RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes

Kilieit · **09-20-2016, 03:19 PM**

To answer the "what's the appeal" question, it's a matter of what you're looking for when you RP.

As I mentioned before, while I have never (and do not ever wish to) roleplay a canon character in-game, I've run a few canon RP blogs on Tumblr in my old fandom.

You get a very clear litmus for whether you're roleplaying your character ""right"" or not. When you're doing OC RP, this is very wishy-washy and subjective, and what's "right" is largely down to what the people around you feel like. If you're the kind of person who likes to cut-and-dry know whether you're correct, then essentially having a "brief to fill" (canon information to match) and refer back to when you're uncertain of yourself, can be satisfying. And being told "you're the closest to canon I've met" or "you play the character really effectively" is immensely satisfying, too. That's not something you can really get in the same way in OC RP, since there's no objective litmus to test your RP against.

When you make thoughtful additions or deviations, especially if they're canon-compatible or closely within the spirit of canon, then that's where you get to exercise your creativity while still being validated as "close to canon". Stuff like fleshing out parts of backstory which are vague in canon - you get to make up whatever you want. But, if it's something that ties in bits of trivia about how the character later develops and provides explanations for things which canonically have still been left vague, then it'll be praised higher by others than, say, if you make up something completely off-the-wall that doesn't really have much of a tie-in to anything.

And stuff like throwing your character into a totally different situation than they've ever been seen in, in canon, before... and still having people go "yes, this character is recognisably [name] and you're playing them really well".

And yes, the appeal is highly based off validation from other people, at least in my experience. (I'm sure someone else has a different experience.) Which is why I don't really understand the appeal of approaching people who haven't even consented to roleplaying with your interpretation of the character... of course they aren't going to appreciate it! Jeez.

Verad · **09-20-2016, 07:34 PM**

(09-20-2016, 03:19 PM)Kilieit Wrote: And yes, the appeal is highly based off validation from other people, at least in my experience. (I'm sure someone else has a different experience.) Which is why I don't really understand the appeal of approaching people who haven't even consented to roleplaying with your interpretation of the character... of course they aren't going to appreciate it! Jeez.

Validation is a crucial part of roleplaying in general, so much so that it could easily be renamed "Creative attention-getting," so that's no surprise.

What you say about the idea of being able to roleplay a character "correctly" is really interesting to me, because I don't think the sentiment is all that different from many of the players here saying that playing canon characters is fine for others but not for them. Correctness is still a big deal, if all of the "Is this character kosher" threads can be considered a useful metric. Rather, it's correctness based on lore,Â rather than an individual portrayal. The difference seems to be one of scale and the unstated assumption that "in lore, I am not playing a canon character" which causes the divide.

Regarding the idea of correctness and character, how do you do manage that when a canon character has a distinct lack of lore? To take Heavens' Ward players as an example, some of the Knights are well-established like Zephirin, Grinnaux, etc., but others have little more than a short blurb from the devs. How much does that influence how players portray these characters and how those portrayals are received? Is there more leeway than when one plays a better-established character like Haurchefant?

McBeefâ„¢ · **09-20-2016, 07:55 PM**

(09-20-2016, 07:34 PM)Verad Wrote:
(09-20-2016, 03:19 PM)Kilieit Wrote: And yes, the appeal is highly based off validation from other people, at least in my experience. (I'm sure someone else has a different experience.) Which is why I don't really understand the appeal of approaching people who haven't even consented to roleplaying with your interpretation of the character... of course they aren't going to appreciate it! Jeez.

Validation is a crucial part of roleplaying in general, so much so that it could easily be renamed "Creative attention-getting," so that's no surprise.

Warren Castille · **09-20-2016, 07:56 PM**

I'm hardly keeping tabs on them, but I'm yet to see someone playing one of the lesser-known named NPCs.

Caveat: It's entirely possible they are and I just don't register them.

McBeefâ„¢ · **09-20-2016, 07:57 PM**

(09-20-2016, 07:56 PM)Warren Castille Wrote: I'm hardly keeping tabs on them, but I'm yet to see someone playing one of the lesser-known named NPCs.

Caveat: It's entirely possible they are and I just don't register them.

Ummm back in the day the captain of the sultansworn would come up.

Same with the Female Paladin in the Hildibrand Quests. I've seen Gegejuru (or whatever the coast del sol guy is called).Â

They're around, but often they're just used as NPCs for a plot, typically not as someone's actual character.

Kilieit · **09-20-2016, 08:07 PM**

I'm gonna have to grab an example from my old fandom for that one - I RP'd the lore character Prince Wrathion, who was fairly prominent, had a fleshed-out backstory, and three major "MSQ" chains to his name; but I also roleplayed his bodyguards, Left and Right. Canonically, those two barely even have speaking roles. They're just sort of there, behind him, constantly. Sometimes they threaten you if you try to talk to them. That's the only... characterisation, I guess, you get for them.

But you can already infer from that, alone, that they're very serious, business-orientated women. So something that portrays them as discerning and sensible is going to be more in-character than something that portrays them as silly or flirty.

They wear different uniforms than the rest of his servants - a uniform that happened to match that of the NPCs at Wrathion's old home, Ravenholdt. So you can infer they're probably from Ravenholdt (not new recruits that Wrathion made since he left). But Left is an orc and Right is a human; races that don't usually co-habit. Ravenholdt is historically human, yet it had some involvement in the Orcish slave-trade that used to frequent the area. So maybe Left is native after all - a freed slave, or the child of one.

Or maybe she joined after all that was over. Maybe Left grew up there and Right is new. The point is, you can still infer something about their backstory just from the simple matter of what clothes they're wearing, IF you are paying the right sort of attention.

When they're guarding Wrathion in-game, if you watch them for a while, sometimes another random NPC from Wrathion's organisation will come up to Left and they'll chat for a bit. When their conversation is over, Left will point, the other guy will salute and walk off, and she'll go back to her post. Right remains vigilant over Wrathion the whole time; so you can infer that they have different job priorities. Left is probably in some sort of position of authority over the rest of Wrathion's servants, while Right's main job is to protect the Prince.

You get the principle - it depends highly on the exact NPC and the exact type of setting you're dealing with, but most developers can't resist putting little easter eggs or clues in, even with NPCs who could easily be throw-aways. It's true to say that the closer they are to "MSQ" the more this is the case... but ofc in a canon-heavy environment, most of the characters people pick will want to be close to MSQ anyway, because otherwise everyone else all knows each other IC already and you have to "break in" or find an excuse and put all the extra work in that the other people around you don't. There's a certain amount of "natural selection" against more obscure NPCs in canon-heavy environments...

...and I think the opposite goes for canon RPers in OC-heavy environments, where picking an obscure NPC gives them more of a chance to fit in with the highly personal and customisable environment that OC RP tends to create.

Or that's - like I say - my experience, anyway! I'm sure other people (and those from other fandoms, or those who RP canons in-game as opposed to the website-based canon RP I'm used to... i.e. most people reading this thread lol) will have other perspectives.

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Canon RPers and You

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes