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Great RP; What Makes It? - Printable Version

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Great RP; What Makes It? - Bryn - 04-16-2015

Hi all,

So there's something I've been pondering lately. I'm sure we've all had those moments when we've been RPing with a new RP partner and suddenly you think, "Wow, this person is a really good RPer."

For me, beyond the obvious things like excellent spelling, punctuation and grammar, several things stand out in a great RPer;

1) Descriptive ability: can they convey a vivid image of their character's appearance and mannerisms without having to do it in two full paragraphs?
2) Dialogue: does it flow naturally? Does their character speak as a real person might, while still accounting for Eorzea's particular slang and dialects? Do they avoid clichés and overuse of ellipses?
3) The back-and-forth: to me, good RP is reciprocal; it offers ample and equal opportunities for all parties to get involved. A great RPer is considerate of their RP partners, and makes openings for them to engage the scene.

... I suppose to me, great RP encompasses both technique and ethos.

My question to you is; what impresses you in other peoples' RP? What qualities, to you, make a truly great RPer?

And in keeping with the spate of happy-feely threads on the RPC of late, if you want to mention any RPers you know as possessing the qualities of great RPers that you mention, go right ahead. Smile It's always nice to get a heads-up on who I should track down for RP.

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - Gegenji - 04-16-2015

(04-16-2015, 10:08 AM)Bryn Wrote: My question to you is; what impresses you in other peoples' RP? What qualities, to you, make a truly great RPer?

I just think good RP (not good RPers) is one where all those who participated had a good time, that they got something out of it - whether it's character development, a laugh, or just a feeling of accomplishment. People who can get together and create those sorts of moments? Those are great RPers.

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - Warren Castille - 04-16-2015

In no particular order, the things I cherish in an RP partner:

*Posting speed! Waiting 7 minutes between posts usually ends up with me tabbing out and doing something else.
*Descriptions without being overly verbose. I don't care what region your scarf was knitted in.
*Something to play off of in conversation: If I ask how your day went, "Not bad." is a horrible response because there's no back-and-forth.
*Immersion-approved writing: "Bro, that dragoon just landed a hella sick Spinershatter on those newbs." GET OUT.
*General sense of fairness, someone who doesn't abuse Player Character Knowledge or abuses search comment details
*Fun. If you're constantly moping or miserable or depressed and generally unfun to be around, I'll find excuses to not be around you
*Cooperative! I appreciate DM-PC style plots as much as anyone else, it's also fun to have an overall sense of where things end and then explore the middle ground

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - Lekka Meyren - 04-16-2015

What I appreciate the most in RP is when a scene develops in such a way that any participant can jump on the many "hooks" presented in a way that makes sense to them.
By that I mean presenting opportunity, rather than outright deciding everything that happens. If my character is heavilly wounded I might act out her symptoms; and a medically trained character might be able to discern the cause.
( In that situation I don't have to decide all the details of the injury, my character only knows her symptoms after all; and ooc I can give some details of what happened, allowing the medical character to play with it)

That really is kind of the core tenet of what makes me enjoy RP, and it can even apply in simpler situations like conversations. (Though it really shines in situations where the story develops because of the specific characters, their assumptions and skills impacting it.)

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - Alothia - 04-16-2015

  • Someone who makes my time RPing with them enjoyable. It could depend on what mood I'm in. Sometimes it's someone who doesn't mind doing something goofy. Sometimes it's someone that makes me have a lot of feels.
  • Someone who is quick, but if they're not quick, someone who makes rich posts. I'm willing to compromise time if I feel like you're enriching the experience.
  • Someone I can talk to OOCly about what is going on ICly and not feel like I'm being a pain. I'm a communicator. I like to talk out what is going on.
I'm sure I have more, but it's lunch time. I'll type more later.

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - Maril - 04-16-2015

For me, and especially when it comes to plots and story-lines, I really appreciate it if the person you are roleplaying with is able to do so without a script. 80% of what I do in RP isn't planned, it's just improvisation based on the situations that occur which follows the general "ruleset" if you would that exists for my character's personality. 
I have experienced many times when you have someone playing a villain - which I know is not an easy job, where they rely a bit too much on instructions and aren't able to take the role and "own" it. Just because someone else started the idea for a concept doesn't mean you should, well, in essence stop being a roleplayer and be more of an actor. 

