Nevivi Nevi

Hey everyone. I hang out on a fairly large FFXIV RP community Discord where I've ended up as part of the unofficial welcome wagon for new members, and after a while I started to notice a lot of repeat questions from new and returning RPers, and sometimes even old RPers confronting tough situations. So I started assembling them into a FAQ to help get people established, focused specifically on FFXIV RP on the Crystal Data Center (because I can't really speak for other DCs, not being on them myself; which doesn't mean it won't mostly apply, but it's probably not entirely the same). So far feedback has been overwhelmingly and humblingly positive, so I figured I'd share here too, so here it is, with apologies for my tendency towards ridiculous and ridiculously-long titles... So You Wanna Start Roleplaying In FFXIV (Specifically, On Crystal Data Center) But It Sounds Really Scary And You're New And How Does This Even Work Anyway?: A FAQ It covers pretty much everything I could think of, from things like system limitations and the UI to standard writing and lore conventions, even to a bunch of things that I wish I'd known coming into the community myself: social norms, common assumptions, setting and navigating boundaries, how to handle different opinions on lore-strictness, resolving conflict, all the 'soft skills' in RP that really make it work but don't often get acknowledged. As you can guess by looking at it, it was a pretty huge effort, but don't let the guide's length intimidate you. It's meant to be skimmable and taken in at your own pace. I also took the most neutral possible stance on issues, because I firmly believe that the only "bad RP" is RP that the participants aren't enjoying, so you won't find any attempts to enforce anything here other than treating others with respect. It's nominally finished, but I'm still occasionally adding sections as the need arises, so if you spot any errors or omissions, let me know! I'm always glad for feedback.

Lorewise, DRK is about loving someone(s) else more than yourself and being willing to do just about anything to protect them. The love fuels the anger at injustices perpetrated upon the object of the love, and the anger fuels the dark knight's powers, but without the love to ground them, a dark knight would rapidly fall to their dark side and be consumed. But on the flip side, it would be hard to have that much rage without having love to empower it, also; directionless, groundless anger isn't really that powerful, just self-destructive. Selfless love of others is the lens that focuses it from impotent anger into a real instrument of change. Anger can manifest in a lot of ways, so it doesn't strictly have to be edgy in its presentation. As long as it's a motivated anger that results in action and propels the dark knight to right wrongs and protect the innocent and injured, it would still work the same for the purposes of the class and lore. There's a lot to be said about 'positive' anger in the dark knight quests; it's a very uncomfortable emotion and it can very easily and quickly become negative anger (represented by the constant risk of surrendering to one's dark side), but ultimately it's presented as a useful and even good emotion, as long as it's put to work improving the situations that caused it instead of letting it fester. Anger without a positive goal would in fact lead the wielder to fall into the darkness, you're totally right. So you could kind of have a dark knight who is happy and not-edgy, but somewhere in their emotional makeup, they'd still need love for someone(s) who are at risk of, or actually being harmed by injustice, and the resulting anger at that harm to empower them. Having that love could well make them really, truly happy though. As an addendum, to be clear it doesn't have to be romantic love...the general DRK lore focuses mostly on an agape sort of universal love for your fellow people.

Character name: Nevivi Nevi Introduction: A Twelveswood-born conjurer and chirurgeon now living in the Mist, thirty-nine-year-old Nevivi Nevi believes in healthcare for all and runs a charitable clinic for the poor and those on the fringes of society, as well as making a mean lunch of her Shroud-famous spicy egg salad finger sandwiches.

Just reading this, it's basically, "I'm holding this handful of hot coals and they really burn but I think I'm gonna keep holding them until they tell me they want to be put down." Don't do that to yourself. Just drop 'em. Yeah, you've been IRL friends, but she's not acting like a friend now. She just isn't. I can tell you know what you need to do, but you don't want to do it. Rip it off like a bandaid if you have to. Tell her she been and is being hurtful and you aren't going to put up with it, and make yourself some space, cis block/blacklist if you have to. Maybe she'll knock it off and you can go back to being friends without the RP involved later, maybe she won't, but either way she sounds like the type that wants attention more than she wants to be a responsible RP partner. Sending you stuff knowing it's distressing you is just plain cruel. Also, you're not going to be able to act like a friend to her in a healthy way while you're jealous either. This situation is bad for both of you. If she can't put the brakes on it, it's gonna have to be you. It's also possible she just doesn't emotionally invest in roleplay much and can't understand what the problem is. Some people just don't. There's as many ways to relate to it as there are writers. Hopefully you can find someone who's more on the same page as you elsewhere, or at least someone who can respect the differences in feelings people have. (Which she should do, but clearly isn't.)

All good. Grumpy days happen to everyone (I can't say much, I started this entire topic on a grumpy day despite it also being my birthday). I accept and appreciate your apology. I'll have a look, gotta be a better way to navigate quoting long posts than I'm doing. I'll think over buttons and let you know if anything comes to mind that would be helpful to have on mobile. ETA: heck yeah this is a good quote functionality. You rock.

Keep in mind also that people can only see your character, and however you want to present them. Whatever you're shy about in real life, you don't have to show to anyone during RP, and they can't even guess it about you unless you make it known. Getting into your character's point of view is almost like a sort of mental armor that way. I'm very introverted in person but I play at least two characters who are extroverts, and honestly it's all down to just giving it a try. Fake it 'til you make it, basically. A lot of what I do is like Faye said, put myself in my characters' shoes and think about what they would do, not what I would do, and trust that I can at least fake their confidence. After doing it enough times and seeing that it really does work, it gets much easier to trust my own writing. If you take some time and think about how your character would react to different situations, and work out some backstory so that you have a feel for who they are and where they're coming from, that'll definitely give you more confidence at writing as them, too. It doesn't have to be anything super elaborate, but it can help a lot. There are a ton of RP character development guides you can Google to give you a starting point. Even if you're just watching other people RP without doing it yourself, you can analyze it and decide how your character would react at different times in the RP if they were present and involved. The better a grasp you have of how they act, and maybe why they act that way, the easier it gets to get into their headspace. But characters can grow in unexpected ways once you get out and start playing them and that's fun too, so don't worry if you haven't written more than a few sentences in your head. A little can go a really long way, and the best way to get good at RPing any kind of character whether similar or drastically different from you is to get out and give it a shot.

All good, mobile client's kind of a great big bag of not particularly useful. About half my posts here have been via mobile and cutting the quotes up from some seriously long posts has not been fun. It's totally situational. That's basically what I've been saying, or at least what I've meant to be saying (what I've actually been saying has had super varying mileage as I've had to translate from irritation at the situation to coherent words). Also the venue list was awesome and I think that'd totally be worthwhile, or maybe work out some kind of a replacement system with the clubs here? I could see that working if there were a common way to tag them, but I'm kind of a noob at this site and this also isn't super pertinent to the topic...but more venues known to more people is always a good thing in general.

Then we're just not agreeing I guess. I maintain you could do a closed scene in the Wench. You might have to functionally ignore a fair number of people to do it, and party chat or tells would obviously be better than public, but it's still possible. Fun? A good idea in /s? Eh, probably not, I wouldn't do it personally, but if someone really wanted to do it they're still not obligated to entertain joiners because nobody's actually obligated to entertain joiners any further than they want to. Location still doesn't mandate that it has to be open RP. Actually, I could think of at least one hypothetical scene that might contextually make sense: employees at the Wench goofing off after-hours. I think Discord or something would be a better venue personally for any of it but what I think doesn't dictate what someone else gets to do with their own closed RP. Or if you actually were alone in the Wench with just your chosen RP buds, started a scene that for whatever reason hinged on the bar being empty, and other characters showed up in the middle, whether or not you acknowledge them ICly is up to you. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to decide that you like the flow of your scene how it was already and just keep going as you were.

