Ignacius

Very well, let us modify the scenario: Scott's player wants to roleplay Scott as a witty character. Over the course of one week, Scott's player roleplays with three separate groups of players. Group 1: Abby, Brian, Jenny, Dean. Group 2: Cecilia, AJ, Michael. Group 3: Joseph, Irene, Kevin, Ian, James. The impressions made by Scott's character are as follows: Abby and Jenny thought Scott was clever. Brian and Dean thought he missed the mark a lot. Cecilia and Michael were amused by Scott's antics. AJ was not impressed and thinks his character is wittier. Joseph, Kevin, and Ian thought Scott was a riot and invited him to do a comedy routine at their weekly tavern RP event next week. Irene and James were irritated by Scott's humor and do not wish to RP with him again. Given the above information is Scott a witty character? Slightly above average (though probably enough to carry the character). If we take all given opinions as a sample, we can say that he has thoroughly entertained over half of all three of his audiences, enough that only two people will refuse to ever RP with him again (which, given he is doing a comedy routine, seems to suggest that he might be witty, but might also be thoroughly offensive, making him Eorzean Frankie Boyle). Overall, I'd say that, at the very least, Scott himself can pull it off. He seems to be putting out enough wit to be taken seriously as an in-game comedian and only three people in the sample believed, by the statement, he was flat. Scott the player might not be a comedian in real life (he may not be offensive enough to be entertaining), but he seems to be capable of carrying the character. At the very least, he wouldn't have to tell anyone he's playing a witty character, as in the OP. He's doing a fairly good job. I'd be pretty pleased with that kind of ratio.

Scenario: There are three players, each roleplaying a character: Abby, Brian, and Scott. All three characters are in a conversation. Scott's player wants to play Scott as a witty character and attempts to do so. Abby and Brian are his audience. The RP concludes and all players go their separate ways. Abby's player thought Scott was an amusing and witty character. Brian's player thought Scott really missed the mark and was kind of dumb. Given the above information, is Scott a witty character? That depends, two isn't much of a sample size. More important would be if Brian's player is likely to RP with Scott again. Because if Scott was so off the mark with Brian that he never wants to see him again, and Abby's willing to play with him, we have a major problem whenever Brian and Scott are forced to cohabit. Because if Brian suddenly starts biting back and embarrasses Scott in public because Brian, himself, is wittier, OOC drama is likely. And the OP is even more explicit. We're talking about Brian thinking Scott missed the mark, and then having (presumably Scott, but maybe even Abby) saying, "The character is witty, and just because the player isn't really doesn't mean you can treat him like a moron in character or out of character." Unfortunately, Brian is most likely to tell Abby what he thinks and to avoid Scott, but neither is likely to tell Scott what they think. And if far more people agree with Brian, Scott is likely to find himself isolated and not have any idea why people are avoiding him. If no one told him they found him flat and/or offensive, and his reliance on that trait is a constant throbbing pain in his performance, he's probably trucking along not having any clue why people find him flat or offensive. He's likely to blame Brian and his ilk for not getting it. This tends to happen a lot more with charisma in play, but I've seen it happen with wit as well. I've even seen this happen when someone not only wasn't witty or particularly intelligent, but also couldn't type well. Well-meaning player punching far above her weight, and she didn't know why people tended to avoid her until I tried to gently break it to her. Luckily, that ended a bit better of a story, she slightly modified the character to not rely so much on being a smart-ass. Without the smart, the character is just an ass.

How do you identify and differentiate between what is someone's 'limit' and what is just the product of a lack of research or understanding? Generally speaking, if you're talking about research, you're talking about knowledge, which isn't a function of intelligence. Now, a lack of research is one thing that can get aggravating, but that's a pretty forceful display of ignorance (like when someone says they're playing a jeweler, you are a jeweler, you correct them about a fundamental problem with the way gems are set, and the person tells you that you don't know what you're talking about and ignore it). The limit of "wit" is generally an issue of dissonance. As pertains to the OP, we're talking about someone having to tell someone their character is a genius or witty. That's a very significant problem, when the player has one view of their character and the audience (the other players) have another. If you're talking about the limit, it's the point you're playing your character as a genius but all the problems are solved by the thug in your group because you can't actually solve them. Or when you have the worst comebacks in the group but you want your character to be "witty". That just can't be washed over by metagaming in the idea that your character is what you can't manage. Now, most experienced RPers learn not to play to the result, you play the traits. Smart RPers don't even let the limit become an issue. You say your character is sarcastic, vocal, biting, defensive, nerdy, insensitive, etc. You end up with a character that makes nasty responses. They're as witty as you are, but you aren't aiming at "witty", you're aiming at a certain tone of character. Then the audience can discern whether your character is "witty" or not. At the very least, people won't have the issue of having to deal with someone playing an "intelligent" character that isn't intelligent, but a "knowledgeable" and possibly "arrogant" character. If they sound intelligent, so much the better, but you can't force the issue. So the limit is very much personal. Generally speaking, you shouldn't write a character you yourself can't personally carry out, but that is very much something you track by asking for and honestly receiving the feedback from other players. You don't dictate the reaction and call all feedback hateful. That's the responsibility of the community, to be respectful but honest so people aren't just being frozen out without being given a chance to know why. The problem is that most people don't know their own limit, and if they're to the point they're ordering you to receive the character as a genius, they aren't generally in a receptive mood. But is the statement that you can't really play a character wittier than you true? Sure, your character can't be wittier than you can write (obviously, your character is only the sum of the reaction to what you write). And if you just aren't snappy, you don't have to be. It is okay to not be a genius and to therefore not play one. It's fine, and we shouldn't treat people like not having that mental acuity is a disability, it's just a character trait. Your engineer or mage isn't in any way hurt by the character not being a genius, in fact you tend to have more respect for the guy who worked hard and became great rather than the guy for whom it came naturally. But if you really push the character beyond your limits, you're biting off more than you can chew. Your genius will lose a ton of arguments and lose credibility IC, and soon OOC if you demand that the genius be recognized regardless.

