Edited Title; Public Space OOC/IC issue~

[FreelanceWizard]

I don't really know if this is valid.

 

While yes, not doing it in public is the easiest solution at first glance, the problem arises of where to have it in the first place. Not everyone has a private location such as a house readily available, and it's entirely possible that the RP that you just want to have with yourself and two friends might call for a specific location.

 

Sometimes people respond to presence, even if all dialogue is in Party, or a linkshell.

 

There's also the fact that public spaces can be used for whatever the public wants; this includes Private RP.

 

I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you shouldn't.

 

When a person does their private RP in a public location, they're continuing the general perception of cliques in the RP community, they're ignoring IC consequences for IC actions, and they're essentially establishing that the other players there are merely an audience for their RP (particularly if they're RPing in /say and /em and telling people they can't get involved OOCly). So, yes, while anyone can certainly do whatever they want, doing private RP in public spaces is, in my mind, inappropriate. When you RP in a clearly public place, you accept the IC consequence of someone else interacting with you. If you don't want that, go somewhere else.

 

The reason I say "clearly public" is because there's areas that are in public but aren't clearly so. Let's consider Camp Dragonhead. There's the rooms on the walls. If you want a private scene, you can head up there and go into /party. Now, since you're out of the way of where people normally go, you're not in a clearly public location, and at that point I'd say someone stumbling across you should assume that the scene is private until noted otherwise. Yes, there's a judgment call involved here, but I think most people are sensible enough to be able to tell the difference between a place where people should expect potential walk-ups and places where they shouldn't. Near an Aetheryte? At the Bismarck? In a tavern in a town? Those are public. Hermit's Hovel? A cliff out in the field? A side room in Camp Dragonhead? Those aren't (though private RP should be in /party to make it clear).

 

Note that in all of this, I'm referring to the sort of private RP where those involved ignore others who show up or tell them to go away OOCly -- particularly if they're using /say for their RP. There's nothing wrong with responding to a person showing up and asking them to leave ICly. ICA = ICC, after all, and an IC consequence to trying to strike up a conversation with someone can be being told to buzz off.

 

Anyway, to get back on topic, to the OP: based on your subsequent posts, the person who went on the tirade in tells is wrong, IMO. It's entirely lore compliant for Ishgardians to look down their noses at outsiders, and from your emote, there's no establishment of any of the things they complained about.

[Anthony Valron]

Thanks for the clarification; as stated, I AM still very new to FFXIV and the RPC here.

 

That said, I do feel that my grasp of Ishgardian lore is excellent and I found nothing wrong or out of place w/ my character's actions.

[Oli!]

I don't really know if this is valid.

 

While yes, not doing it in public is the easiest solution at first glance, the problem arises of where to have it in the first place. Not everyone has a private location such as a house readily available, and it's entirely possible that the RP that you just want to have with yourself and two friends might call for a specific location.

 

Sometimes people respond to presence, even if all dialogue is in Party, or a linkshell.

 

There's also the fact that public spaces can be used for whatever the public wants; this includes Private RP.

 

I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you shouldn't.

 

When a person does their private RP in a public location, they're continuing the general perception of cliques in the RP community, they're ignoring IC consequences for IC actions, and they're essentially establishing that the other players there are merely an audience for their RP (particularly if they're RPing in /say and /em and telling people they can't get involved). So, yes, while anyone can certainly do whatever they want, doing private RP in public spaces is, in my mind, inappropriate. When you RP in a clearly public place, you accept the IC consequence of someone else interacting with you. If you don't want that, go somewhere else.

 

The reason I say "clearly public" is because there's areas that are in public but aren't clearly so. Let's consider Camp Dragonhead. There's the rooms on the walls. If you want a private scene, you can head up there and go into /party. Now, since you're out of the way of where people normally go, you're not in a clearly public location, and at that point I'd say someone stumbling across you should assume that the scene is private until noted otherwise. Yes, there's a judgment call involved here, but I think most people are sensible enough to be able to tell the difference between a place where people should expect potential walk-ups and places where they shouldn't. Near an Aetheryte? At the Bismarck? In a tavern in a town? Those are public. Hermit's Hovel? A cliff out in the field? A side room in Camp Dragonhead? Those aren't (though private RP should be in /party to make it clear).

 

Note that in all of this, I'm referring to the sort of private RP where those involved ignore others who show up or tell them to go away OOCly -- particularly if they're using /say for their RP. There's nothing wrong with responding to a person showing up and asking them to leave ICly. ICA = ICC, after all, and an IC consequence to trying to strike up a conversation with someone can be being told to buzz off.

 

Anyway, to get back on topic, to the OP: based on your subsequent posts, the person who went on the tirade in tells is wrong, IMO. It's entirely lore compliant for Ishgardians to look down their noses at outsiders, and from your emote, there's no establishment of any of the things they complained about.

 

 

I still can't really see this as valid. People are free to do what they want in a public location. Additionally, one of the central unspoken tenets of any RP community is the idea that you don't have to RP with anyone that you don't want to. This would be in violation of that tenet.