I think my beef at this point is "outdoors is public" when, to quote myself from earlier, open/closed is a function of the participants' wishes, not the location. You can have a closed RP in the middle of Ul'dah or an open RP inside a house. (Dunno why you'd do that in Ul'dah, but I mean, you could.) I think also we're coming at this from two different views, where I'm thinking of events as a subset of out-in-the-world RP and you seem to be thinking of them as the primary form of it. Or something similar, that doesn't feel exactly right but I hope it gets the gist across. So we're kind of talking across each other, since we're not actually addressing the same thing. (Yet another thing to word better in the second draft.)

I still maintain there's nothing wrong with asking if you can join a scene or with people who would expect that. Considering the extent to which people ask permission to enter someone else's personal space IRL over completely inconsequential things ("Is anyone sitting here?" comes to mind as I was just asked that an hour ago at a coffee shop, over an empty seat in a public space I was in no way even interacting with) it's not a stretch to extend it digitally. We expect little kids to master this with their toys, I think grown-ups can handle it. Still not sure why 'pre-permissive' = anathema here when in almost any other venue that's just called good manners. I chose to talk about healers because...well, because I chose to talk about healers. It's a particular scenario I saw enough to turn me off from almost ever playing a character that used to be my main. Next draft I'm just going to talk about everyone.

Yeah, that exactly my point. It's bad RP. There's people who don't realize they're being potentially antagonistic and I honestly think a lot of them would stop if it was pointed out to them, because most people aren't just jerks and everyone is new sometime. This particular forum is pretty weighed towards grognards but the overall experience I've had RPing has been that the old guard is a minority. Yes, even on Balmung. The community simultaneously doesn't condone scene crashing, maintains there's almost no such thing as scene crashing because all scenes visible in public are open, says people should be called out for bad behavior, portrays all call-outs as witch-hunting, gets upset about the RP Police, and will straight up tell you that you're doing it wrong if it's not this one particular way...because the community is huge and is made of multiple smaller communities cobbled together. There's no consensus because there's too many of us in disparate places with different expectations. Show me someone who's a regular poster here and I'll find you an RPer who doesn't even know this site exists. Acting like "the community" will do anything as a group without people actually doing the thing isn't how it works because there's not one single community. It takes individuals actually talking about issues to get them addressed. So...hi, I've seen a problem and I'm talking. Elsewhere I'm at 160ish notes and still no dissent, so even among the sub-communities that make up the larger one, this is a big enough issue that at minimum 80 people have unconditionally agreed, if not added their own stories of how they've been affected. I think it's definitely worth discussing. And I don't think "talk to people and don't act entitled to RP" is unrealistic as an expectation.

I did say I'm going to rewrite it entirely because some parts were coming off as unclear. This is evidently part of that problem. I'm saying nothing about taking and keeping the focus of a scene, I'm saying that joiners shouldn't derail it to be about themselves. If you're actually the focus of the scene whether organically or by plan that's different. There's no hypocrisy here. It's a problem people have encountered so I included it. Don't read too hard into it looking for something to pick on here. Some players really do go around insisting they can fix another player's character with a disability or scar and it's poor form, which we agree on. This, except that you can hold a private scene anywhere. Closed vs open is a function of what the participants want, not the location. This is a lot of really out-there assumption but I'll bite. With an example, even. So for a while I helped run a small underground fight club style event with an intentionally low-power, gritty vibe. Our medic on staff wasn't aetherically trained, and this was pretty much by design as it kept the stakes for injury higher and maintained our vibe. But they were constantly getting run the hell over by other healers who were downright rude both ICly and OOCly that they weren't 'doing it right.' (Never mind the medic's player is a nurse.) They were specifically on staff for a reason, and it wasn't even that they couldn't work well with others, because I've seen them do it just fine when there's OOC communication; others just couldn't work well with anyone because they saw an opening and felt it was something that had to be fought over. Most events don't give a singular crap who heals what. Some do and that's their call. The majority of cases I'd guess there isn't any kind of hierarchy and so the point is entirely moot. Clearly this needs rewording too, but that's not grounds for being inflammatory about it like you are here. By end interaction I meant bow out, and that was a poor phrasing choice on my part. We agree on this point other than that. As an actual experienced example of what a healer RPer might handwave rather than deal with, I've been more or less ambushed with characters having pregnancy scares and that's a huge squick to me. Don't like it, won't RP about it, don't care how common it is IRL. I've ended up telling people I don't mind if they say they consulted my character about it, or even had her be a midwife because she has no such hangups, but that I won't actually participate in RPing any pregnancy or birth related scenes out. There's countless parts of doctoring that aren't trauma response (and even some of those could cross lines, if you think about how common it is for characters to be missing an eye...I don't think you can get on someone's case too hard for not really wanting to think about that in much detail). I'm not sure how you read this from the last three. 8. You don't have to put up with people being disruptive. 9. Don't be disruptive yourself, either. 10. Be respectful to others and maybe reach out to foster more of the RP you want to see if you're having trouble finding it. There you go. I can legitimately see where you're coming from on most of these but this last bit just feels like reaching to be mad or something. How the actual hell did you get that I want to be the only healer from any of this? That sounds horrid. I would never want that in any situation. (If you're going to keep on about my tone you might want to pull your own back a bit, bud. I'm giving you the full benefit of assuming good will here despite it.)

