The state of roleplaying in PS (aka, something you won't ever admit)

[Oromir]

PlaneShift, because one world is not enough

Oooh, I like that. Can I have that as a sig?

[Wavan Levironk]

PlaneShift, because one world is not enough

Oooh, I like that. Can I have that as a sig?

I believe that's like the official slogan :p

[novacadian]

To me, by getting too close to one's character, RP loses it's R part, and that isn't very good. One ends up playing oneself. It is very difficult to play a consistent role for a long time; even a strong stereotype.

We are in total agreement on this point!

If we look at RPing like any skill then we can probably agree that it is something which one hones over time; or conversely is something that one will simply not get; just as some folks get better at playing the piano and others do not get much farther than Row Row Row Your Boat.

That said there were two approaches which are commonly used in my rpg world. One was to let the characters procreate. In that way it is not OOC to have the character's children have traits of the parent character. In other words it is a way to allow those players that simply play alter-egos of themselves to continue to do so in an IC way.

Another approach is to only let such players play certain character types; that is ones that are not all that different than themselves... normally humans.

Such an approach may be something to consider for PlaneShift. That is, when starting out; unless sponsored by a PlaneShift GM; all new players can only play Human types. That is something they know something about and will be less likely to play them OOC. Once they have proven themselves to be able to RP a human then more character types will be offered them during character creation. In this way a progression of character types could be added to their character creation list as time goes on.

With GMed RP Events in PlaneShift; it seems like a perfect opportunity for GMs to assess the RP skills of the players and allot them RP Skill Points in that process. This would also probably make RP Events a more saught after pass time. An old GM of mine used to use Karma Points which he allotted for good RPing. The player could then use those Karma Points to go deeper into the list of character types that they could create in the future.

Just some thoughts to deal with a situation that is not likely to go away.

- Nova

[Nivm]

 Do you refer to an old ~DnD GM, or a Plane Shift GM?

 Stereotypes are harder to role-play than a simple person, even a full person, since stereotypes tend not to exist outside our imagination. At least in my experience.

 

[Akkaido Kivikar]

Your experience is wrong. I've met people who actually work to retain adherance to a stereotype in reality.

[Sen]

[...]
Another approach is to only let such players play certain character types; that is ones that are not all that different than themselves... normally humans.

Such an approach may be something to consider for PlaneShift. That is, when starting out; unless sponsored by a PlaneShift GM; all new players can only play Human types.
[...]

I wouldn't really want that because of two things:
- There are new players who RP very well and that wouldn't like that limit (even not when create the char). I also assume that there are people who feel that it is easier to rp something foreign, but Im not sure about that.
- I don't think GMs should be allowed to decide something basic like what race someone is allowed to play.

Sen

[verden]

Stereotypes are harder to role-play than a simple person, even a full person, since stereotypes tend not to exist outside our imagination. At least in my experience.

The reason that there are stereotypes is because they do exist outside of our imaginations. Stereotypes are also always true in regards to the greater population, they just tend to break down when you look at an individual specifically. They are easier to play than full characters in the same way it is easier to be a character actor than to try and adapt to many different roles. In many cases people will settle for a stereotype for their personality because then, at least, everyone knows where they stand. I agree that people work to keep themselves within stereotypes, but we shouldn't judge people on it too much because you can never fully know the depths of a person.

[novacadian]

Do you refer to an old ~DnD GM, or a Plane Shift GM?

A DnD GM.

It was my pleasure to have an RP encounter today above and beyond chit chat and relating game experiences. A thief type approached me asking if there would be an interest by me to RP. After agreement, the thief made an attempt at a mugging. We came up with an interesting handling of the event which seemed to work well for both of us. This approach is more easily done with one on one RP.

Firstly, any conversation that did not affect either character was ok as always.

Once in combat we took action turns. One player would give their attempted action and then both of us rolled a 1d6 to see the outcome. Winning the highest roll would mean success and ties would be open to interpretation.

Using this technique we had a stunning and bloody battle. My character was finally bested and left for dead by the thief; bound with the sash from a robe. Once the thief had departed my character shouted for help which was eventually responded to by a randomly passing character and carried to the infirmary. Healers were brought in and a recovery is expected.

This technique worked well for a more traditional storyline RP player as well as myself; who loves the dice to have an input into the story line.

My question is would other traditional planeshift RPers fine such a system playable? Such a system seemed to work well for a more traditional RPGer as myself and one more schooled in traditional planeshift RP.

- Nova

[Rigwyn]

Thats the nice thing about dicing, its fair and fun as long as both parties can agree on the terms, though it can get complicated and the rolling can be a little distracting. In another game that I play, one of the players coded an addon that would enable players to dice roll their rp actions automatically. I don't know how the system works in detail, but in brief, each player sets up a simple profile containing the stats they wish to play ( yes, they are honest about this ). When they enter an RP fight or whatever, they can issue a command that does a number of dice rolls that take their declared stats into consideration. They are then left to rp the action and consequence based on the result for that action.

Personally, I don't really care for dicing. I prefer to leave it up to the other player to decide the outcome of my action. If the other player is mature and fair then they will choose a reasonable outcome. If I am reasonable and fair then I'll be able to accept their choice and go with it.  Players who are mature enough to do this are fun to play with IMHO. The downfall of course is when you run into a player who is mentally incapable of letting their character take lose. They will make up all kinds of BS in order to take control of the rp and force the outcome to their liking.

This is why I say that the bar needs to be raised, not lowered. With high standards for rp and consequences for repeatedly falling below the bar, players will aspire to improve so long as they are enticed by what the rp community is engaging in. If the bar is too low, then they will not aspire to improve and tarnish the playing field in the process. I do not advocate being an rp nazi prick and ruining other people's fun over trivial nonsense like spelling errors, rather I advocate issuing some form of correction and punishment to those who fail to meet the standard in order to discourage bad rp.