 

If you were to walk up to a group of friends playing Monopoly in the park, ask if you can play, and then get denied, you can't say, "well this park is a clearly public location, and you must therefore let me play Monopoly with you." Similarly, if someone has their Ferrari parked in a street, you can't say "you have to let me drive your car, because you parked it in a public location." They're using private property in an open spot. Having someone play Monopoly with you, or driving your car when you don't want them to isn't a consequence of being where you are. Yes, you might be able to avoid these unwanted advances if you parked your Ferrari in a garage, or played Monopoly in your living room, but you also don't have to accept these advances just because you're in a public place. Just because something is out in the open doesn't mean that you are automatically allowed to partake in it.

 

In the context of this game, the Public Area is The Game, and the Private Property is Your Roleplay. Just as I am free to play Monopoly in the park with my friends and exclude people if I wish, other people are free to Roleplay in public with their friends and exclude people if they want to. It is even possible to turn the Consequences theme on its head, and say that if you decide to try and get involved in things that other people are doing, then you have to accept them excluding you as a consequence for your actions.

 

I also don't think that the concept of IC Consequence Avoidance applies here anyway, because they are not asking for anything; if I were to sit out in a bench in Ul'dah ICly, and someone Roleplays sniping my character and killing them without my approval, with their reasoning being "well, that's the consequence of sitting on a park bench in an area without security," I think that everyone here would be willing to agree that that would be at least slightly unreasonable. It's the same thing with Private Roleplay; if some people just sit out in the middle of a place talking about something, and someone comes over and tries to join, then I don't think it could be seen as Consequence Avoidance for them to say, "actually this is just between us, sorry."

 

It would be different if the scenario was such that they did ask for it, such as making it public and then making it private later, or giving someone permission to overhear them and deciding against it later, but those are both instances in which the Roleplay is no longer private, and therefore does not apply to the circumstances that we're discussing.

 

As far as turning people into an audience goes, I don't think that this is so at all. No one is forcing anyone else to do nothing but watch, and you are entirely within your rights to leave, roleplay around them, pretend they're there anyway, pretend they're not there, use them as barstools, or whatever else you may fancy.

[Kage]

Yes you don't need to engage people in public RP. As said, the person OP emoted at could have easily just ignored the OP's emote. People do that in the Quicksand all the time. The other player could have just made an equally dismissive IC action. Instead they took a relatively innocent emote and blew it up OOC.

[Oli!]

Yes you don't need to engage people in public RP. As said, the person OP emoted at could have easily just ignored the OP's emote. People do that in the Quicksand all the time. The other player could have just made an equally dismissive IC action. Instead they took a relatively innocent emote and blew it up OOC.

 

 

As far as we know, yes, this is the case.

 

LoneWizard and I are talking about something different now, as far as I can tell.

[FreelanceWizard]

I still can't really see this as valid. People are free to do what they want in a public location. Additionally, one of the central unspoken tenets of any RP community is the idea that you don't have to RP with anyone that you don't want to. This would be in violation of that tenet.

 

If you were to walk up to a group of friends playing Monopoly in the park, ask if you can play, and then get denied, you can't say, "well this park is a clearly public location, and you must therefore let me play Monopoly with you." Similarly, if someone has their Ferrari parked in a street, you can't say "you have to let me drive your car, because you parked it in a public location." They're using private property in an open spot. Having someone play Monopoly with you, or driving your car when you don't want them to isn't a consequence of being where you are. Yes, you might be able to avoid these unwanted advances if you parked your Ferrari in a garage, or played Monopoly in your living room, but you also don't have to accept these advances just because you're in a public place. Just because something is out in the open doesn't mean that you are automatically allowed to partake in it.

 

In the context of this game, the Public Area is The Game, and the Private Property is Your Roleplay. Just as I am free to play Monopoly in the park with my friends and exclude people if I wish, other people are free to Roleplay in public with their friends and exclude people if they want to. It is even possible to turn the Consequences theme on its head, and say that if you decide to try and get involved in things that other people are doing, then you have to accept them excluding you as a consequence for your actions.

 

I also don't think that the concept of IC Consequence Avoidance applies here anyway, because they are not asking for anything; if I were to sit out in a bench in Ul'dah ICly, and someone Roleplays sniping my character and killing them without my approval, with their reasoning being "well, that's the consequence of sitting on a park bench in an area without security," I think that everyone here would be willing to agree that that would be at least slightly unreasonable. It's the same thing with Private Roleplay; if some people just sit out in the middle of a place talking about something, and someone comes over and tries to join, then I don't think it could be seen as Consequence Avoidance for them to say, "actually this is just between us, sorry."

 

It would be different if the scenario was such that they did ask for it, such as making it public and then making it private later, or giving someone permission to overhear them and deciding against it later, but those are both instances in which the Roleplay is no longer private, and therefore does not apply to the circumstances that we're discussing.

 

As far as turning people into an audience goes, I don't think that this is so at all. No one is forcing anyone else to do nothing but watch, and you are entirely within your rights to leave, roleplay around them, pretend they're there anyway, pretend they're not there, use them as barstools, or whatever else you may fancy.

 

I reject the idea that RP is inherently private property at all times. RP in public is public; you are making it clear by your presence in public and your RP there that you are, indeed, an RPer, that your character exists, and that they're in this location. You have a right not to RP with someone, certainly, but you do not have the right to preemptively declare that the conversation you're having in the middle of the Quicksand (to use an example) is private and that no one else can overhear it or interact with you. That's bad form, and it interferes with another central tenet of RP, which is that anyone can play if they're willing to make an effort. Don't we hold ourselves out as an open, welcoming group of people? Don't we try to engage others?