RP attempts in bad faith to try and get something OOCly out of someone (an angry reaction, their IRL partner's attention, catfishing for items, etc.) just...don't deserve the time of day. They really don't. Personally that's something I would not even spend the energy on trying to resolve ICly first. If someone's already trying to force IC/OOC bleed, I'd just jump straight to, "no, and also leave me alone," and I would hope nobody would fault anyone else for the same. People only have so much time and energy in a day. Choosing to not spend it on something ultimately unproductive if not destructive should be supported, IMHO.

So we're about the same age. Didn't like this particular behavior then, still don't like it now. And we have the same hobbies, go figure. Okay? Good for them? The vast majority of RPers aren't in that situation and I'm not sure why it's worth bringing this up. I am not standing here telling IRL doctors they aren't doctors, I'm trying to remind people who are nervous about not having ALL the information that they don't even need all of it. How magnanimous of you. Don't go after my tone and then do the same thing, dude, I acknowledged mine was crap and backed off of it. This isn't called for. I'd counter that I am actually overall having a blast, and the reason I have said anything is that I feel there's room for improvement. That doesn't mean 'omg I am so fragile!! I can never leave my house!!'...that I am fortunate to even have, considering that I'm on Balmung, and this kind of rebuttal leaves out anyone who doesn't have ready access to housing aside from being really disingenuous. I already don't generally roll with large groups outside of social events because the chat scroll is a pain to keep up with (doesn't stop me from running a few events anyway), but I'm not posting about solely my experiences, I'm posting because I have seen easily 10-15 or more of my friends get shafted by presumptive people. This isn't even about me in particular. I'd appreciate it if people would focus on something other than what they've assumed my RP habits are. No, I am really not accepting that. You are, and that's fine, but it's not universal. If we're all starting from the viewpoint that everyone has autonomy over their character, which I don't think anyone's disagreed with yet, then I actually don't have to just accept whatever happens from whoever is out there. We don't even have common consensus over what year it is, let alone what time of day (if I'm having dinner at the Bismarck, and you're having breakfast...we're both right, for our own canon, but it might make interacting weird). It's not reality, it's RP, and the details are malleable by design. Of course people IRL would react to IRL events, but this isn't IRL. That's entirely my point and you're kind of making it for me. If I were having a dramatic scene in public, I probably would use party chat, but then /em doesn't work in party chat and just because I flub a line into it isn't an invitation any more than any other kind of MT. If everyone can be expected to just ignore such a scene IRL then that actually works great for not crashing someone's RP. If I ICly chucked something at a Brass Blade RPer near me, then yes, I would expect them to join because I just interacted with them. If I ICly chucked something at a Brass Blade NPC and someone whipped out a uniform out of nowhere and tried to apprehend my character, I'd probably tell them to shove off, because I wasn't involving them. Or maybe I'd roll with it, but it's subjective, and I'm not obligated to either course of action. Sometimes you just want to RP in a given location for plot reasons, man. Or just a change of scenery. How boring would it be to only ever have scenes inside one room? I am literally saying that people are responsible for their RP and that includes what they don't want to RP. Making it such that they just have to accept whatever happens isn't responsibility. And again, if you decide that what's right and fun for you personally is to take on all comers, go out and have fun, this is not even a problem for me. My problem is when it's presented as The Only Right Way To RP when it's really not. Everyone isn't automatically entitled to everything they see. I am actually advocating that you absolutely should communicate about your styles and preferences because that's just basic consent, dude, and I'm not unhappy with anything except the assumption that you don't have to communicate. I am actually pretty happy in general with the RP I've both had and seen. You don't have to be miserable to say something's off. I am floored by how much of your post is actually you just...agreeing with me, only really aggressively. I am going to rework this idea to be broader, i.e. not just about healers but about consent and RP in general, because clearly the point I had meant to make is being completely overlooked for various reasons, and from talking to people elsewhere I am starting to think this is just a community-wide issue. Clearly the standard here on this forum is that RP is all open unless specified otherwise via physical barrier (party chat, locked door, etc.), but this forum isn't the entire world, and this particular standard is failing a lot of people. AND TO REITERATE, YOU CAN RP LIKE THAT. THAT'S FINE. I'M NOT THE BOSS OF YOU. I AM NEITHER TRYING TO BE, NOR DO I WANT TO BE, THE BOSS OF YOU. But other people are the boss of themselves and not all of them want what you want, and that is equally fine. What I am saying is that you need to communicate about what you want and figure out how it aligns, and a lot of people haven't given this any consideration and it's ending up in OOC conflict and people with no idea what boundaries are or how to apply them to themselves or others. (Universal 'you' for all this last part.)