As for where to set the bar, I would suggest enforcing the following very simple rules for rp. I would say educate offenders the first time, warn and progressively ban anyone who falls below the bar. This is not being an elitist, rather is just setting a very basic standard that anyone with half a brain can follow.

1. No metagaming
2. Characters must be setting compliant. Characters should be reviewed and approved before they can be played.
3. Player must stay in character at all times. period.
4. Guards/Npcs must be respected. ( Guards should automatically kill anyone who is cloaked or enters the city with weapons drawn )
 * weapons should sheathe automatically when entering a town or when one respawns
5. IC and OOC must remain separate. period.
6. Guilds must be approved by gm or settings team and must serve a valid ic purpose. There should be no "jarad'z homiez" guilds on the rp server.

When rules like this are NOT enforced they are nothing more than text art. But with a set of *enforced* rules like this, crappy players will step up or step out and those who rp will be lift with a mixture of good players and aspiring players who wish to learn. This is what I meant earlier when I spoke about fixing up the playground.

One last point, and yes, this is on topic as it pertains to why rp has taken a nosedive, is settings. It would help if the settings web page was updated/corrected, and if setting info was put in one easy to access place - preferable a web page. A player could then study the setting before making a charater. They would not need to stumble though the game like an ooc ass and do a million mile long quests in order to learn about the setting. The setting and background info should also be completed... This is just story writing.. its not that hard to do for someone who is creative and organized. Hell, I would volunteer to do it except I've pissed off quite a few folks with my angry comments... likewise it would probably never make it into the game.

* No, I'm not drunk... I'm just another disgruntled player with an opinion and a little too much spare time on his hands *

[Akkaido Kivikar]

I agree with all Rigwyn's numbered points except the latter part of 2).

Characters shouldn't be reviewed before they can be played. Let's face it, on our first character, most of us (including you Rigwyn) weren't really too knowledged about RP and just made a character and then learned roleplay as we encountered roleplayers in PlaneShift. The majority of roleplayers in PlaneShift learned roleplay by being on the roleplay server and taking an active interest in the roleplay.

That point (or part thereof) in my opinion is elitist and would put a severe dent in the "new blood" of roleplay we get. I'd be more for a checkup system every couple of months.

Seriously, I can't believe how much you've changed Rigwyn, it actually saddens me to see you becoming so elitist and nazi towards newbs.

[Illysia]

In Rigwyn's defense, it's not elitist. Regulation doesn't equal being a nazi. It's just to prevent a Ylian named Harry Porter that's a mage at a prestigious mage school name Porgwarts from getting through. Or a character with absolutely NO backstory or ulber mega leet characters getting in. Genuine effort can be taken into account even if the writing isn't all that great or fully thought out. Also, the people doing the review can give suggestions for improvement. It's not too bad an idea.

I have more problem with the guards just killing people with cloaks. I think arresting them would be a far better idea. And players should be in character most of the time . Let's face it, OOC slips out, but it should be stopped as soon as possible.

I think having a personality creator would help, like on the website. A big problem I see is that people have trouble giving their characters distinct personalities that they can play true to. Events in the backstory are nice, but the characters need to be people in of themselves.

Oookaaayy... that's more than enough typing out of me.

[bloodedIrishman]

Rigwyn is not acting elitist. Nor are the rules that he proposes. Role play is either enforced by rules, or it isn't. It isn't to an acceptable degree: to where settings are complied with and OOC is differentiated from IC.

New players aren't harmed by these regulations. With a sufficient tutorial, new players, supposing of course that they have "half a brain", and that they are compliant with the regulations, will have no issue being part of Planeshift.

A higher standard of roleplaying, enforced?


Niiiiiiiiiice.

[Akkaido Kivikar]

Oh please, Illysia, you'd be the first to complain there's no new blood because they're scared off by the regulations.

And if by guards killing cloaked people, you mean KIC (not official guards) killing Outlaws in Oja, do note that we tried to get them to remove their cloaks, and then most of the time they drew their weapons to fight armed combat, the result of which is someone dead, often us.

Also note that during this time KIC came under attack from masked, cloaked assailants many times in Oja, we had reason to suspect any cloaked person in Oja of meaning us harm.

My opinion is that the real problem with RP is guilds. They need stronger regulation, you can always /ignore a crap character, you can't ignore a <guild tag>.

I'd assume you guys are aware Rigwyn is referring directly to the Conquest of the Horde (illegal WoW server) rules. They make you write a character description in their forums, a GM sees this and approves/declines this. To be honest, most people are a bit shy about learning to RP would be turned off by such a measure.

[Mogweh]

I'd assume you guys are aware Rigwyn is referring directly to the Conquest of the Horde (illegal WoW server) rules. They make you write a character description in their forums, a GM sees this and approves/declines this. To be honest, most people are a bit shy about learning to RP would be turned off by such a measure.

Actually it works very well. You don't have to do it immediately, but as it is a strict RP server you are encouraged to get on it. And they have a large community of people who are very pleasant and well informed and only too happy to help anyone, including noobs with any aspect of their RP, including the character profile.

Seriously, I can't believe how much you've changed Rigwyn, it actually saddens me to see you becoming so elitist and nazi towards newbs.

*Imagines Rigwyn goose stepping noobs to the gas chambers* 

[Akkaido Kivikar]

I think personally, the better path to go is to police guilds far more strictly. This is where crap RP manifests. Then tackle bad descriptions using a /descriptionreport command, and OOC in Main with the usual /report ....