PlaneShift

Support => Complaint Department => Topic started by: Kaerli_Stronwylle on October 30, 2013, 07:25:20 pm

Title: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Kaerli_Stronwylle on October 30, 2013, 07:25:20 pm
I am posting here because I am sick and tired of other RPers giving up on me and my characters (and making their characters do the same.)  The higher-level (character design/development) aspects of RP have never came particularly naturally to me, and I've had lots of conversations with lots of people that have helped me to get where I am now in that regard.  But I've started to notice a trend...even if I'm trying to step outside the box as it will and RP something different, I have to pull teeth to get others to participate, or simply won't get any interest whatsoever.  Worse yet, I feel like other players simply make their characters fold up on me in combat RP much of the time, and its to the point now where some players refuse to speak with me at all!

Where is the investment and effort from others into their character's behavior (especially in combat)? Why are people giving up on me?  Throwing in the towel doesn't help me do anything better!
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: cdmoreland on October 30, 2013, 09:22:41 pm
Kaerli, don't let them get to you. Waesed doesn't seem to fit in with many of the role players so I just go on. You will find your place. Maybe the next new player will take to you.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Qter on October 30, 2013, 09:42:48 pm
True Kaerli, cdmoreland is right. Maybe I'm not an expert, but I definitely think you are working hard in your character, and you should stick to it.  Just ignore them, and keep doing what you love.  O--)

Hugs Qter
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Volki on October 30, 2013, 09:48:25 pm
Do you have an example? Like, logs of a combat roleplay in which this has happened? So we can better understand what you mean.

I've never had issues with combat. But I'm pretty used to other characters giving up on mine. As in, they will ask about her past, she will give a snippy answer, and that's the end of that. But Sarras likes it that way. And I am more interested in plot development than character development. Many of my favorite characters from television or books never had their own personal histories. In spite of this, their actions and behaviors made them more interesting than any of the other characters. It's not the mystery that does it, though. It's the unpredictability.

As a roleplayer to another roleplayer, I'll give you this advice, Kaerli. Never let anyone else truly understand your character. That is for you alone. Be consistent, but don't be predictable. Never let your character stay in one place too long. Never set in stone the behavior or opinions of your character. You need to be fluid and allow other characters to impact yours.

This is all my opinion. Feel free to reject it. I've never had much of a problem with your character, probably because I see that she is not as predictable and unchanging as her words make her seem. There are many, many worse roleplayers out there... They have no idea how bad they are. The fact that you are looking for help is good.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: LigH on October 30, 2013, 10:05:21 pm
Remember, there are characters nastier than their players.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Volki on October 30, 2013, 10:08:05 pm
Remember, there are characters nastier than their players.

And the other way around.  :P
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Lumi on October 30, 2013, 11:37:40 pm
...even if I'm trying to step outside the box as it will and RP something different
You mean like going on improvisation?

Big tread you opened there Kaerli. I never RP-ed before joining PS and i must say that i don't really know for sure what is RP-ing.
Tho i don't understand how we can actually plane in advance how your char will be in a few, along his/her "development". Isn't PS a giant improvising party, based on our char background, or is it a already a written novel (so predictable) that we are playing day by day ?
A bit off topic tho, sorry about that.

Maybe you should try to RP with "new" people, some you aint used to RP with and that will open new challenges ?
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Rigwyn on October 31, 2013, 12:19:44 am
Kaerli,

Here's my advice. Decide for yourself if this is useful to you or not.

1. Shift your perspective from being the player of a character to being a co-writer of the larger, evolving story. You are not Kaerli, you are a writer who tells how HOW things have happened to Kaerli. While you make her decisions for her, FATE determines what actually happens to her.

2. Completely abandon the idea of stats, make a character with a personality, and make decisions based on that personality - even if those decisions make you cringe.

3. If you get into a fight, flip a coin when deciding if an action succeeds or fails. Again, no stats, this is writing, not math class.

4. When your character fails at something, make it as artful and awesome as possible.

5. When it eventually happens, make  your character's death, her transition through the death realm, her decision to resurface, and her return to the dome count. These portions of her story are equally important. They are golden opportunities for you to show us who and what your character is. When you look at it this way, death does not matter. To live or die means as much as turning left or right.

6. If you decide to take this advice, then make a new character and DON'T TELL ANYONE THAT IT IS YOUR CHARACTER. You will need a clean slate so that people's memories and perceptions of your past play does not get applied to your new character.

To a player, success is the goal, and failure is to be avoided at all costs. This works fine in competitive games, but it sucks in role play.

To a writer, failure and success are of minor importance. The HOW of it is what matters. This attitude is highly compatible with role play.

Good luck
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Kaerli_Stronwylle on October 31, 2013, 01:23:29 am
Kaerli,

Here's my advice. Decide for yourself if this is useful to you or not.