Keep in mind that people who are RPing on console don't get the luxury of typing it out elsewhere or even readily scrolling back to what they've already entered, and if their setup has them too far from the screen typos can go totally unnoticed. I know at least one person who can spell just fine but makes typos just for that reason, they're on PS4 and sometimes it's something as dumb as the bluetooth keyboard woke up slowly or dropped a letter. Ultimately if you can understand what they're saying, the RP is fun, and their writing's good enough, it's not a big deal. I am hyper-aware of typos but everyone does 'em, self included, and you just gotta learn to take a deep breath and let it slide.

Kinda done with the assumption that I'm somehow against character conflict. I'm not. Seriously. I'm not trying to stop characters from fighting with each other! I'm talking about PLAYERS starting OOC conflict and how that impacts people and their drive to even RP. People (I can probably go find more than I have fingers and toes right now, easy) stop playing characters purely because of the things I've mentioned and that's not alright with me. I dunno guys I don't think this is getting anywhere. Like I said I've felt this way about the state of RP for a year plus. I'm not changing my mind. Clearly nobody else is either and that's fine. But I'm m still standing by what I've said, and the many positive responses I've gotten elsewhere. So maybe this forum has a different culture than elsewhere. Clearly I should just stick to elsewhere, then, according to the majority of the replies. Is that actually the kind of community you want? If someone's got an issue, they can just bail, basically? Or is anyone at least going to acknowledge that this is an issue even if my tone sucks? Yeah, I could have pitched it a lot better, I'll own that, but I posted from a place of extreme frustration with the current situation for how healers feel entitled to behave towards each other and as it is this is getting kinda snipey and pointless and I'm kinda over discussing it. Take it or leave it. That was the original point anyway. I said I hoped people would consider following it, not that they HAD TO OMG OR THEY ARE BAD RPERS or something. I really have nothing new to say at this point that isn't a rehash of something I've already said.

