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Asunasari · **06-09-2016, 12:49 AM**

I've read heavy rp described as people who are always in character, even when doing pve content. Â They will walk everywhere to not break character. Â Does anyone actually do this? Â Is heavy rp even a thing? Â One of the main questions in the welcome desk is what kind of rp'er are you, and I've been seeing a lot of medium-heavy answers.

Aaron · **06-09-2016, 01:03 AM**

(06-09-2016, 12:49 AM)Asunasari Wrote: I've read heavy rp described as people who are always in character, even when doing pve content. Â They will walk everywhere to not break character. Â Does anyone actually do this? Â Is heavy rp even a thing? Â One of the main questions in the welcome desk is what kind of rp'er are you, and I've been seeing a lot of medium-heavy answers.

A person absolutely IC 24/7 in xiv is something I'd have to capture and document in a controlled environment before I believe it.

McBeefâ„¢ · **06-09-2016, 01:09 AM**

To me heavy RP is stupid, because it ignores the whole point of fiction, which is essentially to be more impactful or interesting than real life.Â

When is the last time you've seen a book or movie that literally covers every moment of a person's life. From taking a crap to heating up their waffles? The advantage of fiction is you can cut out all of that and focus on the good bits.

Too much immersion makes it as boring as real life Tongue

Heidrek · **06-09-2016, 02:26 AM**

Show me a person that will never jump endlessly out of boredom as they run through a city and I will show you a goddamn liar.

Flynn Rosenberg · **06-09-2016, 02:38 AM**

I hear different meanings all the time for Heavy RP in other games. In the end, you RP or you don't.

When I played SWTOR, Heavy RP usually meant you must be on to RP at least once a week with the guild, all the guild does is RP and not help with pve/pvp content. They might claim Heavy RP means they're lore-heavy or immersive heavy.
Ask them what they think Medium/Light RP means, they will say less about the lore and more do whatever you want even if it breaks it, as well as not RPing often.

So yeah, everyone always has their own version. I personally don't like any kind of RP tag. There's no clear tag for defining how active you are or how lore following you are.

***Maril*** · **06-09-2016, 02:51 AM**

You can be a heavy rp'er without being constantly IC. It's true that in the good old days, being always-IC was one of the big trademarks of heavy RP'ers, but that sort of stance doesn't always mesh well with the given settings/lore of MMORPG's. In FFXIV, there's a big complex with that there is only one Warrior of Light, so all of the quests you do as that person, it becomes hard to be IC through them (Not that there aren't people who try, mind) because you may end up meeting someone else who also claims to be the Warrior of Light. One of the other big marks of a heavy roleplayer is their lore adherence - so there would be a conflict of interest there. In the end there isn't any wrong or right, however I think that Eva did a very good job at explaining it in The Roleplay Handbook. What I would encourage though, if you want to pick a label for yourself (You don't have to!) is to be honest with yourself. If you feel like you're more light, there's no shame in saying that, it'll help you meet like-minded people. I think this is also why many people end up putting themselves as medium - a good flexible mix of the two ends.

Asunasari · **06-09-2016, 04:17 AM**

I think some stories become more realistic though when they do bring real human elements into the fold. Â For example, Vincent Vega was shot by Butch when he was coming out of the bathroom in Pulp Fiction. Â Game of Thrones is another good example that shows these human elements. Â The old Lannister dude was shot by Tyrion when he was on the toilet (sorry for the toilet examples I can't think of anything else).
Also, I'm with Flynn in that I'm not big on rp tags. Â My own in game says something like "RP / Walk-ups welcome"

Tira Nophi · **06-09-2016, 05:01 AM**

I tend to steer away from RP tags only because I feel they could pose as a barrier. A new player to the game who might in fact become a very good roleplayer could be put off by rather such a tag as 'Heavy' RP.

Back when I played WoW, the term Heavy RP become almost something stigmatised where those who used it were largely ridiculed by many on the server. I'm not entirely sure why or how it got to that but it's just another reason not to use it myself.

I think you can easily guage whether the person you're roleplaying with is suitable to your taste after a few times roleplaying with them if you do desire to keep to a certain tag/theme.
I will always try to roleplay with people whether I can tell if they're a little off-lore or seem very much more informed than myself. I will somehow work my way around it whether they tag themselves as Heavy RP or not because roleplay is at the end of the day most of our goal here. So I am lead to believe.

Valence · **06-09-2016, 07:06 AM**

(06-09-2016, 01:09 AM)McBeefÂ© Wrote: To me heavy RP is stupid, because it ignores the whole point of fiction, which is essentially to be more impactful or interesting than real life.Â

When is the last time you've seen a book or movie that literally covers every moment of a person's life. From taking a crap to heating up their waffles? The advantage of fiction is you can cut out all of that and focus on the good bits.

Too much immersion makes it as boring as real life

Then re-enacters are stupid I guess...?

But I don't do that as well anyway.

Kilieit · **06-09-2016, 10:18 AM**

I've seen so, so many different definitions of "heavy RP". And I've seen a lot of definitions of "heavy RP" that are just completely nonsensical to me. In all honesty, I'm semi-convinced that the terms "heavy" and "light" carry no inherent meaning at all when referring to RP, and that people will just apply them as desired to describe people who they perceive as being more/less into, or better/worse at, the hobby than they are...

