I want to begin by saying, I definitely think it should be left up to individual guilds to define what roleplaying is to their group. I think that's one of the reasons why we have a coalition of groups to begin with--not everyone has the same play style as others.
But that being said, I also agree that it would be good to have a general definition posted to give newcomers a broad idea of what they can expect from roleplaying linkshells. I actually plan on putting up a similar document on TALE's website once our founding members can get together and hash out what roleplaying will be defined as in our guild.
So to me, roleplaying is stepping outside of your own self and acting out the persona of a created character, like acting in a freeform play. I generally tend to play AS my character when I'm roleplaying, and I try to stay true to how I think she would feel about certain situations or people. Would she react spontaneously, or in a calculated manner? Would she try to make small talk to get to know the new guy, or would she coolly watch to see him prove his worth by his actions?
I think what ?isn't roleplay is, as said by others, entirely subjective. Much like art. Personally, if the whole point of roleplaying in an MMO is to further immerse oneself in the game, then I don't see why /em punts taru couldn't be roleplaying. It might be disruptive to those of us with stories that we're trying to enact, but to others, it's all part of the game.
As far as in character and out... If I'm rolling my R's and acting as my character, then I'm in character. If I'm using a "regular" voice and talking about things that are happening outside of the game, or talking about the game in terms of MMO mechanics, I'm out of character. Usually I stick with (_____) or ((______)), but when I first started RPing in FFXI, it was common in our linkshell to use OOC:__________, and sometimes still do that out of habit. I've seen others use asterisks, brackets, or #_______________ to signify being out of character, and I think that as long as it's clear to others what those symbols mean, then it's fine. Typing styles tend to make different keys easier to knock out, so if it's faster/easier for someone to type [ooc comment here] than (ooc comment here), well good on them.
Sometimes, in RP linkshells of yore, I noticed a trend towards slowly blending out of character dialogue into in character dialogue. This almost always happened when there were only a few people logged into the shell, and it usually was not a problem, since the people in the conversation all willingly were interested in pursuing the OOC conversation, and at that point it was easier to stop using OOC tags than otherwise.
As soon as others logged in and started talking in character, the conversation switched back to OOC tags, or stopped completely if people picked up the in-character dialogue. As a note to this though, I want to stress that this was if a group of people were interested in the topic. If it was two people and they kept up the conversation in OOC tags, I'd usually ask them to take their talk to /tells and clear up linkshell chat for roleplaying.
I think 'freelance' has more to do with linkshell/guild affiliation than anything else.. I may be wrong in this assumption though. Casual roleplayers, or those that have identified as being casual roleplayers, tended to be more the ones who maybe had a rough idea in their heads of their in-game persona, but weren't interested in any epic-length story arcs. They usually had another non-roleplaying linkshell, and tended just to pop in to the RP linkshell from time to time for flavor text. Hardcore would be the opposite? LOL. And yeah for me... there were definitely times not to roleplay. The people I roleplayed with on Asura tended to keep RP chat to the linkshell and to private RP party chat. If it was an XP group, we generally talked through the linkshell to RP. Sometimes if we had a big enough group, we would roleplay freely in /say and let passerby enjoy the theatrics. :pirat:
Not really sure what you mean by #4 but I'm going to go with... environment and settings have everything to do with roleplay? If I'm standing in Yhoator Jungle, I'm going to react a little differently than if I'm up in Xarcabard. Maybe if I'm in the latter I'll occasionally shiver, or I'll throw on a hooded robe for effect. Maybe I'll whip out a cup of coffee to keep warm with. A lot of the time, we (Asuran roleplayers) would take note of the environment. The weather, the day of the week, the city/region, to work in to fictions we wrote later regarding the RP session. It would flesh out the story more, and often painted a more vivid picture of the world.
But that being said, I also agree that it would be good to have a general definition posted to give newcomers a broad idea of what they can expect from roleplaying linkshells. I actually plan on putting up a similar document on TALE's website once our founding members can get together and hash out what roleplaying will be defined as in our guild.
So to me, roleplaying is stepping outside of your own self and acting out the persona of a created character, like acting in a freeform play. I generally tend to play AS my character when I'm roleplaying, and I try to stay true to how I think she would feel about certain situations or people. Would she react spontaneously, or in a calculated manner? Would she try to make small talk to get to know the new guy, or would she coolly watch to see him prove his worth by his actions?
I think what ?isn't roleplay is, as said by others, entirely subjective. Much like art. Personally, if the whole point of roleplaying in an MMO is to further immerse oneself in the game, then I don't see why /em punts taru couldn't be roleplaying. It might be disruptive to those of us with stories that we're trying to enact, but to others, it's all part of the game.
As far as in character and out... If I'm rolling my R's and acting as my character, then I'm in character. If I'm using a "regular" voice and talking about things that are happening outside of the game, or talking about the game in terms of MMO mechanics, I'm out of character. Usually I stick with (_____) or ((______)), but when I first started RPing in FFXI, it was common in our linkshell to use OOC:__________, and sometimes still do that out of habit. I've seen others use asterisks, brackets, or #_______________ to signify being out of character, and I think that as long as it's clear to others what those symbols mean, then it's fine. Typing styles tend to make different keys easier to knock out, so if it's faster/easier for someone to type [ooc comment here] than (ooc comment here), well good on them.
Sometimes, in RP linkshells of yore, I noticed a trend towards slowly blending out of character dialogue into in character dialogue. This almost always happened when there were only a few people logged into the shell, and it usually was not a problem, since the people in the conversation all willingly were interested in pursuing the OOC conversation, and at that point it was easier to stop using OOC tags than otherwise.
As soon as others logged in and started talking in character, the conversation switched back to OOC tags, or stopped completely if people picked up the in-character dialogue. As a note to this though, I want to stress that this was if a group of people were interested in the topic. If it was two people and they kept up the conversation in OOC tags, I'd usually ask them to take their talk to /tells and clear up linkshell chat for roleplaying.
I think 'freelance' has more to do with linkshell/guild affiliation than anything else.. I may be wrong in this assumption though. Casual roleplayers, or those that have identified as being casual roleplayers, tended to be more the ones who maybe had a rough idea in their heads of their in-game persona, but weren't interested in any epic-length story arcs. They usually had another non-roleplaying linkshell, and tended just to pop in to the RP linkshell from time to time for flavor text. Hardcore would be the opposite? LOL. And yeah for me... there were definitely times not to roleplay. The people I roleplayed with on Asura tended to keep RP chat to the linkshell and to private RP party chat. If it was an XP group, we generally talked through the linkshell to RP. Sometimes if we had a big enough group, we would roleplay freely in /say and let passerby enjoy the theatrics. :pirat:
Not really sure what you mean by #4 but I'm going to go with... environment and settings have everything to do with roleplay? If I'm standing in Yhoator Jungle, I'm going to react a little differently than if I'm up in Xarcabard. Maybe if I'm in the latter I'll occasionally shiver, or I'll throw on a hooded robe for effect. Maybe I'll whip out a cup of coffee to keep warm with. A lot of the time, we (Asuran roleplayers) would take note of the environment. The weather, the day of the week, the city/region, to work in to fictions we wrote later regarding the RP session. It would flesh out the story more, and often painted a more vivid picture of the world.
http://www.tale-ffxiv.com
The Adventure League of Eorzea: A progression & RP guild. FFXIV's longest-running RPLS