I mean, a.) I can actually, b.) I'm running with a pretty great group of friends, but attempting to RP outside of it is just unpleasant if I'm on my healer ex-main, and I've pretty well summed up why already. Just because you can see someone doing something isn't an invitation to join. And you're right, the thing it seems like I want people to do is exactly the thing I want people to do. So...is everything just up for grabs if it's not inside a private house, then? Because that's equally silly. It's magical pretend time. Just because your ingame coordinates are near someone else's doesn't mean your character is necessarily ICly there for any number of meta reasons. If, as a hypothetical, I were having a duel or something and it was a major moment that I'd been building up to, and someone showed up intent on getting into a plot-heavy scene that they have no relation to, I'd say it's a lot tackier on their part to not be able to read the mood and mind their own business. If they persisted after being OOCly asked to knock it off, I'd just blacklist and continue. Nobody's under any obligation to have to RP with anybody. I honestly do not see how this is at all controversial. Alternately maybe two different groups happen to go RP the same day in the same place but don't want to interact for whatever reason, so they just canonically aren't there at the same time and carry on around each other. No big deal. By this logic, I'd better never leave my house unless I want to be fair game, no matter what kind of arc I might have going or what kind of intention I have with RP, and if I do go in public, I'd better RP entirely in party or tells and never /em anything that anyone else can read, or they're auto-invited to get in on it. Which is also, frankly, silly. No, I get that. And what I'm saying is it's Charging's call as to how she wants to handle her own event (assuming she's running it for simplicity's sake, I admit I don't know Crescent's inner workings past recognizing most of the main crew). If she does want to handle it completely ICly? Cool, whatever, that's a decision she's made. If she decided not to OOCly tolerate someone's behavior and asked them to straight up leave? She's running an event on her property. I don't like the universal assumption that the only acceptable way to handle something that might be OOCly rustling people's jimmies is to deal ICly, and anything else is just inferior somehow. The thing you have described is the literal opposite of joy. See, you're still thinking that my problem is people behaving poorly IC. I RP with plenty of people who play assholes. I play at least one too. That's not even remotely my issue. My entire problem is that people play asshole characters like a weapon regardless of how it affects other people's experiences, and that kind of thing drives people away hard. If you're RPing a jerk, or an antagonist, or a just plain ICly unlikeable character, that can totally be done in a way that people OOCly appreciate, and not a way that makes them want to OOCly smack you. Which involves communication, and respect, and not Kool-Aid manning into everywhere regardless of people's plans -- literally the thing I said way back up there. I apologize if anything seemed like a barb, that wasn't my intent and text doesn't convey tone well, but I still can't help but think we're not quite on the same level here re: IC vs OOC. You seem to be treating IC as much more, I don't know, inviolable? than I do. I would much rather treat OOC as more important, and IC interaction as a secondary effect of OOC interaction, even if that interaction is as short as "/t Firstname Lastname hey, mind if I join?" Which I cannot fathom being so onerous to type that people just can't ever be expected to do it. So here's a question: what makes either group better than the other, to you? I've got a fair amount of tabletop experience and have seen my share of both, and while I don't enjoy super individualistic 'my guy would do this and I don't care if that hecks up everyone else's plans' types, they have their right to do their thing with a group that rolls that way without me getting on their case about it. But that's conditional on with a group that rolls that way. I have definitely been DM for a cooperative group and had that one individualistic player who continually derailed the plot and several times almost walked out of it. Because we had an established group dynamic that wasn't that, it was disruptive and caused no end of frustration. If we'd been an individualistic group with a single cooperative player, they'd be just as out of place. The point is that it affects everyone's enjoyment because of a lack of communication on what everyone actually wants out of their time. And if you go back and read it more critically the entire thing hinges on communicating OOC expectations. That is basically all I've said multiple different ways.

I think you've kinda missed the point entirely. I'm not saying "never do anything without asking," I'm saying just OOCly communicate if you're even wanted in a scene or not. That's nothing weird, that's just good manners, and for some reason a lot of people playing healers just gloss right over it and will literally shove an already engaged healer out of the way so they can toot their own horn. It's ridiculously prevalent to the point that I cannot even find any healer RPers in my group (or even adjacent to my group if you add friends of friends) that haven't more or less been kicked out of a scene they were already participating in because someone louder and pushier came along. If that's actually how you're defining open world RP, I enthusiastically hope it dies. I will dig it a nice grave with my own hands, even. But I'm pretty sure that's not what you're actually thinking of. I don't care about character conflict, it's great and I'm all about that happening. I'm not too sure where you got the idea that any of this was an IC guide, because it's really not. I care that OOCly healers are given a free pass (or think they are anyway) to start player conflict because their getting to steal a scene and be a Big Damn Hero is more important to them than the ground rules of not being a jerk to people. And yeah, I also play a healer, or I guess used to until I got sick of being burned in three quarters of every RP I participated in. If some of you haven't run into this? Great! I sincerely hope your luck holds out. But sadly there's at least as many people out there playing healers who have had really crap experiences with other healers, and I'm frankly tired of it and don't see why it should be tolerated.