 

It is, to me, extremely bad form for an RPer to engage in RP in a public location, then OOCly tell a person "You can't participate" or to simply ignore them outright. I'm not saying you must RP with them to any great extent. What I am saying is that you, as an RPer, owe them as a matter of proper decorum the recognition of their existence ICly. If you don't want them there, you can make that extremely clear ICly. This is a perfect example of ICA = ICC, actually. The IC action is talking in public. The IC reaction can be someone reacting to that. That reaction itself can get a reaction, and so it goes. The problem is when, instead of there being an IC reaction, the first party throws a tell at them (going OOC) to say, "Sorry, private scene, get lost."

 

I think the difference we have is that I consider the very presence of a character in a public location to be an automatic consent to social interaction. The IC action is being somewhere; a reasonable IC consequence is people interacting with you. If you don't want to give that automatic consent, the world is full of places where you can go where it's unlikely anyone will run into you and it's generally understood that the scene defaults to private.

 

I suppose, then, we'll have to agree to disagree, since we appear to have different conceptions of auto-consent and ICA = ICC.

 

(As a side note, your example of being shot by a sniper is actually an issue of consent and escalation of consent, and part of that is that you can't do something to someone's character that's greater than what they've agreed to. Taking someone out because they were sitting on a park bench with no other story elements involved is a blatant violation of any plausible concept of consent.)

[Oli!]

I still can't really see this as valid. People are free to do what they want in a public location. Additionally, one of the central unspoken tenets of any RP community is the idea that you don't have to RP with anyone that you don't want to. This would be in violation of that tenet.

 

If you were to walk up to a group of friends playing Monopoly in the park, ask if you can play, and then get denied, you can't say, "well this park is a clearly public location, and you must therefore let me play Monopoly with you." Similarly, if someone has their Ferrari parked in a street, you can't say "you have to let me drive your car, because you parked it in a public location." They're using private property in an open spot. Having someone play Monopoly with you, or driving your car when you don't want them to isn't a consequence of being where you are. Yes, you might be able to avoid these unwanted advances if you parked your Ferrari in a garage, or played Monopoly in your living room, but you also don't have to accept these advances just because you're in a public place. Just because something is out in the open doesn't mean that you are automatically allowed to partake in it.

 

In the context of this game, the Public Area is The Game, and the Private Property is Your Roleplay. Just as I am free to play Monopoly in the park with my friends and exclude people if I wish, other people are free to Roleplay in public with their friends and exclude people if they want to. It is even possible to turn the Consequences theme on its head, and say that if you decide to try and get involved in things that other people are doing, then you have to accept them excluding you as a consequence for your actions.

 

I also don't think that the concept of IC Consequence Avoidance applies here anyway, because they are not asking for anything; if I were to sit out in a bench in Ul'dah ICly, and someone Roleplays sniping my character and killing them without my approval, with their reasoning being "well, that's the consequence of sitting on a park bench in an area without security," I think that everyone here would be willing to agree that that would be at least slightly unreasonable. It's the same thing with Private Roleplay; if some people just sit out in the middle of a place talking about something, and someone comes over and tries to join, then I don't think it could be seen as Consequence Avoidance for them to say, "actually this is just between us, sorry."

 

It would be different if the scenario was such that they did ask for it, such as making it public and then making it private later, or giving someone permission to overhear them and deciding against it later, but those are both instances in which the Roleplay is no longer private, and therefore does not apply to the circumstances that we're discussing.

 

As far as turning people into an audience goes, I don't think that this is so at all. No one is forcing anyone else to do nothing but watch, and you are entirely within your rights to leave, roleplay around them, pretend they're there anyway, pretend they're not there, use them as barstools, or whatever else you may fancy.

 

I reject the idea that RP is inherently private property at all times. RP in public is public; you are making it clear by your presence in public and your RP there that you are, indeed, an RPer, that your character exists, and that they're in this location. You have a right not to RP with someone, certainly, but you do not have the right to preemptively declare that the conversation you're having in the middle of the Quicksand (to use an example) is private and that no one else can overhear it or interact with you. That's bad form, and it interferes with another central tenet of RP, which is that anyone can play if they're willing to make an effort. Don't we hold ourselves out as an open, welcoming group of people? Don't we try to engage others?

 

It is, to me, extremely bad form for an RPer to engage in RP in a public location, then OOCly tell a person "You can't participate" or to simply ignore them outright. I'm not saying you must RP with them to any great extent. What I am saying is that you, as an RPer, owe them as a matter of proper decorum the recognition of their existence ICly. If you don't want them there, you can make that extremely clear ICly. This is a perfect example of ICA = ICC, actually. The IC action is talking in public. The IC reaction can be someone reacting to that. That reaction itself can get a reaction, and so it goes. The problem is when, instead of there being an IC reaction, the first party throws a tell at them (going OOC) to say, "Sorry, private scene, get lost."

 

I think the difference we have is that I consider the very presence of a character in a public location to be an automatic consent to social interaction. The IC action is being somewhere; a reasonable IC consequence is people interacting with you. If you don't want to give that automatic consent, the world is full of places where you can go where it's unlikely anyone will run into you and it's generally understood that the scene defaults to private.