The way I used it in my directory thread was to refer to how often I roleplay and how long/involved my storylines are. No matter what genre the storylines are (domestic vs heroic, action vs romance, etc).

But I wouldn't say that being 24/7 IC is particularly common, desireable, or admired - I think I've met one person like that in all my time RPing in MMO's (10 years) and it was weird and, honestly, uncomfortable. Because they wouldn't respond to my whispers except ICly - and OOC communication is important.

Sahde Vhidgo · **06-09-2016, 11:43 AM**

I don't feel that it's necessarily bad to tag your own RP as light, medium, or heavy, but it's always going to be subjective to other peoples' definitions of what each of those labels means, exactly. As long as they're viewed as very broad, loose descriptions of your desired RP involvement, I think they'll remain fine, too.

One of the more ridiculous things that happened to me in-game, recently, was a sudden and unexpected PM from someone that wanted to dispute the definition of "heavy RP," my free company, my free company's story arc, and the characters in the FC, and whether or not they could actually fit that definition. It was obnoxious, to say the least, but fairly telling of how badly people want to pare down a lot of criteria and experience into a single label.

What is boring, what isn't, and what is "too much" compared to what's "just enough" is always going to be subjective to individuals and groups. If the light/medium/heavy tags are getting you down, I find the best practice to be creating some brief bullet points of why RP is important to you. Provide some examples if you wish, and stick it somewhere that's accessible when you need it (I find the RPC character wikis to be a good place for this!) Chocobo

Raeje · **06-09-2016, 02:39 PM**

I tend not to tag myself, or pay much attention to labels as a whole when it comes to levels of RP, but I shall explain what my opinion of 'heavy roleplay' is.

To me, heavy roleplay means that the player remains in character whenever they play. They do not chat OOC as long as they are in the game (what they do out of the game is a different side to the coin). I don't particularly see heavy roleplay as needing to be the most immersive as you can possibly be, because like several people have stated, it takes the interest out of things. Nobody needs to see every moment of a person's life. We don't even see every moment of our loved ones lives, and that's reality. There's such a thing as being heavy on the RP without needing to divulge every single detail about everything. It's roleplay, not monotony.

However, I do love the whole aspect of being in character the whole time you're in game, and not breaking that character at all. That goes back to the old method acting styles. It's been a very well respected style of acting for generations. I think it can be successfully used in any mmo if done in an interesting manner, and if everyone involved is happy with it.

I am more than willing to give it a shot myself one day. Not walking literally everywhere, because like I already stated, I think that may be bordering on the uninteresting, but I would certainly be interested in trying to create a character, and remain in character the whole time I played. I don't know how successful I would be, or if I would get bored with it, but I would be open to trying it.

Right now I am IC for all of our events, and meetings, and shows, and random RP encounters, but I also do a lot of stuff. OOC too. The balance is nice for me, because I like getting to know my fellow players both IC and OOC. With 'heavy roleplay' I feel like you wouldn't really get a chance to know people you played with, unless you did OOC stuff outside of the game, such as had OOC tumblrs, or had an OOC discord chat. But if that was the case, would it still be considered 'heavy roleplay'?

See, now that this question has come up, I'm questioning everything! Why would you do this? WHY!? Huh

Zhavi · **06-09-2016, 02:45 PM**

(06-09-2016, 04:17 AM)Asunasari Wrote: I think some stories become more realistic though when they do bring real human elements into the fold. Â For example, Vincent Vega was shot by Butch when he was coming out of the bathroom in Pulp Fiction. Â Game of Thrones is another good example that shows these human elements. Â The old Lannister dude was shot by Tyrion when he was on the toilet (sorry for the toilet examples I can't think of anything else).
Also, I'm with Flynn in that I'm not big on rp tags. Â My own in game says something like "RP / Walk-ups welcome"

I think his point is that you don't see every bowel movement or piss the character takes. Authors don't describe the color, texture, shape of elimination, movies don't show you the contents of the bowl or the facial expressions made by the character while they're going for every single time. Because for most plots, it's entirely unnecessary.

Imagine if every The Office episode covered the full 8 hour work day, not just the funny parts.

Elements = good
The entirety of the human experience = typically bad for fiction.

edit- I can word. Promise.

Asunasari · **06-10-2016, 02:28 AM**

(06-09-2016, 02:39 PM)Raeje Wrote: See, now that this question has come up, I'm questioning everything! Why would you do this? WHY!?

Hehe, someone described me as someone who "pulls levers to see what happens." Â I'm just trying to break the whole concept of why even use the light/medium/heavy rp tags, as it seems like nobody is (and probably shouldn't be) IC the whole time they play.

Even when playing a tabletop rpg, there is tons of discussion out of character about what the parties best course of action is to take, at least from my experience. Â OOC is important!

Aldotsk · **06-10-2016, 03:30 PM**

(06-09-2016, 01:09 AM)McBeefÂ© Wrote: To me heavy RP is stupid

I always thought you were RPing in FoM Linkshell :U

All jokes aside, I always didn't mind doing heavy RP in any games (especially WoW back then), but as time passes by - I just got tired of trying to be heavy Roleplayer in this game so I just do it casually like everyone else.Â

Though I do see some heavy RPers a lot in Ul'dah pretty often. (Not Bench)

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