I have run into it so much that I don't even try to do healer stuff on my old main, when that's explicitly her day job and entire life's training, so I mean...yeah. I'm glad that you haven't run into it, but it really is pretty prevalent. I wasn't kidding about the replies I got via Tumblr.

Pretty much. I'm floored at how prevalent and generally accepted it is, when for non-healer characters nobody would even remotely tolerate it. I hope I'm preaching to the choir but I figure if I put it somewhere visible maybe it'll catch on as a wider community standard because gods damn we are bad at this as a whole.

I posted a version of this to Tumblr and fully expected to catch flack for it...and haven't. In fact I have received a really saddening number of tags/reblogs from people who have, unfortunately, been completely driven away from playing their characters due to other healers' bad behavior. So I figured, heck, let's put it here as well in a more RP-centric hub. Plus some refinement since I've had more time to sleep on it and flesh out some thoughts better than a single Tumblr post generally allows for. I jotted it down rather quickly and I think on my phone in the bathroom, which isn't really the most...eloquent way to do anything...look, I never said I was a paragon of good habits. So I've been playing Nevivi as a conjurer and chirurgeon for a couple of years now, and she used to be my main, but after actually experiencing how healers treat other healers in RP I got a foul taste in my mouth over it and haven't gone back to it. And I am not even remotely the only one to have experienced this. Healers in general are so hellbent on being THE HERO OF THE SCENE that they'll scene-crash, god-mod over other writers' boundaries and autonomy, push other healers out of the way, and generally trample each other into the dirt to get to the spotlight and claim it. It's pretty gross behavior, and it wouldn't be tolerated from any other role, so why is it this prevalent and generally accepted for healer characters? It shouldn't be. So here. The ten commandments of RPing a healer without being a jerk to other healers. I follow these. I hope you’ll consider doing the same. Injured characters are not stepping stones to making a scene all about you, unless it really is already your scene. Leave the spotlight where you found it. Other writers always have bodily autonomy over their characters no matter how accomplished your character is. Your job is to facilitate what they will allow to have happen to their character, within your character’s abilities. Anything else is god-modding. If someone says they don't want to be insta-healed, you don't get to insta-heal them. If they want to have a lasting scar, or a disability, or even die? That is their call. Don't go around trying to 'fix' someone's disabled character who doesn't want it. Just like (I hope) you already know you shouldn't god-mod your fist into someone's face, do not god-mod your healing abilities into their face either. It's no different. If someone’s character is injured and someone else is there first, tough. They got there first. You may ask to join, and you may be told no. Respect that. Stumbling onto a scene that your character 'would want to help!!' in doesn't mean you actually have the right do jump in, just like any other scene. Healers ain't special. Scene-crashing is still incredibly rude and uncalled-for. It isn’t always your job to jump in and patch someone up. It might well be someone else's based on pre-existing group dynamics or rules. If you’re RPing on private property, in a moderated open world event, in an open forum, or otherwise in a venue or group with a hierarchy that includes a healer, and you’re not that healer, you don’t do their job for them unless asked. It’s not your scene. A lot of events, such as fight clubs, have their own healers on staff, and that job belongs to them unless you OOCly discuss who's doing what and come to an agreement. If you have subjects you don’t want to write about, you have the right to be clear and firm about them. You aren’t a real doctor. Nobody actually dies if you pass on a scene that could harm you to participate in. You have the right to end any interaction that crosses a boundary, on the spot, and without explanation until and unless you’re calm and able to do so. Even RPing a healer sort there can absolutely be subjects you don't want to touch, and that's your right to not get into them. If it's something that your character would do but you as a writer don't want to deal with, handwave it. If you don't even want to be involved? Don't be involved. It's that simple. You aren’t a real doctor. You won’t know how to handle everything realistically and that’s okay. Do research as you want/need, but don’t stress about it. Anyone who gives you shit for doing it wrong needs to take a step back. It's just a story, after all, and there's no need to get