 

I suppose, then, we'll have to agree to disagree, since we appear to have different conceptions of auto-consent and ICA = ICC.

 

(As a side note, your example of being shot by a sniper is actually an issue of consent and escalation of consent, and part of that is that you can't do something to someone's character that's greater than what they've agreed to. Taking someone out because they were sitting on a park bench with no other story elements involved is a blatant violation of any plausible concept of consent.)

 

 

The thing though is that opinions on what is or is not good form is not the same thing as what is or is not another player's Right. There are several things in my own argument that I disagree with in terms of personal philosophy, but I argue them because they're the way that things are. I actually agree that it's Bad Form, but that doesn't mean that it's not a Right that someone has. It's within my Rights not to clean my apartment before I have friends over, but it's still Bad Form, simultaneously. Is it my civil right not to bathe for a whole year if I don't want to? Yes. Is it Bad Form not to bathe for a whole year? Also yes.

 

There is nothing stopping a person from walking into the Quicksand, sitting down, and then having an RP that people are excluded from through ignoring their surroundings. There is no way to force them to acknowledge you, or force them to leave. Those are not options that are available or enforceable to us, therefore making their choice something that cannot be outlawed or otherwise made illegal by any given party, therefore a Right.

 

We may not like it. I, in fact, do not like it. However, I, or anyone else, cannot stop them from doing such, and it is not prohibited by The Game. It is therefore something that other people are allowed to do if they wish, regardless of our individual stances on the matter.

[Dat Oni]

This is why I ask for and give context in OOC, and ask before I do something if it is okay to do so. It's (not so) common courtesy.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

Just to throw my two gil into the whole "can you / should you randomly interact with others that you see being IC"... Yes, yes you should, in my opinion. It's already been stated that if you're in public, you're in public. That seems like a "period, end of discussion" sort of obvious point. 

 

The main rebuttal to that, "but what if they don't have anywhere private they could go" is moot - nothing prevents them from setting up Skype, using email, or even private messages here on this forum. I know lots of people over various MMOs that I've played who do that for scenes where they really want privacy. Do you have you use your imagination 100% for the scenery, etc? Duh. Obviously. But if we're totally fair there, most people do that in-game, too. They'll emote about something going on during the scene that isn't represented by the polygons and avatars (usually because it can't be, because we can't edit the game world to suit the whims of our RP).

 

It's like the real world - if two people want to have a heated argument, and they do it in their home, then they're probably fine to have that argument. If they do it at a shopping mall, there's a chance that a passer-by may interject their opinion, or a possibility someone may misunderstand the context of the argument or the hostility level and things could get taken an unanticipated direction.

 

This unpredictability is part of the fun of RP, and it can also be a neat way to acquire some new IC friends (or antagonists).

 

All of this, though, does fall under the usual umbrella of "be respectful to other players OOCly". If you try to interact with them and they ask you OOCly, "Hey, I know we're out in public and everything, but we have kinda limited time and it's really important to our story that this part of it goes as-intended, could we maybe hook up for random RP another day instead of right now?", then hey, be cool to them and let them do their thing.

 

tl;dr - My opinion is that there's no need to ever specify you're open to walk-up RP. If you're IC in public, you're open to it. A polite OOC request for privacy should be respected, but privacy-in-public shouldn't be considered a default condition.

[Oli!]

The main rebuttal to that, "but what if they don't have anywhere private they could go" is moot - nothing prevents them from setting up Skype, using email, or even private messages here on this forum. I know lots of people over various MMOs that I've played who do that for scenes where they really want privacy...

 

...It's like the real world - if two people want to have a heated argument, and they do it in their home, then they're probably fine to have that argument. If they do it at a shopping mall, there's a chance that a passer-by may interject their opinion, or a possibility someone may misunderstand the context of the argument or the hostility level and things could get taken an unanticipated direction.

 

tl;dr - My opinion is that there's no need to ever specify you're open to walk-up RP. If you're IC in public, you're open to it. A polite OOC request for privacy should be respected, but privacy-in-public shouldn't be considered a default condition.

 

 

This is not the main rebuttal.

 

The main rebuttal is that you can't make them acknowledge you. And you can't. There's nothing that anyone can do to make an RP public unless the other party is willing to play along. All RP is about playing along.

 

Again, I agree that if you're in public, you should be in public. But when it's down to the line, you're only in public if you decide to acknowledge other people coming up to you. If you don't, then you might as well not be.

 

In the real world, you can ignore people that come up to you and offer their piece. It's the same thing in RP, where it is in fact even easier to ignore someone. Someone can punch you in meatspace, but in RP, that punch isn't happening unless you want it to. If a party doesn't acknowledge anything happening around them, then functionally, they're not public at all, and there's no way to force them to be public either.

[Hyakki]

The main rebuttal to that, "but what if they don't have anywhere private they could go" is moot - nothing prevents them from setting up Skype, using email, or even private messages here on this forum. I know lots of people over various MMOs that I've played who do that for scenes where they really want privacy. Do you have you use your imagination 100% for the scenery, etc? Duh. Obviously. But if we're totally fair there, most people do that in-game, too. They'll emote about something going on during the scene that isn't represented by the polygons and avatars (usually because it can't be, because we can't edit the game world to suit the whims of our RP).

