Different Perspectives of Roleplaying....

[Lyriell]

Different Perspectives of Roleplaying....

 

....and how to deal with it...

 

 

Hello there RPC-Community.

 

Most of you probably don't even know me because I haven't been on FFXIV for quite a while and I never really used the RPC.

 

For anyone who is interested I'm just going to introduce myself shortly, if you're not interested in this and want to continue to the actual topic, just scroll down a bit.

 

My Ingame Name is Lyriell Aluria, however I will probably have to recreate the character due to the whole server merge thingy whatever.

I'm a proud member of the Corvus Cinis pearl and have been a member of this pearl ever since I started playing FFXIV again. (you guys are awesome ^-^).

 

Before FFXIV I have played several online roleplaying games such as Everquest 2, WoW (yeah I said the forbidden word), Ragnarok Online and going all the way back to the classic that is Ultima Online, which still is one of the best games rp wise in my opinion.

 

As for myself, my Name is Sascha, im 27 years old and I'm studying economics in the 2nd semester, quite successfully if I might add ^^.

 

My Hobbies are, of course, MMORPG's, Roleplaying in general, listening to music and I'm quite passionate in visiting other countries and learning about other cultures.

 

But enough about me, what is this Thread all about?

 

Lately I've often heard people talking about what is "right" and what is "wrong" about the RP of other people. These discussions were the catalyst for this thread, because I want to show people that there is no "right" or "wrong" in the RP of other people except for just a few No-Go's. I will discuss these exceptions in detail later, for now I'm going to introduce some of the types of roleplayers I've encountered so far, but keep in mind that these are no "fix" type of players, its very likely that some of these types even complement each other, while some are in some sort of conflict.

 

Types of Roleplayers:

 

Warning: Before you judge me, I'm not saying that every player is exactly as I write it in the descriptions. These are just some of the extreme examples of players I've met in the past 12 years of roleplaying.

 

1. The Lore Fanatic

 

This type of roleplayer usually stay extremely close to the ingame lore, sometimes to such extent that they won't do anything that might even go just a bit against the lore or even rewrite their whole character background if new lore is added to the game that goes against the previous character background. Some of them are so focused on the lore that they immediately shut out anyone from the rp that, in their opinion, doesn't act according to the lore.

 

2. The "Freedom" Roleplayer

 

This type of roleplayer is the exact opposite of the Lore Fanatic. He doesn't care all that much about the lore, or atleast he is not as focused on it. While some form of "freedom" is okay, some of these roleplayers just ignore or even rewrite important lore to their liking. While this wouldn't be so much of a deal if only "Freedom" roleplayers would play together, it easily ends up in fights and discussions if these type of roleplayers clash with The Lore Fanatics.

 

3. The "Hardcore" Roleplayer

 

A "Hardcore" roleplayer is usually a person that ALWAYS, at any point, at any time stays in character. They don't want to get involved with ooc stuff and even insist on staying in character if it comes to fighting raidbosses, walking through dungeons or even grinding classes, although most of them probably wouldn't even start grinding as their character would soon show signs of exhaustion.

 

4. The "casual" Roleplayer

 

This one is the opposite of the "Hardcore" roleplayer, and can easily be mixed up with the "Freedom" Roleplayer aswell. However, here the difference isn't the Lore, but the roleplaying in general. These players don't always take the Roleplay 100% serious, but it doesn't mean they don't want to rp at all. They just don't care so much about small mistakes, and they don't want to stay IC all the time, but more like whenever they are in the mood for some RP.

 

These are just the 4 Basic Types I've encountered, I could go on and write down even more types in detail, but I think these are the types that most of you people can relate to.

Here are some more types, without further explanation:

The "good" Guy, The "I must always win" Guy, The "evil" Guy, The attention Whore (and tbh. I think I could fall into this type occasionaly ^^), The Quitter etc...

 

You can add even more types, I'm curious what type of people you've met ^^

 

Right or wrong?

 

Anyway, back to topic, why did I tell you about those types? What is so important about knowing them?