I appreciate it also when the other person..
- Have well-balanced characters and should they challenge one of mine, they're okay with using my chosen way of dealing with fights (free-form). A gesture I return, if one of my characters challenge someone else, I will be playing by their method (Like, roll-emote) even if I don't agree with it. 
- Plays fair, but also understands that there's no such thing as a fair fight. 
- Keeps a decent emote speed, especially if it's late in the evening. I will absolutely fall asleep if I have to wait more than 5 minutes for a reply. Certain situations are excused from this because they might be more out of the usual comfortzones. 
- Understands that taking roleplay seriously doesn't mean it can't be fun, or that I can't see roleplay as fun. And increasingly, that following lore doesn't make you the most serious person out there. It simply isn't fun for me if lore is violated so much that my immersion gets ruffled. (Insert obligatory "My immershuhn!" cry out here)
- Communicates oocly and never feels like they can't ever ask a clarifying question. When there's no assumptions like "This person is ignoring me! Rude!" When it's a case of me missing an emote. 
- Is about as happy for OOC Drama as I am. Which means not very. 
- Doesn't railroad things. I am not a fan of pre-determining anything when it can be avoided. 
- Keeps OOC and IC seperate. I don't know if this specific thing absolutely makes someone "great" since I see it almost as a minimum requirement, but I will definitely be going in the opposite direction as soon as I notice there being any sort of a bleed. Especially when romance is involved. 

One thing that I do not put so much weight on is descriptiveness in emotes. If the interaction is flowing, then it doesn't matter to me if the couch was described as being soft when your character sat on it. Despite the fact that I myself tend to feel very inferior when there's someone doing entire paragraphs near me and there I am with my silly two-lined emote about sipping drinks and peoplewatching.. 

I could probably go on but I will leave it at this.

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - Nebbs - 04-16-2015

RP exists as interaction with others, when people state grammatical correctness I would assume this is just a basic standard they apply to everything and not just RP. RP does not need the written word.

Great RP for me is ...
  • when I get to have my character think, and react to what is going on
  • where I as a player get to add to the story
  • where there is a collaborative outcome that all partake in
  • where the RP feeds off each person
  • where there is freedom to take it where it wants to go
  • where there is trust that you give yourself over to others
  • when I don't know what will happen next
When I feel I am there and it is happening, when I forget I am sat in a room in my house in my slobby clothing eating who knows what.

Try 4 days solid of 24/7 LARP Smile, but for on-line just some immersion and improvisation that grows.

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - Caspar - 04-16-2015

Being needlessly verbose is something I've been guilty of in the past and am actively trying to avoid in this game, thus, while I understand how fun it is to show off your classical education, I don't have the patience to read through it when there's simply too much going on elsewhere.

What impresses me is clever dialogue comments that make me laugh or have an apparent double meaning, and I really try hard to do it myself. If I can succeed in that once in a while, I'm happy, but there are some rpers good at loading all their sentences with hidden meaning, and I can say I really appreciate that style.

The other thing that impresses me are players who have such commanding knowledge of the lore that they can work setting elements casually into their lines without needing to research.

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - cuideag - 04-16-2015

I love RPers who, while they might have serious characters that might be in serious scenes, take a moment to drop in a little bit of humor or absurdity. I love RPers who have fun with their characters and share that fun with others. It's a wonderful thing and I feel little moments like that can really add to a character/scene's depth.

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - Alothia - 04-16-2015

(04-16-2015, 12:58 PM)Caspar Wrote: Being needlessly verbose is something I've been guilty of in the past and am actively trying to avoid in this game, thus, while I understand how fun it is to show off your classical education, I don't have the patience to read through it when there's simply too much going on elsewhere.

I think that this tends to happen a lot in RP. I have some friends who are fantastic at being flowery but with a purpose. Their characters are haughty and educated and it fits with the way that they write.

But I also know people who try to emulate that style because they feel that writing too straightforward is frowned upon.

I'd like to say that I'm one of those people who appreciates a little bit of both, but I'd rather be engaged in what we're doing than wait for the other person to go and use a thesaurus to see how many different ways they can describe the color of their hair, skin, eyes, their lips, etc.

Being verbose can be a good thing, but if it's not something that comes easily, don't focus on it!

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - Zhavi - 04-16-2015

Practicality, creativity, succinctness (or, writing only as much as is actually necessary, be it 5 words or 5000), style, ability to self-edit, enjoyment.