It's kind of a cop out to act like the people who are disagreeing you are offended by what you're saying. Especially because later in the thread the people you thank for "providing the thread with sensitive arguments that didn't fall to personal insults or the 'Your opinion offends me' spectrum" are the two people in this thread arguing most prominently in your favor. You say you're looking for a discussion, but when you then discount in this manner the people arguing against what you're saying, it comes off as a bit disingenuous. My point ultimately is that while this discussion is well and good, this thread is not, in fact, constructive criticism. It is gatekeeping. It is saying, "if you do not posses 'x' faculty, you cannot do this." So this raises a number of questions, which include: 1) Who gets to judge whether or not someone has 'x' faculty? 2) Who gets to judge whether or not said person's character portrays 'x' faculty correctly? You seem to be saying this is a personal attack, questioning YOUR capabilities to determine who is and isn't "witty" or whatever other faculty we're talking about here. You say this is easy to determine. That, perhaps, people are calling you stupid when they call this capacity into question? But I don't think this question is so cut and dry. I don't think this is an easy thing to determine, and I'm unclear as to what the standards of possessing "wit" are even being defined as here. Whether or not someone has it or not seems pretty subjective to me. So, whose standards are we going to follow here? But let's say we all come to an agreement on what this means and who has it. That doesn't change the fact that this entire discussion says, certain people are allowed to play a kind of character and... others aren't. This IS a form of gatekeeping, and gatekeeping is not a healthy part of an RP community. As I said before, this doesn't mean you have to play with people who do not play this sort of character convincingly to you. But that doesn't mean you should tell them they can't play their character the way they want to play it. It's one thing if someone's IC/OOC behavior is harmful. (e.x. if someone's self-professed "lady-killer" character is actually harassing every female character in sight and making other players feel uncomfortable and potentially unsafe.) But no one's being hurt if someone's witty character doesn't quite seem like the bastion of wit they're made out to be. When we start saying to people "don't play this," we're stymieing an avenue of their creativity. We make them self-conscious of their own abilities and whether or not they pull it off. And as I said before, this is supposed to be a hobby. A fun hobby. Nothing rides on people's characters coming off as smart as they're supposed to be. The more gatekeeping rules we throw in, the more people start to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. And pushing people away not only doesn't help them, but it makes our community smaller. We become more concerned with evaluating each other or ourselves instead of... you know, just having fun. Gatekeeping is not a good thing for an RP community. Which is why I resist, and will continue to resist, assertions that someone just shouldn't play a character because someone else says it is so. Except that we very clearly ARE answering those two questions. It not only IS the audience's place to judge whether a character has a certain faculty and whether the player is displaying it correctly, but that WE ARE ALREADY DOING IT! We are already gatekeeping; we will freeze out a player for doing exactly what is being stated in the OP. The problem is that we won't tell the person that, we'll just freeze them out. It happens all the time. There's nothing worse for your RP than trying to tell someone that your character is something that you aren't pulling off. They simply get shunned, and we at best assume they're not very good company and at worst simply assume they're trolls. And this is an exceptionally important point to make, because it is not the responsibility of the community to sacrifice our own fun and performance for someone else's performance. If you feel that's a good use of your time, that's you're prerogative. However, you are making every single person that might enjoy RPing with you have to grind their teeth and suffer through a far less entertaining hang-around. I'd never ask nor expect anyone to sacrifice their fun so that someone else doesn't feel slighted. This is an active and social activity that we all engage in as a contribution. There's no storyteller to say that someone's witty. If the player's not witty, and it comes through in the character, it's disrespectful to tell someone that they're in the wrong for not playing along. It's their time, and if the player is limiting the character's potential wit, charm, and intelligence, then they're under no compunction to laugh at jokes that aren't funny or nod at wisdom that isn't wise. Hell, we aren't doing that here between players, why on Earth would it suddenly change between player-character interactions? The point is that you can play what you want, but you can't complain when you're shunned, skewered, or ignored. And it's probably better for us, as a community, to make sure that, if a player tries to get around his lack of wit by saying, "My character has wit," that we correct them. You can't make a debonair and charming ladies' man if you are as charming as bog water, you can't make an intelligent character if you can't even think around a basic problem, and you can't play a witty character if the best you can come up with are Xbox Live insults in debates. There are limits to what a player can do, and other players shouldn't be sneered at and shamed for acknowledging that. It's their bestowal that is not only being talked about here, but demanded by your argument. That sounds like a problem with you and not them. Since I generally respond to everyone who specifically addresses me. Obviously I can't rp with literally everyone I meet, and some won't rp in a way I'd consider great. Still, if I find that if a player rps in a way I don't like, they usually end up doing something ICly that would make my character avoid them anyway. Part of your statement bolded for emphasis. You're already the gatekeeper you fear, and that's exactly what I'm saying. If a player RPs in a way you don't like, a LOT of people end up doing anything to avoid them. The blacklist is, by far, the most popular (and least rude), and you'll see that any time you bring this up. "Just ignore them and move on." Well, the problem is with the first part of your statement. Even the player being shunned will feel like the problem is you, not them, and that in and of itself is a big problem. If you're shunning people who aren't RPing in a way that you like, but you never bring up what it is they're doing wrong (or, better yet, en masse like this so that people understand it), they'll never learn. And they'll be shunned by a larger mass. And, believe it or not, the actual effect of someone trying to exceed their limit of wit and intelligence becomes a big problem, very fast. Not the least of which because, as the OP suggests, this is metagaming at the very least to say other characters should have a certain reaction to a character rather than engendering it and giving them a chance to react. It's also exceptionally grating for someone to be playing someone who, for example, throws out a wisecrack that isn't wise and barely counts as a crack, it's just a poor interjection. This is the kind of thing we're talking about, and it's exactly the kind of thing that will make sure you sit alone at a table in a bar. We can ignore the problem, or we can try to teach the discipline, but we can't command the audience to respond a certain way. It's no different than having a guy auto a punch on your character and then say, "Well, he's fast, so you can't dodge it."