 

Well, some of you probably already saw themself in some of those types and some of you guys probably recognized some of those types because they already roleplayed with that certain type of roleplayer.

 

Was it always fun to rp with them? Probably not.

 

Let me tell you what I'm trying to make clear here:

 

There is no "right" or "wrong" in roleplaying, except for the obvious "no-go's".

We just discovered there are 4 Main Types of roleplayers, and these types differ already, so now think about going into even more detail. Think about the thousands of possibilities, different opinions and playstyles.

 

There is no way that there is the "one perfect roleplayer" and there's not an roleplaying bible either, its more like 10 Commandments, and I'm not even sure if there are 10.

 

Let me show you a few examples:

 

First Example:

 

We have a scene with 2 Roleplayers, Roleplayer A is a Lore Fanatic, Roleplayer B is a "Freedom" Roleplayer.

 

Roleplayer B knows about half of the Lore of the Game, he tries to stick to the Lore in most of the cases, but he adds up some things on his own to his character, for example that the Character was raised in a certain small village near Limsa Lominsa.

 

Roleplayer A stops roleplaying with Roleplayer B after hearing about that "unknown" city and insults Roleplayer B for not sticking to the lore.

 

What is wrong in this Picture?

I think what's missing here is respect. Every roleplayer has his own view of how to roleplay or/and his own view of what is "fun" in roleplaying.

 

2nd example:

 

In this scene we have a "Hardcore" Roleplayer and a "Casual" Roleplayer.

Both of them have played together several times, this time the Character of our Casual RPer is quite sad and the Casual RPer doesn't just express this as a normal emote like *Miya-san looks sad* but also adds some of the thoughts that are going through his character in the emote aswell.

 

After that scene our Hardcore RPer gives some "Advice" and tells the Casual RPer that the thoughts of a character should never be displayed.

 

Again, is this the right way?

Most people might scream at me, but I say no.

Is it so bad to display the thoughts of a character? Aslong as no one "abuses" that knowledge , there's no reason to point fingers at it. I myself never really understood what the deal was about emoting thoughts. For me, roleplaying sometimes is like reading a book. And when I read a book I don't just read actions and talking, sometimes we also read what a certain character feels in that moment, what he thinks in that moment. This makes the characters come alive and it makes us easier to relate to how they feel. Aslong as I can differentiate between Player Knowledge and character knowledge, there is no reason to nitpick about it.

 

Last example:

 

In this example we have several roleplayers, all different types.

They have been invited to an RP-Event and atleast some parts of that Event are scripted. Suddenly 3 of the roleplayers just leave the event and afterwards even insult the one who came up with the event, telling him/her that scripted events suck and have nothing to do with RP.

 

Once more, this is the wrong step. Scripting some major parts of the event doesn't have to mean that it's bad in any way, it's still your decision how your character reacts to certain situations, if it's really completely against your nature, you may still leave it, but don't ruin the other's rp by degrading it.

It's all about respecting each others opinion and each others style.

 

Think of it like this, we are all Gamers/Musicians/Artists/[enter random passion here] at heart, and saying that only this type of Game/Music/Paintings are the best/right one's is just ignorant.

We all have the same goal, we want to have fun in our RP's so just try to respect each other.

 

 

As a final word, I want to show you guys what I think are the only "no-go's" in an Roleplay, if you think there's something to add to this list, just tell me, because like I said before, no one's perfect and we can all learn from each other.

 

No-Go's:

 

1. Poweremotes: Emote's made by PC's that can't be dodged and that automatically succeed. For example: *steals the Mi'qote's tail and keeps it forever*

 

2. Stupid Character Names: MacGyver, RonaldMcDonald, Harry Potter...

 

3. Logging out to avoid "Conflict-Rp"; i.e.: A conflict between a "good" and an "evil" character, or just 2 characters that don't like each other in general.