 

Some people play on console and outside alternatives like skype or forums aren't available to them or an option they're comfortable with. With those options and imagination why roleplay within the game at all?

 

Do you people feel entitled to crash parties held in public parks too? If they really want to make it private they can hold it at home or rent a private venue, right? With creative use of decorations and a little imagination it would be just like the park.

 

If you are turned away politely, accept it and move on. Its a big server, someone else would surely be happy to include you.

[Dravus]

I get the impression that there's more to this story than is being put forward. Call me cynical but whenever there's drama in a role-playing community I've found that it's almost always a two way thing.

 

It could very well be a misunderstanding or a matter of unintentional offence - but I'm not quite sure we'll be able to discuss it in full since there's only one side showing up to put forward their account of what has happened.

 

Besides, if everybody came to this forum to make a thread each time someone rubbed them the wrong way in-game then...the forum would be full of nothing but complaint threads. Learning to filter out problematic role-players/people you can't compromise with is a skill that every role-player needs to learn in my opinion.

 

It should be no secret that many role-players are not compatible with each other/prone to drama, bitching and bickering. What matters is identifying those you will get along with and cutting your losses when you stumble across those that you won't get along with.

 

Much like in the real world, I suppose.

[Flashhelix]

Roleplayer entitlement is absolutely out of control.

[Edda]

When it comes to roleplay, and even situations in real life, there is really only one clear answer: Don't. In no way is it ever acceptable to just waltz up to anyone you have had no prior interaction with and engage them in any way, shape, or form. It is rude and disrespectful. Even so much as emoting your character's annoyance or interest in the conversation between two friends is highly inconsiderate and should be avoided at all costs.

 

As anyone who knows me can tell you, I recently removed the "walk-ups welcome" blurb in my search info, and I would encourage any and all roleplayers to do the same. If someone is roleplaying publicly, that does not give you the right to engage them if they are a complete stranger. If I have a need to introduce my character to someone new, then I will arrange for it to be done so through an existing, mutual contact, just like how ever other normal person meets new people in real life.

 

For more information on the issues regarding engaging strangers in any way, please refer to this article. Though it is written for IRL purposes, I think it can be applied to roleplay as well.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

This is not the main rebuttal.

 

The main rebuttal is that you can't make them acknowledge you. And you can't. There's nothing that anyone can do to make an RP public unless the other party is willing to play along. All RP is about playing along.

 

You can't force them to acknowledge you, that's true. But there are consequences to a lack of acknowledgement. Consider a hypothetical example of this:

 

Bob and Jane are characters in RP in the Quicksand. They're having an argument in which Bob is clearly being antagonistic in the scene and Jane is being victimized. As you probably can anticipate, a number of characters observing the situation are readying themselves to "white knight", and one such character, Frank, approaches and emotes suggesting to Bob that he cool it and maybe they all get a drink and calm down. Bob and Jane don't react, and Bob goes to smack Jane in the face. Frank emotes reaching out in an attempt to intercept or block the smack to prevent it from connecting. Bob and Jane don't react, and Jane takes the hit, falling backwards, and Bob draws his sword. Frank emotes another attempt to intervene by drawing his own weapon and positioning his avatar in between Bob and Jane's, while trying to tell Bob to stand down. Bob and Jane continue to not react to Frank.

 

Now then. Is your statement true, that Frank can't force Bob and Jane to react to him? Sure. But, are Bob and Jane's players being rude by playing out their scene in a public space and failing to acknowledge the existence of the public? Yes. For their behavior, other players in the area will probably conclude that Bob is godmoding by not acknowledging Frank, and a large portion of those players may decide to write off Bob and Jane as roleplayers due to their anti-social behavior.

 

More to the point, inability to force Bob and Jane to "play along" doesn't mean that refusal is polite or justifiable, nor does it magically mean they aren't in public. Many roleplayers play with a mind to the realism of the social environment, which means that unless a plausible reason ICly is presented for why Bob and Jane couldn't be interacted with, they're fair game.

[Oli!]

 

 

 

 

 

Now then. Is your statement true, that Frank can't force Bob and Jane to react to him? Sure. But, are Bob and Jane's players being rude by playing out their scene in a public space and failing to acknowledge the existence of the public? Yes. For their behavior, other players in the area will probably conclude that Bob is godmoding by not acknowledging Frank, and a large portion of those players may decide to write off Bob and Jane as roleplayers due to their anti-social behavior.

 

More to the point, inability to force Bob and Jane to "play along" doesn't mean that refusal is polite or justifiable, nor does it magically mean they aren't in public. Many roleplayers play with a mind to the realism of the social environment, which means that unless a plausible reason ICly is presented for why Bob and Jane couldn't be interacted with, they're fair game.

 

 

Yes, they're being rude. We agree. But it's still their right to be rude, which is what is being argued.

 

The point about them being not in public means that the scene that they had planned will continue along the same lines as it would have if no one saw it; as a result, regardless of where they would have played it out, it would have stayed the same, blurring the lines of Public and Private from their standpoint and rendering them unnecessary.