It's kind of a cop out to act like the people who are disagreeing you are offended by what you're saying. Especially because later in the thread the people you thank for "providing the thread with sensitive arguments that didn't fall to personal insults or the 'Your opinion offends me' spectrum" are the two people in this thread arguing most prominently in your favor. You say you're looking for a discussion, but when you then discount in this manner the people arguing against what you're saying, it comes off as a bit disingenuous. My point ultimately is that while this discussion is well and good, this thread is not, in fact, constructive criticism. It is gatekeeping. It is saying, "if you do not posses 'x' faculty, you cannot do this." So this raises a number of questions, which include: 1) Who gets to judge whether or not someone has 'x' faculty? 2) Who gets to judge whether or not said person's character portrays 'x' faculty correctly? You seem to be saying this is a personal attack, questioning YOUR capabilities to determine who is and isn't "witty" or whatever other faculty we're talking about here. You say this is easy to determine. That, perhaps, people are calling you stupid when they call this capacity into question? But I don't think this question is so cut and dry. I don't think this is an easy thing to determine, and I'm unclear as to what the standards of possessing "wit" are even being defined as here. Whether or not someone has it or not seems pretty subjective to me. So, whose standards are we going to follow here? But let's say we all come to an agreement on what this means and who has it. That doesn't change the fact that this entire discussion says, certain people are allowed to play a kind of character and... others aren't. This IS a form of gatekeeping, and gatekeeping is not a healthy part of an RP community. As I said before, this doesn't mean you have to play with people who do not play this sort of character convincingly to you. But that doesn't mean you should tell them they can't play their character the way they want to play it. It's one thing if someone's IC/OOC behavior is harmful. (e.x. if someone's self-professed "lady-killer" character is actually harassing every female character in sight and making other players feel uncomfortable and potentially unsafe.) But no one's being hurt if someone's witty character doesn't quite seem like the bastion of wit they're made out to be. When we start saying to people "don't play this," we're stymieing an avenue of their creativity. We make them self-conscious of their own abilities and whether or not they pull it off. And as I said before, this is supposed to be a hobby. A fun hobby. Nothing rides on people's characters coming off as smart as they're supposed to be. The more gatekeeping rules we throw in, the more people start to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. And pushing people away not only doesn't help them, but it makes our community smaller. We become more concerned with evaluating each other or ourselves instead of... you know, just having fun. Gatekeeping is not a good thing for an RP community. Which is why I resist, and will continue to resist, assertions that someone just shouldn't play a character because someone else says it is so. Except that we very clearly ARE answering those two questions. It not only IS the audience's place to judge whether a character has a certain faculty and whether the player is displaying it correctly, but that WE ARE ALREADY DOING IT! We are already gatekeeping; we will freeze out a player for doing exactly what is being stated in the OP. The problem is that we won't tell the person that, we'll just freeze them out. It happens all the time. There's nothing worse for your RP than trying to tell someone that your character is something that you aren't pulling off. They simply get shunned, and we at best assume they're not very good company and at worst simply assume they're trolls. And this is an exceptionally important point to make, because it is not the responsibility of the community to sacrifice our own fun and performance for someone else's performance. If you feel that's a good use of your time, that's you're prerogative. However, you are making every single person that might enjoy RPing with you have to grind their teeth and suffer through a far less entertaining hang-around. I'd never ask nor expect anyone to sacrifice their fun so that someone else doesn't feel slighted. This is an active and social activity that we all engage in as a contribution. There's no storyteller to say that someone's witty. If the player's not witty, and it comes through in the character, it's disrespectful to tell someone that they're in the wrong for not playing along. It's their time, and if the player is limiting the character's potential wit, charm, and intelligence, then they're under no compunction to laugh at jokes that aren't funny or nod at wisdom that isn't wise. Hell, we aren't doing that here between players, why on Earth would it suddenly change between player-character interactions? The point is that you can play what you want, but you can't complain when you're shunned, skewered, or ignored. And it's probably better for us, as a community, to make sure that, if a player tries to get around his lack of wit by saying, "My character has wit," that we correct them. You can't make a debonair and charming ladies' man if you are as charming as bog water, you can't make an intelligent character if you can't even think around a basic problem, and you can't play a witty character if the best you can come up with are Xbox Live insults in debates. There are limits to what a player can do, and other players shouldn't be sneered at and shamed for acknowledging that. It's their bestowal that is not only being talked about here, but demanded by your argument.

People can be a little sensitive, but it comes from a good place. People don't want to tell a player that he's definitely punching above his weight, and his "witty" comments are just annoying people. Unfortunately, I think most people get that across by just ignoring and blisting the person. You'd be amazed how many "trolls" are actually trying to RP and just failing at it because they don't understand the human interaction side of it. I think, sometimes, what's lost is that RP isn't just personal liberation, it's performance art. The pinnacle of RP isn't how you write your character, but how well you advance the greater social narrative. Unfortunately, that means that people who aren't well schooled in the art of performance find themselves at a disadvantage without having a clue why. The person you're talking about in the OP probably saw NOTHING wrong with his portrayal. You're probably not the only person finding yourself noticing the deficiency. At least you had enough of a crisis of conscience to come here to ask about it. Most people either write the player off as a jerk and blist him or they try to cater to him, making the problem worse. Perception by the other players drives their characters' interaction, and that's incredibly important in RP. The most popular characters to RP with aren't necessarily the best or most interesting, they're the ones that are the most fun to interact with. That means knowing what limits you can push and when you're just stepping over your capability and driving people away. Unfortunately, playing a "smart" player is playing with fire, and it's risky because if you can't pull it off, it becomes very glaring. More unfortunately, the most common advice in this situation that other players give is to discount the audience. Which is fine, but it's not going to make playing with your character any more pleasant. Better advice is to try not to play to the standard, but play the traits. If they make the standard, more the better, but at least your character comes off as you're capable, not obviously more than you're capable.