 

4. Mentioning RL-Things IC, Example: "Greetings Traveler..have you seen the new Scrubs episode?"

 

5. Rewriting important Lore, for example: Introducing your character as the Admiral of Limsa Lominsa.

 

6. Straight up ignoring someone IC, I know this one is probably the hardest to get used to, because there's is always that "one" roleplayer someone doesn't want to rp with, but you might atleast try to respond with a few lines.

 

7. Crashing someone else's rp knowingly, this is just rude and you will probably make yourself a name in the rp community, but not in a positive way.

 

8. Completely ignoring your characters physiques, a Lalafell shouldn't be able to push up a rock thats about 2 times as big as a Roegadyn, on the other hand a roegadyn can't crawl through a hole that's about as tiny as a Lalafell.

 

9. Taking IC things personally, just because a character hates your own character, it doesn't mean the player behind it hates you, don't confuse Roleplay with OOC stuff.

 

10. Disrespecting each other in general, just keep that in mind as a general Guideline and you should be alright.

 

 

I know there's already an RP-Guide on this Forum and it wasn't my intention to make a copy of that thread or anything, I just felt the need to express what I thought about the situation in the RPC and the RP Community in general lately and wanted to offer some help.

 

Also, I'm sorry for my poor grammar, I'm from germany and I'm still trying to improve my english.

 

Best Regards

 

Lyriell Aluria

[Smiling River]

Very thoughtful post. I often think about similar but a bit more specific topics and wish to post up academic style essays on why a certain part of RP should be this or that way, but of course I never have time. Pretty psyched to yap about them though on an RP podcast, I think that'll be a good way for me!

 

Anyway! I thought most people were aware of this, at least in the general sense that you portray types of RPers. I thought the examples were interesting though, as they showed some bias on your part, especially the one about meta-emotes.

 

I am simply not confident in the IC/OOC barrier of other people at the moment to even attempt such things. That and, I wouldn't anyway because they spoil it for me. If your frown, I am still curious as to why, but if you frown and tell me the thought, I already know. Will that effect my character? Hopefully not, but it may subtly. Will it effect how much fun I am having? Yes, in a negative way. That's why I don't have a problem with telling people that they shouldn't meta-emote. If you don't want to take my advice? Fine, that's cool, but I will likely not have as much fun OOC'ly and move on from RPing with you eventually.

 

I also believe there are some hard "right" and "wrongs" here, and just in life in general. It's hard to detach from your own personal preference and look at the arguments put forth for both sides of w/e issue after a debate, and admit to one side having a stronger case than the other, and thus is right. It is especially hard in such debates since ones ego gets in the way of admitting that a side you might have not agreed with before actually is the right one. I think people do change their minds on things eventually though, that's how society moves forward with ideas, the zeitgeist always moves in one direction, nothing simply lingers in the middle ground as it would if there was no "wrong" or "right". All of this is to say, YOU ARE SO WRONG ABOUT DAT!

 

Seriously, very cool post. Need more of these.

[Riik]

I don't think I'd fit clearly into any of those categories... I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle of all categories.

 

I stick to game lore and am not happy if it's broken, but equally, I don't mind if it's added to or if a grey area is touched, or even if someone goes against lore slightly but doesn't break the lore by killing it. Basically, I have a "yeah, you have a bit of freedom, but don't go and break anything" mindset. HOWEVER, there are times when I personally go against the lore and don't mind - in fact, encourage - other players to do to, and that's things like the souls of the job system, or teleporting by Aetherial crystals. Basically, the stuff that's there for player convenience but makes RP less fun.

 

I am IC most of the time, unless I'm in the midst of a quest or in an OOC party or in the general area of the Ul'dah crowd around the steps (unless I've entered an RP with someone prior to being there are whilst there). I'm also OOC when standing to the corner of an area near where RP is going on, as I'm trying to decide the best way to enter it. HOWEVER. If I am addressed OOCly, I will go OOC to interact.