 

Yes, they might be "fair game" in the mind of those interacting with them, but as far as actual interaction goes, they're not fair game, because nothing can be done to them. Therein lies the disconnect between what people's opinions of what should be fair game are, and what actually is fair game in practice.

 

Those players may write those people off, but unless this is something that the two players find undesirable, that doesn't actually make it a consequence. It's entirely possible that those two players won't care, or otherwise find it rude that everyone else is intruding; as a result, they might also desire to write the rest of those watching off as well. A Consequence, when referred to in the negative light, is squarely within the confines of subjectivity.

 

Again, just because someone is Being Rude by not interacting with someone, does not mean that they are not within their Rights to do whatever it is that they're doing. Personal Opinions are not Law; sometimes the two can intersect, or work in tandem with one another, but they are not the same.

 

Again, I would rather that people be available to interact with all the time in public, but that's not something that is always true, or something that I can enforce. I also personally believe that it's not worth writing people off because they decided that they want to do something on their own.

 

As an aside, it's important to note that the people in your scenario did not state that they were having a private scene when others attempted to intervene. Although it is a bit of a tangent from the actual argument, if they were to have stated something along the lines of, "sorry, this RP is off-limits, we're doing something on our own," then that could put the entire scenario in a very different light, even if everything else proceeds in the same way.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

Some people play on console and outside alternatives like skype or forums aren't available to them or an option they're comfortable with. With those options and imagination why roleplay within the game at all?

 

Do you people feel entitled to crash parties held in public parks too? If they really want to make it private they can hold it at home or rent a private venue, right? With creative use of decorations and a little imagination it would be just like the park.

 

If you are turned away politely, accept it and move on. Its a big server, someone else would surely be happy to include you.

 

I find it hard to believe that someone might own a gaming console but have literally no other access to the internet, but let's say there's someone like that. What prevents them from taking their scene to tells, or to party chat? Nothing does.

 

If there's an event going on in a public park it's a public event. That is a public park. It's paid for by the public. I am a part of the public. I pay taxes which pay for the park. Similarly, I pay a monthly fee for access to a video game in which the domains we can wander are also public (except when they explicitly aren't, such as private chambers). Similar to my comment regarding OOC request, were I to see something interesting going on in a public park and wander up inquiring cheerfully what the occasion is, and I were given a polite request to leave them be, then I'd surely do so. Civility goes a long way. On the other hand, if one of the adults there stomped over to me and screamed at the top of his lungs, "YOU DON'T BELONG HERE GTFO YOU WHORE", there's no chance I'm going to merely obey that. Rood.

 

On the last note we agree - if you see someone doing RP in public and you try to interact and they politely decline by tell, hey, cool. Absolutely move on. Like I just said a second ago, civility. That doesn't mean you never attempt to walk up to people doing public RP, though. And it doesn't mean you should have to send a tell and beg them to let you interact with them like they're the owners of the zone and you're not allowed to RP in the same breathing space they're occupying. No. We all pay the fee, we all have an equal right to RP there - by default. A nice request to give them some space, though, does wonders.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

As an aside, it's important to note that the people in your scenario did not state that they were having a private scene when others attempted to intervene. Although it is a bit of a tangent from the actual argument, if they were to have stated something along the lines of, "sorry, this RP is off-limits, we're doing something on our own," then that could put the entire scenario in a very different light, even if everything else proceeds in the same way.

 

That right there is the line between polite and rude - returning to the example, when Frank made his initial post, if Bob or Jane replied OOCly, "((Hey Frank, sorry to do this to you man, but in the context of the scene we're playing we're intending this to be an after-hours moment when the Quicksand happens to be closed, so for the sake of the scene we can't accept outside interaction.))" then that's being polite. Outright not acknowledging Frank's existence is what made it rude.

 

On the other hand, Frank (and everyone else in the area) would then be justified in saying "((Is it possible that you guys might consider taking that RP to party chat or tells? People who walk in after this moment won't have seen your explanation and may attempt to interact with you two, and that could get frustrating for you both, whereas taking the RP to party chat or tells just makes it look like you're two silent avatars as far as any newcomers would be concerned, so they'd have no reason to try to intervene in anything and your scene could progress uninterrupted.))"

 

Which, to be frank (hah), is really what they should've done to begin with if their scene absolutely couldn't withstand the possibility of interference.

[Jana]

While yes, not doing it in public is the easiest solution at first glance, the problem arises of where to have it in the first place.

 

Party chat or tells, even in the middle of the Quicksand, have been used for private RP since there was RP in the game. If people wanna RP in /say and get pissy when people enter their range and reply, they should have considered it beforehand.

[Oli!]

While yes, not doing it in public is the easiest solution at first glance, the problem arises of where to have it in the first place.

 

Party chat or tells, even in the middle of the Quicksand, have been used for private RP since there was RP in the game. If people wanna RP in /say and get pissy when people enter their range and reply, they should have considered it beforehand.

 

Right now, I don't think we're dealing with individual reactions to intrusion; these can range anywhere from being angry, to not caring at all, so they don't really have that much gravity except for in specific circumstances; the argument is more geared to whether or not people are allowed to have private conversations in /say, which they are, because there's no way to actually stop them from doing so.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

Right now, I don't think we're dealing with individual reactions to intrusion; these can range anywhere from being angry, to not caring at all, so they don't really have that much gravity except for in specific circumstances; the argument is more geared to whether or not people are allowed to have private conversations in /say, which they are, because there's no way to actually stop them from doing so.