I couldn't play a character convincingly above my intelligence any more than I can play a character above my personal ability of charm. Genius, like charisma, is relative. Even if you take, as gospel, the idea that someone can play a character that is somewhat smarter than they are personally, another person who is actually smarter in real life is simply going to be able to do donuts around that character. That's a problem if you're trying to dictate to the audience that the character is a genius. I might be able to pull it off if I'm one of the more intelligent players in the room. However, if I'm the least intelligent person in the room, there's going to come a moment where it becomes blindingly obvious that my character isn't actually that smart. At issue is whether people who are in no way possessed of a comparative mental trait can dictate perception, and they can't. They can try, but they will, eventually, come to be known as the character who thinks he's smarter than he is, only because the player thinks the character is smarter than he can reasonably make him appear. You can make a character appear as intelligent as you possibly can, but in extended open conversations, that's the kind of thing that becomes blindingly obvious. You can't reasonably expect everyone you're trying to convince of your character's wit just take your word for it when they can clearly see through his dialogue that he doesn't have any.

It's also worth noting that knowledge and intelligence are very different things. You can be of average or below average intelligence and have plenty of hard-fought knowledge. You simply needed to work harder to gain it, and you may not be able to apply it as quickly as other naturally gifted people. Likewise, you can be extremely intelligent and simply lack knowledge. We all know someone like this. The guy who seemed to be capable of anything and actually accomplished nothing. I think that, in addition to what's being said here (which I agree with), it's important to state what intelligence, wit, etc. actually are. You can be a perfectly good engineer, even a highly effective innovator, without being intelligent. As someone who works with a lot of engineers, I can say that there are plenty of highly intelligent people that I wouldn't trust to calculate the structure in my shed. Even if it takes an "unintelligent" engineer twice as long, I'd rather it be done right. So no one's saying that players who aren't personally very intelligent can't play highly skilled or capable characters, but there is a limit to how much of a genius they seem to the rest of us. And that can't be dictated. If it takes them a few days to come up with a good solution (or a good comeback) then they simply aren't going to be able to play a character that seems intelligent. And there's no real way to force that to happen.

No, I don't think it's a miscommunication, it's just a contextual problem. There are two opinions here. 1. The perception of wit is a function of the audience, its portrayal the responsibility of the writer. 2. The perception of wit is the responsibility of the audience, its portrayal is the function of the writer. I'm certainly of opinion 1. If a player's character is not witty, but we are told that the character is witty, I do not believe that it is endemic on the other players to make something which is not in keeping with the character to be true. For example, I cannot tell any other player that my character is funny. I can tell jokes as my character, and I can certainly say my character tells a lot of jokes. I can make those jokes as funny as I possibly can. I can even make many other people think my character is funny if I'm good at those. But I cannot force those players, or their characters, to laugh because I said, "My character is funny." Therefore, my character is as funny as I'm capable of being. My characters are not able to be any funnier than I am. It's the same here. A person can feasibly say their character has a great deal of knowledge they don't have. They can do their best to act intelligent or witty. They can try their best to come up with witty remarks or to perform fast and complex on-the-spot problem solving. And we, as players and characters, might remark highly on the character's intelligence and call them a genius. But a character isn't intelligent because we're told they are, especially if the player isn't themselves intelligent. Therefore, a character cannot actually be any more intelligent than the player. There's simply a limit. Now, many here are postulating that, if someone says their character is intelligent, we need to take that as gospel no matter how unintelligent the character is (despite the intention of the writer). I simply don't think that's either rational or even necessarily reasonable in an open setting. Maybe if you're around a tabletop with your friends, people can cut you slack and give you the benefit of the doubt. However, we're not under any compunction, as players, to have to pretend something bland or insipid is witty and insightful. That is the responsibility of the writer, and are titles we bestow as the audience. And that means some people will have limits, and it's best to know them. It certainly shouldn't be the responsibility of the audience to react according to the players' demand rather than the players' performance.

So, are you thinking you're one of the ones who are witty? Because that is not what I'm taking away here. You just made two posts in a row. whhhhy It feels spammy with the way I learned to post in forums THERE'S AN EDIT BUTTON~~~~ YOU CAN EDIT THE QUOTES YOU QUOTE FORUM POSTING IS NOT ENGINEERING QUOTE TREES! I responded to two different people. Context is important. Whether I'm witty or not isn't really something I can comment on. I'm just describing what I know from my pretty extensive open RP. I'm not sure precisely what part of the quoted response might mean I have that high of an opinion of myself (I definitely follow my own advice and I don't play characters to be intelligent, witty, or charismatic, but simply play to the character and let the other players judge the character). Again, context is important.