 

I take RP very seriously, because I pretty much write everything up afterwards. However, if someone does something that breaks lore, I will simply not mention that in the write up, rather than complain about it. I will also probably ignore it in all future RPs unless said character brings up the subject agian and my own character's experience is called upon, in which case, I will go either way depending on the circumstance. Every piece of canon RP that occurs whilst I personally am IC will be recorded for my character. Sometimes in the case of walking around OOC with some help for a quest, if RP suddenly happens, I will just blur over the details so that the RP could have occured (depending on how future RP goes on) but equally may not have.

 

Essentially, I have my views, but I will not force them on others or allow them to cause conflict.

[Lyriell]

We share the same views if it comes to Lore Riku ^^

 

I also try to stick to it mostly, but I see nothing wrong in adding some things here and there.

I think especially in this case RP shouldn't be too limited and too strict, after all it's all about fantasy, and fantasy shouldn't have too many boundaries.

 

@ Oskar

 

Thanks for replying but I disagree ^^, except for a few absolute no-go's there is no right or wrong direction in roleplay, im pretty sure about that after 12 years of RPing not only on different games but also different servers.

 

Take Ultima Online RP-Servers for example. Almost every RP Server has different Vampire-Rules or different rules for other races and some of these servers have next to no rules at all. Still, I've met douchebags on every server, strict or not. Many people say the Masquerade is the only "real" way Vampires should be played and personally I agree. However I don't mind if some people don't stick a 100% to the Masquerade, I'm open to new things and ideas aslong as people don't do really stupid things. RP is something you can't categorize in right or wrong for the most part, it's the same with a good book, music or games. Of course there are some "bad" books, music or games, but for example a Soccer Game is completely different to a Action Game, does it make the Soccer Game "wrong", in any way? No, it's just different, I think of RP'ers in the same way, they just play differently but it doesn't make them any less of an RP'er.

 

Although, you will come across some "bad" ones occasionaly, think of them as the Justin Biebers of RP and try to ignore them.

 

PS: If anyone is good in English and is bored you might tell me if and where I've made mistakes in the text, so I might learn something =P

[Miyu Asuka]

Also, I'm sorry for my poor grammar, I'm from germany and I'm still trying to improve my english.

Didn't notice :3 An amaazing post as it is!

 

Anyhow I'm with Riku, nearing the same type of RP as he does, though more.. freedom. Like him I like to stay IC as much as I can, loving RP and trying to encourage it to RP-ers around me, though I won't push anyone if they don't want to of course, after all it's their life and their decisions.

On the freedom note I do notice that I.. use lore that's not exactly -there-, but almost very very sure that there is. For example I noted in my characters Biography some references to Arcany, it's not exactly in game as being a class and such, but we all know there -is- an arcanist guild in game, and that the class -will- be released one of these days. Hence I like to prepare my character already for such thing instead of waiting and suddenly "Miyu can now use arcany" all of a sudden when the class does get released. I think this adds character and depth so one's character.

Same with stuff like Freeze, Flare, Ultima, Holy, Meteor, etc etc, as she researches them even though they are not... "oficially" in game just yet.

Though openly going against lore I dislike, I won't go around saying. "I am the Admiral of Limsa" and that kind of stuff, in my opinion that does break the lore.

 

-Although-, and yes here comes the exception.

 

If you play a villian (and you know how villians are) I think that for the sake of a good story... you should be allowed to overrule some of the general rules and maybe even lore sometimes. I mean that if your villian is a rank 50 (or just 1 if you created a villian just for this particular storyline), and gets challanged by 10 other rank 50's, the villian could (could, not should) be able to inflict considerably damage to the challengers. This can make the story way more intense, better, more fun and really create a villian that can be... well.. villian like!

Not saying you should go around uldah and ultima everything around you, that might be a bit over the top though

Of course, these kinds of things should be discussed in an OOC manner before doing such a thing to prevent drama and other meh-ness.

 

A thing about the meta-comment, it's not the "wrong" of the emoter who does a "/em sighs, feeling annoyed about her plushe being gone." as that's a way to bring depth to what he/she says, it's the "wrong" of the one reading and acting upon that to -use- that information that they could never know unless specifically said to. This is called metagaming.