 

Inability to prevent someone from doing a thing doesn't make that thing allowed or justifiable.

 

One can't prevent me from peeing on the sidewalk, but in general most modern societies agree that's not permissible (and moreso than being socially unacceptable, being caught in the act may warrant arrest).

 

By your own words earlier, people who make such RP faux pas may not care if they get blacklisted, and so that's no punishment to them, and therefore they have no deterrent at all. Okay.

 

So what if a person doesn't care if they get arrested, is it okay for them to just go around peeing on sidewalks to their heart's content? 

 

Or is it still not acceptable behavior, regardless of their shrug toward consequence?

[Unnamed Mercenary]

[[steps in as a mod]]

 

Small plea to remember to be kind and considerate to other users on the forum.

 

There have been a few comments in this thread that are skirting too close to the fine line between a discussion and people making snide comments/callouts.

 

[[takes off the mod hat]]

 

Let's not forget that everyone in-game is paying for the game. There are also no "rights" within an Online Game. There's an End-User License Agreement, yes, but there's no rule that requires one player to interact with another player.

 

There is a common courtesy to keep private RP private though. Within my time playing the game, there have been multiple scenes where people have basically done he Bob, Jane and Frank example. (Especially in the Quicksand!). However, like most RPers, I would bet that Bob, Jane and Frank probably all have "walkups welcome! in their search info, which does create an implicit agreement that if they're RPing someone public, that the public can, and maybe -should-, react! ...if the RP was not supposed to be open, then it should not be typed openly. Simply as that.

 

From a personal example, I actually started a few fights in the Quicksand back in the day. (Ask Kage about it some time!). While Kage and I had planned our scene out for the most part, it was still emoted in /em and we spoke in /say. There was a SURPRISINGLY LARGE group of people who immediately tried to react to it. Something that we both accepted. We later had to take it outside because there was a rising number of OOC tells and comments such as "can you please not have this closed off scene somewhere where there's already a massive chat scroll?" and once someone made that intention known IC, we did! The character I was even RPing at got yelled at by a few people later for his behavior. (All IC)

 

Had we done the same exact scene in /party or in a linkshell, nobody would have looked up. Personally, I would find it kinda rude for an untouchable scene to be RPed out in the open like that.

 

--

 

But let's make another proposed scene, one I've also seen in the Quicksand a lot.

 

Characters Alice and Jimmy are sitting on the stools having a conversation. Alice tells Jimmy that she's recently bought some -very- strong poison and plans to murder her husband with it. One of the fellows besides them Mr Steel, the Brass Blade, who has been following a string of recent murders by poisoning in his own RP. Steel turns to Alice and as an official law-enforcement officers, asks her to hand over the poison. Jimmy, who has been silent the whole time since Steel turned around suddenly says OOC "((omg, this is a private scene.))"

 

Steel's player follows with an OOC message of "((Then why are you talking about it in a bar? And loud enough for everyone else to hear it?))

 

Would we still argue that Alice and Jimmy are perfectly fine to continue their scene ignoring Steel?

 

Should they not have picked a more appropriate method of having a "quiet" or "private" conversation if they did not want other people to involve/intrude?

 

Is Steel's player somehow going leaps and bounds beyond consent because his game client picked up the public chat next to him?

[Oli!]

Right now, I don't think we're dealing with individual reactions to intrusion; these can range anywhere from being angry, to not caring at all, so they don't really have that much gravity except for in specific circumstances; the argument is more geared to whether or not people are allowed to have private conversations in /say, which they are, because there's no way to actually stop them from doing so.

 

Inability to prevent someone from doing a thing doesn't make that thing allowed or justifiable.

 

One can't prevent me from peeing on the sidewalk, but in general most modern societies agree that's not permissible (and moreso than being socially unacceptable, being caught in the act may warrant arrest).

 

By your own words earlier, people who make such RP faux pas may not care if they get blacklisted, and so that's no punishment to them, and therefore they have no deterrent at all. Okay.

 

So what if a person doesn't care if they get arrested, is it okay for them to just go around peeing on sidewalks to their heart's content? 

 

Or is it still not acceptable behavior, regardless of their shrug toward consequence?

 

There are many ways you can be stopped from peeing on the sidewalk. Tackled by a passerby, tazed by a police officer, having your urine caught by a cup, who knows. The point is that just about any action done in meatspace can be stopped through physical interference. Not the case in Roleplay, where any interference at all has to go through the person being interfered with, who then makes the choice of whether or not they want to go with it or not. Therefore, this situation would be more akin to someone coming up and asking you whether you would allow them to stop you from peeing on the sidewalk, at which point you decide yes, no, or to ignore them.

 

And for the sake of addressing how things work In-Game, Yes, the inability to stop someone from doing something makes it an Allowed practice. There's nothing in the game's terms of service saying that it isn't allowed, and there's no way that we can stop it from being allowed on our own terms, therefore meaning that, for all intents and purposes, it is allowed.

 

When we speak about what is Allowed, there are two possible ways in which it could be viewed. We can view it in terms of a social standpoint, where people set the rules of what is and isn't allowed to be done, with those rules being enforced in a capable way that actually affects people's decisions. The alternate is what people can and cannot do in a purely physical sense, moral and ethical decisions aside.