Well, unfortunately, the people who are to say if someone can RP and judge their results are the other players. People can RP what they want. At issue is our reaction as an audience. That's a big problem, because, like it or not, the entire point of person-to-person interaction is judgement, and RP is a social activity. The OP has said, very directly, that the player stated that their character was a genius, and then the character very obviously was not. This is very important, because this isn't all that uncommon. Genius, wit, etc, that's all based on interaction and comes from the audience. We, as roleplayers, are also not in any position to be told what a character is when the character can't be backed up with actual writing. It doesn't make you a bad person to not want to RP with someone whose RP grates on your nerves. This dissonance is one of the major reasons why that has nothing to do with metagaming and bleed. So, you can RP whatever you want, but you have no room to complain if you're frozen out of RP (also what commonly happens to these players). You are all judging (and being judged) every time you speak in public, including your RP skills. Hell, we're all judging each other here and trying desperately not to seem like we are. Such is the nature of social interaction. Characters who actually seem genuinely witty and intelligent are generally written by witty and intelligent players. And, to be fair, it's not a pandemic of people who are punching above their weight class. Players tend to write characters as witty or intelligent as they can manage, which isn't what I'd call genius but not certainly dumb. But people who are not themselves witty or intelligent at all certainly aren't going to write characters who are convincingly witty or intelligent. Generally, if you have to tell someone what they're supposed to think, as in the OP, you aren't convincing anyone. I simply don't think it's right to tell other people they have to take the character description as the gospel even when they are reading that it's inaccurate in the actual RP. I kind of agree to some degree. It seems that you are saying that as players we have certain standards and expectations that we look for in our RP interactions. That we will exclude those people that do not match our criteria from our RP? I would agree that most people have this to one degree or another. Yet another person may find that player's RP acceptable, where as others may not. What we take from what someone plays is up to us. In fact it is quite possible to fill in the deficiencies we see from the other player ourself. In effect compensate for the variations in style, depth etc.. Ever RPed with a children? Now the more we have to do this the more it becomes a problem and the less likely we are to come back. The less we have to do this the better the interaction will go. I dare say the dumb person in this set-up finds the not so dumb elitist equality as frustrating and boring (Penny vs Sheldon) I can quite accept that if someone makes no attempts to back up the assertion their character is a genius then it is definitely not convincing. Yet the question is "can" they, and with some effort they can. Some however choose not to make the effort. Going by this analogy, everyone believes Penny and Sheldon to be intelligent people. We're talking about the equivalent of Rick Ross trying to ghost write his own scientist character in, expecting to have the audience receive him as a genius. Hey, I would believe Rick Ross writing himself as a threatening, muscle-bound thug. Not only was he a corrections officer, but he seems to understand that lifestyle. But nobody is going to buy him as a scientist when he's running on his own wit. There's no problem being as witty, intelligent, or charismatic as you can be, but punching above your weight comes across differently in RP. Because the writing and acting are happening simultaneously, the audience receives a character who thinks he's smarter, wittier, and more charismatic than he actually is. Honestly, I can't even recommend people don't play a charismatic character unless they know their limits, as an aside. I can't stress that enough. In any case, it's not endemic because people don't usually play characters like "genius", "charming", or "witty". Most experienced RPers know better. They throw out witty lines or are charming as a byproduct of the character, and so they operate within their limits simply because they aren't shooting higher. And, let's be frank, we're ABLE to be things that we aren't, but can certainly RP. I mean, most of us can be a lot wittier than we are, but we tend to temper it with some pleasantness so we bite off a lot of our witty repartee if it's too mean. Our RP characters might not be anywhere near so limited. But yes, there is such a thing as trying to play someone above your weight class, and the best way to avoid it is to let the audience decide your characters' intelligence organically and just play what your character would play. At the very least, someone might say, "Look, he's not Mark Twain, but the guy knows his machines."

As I mentioned in my post, it was a phrasing problem. I do not speak of intellect or knowledge, I speak of raw sharp-mindedness and wit. I don't mean to offend anyone, and if someone takes this personally, I apologize. This isn't a personal attack against those who play witty characters. However, I part from the belief that unless you're given a script, you cannot fake possessing mental faculties you truly lack. If you claim your character is intelligent enough to come back with quick-witted responses, then you, as a roleplayer, have to come up with those witty responses as quickly as your character would. For someone who isn't sharp-minded, this is nearly impossible. This usually leads to the character falling flat, because you as a roleplayer cannot keep up with the character you want to portray. My father is an actor. He has done all kinds of acting, including Improv. Role-play is a lot like imrpov, because you don't follow a script, it's fully reactionary. He has told me that in order to portray a quick-witted person, one must be sharp minded, otherwise you won't be able to play the part. That's just it, though. RP isn't improv. I don't know of your father roleplays or is just approximating based on what you've shown him, but as someone who grew up in acting and improv and who also RPs, they are very different. The amount of pressure on you in improv is totally different from RP and your posting speed can very considerably without problem. Also you can absolutely have a script to follow in rp, and no one will necessarily ever know about it unless they're sitting behind you at your computer watching you glance at your notes. RP is very definitely improvised when it's occurring in the game. If there's a script, it's just a story you're acting out (we're not doing a Matrix RP if we're just reciting the lines from The Matrix). And there is absolutely an audience out there, they're just also playing with you. The pressure you feel is differential by the standard you hold your own performance to. The pinnacle of RP is to have a character people want to RP their own characters with and want to be around for their stories, and that's fundamentally a function of audience response from other writers.

I changed it to "Witty" though this also applies to "Genius" characters so many people love to RP. And I do mean dumb, not slow. Dumb. Stupid. Not smart. Someone intellectually challenged. Someone who even if they take five minutes to respond, no matter how great they are, their responses are hardly intelligent or thoughtful. I know far too many characters that their players OOC tell me they are "geniuses" only to find out they are acting like bumbling fools when they are put to the test, simply because the role-player is lacking in mental faculties. Characters who act irrational and emotional when their players claim they are the ultimate scientists who are oh-so-cold and calculating. I have a hard time believing this can be quantified via your own experiences with players of lesser wit than their characters. I have roleplayed with people who are quite slow of wit -- but they see witty characters on TV or have read them in books, and use what they've seen to produce a properly convincing performance that fits their narrative well. If you want to attribute it to the player's WRITING or their ability to pull from what resources and references they have available...that I can understand. The answer remains though, yeah, a less mentally proficient/witty player is capable of portraying someone with wit -- regardless of your handful of experiences. It's not something that is impossible. If the less mentally proficient/witty player can write something good enough, or even get HELP from someone to write something good enough, that is literally all they need. Of course, this all depends on the subjective view of what is 'dumb'. Immaturity, inexperience, a slower pace of learning can all be presented as 'dumb' by an impatient enough and judgmental enough observer. Something that many of us roleplayers at times tend to be, myself included. Wit is very deeply based on reaction, and it isn't something you can learn from television (my God can you not learn wit from modern television). And, unfortunately, it's not something you can replicate if you don't have it. There are a lot of poor substitutes for wit that you may have some kind of traction today, but not wit. SAMPLE INITIAL SENTENCE: Maybe if you'd just stop insulting the name of Her Majesty, you wouldn't find yourself in this trouble. WITTY RESPONSE: Honestly, if we called her Liz Windsor, it wouldn't be worth the trouble. RESPONSE I USUALLY HEAR: Maybe I like trouble. RESPONSE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT: Maybe you should shut up! And you know what, the latter responses are probably just fine for many characters. Wittiness is a character trait, not necessarily something pleasant. There are plenty of unpleasantly witty people. We're very specifically talking about someone who thinks the third response is as good as the first response if they just say, "My character's a smart ass and he's witty." No, he's not, even if the player wants him to be.