 

Also, right and wrong are relative terms. A serial killer believes he's right, and we're wrong after all. It's all the way of how your mind sees things and makes a theory about it. In fact, I believe there -is- no right and wrong, only opinions, which should be respected... imho.

 

Anyhow, awesome post Lyriell <3.~

[Lyriell]

Thanks Miyu <3

 

I agree with the villain-thingy.

The problem is that you almost always have atleast 1 or 2 of the "I must always win" type of RP'ers, which would never allow their character to be injured or anything like that. I myself would gladly accept to be the villains victim if it pushes the story forward though

[Riik]

The 'I must win' thing does get a little annoying.

 

I remember on another game, there was a forum roleplay to go with the server I was on, where everyone were in the midst of a battle with that mindset. Thankfully, I ended it (I was running the RP... probably not the best choice, given I was like only 16/17 at the time) by killing off the NPC I added in to start the conflict in the first place (or rather by allowing another player to kill him). Eventually we reached a stale-mate, and everyone settled down and resumed their drinking.

 

I used to have a bit of an 'I must win'... it was more of a 'I must not lose', really, as I didn't mind ties. I slightly annoyed other kids in playground games, but when it came to online Roleplay, I never really got into fights (mostly because my PVP has always sucked horribly and I knew I'd lose, even though my character may not have done). However, over the last couple of years, I have been roleplaying characters who are - more or less - myself, in terms of personality. In other words, I play as someone who is shy, keeps out of fights, but defends friends fiercely. I don't mind not being the best at stuff or losing fights with these sort of characters.

 

Also, I do agree on the badass evil Villain death lord thing. What would FFVII be without sephiroth? VIII without the sorceresses? IX without Kuja? And don't forget the fights against Beartrix in IX (who else was disappointed when she became playable to find that her abilites killed her MP so quickly?).

 

I also don't mind when people add a little to Lore such as later-patch stuff because 1) it will become Lore in the future and 2) It doesn't break the existing lore. In fact, i don't mind players adding their own ideas too, as long as it doesn't go over the top, like "I am an angel of death sent down by the twelve!". Sure you are. "I am an alien invader from another planet!" Uh.....huh.....

 

Although, you will come across some "bad" ones occasionaly, think of them as the Justin Biebers of RP and try to ignore them.

 

I grinned at that. And totally agree.

[Smiling River]

I also don't mind when people add a little to Lore such as later-patch stuff because 1) it will become Lore in the future and 2) It doesn't break the existing lore. In fact, i don't mind players adding their own ideas too, as long as it doesn't go over the top, like "I am an angel of death sent down by the twelve!". Sure you are. "I am an alien invader from another planet!" Uh.....huh.....

 

Agreed with ya on the later part of what you said, but the earlier seems off to me, primarily because while we are aware that certain aspects of the game will be released, we know little/nothing about them at the moment. Thus a character portraying an unknown 'thing' that wasn't released may misrepresent it, or RP it differently than when it actually is and the real lore comes out. There are ways to bypass this as well, but this point stands.

 

And as far as 'right' and 'wrong' goes, and I wasn't referring strictly to RP, I see as "there is no right and wrong - just opinions" as a lazy cop out of actually defending your views against opposing ideas. It feels comfy to believe that, it does, but don't go around saying it around the Philosophy department.

[Lyriell]

I also don't mind when people add a little to Lore such as later-patch stuff because 1) it will become Lore in the future and 2) It doesn't break the existing lore. In fact' date=' i don't mind players adding their own ideas too, as long as it doesn't go over the top, like "I am an angel of death sent down by the twelve!". Sure you are. "I am an alien invader from another planet!" Uh.....huh.....[/quote']

 

Agreed with ya on the later part of what you said, but the earlier seems off to me, primarily because while we are aware that certain aspects of the game will be released, we know little/nothing about them at the moment. Thus a character portraying an unknown 'thing' that wasn't released may misrepresent it, or RP it differently than when it actually is and the real lore comes out. There are ways to bypass this as well, but this point stands.