 

Peeing on the sidewalk isn't acceptable behavior from the moral standpoint of most people. If someone doesn't care about the consequences of peeing on the sidewalk, and no one is around to stop them, then yes, they're allowed, or able, to pee on the sidewalk. Society and others around them might not agree, and the rules of said society might say that someone is then allowed to take them to jail for it afterwards, but there is no hard and fast rule embedded in the fabric of reality that says "under no circumstances can you pee on this sidewalk."

 

This is not the case in MMOs, in which there are hard and fast rules encoded into the basis of our virtual reality that stop us from interfering with people that are doing certain things. If we were able to suddenly stop people that are peeing on the sidewalk anywhere, from any place, then logically peeing on the sidewalk would not be allowed, because you physically cannot do it.

 

Regarding your earlier example about events in public parks: That's actually not how things work, either legally, or in terms of public acceptance. If someone has a birthday party in a public park, you are not allowed to take their privately paid-for cake and eat their privately paid-for food just because they are holding the party in a public location. You are allowed to sit at the park bench they're using, because that is public property, but all the things that make the event an event, balloons, people, food, gifts, etcetera, are off-limits to you both legally and morally unless they allow you to partake.

 

In real life, you could go ahead and take their food and their balloons anyway, because you have the physical ability to do so. In MMO Roleplay, this is not the case. You have no physical ability to do anything without approval.

 

 

 

 

 

For the sake of Simplicity, let's divide the two parts of Allowed into two different words. Socially Acceptable, meaning what is permitted by a group, and is therefore subjective and flexible, and Able, which is physical, absolute, and refers to the Ability to Do. It is not Socially Acceptable to pee on the sidewalk, but I am nonetheless Able to do so.

 

The party that determines what is Socially Acceptable is the one that is overseeing a closed system. This could be a society, a country, a guild, a game environment, and many other things. We, the Players, do not have control over the Game Environment. The Developers and the Game Masters are the only ones that do so. Their "Laws," the Terms of Service, do not prohibit having a private conversation in a public channel. Additionally, the World of the Game does not prohibit this. In the eyes of the Overseeing Party, it is therefore Socially Acceptable, and within the system of the Game, you are Able to do so. In both systems, therefore, they are Allowed.

 

We the players are not the governing body of the game's overall system (i.e. public environments and channels), and are therefore unable to enforce what we may deem to be Socially Acceptable in those contexts. We are, however, able to enforce such in smaller groups, such as Friend Groups, Linkshells, and Free Companies. Although they are Able to do something, just as they are in the game's overall environment, we may not deem it Socially Acceptable, and remove them from our controlled environment as a result. Within other controlled systems, however, it may be deemed as being Socially Acceptable, and therefore tolerated by the members of that group.

 

The conclusion that we come to, therefore, is that in the eyes of the Governing Body in which all systems are contained within the premise of this game, having private conversations in public places is both Socially Acceptable and something that you are Able to do. This is true, because they have absolute, inalienable control over both the Terms of Service, and the World of the Game. Therefore, as long as someone pays to access this system, they have the Right to engage in that activity. We may shut them out from our smaller, controlled areas as a result, but they are nonetheless within their overall rights to do what it is they are doing.

[Oli!]

Would we still argue that Alice and Jimmy are perfectly fine to continue their scene ignoring Steel?

 

Should they not have picked a more appropriate method of having a "quiet" or "private" conversation if they did not want other people to involve/intrude?

 

Is Steel's player somehow going leaps and bounds beyond consent because his game client picked up the public chat next to him?

 

I would argue that neither is going beyond their rights in the game, because it is not a binary situation.

 

It is one person's right to overhear something in a public channel. It is another person's right to ignore that fact. Neither has the ability to stop the other from doing either action. Additionally, neither is able to force the other to acknowledge their action.

 

To distill the answer, yes, Alice and Jimmy are perfectly fine to continue their scene, and ignore Steel. In addition, Steel is perfectly fine to listen in on the conversation, and attempt to interact. However, neither party is able to make the other conform to their interpretation of events. Whether or not Alice and Jimmy should have or should not have picked a private location is subjective, and therefore inarguable on any grounds that is removed from a moral background.

 

Where does this leave us? I don't know, but that's physically the way that things work.

[Lydia Lightfoot]

There are many ways you can be stopped from peeing on the sidewalk. Tackled by a passerby, tazed by a police officer, having your urine caught by a cup, who knows. The point is that just about any action done in meatspace can be stopped through physical interference. Not the case in Roleplay, where any interference at all has to go through the person being interfered with, who then makes the choice of whether or not they want to go with it or not. Therefore, this situation would be more akin to someone coming up and asking you whether you would allow them to stop you from peeing on the sidewalk, at which point you decide yes, no, or to ignore them.

 

Um, no. No other human has control over the function of my bladder, thank you. They could tackle me, taze me, etc, but they literally can't stop me from exercising bodily functions, nor can they inhibit the effect of gravity upon the results. The sidewalk got wet. Sorry.

 

Regarding the rest, I feel at this point that you may be arguing for the sake of arguing, and I'm going to disengage from that. It's unproductive.