Well, unfortunately, the people who are to say if someone can RP and judge their results are the other players. People can RP what they want. At issue is our reaction as an audience. That's a big problem, because, like it or not, the entire point of person-to-person interaction is judgement, and RP is a social activity. The OP has said, very directly, that the player stated that their character was a genius, and then the character very obviously was not. This is very important, because this isn't all that uncommon. Genius, wit, etc, that's all based on interaction and comes from the audience. We, as roleplayers, are also not in any position to be told what a character is when the character can't be backed up with actual writing. It doesn't make you a bad person to not want to RP with someone whose RP grates on your nerves. This dissonance is one of the major reasons why that has nothing to do with metagaming and bleed. So, you can RP whatever you want, but you have no room to complain if you're frozen out of RP (also what commonly happens to these players). You are all judging (and being judged) every time you speak in public, including your RP skills. Hell, we're all judging each other here and trying desperately not to seem like we are. Such is the nature of social interaction. Characters who actually seem genuinely witty and intelligent are generally written by witty and intelligent players. And, to be fair, it's not a pandemic of people who are punching above their weight class. Players tend to write characters as witty or intelligent as they can manage, which isn't what I'd call genius but not certainly dumb. But people who are not themselves witty or intelligent at all certainly aren't going to write characters who are convincingly witty or intelligent. Generally, if you have to tell someone what they're supposed to think, as in the OP, you aren't convincing anyone. I simply don't think it's right to tell other people they have to take the character description as the gospel even when they are reading that it's inaccurate in the actual RP.

I guarantee you that if you were playing a female character, and a man comes in and pulls a bro-douche act, then says he's trying to play a womanizing character because he's not popular with women in real life, nobody's going to suddenly pretend that his character is sexy after the fact. Same difference. You can only TRY to play a character that you aren't, but the audience actually does judge you. That's the difference between RP and just fantasizing in your own head. No one is under any compunction to comfort you if you can't carry the trait you're trying to get across. Genius, wit, charisma, these are things you have to have some measure of before you can write them. This happens ALL THE TIME, I can't stress this enough. I have a friend from my WoW days. She's a perfectly fine and helpful human being. She loves RP and helped me run a guild for a while there. She is not a genius, and to make matters worse, she has very poor grammar and spelling. So when she tries to play someone cunning and intelligent, it shows. Badly. And even as a very, very good friend of hers, it was very grating having someone punching that high above their weight.

As I mentioned in my post, it was a phrasing problem. I do not speak of intellect or knowledge, I speak of raw sharp-mindedness and wit. I don't mean to offend anyone, and if someone takes this personally, I apologize. This isn't a personal attack against those who play witty characters. However, I part from the belief that unless you're given a script, you cannot fake possessing mental faculties you truly lack. If you claim your character is intelligent enough to come back with quick-witted responses, then you, as a roleplayer, have to come up with those witty responses as quickly as your character would. For someone who isn't sharp-minded, this is nearly impossible. This usually leads to the character falling flat, because you as a roleplayer cannot keep up with the character you want to portray. My father is an actor. He has done all kinds of acting, including Improv. Role-play is a lot like imrpov, because you don't follow a script, it's fully reactionary. He has told me that in order to portray a quick-witted person, one must be sharp minded, otherwise you won't be able to play the part. Perhaps a change of the thread's subject might help, if a sharp mind and quick wit is what you're talking about. Addressing the word 'dumb' may assist as well, regardless of if the intent is not to offend. Not to mention, if someone not of a sharp mind cannot respond as fast as their character can, it has nothing to do with the roleplay at all. If they take five minutes to respond and simply put in their emote "Berrod Armstrong's response was almost immediate, blah blah," Then the scene has been narrated in a way that paints the character as quick witted -- even if the player took five minutes to come up with the response. It's all about the writing. Except that's not usually the issue. The issue is that they can write the response to be immediate, but if it's a dumb comeback, it's a dumb comeback. Generally speaking, I take everything as if it came directly after, the problem is that people don't actually come up with a witty response. You know, as if you actually did write "blah blah". I mean, we're talking about people who are writing responses that might have taken quite a bit of thought from the writer, but in no way resemble someone intelligent. For example, let's say that you're having a conversation with your compatriots about how to solve a problem, say how to get hold of a certain person who is being held in custody. When someone is telling you their character is a genius, and keeps coming up with obviously stupid ideas (e.g. "Just blow up the door." "We just said that there's no way to go through a wall without destroying half the building." "I said DOOR, idiot." "....") Wit is even harder. If someone points out a logical flaw in your argument and your retort sounds like something out of The Jersey Shore, it doesn't matter if you write in that it's immediate. Wit, like genius, is perceived and is thus a function of the audience (in this case the other writers). If you are trying to say your character is witty and you can't come up with witty repartee, you'll simply fail. Worse, you're likely to be grating on the nerves of multiple members of the group. Even worse, and probably most common, is a failure of charisma. You cannot write yourself charming if you can't be charming in real life. Charm is 100% a function of the audience, so if you crash and burn, you will crash and burn hard. Unfortunately, a lot of charm is wit, so if you can't be intelligent and witty, you're already going to fail hard at being charming. Unfortunately, a LOT of people try to write characters to be ladies' men that can't pull it off, and it's nails on a chalkboard. The worst part of the whole situation is that when these people are frozen out of the scene, and they ask, they'll receive what might be well-meaning and gentle criticism about them coming across as being irritating. And the first response you get from the player is, "Well, the character is intelligent" or witty or charismatic or whatever they're trying to get across. The problem is that the audience doesn't necessarily find that believable. There are certain traits you just can't "write in". In an open RP setting, with random RP partners, I can't stress enough what a problem this can be, especially because it leads to people not knowing why they're being frozen out.

But see, someone has to possess wit in order to successfully fool others with their BS. If you're a very good liar or you can manage to throw people off-balance by making their logic spin and twisting it to your benefit, you are intelligent. Ignorant, sure, but intelligent. Twisting facts and bending them so they can seem true to those who are easily manipulated indicates that you are not dumb. People who believe you might be, but not you. Yeah, more at issue is when you've got someone saying they're intelligent, then having them continually flabbergasted in logical conversation and unable to do basic problem solving. Having random statistical knowledge is one thing, but not having the personal mental speed to figure things out just isn't something you can get around besides telling the other players they have to take things as read. And that's just not something that can happen in open RP. The thing is, a lot of people can give playing a genius a go, but in the case of RP the audience is all around you and are writing the scene with you. It separates the men from the boys, so to speak. Eventually it comes across that the character isn't really that intelligent. I'm usually extremely conscious of character bleed, so I'm usually in the habit of making sure I'm coming across correctly. People who are constantly checking to make sure they're playing the character and not playing themselves are usually aware of their intrinsic limitations.

Welcome! If you do end up on Gilgamesh, let me know. I can help plug you into the community there.

I don't tend to make it a big issue. IRL, it can be for left-handed people, but in FFXIV most of the things we use from day to day are made by artisans (who make it for the handedness you need, not the handedness that's most common). I'm sure having the shifter on the wrong side of an airship could be an issue, but I don't have anyone who flies them.

Welcome! You're not alone on the Gilgamesh server! There's a forum where the Gilgamesh people chill (which you can find here) and you can usually find some RP in the adventurer's guilds across Eorzea. Feel free to hit me up on Orleans Ignacius or really anyone in the Ghost Wolf Dancers free company () if you're looking for some helpful hands. Also, keep a look out for Adolar Stone. He's sort of the guy I make sure everyone finds and gets hold of to get into the Gilgamesh RP scene.

We weren't really getting into that (it wasn't part of the OP), but yes, demanding people recognize traits about your character that they're very obviously not displaying because you aren't capable of displaying them is a good way to make them not want to play with you. And, of course, by the logic here, it's also a good way to get them to decide not to play with you without having any idea why they're avoiding you. No one asked why their character wasn't matching their expectations, the OP very obviously asked the question of whether people should ask people to treat their characters as geniuses when they very clearly can't play that part. If anything, I've found that the people who do that have absolutely NOT asked anyone for any criticism, they've just found themselves frozen out of RP because people find it irritating. I have no doubt that there are very few people reading this who are saying, "Yes, that's me. I'm the one that can't pull off the character I'm trying to play." People have limits. We can fake knowledge, that's fairly easy to do. But to come off as witty and intelligent, you simply cannot do it if you aren't capable of being witty or intelligent. You can have bigger muscles; your physical appearance isn't present. But you cannot write an actually intelligent response to a conversation if you, yourself, aren't capable of it. Obviously, you wouldn't be able to write it. It's not meant to be insulting, that's just how it is. Your character can be bigger than you, more skilled than you, but you can't write a character sharper than you. Especially not when you have to answer other characters' actions on the fly. People have to be mindful that there are simply certain traits that are going to be limited by your own mental acuity. And it's important to know that, because writing beyond your ability is responsible for giving a character "unintentional traits", that is the things that make up your character that you didn't intend for them to have. It creates dissonance. As you've said, your character isn't the sum of what you intend, it's the sum of what other people perceive. If you try to throw out a witty comment, and everyone else finds it boorish and pathetic, then your character isn't witty, your character thinks he's wittier than he is. And that's likely not intended as the trait, it's simply the product of the writer thinking his character is wittier than he is. Thus it's very important to know your own limitations. If you aren't intelligent yourself, there are certain things you can fake (such as the knowledge and products), but you'll annoy people in conversation by trying to sound intelligent and failing. We've all known that person on Facebook who thinks they're a lot more intelligent than they actually are. Your character can be that person as well. And that person is annoying in both cases.

