm somewhere in the middle of what I'm sure will be a very polarized topic in the posts to come.Â

So I want to preface this with what I hope to be common sense and should go without saying for most people: I don't have the time, patience, or inclination to police anyone's pretendy fun times. If/when I run across roleplay that is just so objectionable I can no longer stand to be in its presence let alone interact in it? I'll do the polite thing and just excuse myself. As stated, no time/inclination/patience to 'correct' someone's pretendy fun times therefore I can only logically be accountable for my own. Now as it happens this is not a common occurrence because, even though I'm very lore-strict with my own RP, I'm also very tolerant of those that are not, within reason.

Now be that as it may, I still count myself as a 'writer' or better yet, 'writer-type-person-whom-engages-in-writey-things'. So things like narrative, character development, and story continuity are very important to me. Someone might ask "what about adaptability in terms of RP with others", and typically what they mean is 'how do you handle strange characters and/or strange occurrences'. Normally I say I handle it with rather good aplomb, however if the person or the occurrence is just so far out there that it literally shakes the setting and breaks the scene I do get rather bothered.

The reason is simple: as before I stated I care about narrative and and story continuity. If a character or an occurrence is so far away from the established game world (to use a tired example we can go with the usual fairy-demon-vampire-cat-girl-with-angel-wings-one-white-and-one-black-with-a-fox-tail-and-super-mystical-powers-that-make-niisan-her-bedroom-puppet-in-an-eyeblink) it's not an issue of 'respecting their RP' to me, it's an issue of "How do I handle this person who just disrespected the narrative and practically crashed the story continuity into the ground because they demand validation?".Â

The usual attitude seems to be "we have to respect all people's RP", which I more or less agree with with. Though 'respecting someone's right to do $thing' is NOT the same as 'agreeing with them doing $thing', it's just a sort of silent agreement that you won't publicly shit on them for whatever their choices are. The caveat to this that I propose is that when your character or the actions of your character literally break the continuity of the scene or threaten current narrative you are actually disrespecting other's RP by virtue of being there, as well. This is very much a two way street.

Again for the record I'm not going to chastise or publicly denounce these theoretical individuals because that requires more effort than I'm generally capable of mustering. I will engage my right to seek more agreeable pretendy fun times elsewhere, though. Obviously the example was an extreme one that is probably in the <1% of situations. Most of the time it'll likely involve authority figures and 'whose interpretation of lore is 'more better'; in the case of the Ishgardian Miqo'te Dragoons etc.Â

tl;dr respecting RP isn't just you tolerating things you find questionable, it's also about people who play 'questionable things' respecting others who do try to play in the sandbox, as well.

Aaron · **05-05-2015, 04:02 PM**

I'll only avoid people if they're literally coming at me like they're Pre Crisis Superman in the flesh.

Other than that I give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

Some people wanna be a hero. Others want to be average. Im just sitting here like long as you don't explicitly get me involved im cool with it.

***RiniKett*** · **05-05-2015, 04:18 PM**

(05-05-2015, 03:38 PM)Nebbs Wrote: I may just count them as mad.

^This! There are people we hear in RL that we think are crazy, might as well have some we think are crazy IC. Some people just don't know the lore as well as others, me!, but I always try the polite route if it's pressuring me to react based off of thus false lore. If they refuse reason then the opinion of my IC is that they are ICly off their rocker.

Still, in essence, all RP is Art, as it is a form of writing, and everyone has different tastes. I think Nebbs actually posted a link to something a while back who posted how people should start in RP. Not everyone will like you, not everyone will agree, but, luckily, that's what makes social interaction great. When people agree too much we become complacent, bored, and tend to find something to disagree on.

And in such, we all deal with it differently.

Desu Nee · **05-05-2015, 04:18 PM**

It really depends on the person, and how I perceive the rp. I avoid just outright IC excusing myself if I see the person is just outright now. I'll play along a bit, and then Quki will shrug it off as the person being nuts, Eorzea is chock-full of nuts after all. I, thankfully, haven't found anything absurd yet, besides the odd character that portrays itself as the Warrior of Light or claims to have defeated primals, in this case I'll give the benefit of a doubt, and at least entertain the person. They just want to have fun, and I don't feel that I have any right to tell them how to have it, if they want to have a powerplay character, good on them. If possible, I might drop a /tell and other and chat a little OOC about a person, it really happened once of a person not knowing that you really can't go around claiming you're a Black Mage, so he toned down to "Talented Thaumaturge".

If it's something that outrights makes me uncomfortable, I'll just leave ICly, nothing more or less.