 

And as far as 'right' and 'wrong' goes, and I wasn't referring strictly to RP, I see as "there is no right and wrong - just opinions" as a lazy cop out of actually defending your views against opposing ideas. It feels comfy to believe that, it does, but don't go around saying it around the Philosophy department.

 

I respect your opinion Oskar, but saying it's a lazy cop out just because people are open-minded is...meh.. I dunno how to put it, but it makes you look as if you haven't really understood what this thread is all about.

 

You may think that you are right about what you say, because, as far as I know, you're part of a heavy rp ls, which I respect, but you have to try and see it from other people's perspective.

 

There are no fixed Rules for Roleplaying on the internet, except for the obvious one's I listed (and those I may have forgot). It's not like a pen and paper game (which I also played a lot in the past btw.), things are in motion and perhaps that's what makes it so interesting. Even after 12 or even more years of RP-Experience I still learn new things about it everyday. As for the Lore: I agree with you on some parts, but you can't foresee anything that happens or could happen, but then again if anyone would just stick completely to the little bit of lore we have, then don't you think it might get boring after a while? Not only that, but don't you think having too much boundaries in an fantasy world (i.e: the rp we do) would get boring after a while? For me it would be like watching a soap-opera, if I want to watch that I can just jump into the real life, it would be the same.

 

Think about Ultima Online and about how little lore was given there (and I don't count the Single Player Games as lore btw.). Ultima Online quite literally said: Everyone has his own individual story, everyone can be a hero, go out there and write your own story. I think that message was even integrated into the intro if I remember correctly, so if you really want to stick to some "right" or "wrong" RP rules for online RPG's, then you should stick to the game that pretty much started the whole RP Scene for gamers.

 

Don't take this personally, I respect your opinion and I respect you as a Roleplayer, but I think it's wrong of you to say it's a cop out. I will just say it once more, we have so many different players, from different countries, coming from different games, young or old. There is no "right" or "wrong" in rp except for a few No-go's, there are just different perspectives. =3

 

PS: I don't want to support Lore-bending and personally I prefer to stick to Ingame-Lore aswell, I just see nothing wrong in changing minor things or adding little things that don't break actual lore but expands it instead.

[Smiling River]

First of all, I think the main issue here is miscommunication, as you seem to think I am saying things I actually am not. I am not sure if itâs my lack of clarity, or you reading things in my response that arenât there. Either way, I think if we can actually get on the same page, weâd have a lot less perceivable differences between us.

 

There are no fixed Rules for Roleplaying on the internet, except for the obvious one's I listed (and those I may have forgot).

I have never once mentioned that there /are/ fixed rules for everyone. What I said was, that if you have an opinion, I donât think you can simply give up there. âI like RP in tavens! I think thatâs the best type of RP!â â for example. Thatâs nice, but what are the /reasons/ behind that? Is that opinion ârightâ? Well, for the person, maybe⦠but if that person is making a claim, they ought to defend it with evidence or good arguments for it. Now, a second personâs opinion can be, âNo, I think RP in wild areas is better.â â also purely a preference, yet, since those two clash, how do you settle the difference. Well, one way is person A states why the think their opinion has validity, person B states why theirs does, and the one whose claims hold more water is ârightâ. Now, Person A may still love tavern RP more, their feelings on it may not change, they may simply not be interested in anything else, but their belief that âTavern RP is bestâ would be seen as invalid, given the example.

 

Is that any more/less clear? I acknowledge opinions, but thatâs only where I start, and it seems that is the place where you end. I think without first clarifying what we mean by ârightâ and âwrongâ itâs a bit pointless to have this conversation, as weâre talking about different things. For instance, no way am I saying that there is a âstandardâ way to RP for everyone, or that everyone should RP in a certain way. All I can try to do is make an observation, and state why the way I see something is accurate. At some point it just comes down to oneâs acceptance of the case or rejection of it. I mean, even if I make the best possible case as to why /say should be used instead of /party for RP, for instance, at the end of the day itâs on you to take it or leave it.