I have to echo this. A major point of roleplaying for a lot of people is to be something you otherwise aren't/cannot be. It doesn't have to be limited to "geniuses" either. I'd actually be interested to know just how many players in the RP community can, in real life, wield the weapons their characters do in roleplay to the extent that the players claim their characters can. Same with crafting. I know several players that have characters who are talented cooks but admit openly that they'd burn water in real life. I have yet to complain about their RP in regards to their cooking. Does being knowledgeable of whatever subject matter your character is genius in help? Absolutely. Anyone who argues differently needs to reevaluate their stance. Is being knowledgeable in such a manner required to roleplay a convincing, "good" (in quotes because relative subjective-ness of the term), immersive "insert-talent here"? Absolutely not. And, honestly, it's disheartening to read the responses in this thread that would say otherwise. Book knowledge doesn't make you smart. My mother's a great example. She will tell you, straight up, that she isn't necessarily intelligent. Her sister was incredibly intelligent, but she isn't. Both she and her sister went into nursing. She's a better nurse, but she has to put in a ton of effort to learn new things and her knowledge base was put together over many years. She has a lot of other great qualities, but she isn't a genius. She's very aware of that. Anyone can, if they have the drive and dedication, become knowledgeable in a subject. Not everyone is a genius. Intelligence is a measure of mental speed and acuity, not volume. And a character being an autistic bookworm is one thing, but for someone to be a "genius", that's taking on a mental trait. Geniuses are people who can learn new subjects incredibly quickly, react through problem solving quickly, and are generally people who have incredible recall. Now, I do actually know something about swordplay, and that has allowed most of my characters to seem as though they have a prodigious amount of finesse (I can apply techniques I personally know). But saying your character has a lot of physical power when you personally do not is relatively easy; you the person aren't physically present with your character. But intelligence? You ARE mentally present, and there are quite a few mental abilities people simply cannot mimic if they don't have it. There is no amount of learning that can make you a genius, make you witty, make you charismatic, nothing. I'll give you a direct example. Let's say someone wants his character to be a genius. His character seems to know everything there is to know about airships and machines, but the character is supposed to be a GENIUS, not just a well-schooled engineer. However, let's say the player is not very intelligent. That's going to come across in conversation. He won't be able to produce snappy comebacks, nor will he be able to quickly come up with mechanical solutions that make any story sense. He'll be a step behind in many conversations. Worse, when explanations are occurring, his "less intelligent" fellow characters will be able to follow along. We can all try to say, "this character is intelligent" but the character can't actually BE more intelligent than the player. The best we can do is mimic the effects with some handwavium by artificially saying "this character is very smart". I should point out that, again, this is by FAR the less common problem. Roleplayers have a tendency towards mental acuity (coming up with story responses on the fly isn't something that tends to attract doofuses, that's what Call of Duty is for). FAR more common is the issue with people playing socially adept characters who aren't, due to player limitations, actually that socially adept. That's a big problem in FFXIV. At least you can mimic the effects of intelligence and handwave, but it's often very obvious who doesn't have a charming bone in their body the second they try to be slick in character. You can't be what you can't be, and it's extremely important that players realize this. Very often, they take offense when their characters don't draw the attention that they want, whether it be awe at their intelligence or fluttering hearts at their bravado. However, traits like intelligence, wit, charm, subterfuge, these are comparative traits that come out in play. And if you can't play that role IRL (not could if you wanted to, but don't, but literally cannot) then there's no way you'll be able to pull off convincingly roleplaying someone in that role. It's not sad, it's just reality. If you want to play someone schooled on a subject you don't know much about, you can (and often, it does you a lot of good to read up on or extrapolate the knowledge you need, even if you don't have it). That's relatively easy. But you can't fake genius if you yourself can't think on that level. That requires a lot of people helping out, and in an open-forum RP the way most of these games operate, that means you're trying to engender that reaction out of complete strangers. Unfortunately, fake genius, like fake charm, tends to come across to strangers as exactly that, fake genius or fake charm. There's nothing sadder than someone bombing at a supposedly genuine display of mental acuity because the player just isn't genuinely that acute.

There's no contract here. We're essentially RPing at-will here. If something isn't fun, for whatever reason, you are under zero obligation to play with this. IF you love the character, extract your character, however suddenly, from the situation or retcon it completely. If you don't, fantasia and start over. DO NOT FORCE YOURSELF TO RP WHEN YOU AREN'T ENGAGED! You will burn out.

It's worth noting, in this discussion, that we should be also including the things we AREN'T paying for as relates to gil and worth. I mean, we are told teleportation is expensive (at a few hundred gil), but our characters normal "living" expenses are sort of ignored. Like our food. We don't have to pay for food three times a day, we don't have to pay for inn rooms, nor do we pay for our taxes. Now, I figure our characters PAY these things, they're just taken as read. However, everyone's money goes into that and their equipment in theory, and that includes NPCs. Your average wood-cutter has to pay for not just their equipment, but food, tranportation, carts, etc. So it's hard to say, since all our goods we pay for are, necessarily, occupational expenses. The best way to judge it is that Adventurers can make equipment trivial that even city guards say is expensive, like equipment and teleportation. So several hundred gil is probably a HEALTHY chunk for even a soldier, much less a grifter in the Brume. I'd figure that ten gil would probably pay for food or a drink on the cheap. That seems to work pretty well. A few thousand gil is a good price for an average adventurer's job. Ten thousand gil is probably a good annual salary for a non-adventurer, probably twenty thousand for a soldier. A hundred thousand gil is more than a normal person might see in a decade, a million gil is some manner of estate. Of course, this is all academic. Your characters' income isn't to be derived from your character's in-game gil. Being rich or poor is a character trait and should inform your RP.

No. Sorry, but, it's impossible to operate outside your own ability. Rule #2 of roleplaying is, literally, to not RP beyond your means. Know your limitations. I should explain. You don't necessarily have to BE what your RP characters are. Certainly, Orleans is a somewhat sociopathic mercenary, and I'm an architectural designer in Ohio. I don't have to be a killer to play a killer. However, we are taking on dual activities as writers and actors. And, unfortunately, there are simply attributes we can't do. If you are not capable of being smart, you can't play a genius character convincingly. If you aren't capable of being charismatic, you can't play a charming character convincingly. You may not have to be angry, but if you can't even manage to understand anger, you cannot play a violent and angry character. You can play what you don't do, but you can't play what you can't play. This is all related to how people react to your character. If you say your character is a genius, but you can't be intelligent in conversation and you can't problem solve, other players will not believe you and will, understandably, think that your character thinks he's smarter than he is. More common is someone trying to play a womanizer without having the slightest clue how to be sly and charming. I can't tell you how many men slide into a room, thinking they're playing a smooth ladies' man, and come off as a comical asshat (or, worse, get angry because they're hanging out in a corner grimacing angrily at the table and can't seem to attract a woman to hear their sob story). Even worse (though less common) is the person playing the crazy, murderous sociopath that, at the first sign of drama, becomes a pussy cat. Play the character, not yourself, and if you can't play the character, don't. I know my limitations. I don't play any female characters. None whatsoever. I've tried, and I've failed to make it convincing. I know I don't do it well. The "women" I've played have always come off as very domineering and masculine, even though I've been trying not to. And I'm an experienced RPer, I've been doing this for almost two decades. But I want to be convincing and I simply can't, no matter how much research I do and how hard I try, get a good female character going. Some of you are good at playing an alternate gender, but I can't to the standard I maintain for myself. You can always try to broaden your horizons and play someone much, much different from yourself. Some things, though, you can't do. Even if you pretend to know things in FFXIV, people will know, if you're not smart in real life, that your character isn't as smart as he wants to be. It simply bleeds through.