bent over a missed detail or something. You are within your rights to tell them to back off over it. There is no shame in researching anything you don’t know. Try adding “for writing” to searches. You’d be surprised how much of the heavy lifting has been done already. Don’t be afraid to gloss over things, too, there's a reason it takes 10+ years to become a doctor in real life. Expecting that of yourself or others for the sake of a little RP is just silly, but Google can be your friend if you really need some information quickly. You have the right to tell anyone else butting into a scene that you are already part of to butt right back on out. It’s your scene if someone approaches you for healing. It’s your scene if it’s pre-negotiated. It’s your scene if it’s your own character being injured. It’s your scene if you are the healer in attendance for your group. Tolerating a scene-crasher, no matter how well-intentioned, is not something that any RPer has to do. Don’t be a douche. Don’t be a scene-stealer. Don’t be a spotlight hog. Don’t be more powerful than your patients want. Don’t forget to communicate. Don’t get so swept up in being important that you fail to be thoughtful. You can't be part of the solution while you're being part of the problem. Real people are on the other end of every single character, and everyone deserves to be treated with respect. Do have fun and be polite and respectful to each other. There’s enough RP to go around. There really is! I'm serious! And if there’s not, we’re all capable of finding or making some. You’re only entitled to scenes you have a legitimate claim to, whether it's because you started it, you're on staff for an event, or you were given the go-ahead to join. Honestly, an enormous amount of the RP in this game boils down to "oh no so-and-so got hurt!!" just because of the nature of the setting and the types of conflict that happen. Healers are not lacking for something to do, and if you are, there are several healer linkshells and organizations that you can get together with and flex your doctor muscles. The entire list comes down to three really simple, overarcing things: communicate, respect, and don’t scene-crash. That’s it. That’s literally all. It’s easy to feel like healer RP somehow has a different code of ethics than other RP, but it doesn’t. Yeah, your character totally would, if they were a real person in a real situation, run in and try to save someone in trouble. Even if other people were doing the same. This is a completely normal impulse! And you’re not bad for having it. Humans are just this good at empathy. A bunch of pixels or words on a screen displaying distress can kick you into surprisingly high anxiety about the outcome, and it’s easy to accidentally get wrapped up in that feeling. But your character is not a real person and they're not in control of your actions. I don't care how strong your 'muse' is, you're the real flesh-and-bone person at the real plastic-and-silicon keyboard, you're making the decision to behave with manners or not. Someone’s character in danger in a scene that you’re not necessarily part of is categorically not the same as a real person in danger. In real life we are all in the same scene, all the time, it’s actual life or death, and yes, you really should help if you see something bad happening. In fiction, it’s not a real person, you do not have to canonically even exist on the same timeline as them and might not “be” present despite being there, and your sense of immersion does not trump their right to have the scene carry on how they want it to. Even if your guy could snap his fingers and put the other guy's intestines back where they're supposed to be. Ask before you rush in. Don’t be a jerk to people. If someone’s a jerk to you, stand up for yourself respectfully but firmly. And talk about your expectations and listen to the other writers’ expectations, and figure out what works for everyone. It’s exactly the same as all other RP.

I'm a nonbinary trans guy and I have a fairly even split in my roster of characters, although my current main is male. My older main is female, although she's hardly feminine. I have one trans character hiding out that I haven't RPed yet, but I've heard from other people with trans characters that sometimes you can get some really unpleasant reactions from people who either think it's a fetish if you're open about it from the start, or get angry for bait and switching them if your character passes, and I'm not really sure I feel like dealing with that particular can of worms... I'd probably just stick with people I already know for a bit until he's more of his own character and less of me trying to figure him out. In previous games I've played mostly female characters (not in RP, I didn't do that until I got to FFXIV), and people would accuse me of being male IRL. Well...they weren't exactly wrong I guess in retrospect, haha.