 

 

But, about what you said on lore. Honestly, I've had plenty of fun with the little lore they've offered, because my fun in RP doesn't rely so much on lore as it does on the characters, and character development. The lore can be change completely, but for my money it's how the character changes with/against it. I also think that I RP with a bunch of creative folks who do not need to step outside the bounds much to get the most juice out of what we know and can safely assume. Don't paint me in the wrong light though, I am not against adding lore which isn't there, all I said was that you have to be very careful, because SE lore may contradict you later on. I did not say that we have to be so bland and just confine ourselves to purely what is in the text w/o making any assumptions or leaps of creativity. Those types you mentioned are extremes, so let's not try to corner each other into them.

[Lyriell]

Okay, now it's a little more clear and I agree with most of the things you said.

 

About the lore, it's a general problem because SE themselves sometimes seem to contradict their own lore, so, as I said I don't like breaking important lore either, but I'm not too focused on it aswell.

 

Also, it's okay for you to say if you think that the type of rp you make is more accurate, but keep in mind that this isn't the only truth either. What I'm trying to say is, if you want to give advice to people and do it in a respectful manner, there's nothing wrong with it, however don't expect people to think the same and respect their own way of RPing.

I might be wrong, but right now atleast for me it sounds like you're saying: "There may be different ways of RP's, but mine is the better one", either that or it's just difficult to understand what you actually want to say ^^

 

PS: I think the problem in our communication right now is that you go a bit too much into detail. Of course I know that "RP in tavern is the best!" isn't enough of an argument for one's own opinion, but that wasn't the point of this thread anyway. The point was that everyone has different opinions, and that there is no right or wrong in general. So we are not talking about what arguments someone has for his/her RP, the RP can still be bad without anything backing it up but it was not my intention to go that much into detail. All I wanted was that people accept each others opinion and playstyle in general. Which kinda means: If someone acts like a douche, it doesn't mean I support that in any way. However I don't support people that bash on other RPers just because their playstyle is different. And don't get that wrong, I'm not talking about you, because you seem to be a guy that can handle a discussion without loosing his temper, I mean people that insult or shut out other RP'ers for no good reason.

[Eva]

I wanted to thank you for making the original post and weigh in a bit as well. I myself have nearly two decades of experience with various forms of RP (I'm showing my age here ), dating back to a MUD I used to play over 16 years ago when I was in high school where being in-character was actually enforced by GM's! I've also RPed in a few other MMO's, most extensively with Final Fantasy XI, and I've dabbled a bit with tabletop (admittedly not that much). I don't think this my opinions and preferences any more or less validity than anyone else's, however. I just wanted to be clear about my background, as I've seen quite a lot in my years as well.

 

There was a thread made a little over a month ago that sought to revamp the RPC, and I think this has been met with some success. I made a post in this thread about revamping the RPC which seems relevent to the discussion. Specifically that as players and as characters, our own preferences and styles are as unique as we are. I listed a few different scales on which you may find yourself with regards to immersion, style, etc. No two RPers are going to be alike, but at the end of the day what it boils down to is tolerance, and I think that's what your OP really helped drive home.

 

I have now been a member of six or seven different, unique RP linkshells in FFXIV. Some were a good fit, and some weren't. And it hasn't always been the preferences that were the determining factor in this. I think a good melting pot of differently styled characters makes for the most dynamic and interesting communities. I'm not going to go into a longwinded explanation of my own preferences. But I will say that I've stepped out of my own comfort zone a number of times since I started here. In Final Fantasy XI, I was part of a single linkshell for about eight years. Different RPers came and went, but the style was generally the same and we adhered to a heavy degree of IC and made use of forums for OOC goofing around and such. That worked well for me, and that was what I grew accustomed to. That doesn't make that the be-all-end-all of RP. As Lyriell pointed out, there really is no right or wrong way of RPing. You could even make this argument for things like godmode and such as well.