Klynzahr · **05-05-2015, 04:29 PM**

(05-05-2015, 02:50 PM)Warren Castille Wrote:
(05-05-2015, 02:41 PM)Seriphyn Wrote: Because any moment you challenge someone's existence IC, there is automatically going to be OOC implications.

This is incorrect and takes away from your whole dialogue.

I strongly agree with Warren on this point, if your character is a big loud mouth, who would proclaim someone a lier in the middle of a public bar then by all means do so. If they were adventurous enough to pick such an unusual lore concept, then they are probably prepared for this eventuality and may even welcome the tension that it creates.

I tend to have the opposite problem. Because Klynzahr was raised at sea and traveled to dozens of exotic port cities, she will barely bat an eye at most of the absurdity she encounters, even when I as her player am squirming and wondering how in the world it could be possible.

Â The one exception to this happened years ago, when we encountered someone claiming to be a dimensional travel accident. This person was nice and actually played the concept fairly well, but Klynzahr took the liberty of telling half her free company that the character in question was suffering from delusionsÂ and amnesia.

I am a fairly firm believer that you should try to let your character lead in these cases. If the player in question becomes offended OOC, that is your cue to bugger off, because there is no sense in getting involved with players who can't keep their IC and OOC separate.

/my 2 gil

Edited to Add: That being said, if you do play a character who is going to make a big public scene out of not believing someone's claims, it should always be preceded by an OOC warning along the lines of "I'm sorry, my character is about to be a bit of a dick, because he doesn't believe that interdimensional travel (or whatever else happens to be the point of contention) is possible".

Verad · **05-05-2015, 04:38 PM**

I'm more interested in the following: It's one thing for people to make claims about certain characters, and to write them off as insane or delusional or whatever. I'm not one-hundred percent on-board with that particular choice but I recognize it's a valid one.

What do you, however, when the player proves it through some metaphysical means? Some dimensional traveller, to use Klin's example, leaps into another Final Fantasy setting in front of you and comes back with Shantotto. Somebody claiming to be a primal manifests as such in front of you. For the more hardline lore-hounds, a WHM casts Succor or Holy. In short, something that would have a tangible effect on the world and can't be denied by a simple claim of insanity.

It's possible to retcon the matter and say that the person only saidÂ they did these things, and it didn't actually happen, but that's very much not letting the character lead; it's making an OOC judgment call in the moment and declaring that a fact stated by another player isn't actually a fact. On the other hand, taking the claim on faith and reacting to it means having to grapple with denying it IC at a later date. How do you address this problem?

Chris Ganale · **05-05-2015, 04:45 PM**

(05-05-2015, 04:38 PM)Verad Wrote: What do you, however, when the player proves it through some metaphysical means? Some dimensional traveller, to use Klin's example, leaps into another Final Fantasy setting in front of you and comes back with Shantotto. Somebody claiming to be a primal manifests as such in front of you. For the more hardline lore-hounds, a WHM casts Succor or Holy. In short, something that would have a tangible effect on the world and can't be denied by a simple claim of insanity.

I'm reasonably certain that three-quarters or better of players will peace off at that point and refuse to respond to it as valid accreditation of the other player's claim. Instead it'll get dismissed as someone petulantly trying to have their cake and eat it too.

See? v

Mercer · **05-05-2015, 04:45 PM**

(05-05-2015, 04:38 PM)Verad Wrote: I'm more interested in the following: It's one thing for people to make claims about certain characters, and to write them off as insane or delusional or whatever. I'm not one-hundred percent on-board with that particular choice but I recognize it's a valid one.

What do you, however, when the player proves it through some metaphysical means? Some dimensional traveller, to use Klin's example, leaps into another Final Fantasy setting in front of you and comes back with Shantotto. Somebody claiming to be a primal manifests as such in front of you. For the more hardline lore-hounds, a WHM casts Succor or Holy. In short, something that would have a tangible effect on the world and can't be denied by a simple claim of insanity.

It's possible to retcon the matter and say that the person only saidÂ they did these things, and it didn't actually happen, but that's very much not letting the character lead; it's making an OOC judgment call in the moment and declaring that a fact stated by another player isn't actually a fact. On the other hand, taking the claim on faith and reacting to it means having to grapple with denying it IC at a later date. How do you address this problem?

There's a few ways to deal with such flashy or blatant occurrences. One is to deal and roll with it using the excuse that your character is experiencing a side effect of the Echo or experiencing an Aether induced fever dream.

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How to properly react to RP you don't like (or 'Punting the Puppy')

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