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - allgivenover - 04-16-2015

RPing in a way that's considerate towards others, or as I like to call it "paying it forward".

Good points by others so far, here's something about what not to do.
Don't do stuff like this:
  • Injuring your character constantly so that your character's situation is always more dire than other character's situations.

  • Only being interested in RP if it's "about" your character.

  • Ignoring other's hooks or developments, or having your character go out of their way to diminish their importance, or worse, hijacking them.

  • Having your character develop abilities that quickly and obviously overshadow long honed and RP'd abilities of other characters. ("You're a conjurer? Wow so am I suddenly! Except I don't just use small bits of stone, I lift house sized boulders out of the ground and conjure waterfalls from the air! And I just learned how to do this yesterday! We're total conjurer peers now XD")

  • Sudden retcons that impact others severely because it's inconvenient to keep your history. ("Fascists who believe in thought-crime think my character is too young and made me feel bad =(. I know I'll just age them five years without warning.")

  • Canonizing fetish in larger RP circles and hiding it until ties are too deep to back off with ease. ("No one's gonna tell me my futa-baby is wrong! Doesn't matter that I hid it until I was good and involved with others.")

Some of these may have been the catalyst for my fall out with certain unnamed groups.

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - Lamia - 04-16-2015

To me, great RP comes in all shapes and sizes. In the end, it's simply when we meet up for rp and the hours just pass away without anyone realizing it, where it finally ends and your left with the feeling of -wow- that was deep.
+ Character development.

Rp that allows the characters to -grow- from the interaction, even subtly can often have huge impacts on future meetings, and even that characters interactions with others aside from yours. Characters who are willing to open doors of opportunity for other characters, mentor them, or help them figure things out that may be troubling them can often make the largest impacts. But smaller impacts can also be made simply by making sure the characters have a good time, or even just an engaging conversation about their views, ideals, or passions.

+ Immersion

Just like turning the pages of a good book, a great rp is one that pulls that players and the characters into what is currently going on. Hours pass without anyone realizing it, you feel yourself wondering 'what's going to happen next' or "I didn't see that one coming!" even as simply as, 'wow, I didn't know that about my character'. it's these surprises that keep a role-player coming back to an rp partner for more, and looking forward to what'll happen in future role-plays.

+ Being able to trust your RP partner

It's a bit of an OOC thing, but I've found that people tend to hold their characters back less when they know their rp partner can handle that character oocly. Specially if a person is shy, getting to know the player behind the character a bit before role-playing can help make any RP a great one, and a better experience overall for the parties involved!

My two cents. XD I have to bail for lunch now. -fweeeee~!-

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - D'aito Kuji - 04-16-2015

All the stuff above &

RP'ers that don't get mad because I haven't memorized every bit of the Lore.  I do try to learn about the location my character happens to be in but they won't necessarily know about places they haven't been to yet (in-character).  And they left the Southern Sagolii Desert just last year after growing up secluded and isolated from all but a few merchants.

So if I don't immediately know what a Duskwight is, try to be patient.  It may also be the case that my character simply hasn't met one yet.

(I am trying to learn everything but this is my first fantasy style game and the Lore is gargantuan compared to MMOs I've played before)

RE: Great RP; What Makes It? - Val - 04-16-2015

Trust goes a very, very long way for me. I won't involve myself in a lot of affairs if I can't bring myself to trust the people I RP with, especially when it comes to a relationship/companionship.

I also need to have someone that can immerse me in their character, as well as someone that isn't going to try to change their character simply because they want a specific outcome. For that matter, I like people that can create 3-dimensional, believable characters that have thoughts and feelings of their own.

I like those that can get involved in stories as well as come up with their own; someone that isn't going to sit on the sidelines and expect RP to come to them or not get involved if no one goes to them. 

I think spelling/grammar can play a big part in it as well and, along with this, people that can make posts that accurately describe and convey the scene. They don't have to be long posts, though I tend to be rather lengthy myself when it comes to more closed RP, but the posts need to be more than "So and so smiles at you." I'm certainly guilty of such posts myself, but I tend to only do such in a closed environment. As for spelling, if the person can't spell well, it tends to break my immersion (especially if it's really bad) by forcing me to try to understand what exactly was meant.

To sum it up, just believable characters in a living, breathing world with people that you know and can trust. They don't even have to be like-minded, just capable.