 

Where there is no right or wrong way to RP, the other side to this coin is that there is also our own individual preferences that come into play. These are not always so malleable, either. To cite an example (since I don't think he would mind), a good friend of mine from FFXI strayed a bit from the game's lore to go on and create a culture of nomadic people that were centralized in/beneath Altepa Desert. This was nowhere in the game's lore, but he wrote pages upon pages of stories about it and in my opinion they were fantastic! He even drew other players into this lore and it was very enjoyable. I realize that some people may not approve of this, but it's also very easy to turn a blind eye to something like this as well. No individual is the almighty lord or lady of RP and says what goes for everyone. We all do things differently, and that's actually good - it would be dreadfully boring if we were all the same anyway.

 

While I can easily think of several, I'm not going to give any specific example in the other direction. I will point out that such deviations and things can put some people off. And that's no reason to stop doing that, if it's what you enjoy. But a RPer should also be aware of the impact that his or her RP has on other characters. Nobody wants to RP with somebody if it's not an enjoyable experience. That's not to say that you shouldn't RP being the legendary mage-knight who rains meteors from his Excalibur and destroys everything in his path. If that's what you're passionate about, than I say go for it. But I would encourage that with the caveat that one be conscious of how it would be perceived by others. Were I privy to meteor-man in this example, I don't think I would willfully comment on something like this, but I might be inclined to ignore it, or avoid the RPer, as it's just not my style... not my preference. And that's okay too. What's not okay, at least not in my book, is telling someone that it's wrong. It's been my experience that people that RP in styles like this often quickly get frustrated that nobody else wants to participate with them and either move on, or modify their style to something others might be more amenable to interacting with. For many that I've seen firsthand, this has been a fundamental part of the process - growth of an RPer, if you will.

 

I've changed a lot since I started XIV. I was very set in my ways from XI, and there are so many differences in FF14 and its denizens from what I grew accustomed to for so many years. I still adhere to some of it. I tend not to like going out of character while I'm in the game (unless it's on a raid or somesuch of course) since I am there to RP first and foremost. But I don't expect everyone else to be IC 100% of the time. I try to stick to the lore, with a few minor deviations that I feel are reasonable. But I don't fault someone else if they stray from that path. I've become a lot more tolerant than I used to be. I know there are more people here that like going OOC sometimes. I know there is a totally different atmosphere in FF14 than there was in FF11 and the general RP community as a whole seems a bit more mature.

 

Wow... I didn't expect this to get so longwinded. I guess I'll close it out by simply saying that if a RPer only RP's with people that are just like him- or herself, they're probably only robbing themselves of a lot of wonderful opportunities. I think finding that balance between what you really enjoy and what others can really enjoy as well is what makes the experience so fun, and so rewarding. And Tolerance! (cuz I really can't emphasize that enough)

 

 

EDIT TO ADD: Also I know there is a stickied thread out there about RP Ettiquite. Maybe you can work with Kylin and any other interested parties to help update or re-define this. I think that would actually be a very good idea.

[Lyriell]

Thanks for your post, I really appreciate other RP'ers sharing their thoughts and stories. Some of those things even reminded me of myself ^^

 

EDIT TO ADD: Also I know there is a stickied thread out there about RP Ettiquite. Maybe you can work with Kylin and any other interested parties to help update or re-define this. I think that would actually be a very good idea.

 

 

Mhm I'm not sure who Kylin is, I just started browing through the RPC a few days ago, and often I don't even have a lot of time for that too since im working and studying at the same time. I probably wouldn't have made this thread either if I didn't have sleeping problems the past few days, but since I couldn't sleep I just used the time to do something that might be considered productive

 

I don't mind if some parts of this topic are just integrated into the current RP-Etiquette, it's completely up to the people that are responsible for those threads if they want to include anything or not ^^

 

Anyway, I guess I will try to get some sleep now, after staying awake for 2 days q_q wish me luck ^^