1. Shift your perspective from being the player of a character to being a co-writer of the larger, evolving story. You are not Kaerli, you are a writer who tells how HOW things have happened to Kaerli. While you make her decisions for her, FATE determines what actually happens to her.


2. Completely abandon the idea of stats, make a character with a personality, and make decisions based on that personality - even if those decisions make you cringe.

3. If you get into a fight, flip a coin when deciding if an action succeeds or fails. Again, no stats, this is writing, not math class.

4. When your character fails at something, make it as artful and awesome as possible.

5. When it eventually happens, make  your character's death, her transition through the death realm, her decision to resurface, and her return to the dome count. These portions of her story are equally important. They are golden opportunities for you to show us who and what your character is. When you look at it this way, death does not matter. To live or die means as much as turning left or right.

6. If you decide to take this advice, then make a new character and DON'T TELL ANYONE THAT IT IS YOUR CHARACTER. You will need a clean slate so that people's memories and perceptions of your past play does not get applied to your new character.

To a player, success is the goal, and failure is to be avoided at all costs. This works fine in competitive games, but it sucks in role play.

To a writer, failure and success are of minor importance. The HOW of it is what matters. This attitude is highly compatible with role play.

Good luck

Its not useless, Rigwyn, but how it works is not at all clear.

1.  This is two parts.
a)  I can't co-write when people aren't willing to give me an idea of what the story they want is, not without basically stomping on their story with my own.  I've bluntly asked people to brief me when coming into the middle of a story and they simply flatly refuse to do so.

b)  I guess the whole 'making room for fate' issue is a can of worms if you aren't someone who takes kindly to predestination OOCly....(i.e. the whole notion basically comes off as a means of social control to me IRL)

2.  The traits and personalities I come up with for characters seem to be weird/not fully coherent?  I'm going to have to talk with some folks on that.

3.  Abandoning stats is one thing: the 'flip a coin' approach is way off the mark though.  I actually did some research into studies done on human error rates, and a 1 in 20 to 1 in 100 range is most appropriate for a character skilled at a given task, from what I can tell, unless the task requires high-level cognitive synthesis, which puts it closer to 1 in 10.

4. Hrm.  I don't really know what you mean by that...

5. What do you do when your character's personality basically says 'what's so different about the DR?' and basically ICly trivializes death?  Is that just a toxic personality trait

6. Considering I can't RP often during the times that most other RPers are on these days, what should I do to get this new alt into the 'fabric of RP' so to speak?

and a postscript: don't get me started on how.  You're talking about someone who can be quite prone to burying others in detail to the point where they walk away because they'd see rather the plot progress than go through an incredibly detailed whatever-scene or get queried for 15minutes because they tried to handwave something.  I write from the details on up, in other words.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Raxuss on October 31, 2013, 01:38:10 am
I don't agree with any of what Rigwyn said but the following quote:


To a player, success is the goal, and failure is to be avoided at all costs. This works fine in competitive games, but it sucks in role play.

To a writer, failure and success are of minor importance. The HOW of it is what matters. This attitude is highly compatible with role play.


This is the best advice I've read so far. If you take anything from this thread, Kaerli, take those two points I quoted from Rigwyn.

Everything else is personal style and stuff. For example, number 4 is false. I have effectively made quite the anti-climatic failure mean as much as the huge, uber-failures. Killing some really important guy with a stray bolt, for example. Dead instantly, not Boromir style. Completely changed an RP I was playing that was not here, with just two sentences. Not everything needs to be artistic and 'omg awesome'.


Take this advice and adapt it to your own styles. Make sacrifices, but also recognize where your style belongs. It's not that you're RPing wrong; it's that your not RPing the way others in Planeshift like to RP.



Like those tavern people who like smooshy-sappy-feel-good time every second I happen to be around them. Fun for them, maddening to see, let alone attempt to RP like.

Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Rigwyn on October 31, 2013, 01:53:50 am
@Raxuss

What I said was specific to Kaerli and is based on past experience. It does not apply to everyone in general. For example, I personally dislike coin flipping and dice and rarely do it. In Kaerli's case, it might be good to experiment with given his particular playing style. It might be helpful, it might not.

@Kaerli

We've had this discussion a hundred times before ad nauseam. Not just you and me, but you and countless other players. Out of all the things that I and everyone else has suggested at your request, I can only say try things and see what works for you. Keep what works and discard the rest. If people run from you like the plague, then either they are doing so because of your reputation, or you are doing something that they don't particularly enjoy.

Good luck.

Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Phantomboy86 on October 31, 2013, 03:35:55 am
Is that just a toxic personality trait


Yes, incredibly so. Everything else is however you want to put 'try until it works' except that. Getting murdered still hurts a helluva lot and the Death realm, though not conveyed well, is supposed to be a pretty hellish place. It also rips out some of your life force. What can probably be amounted to taking cycles off your life. Besides some hardcore Dakkruists, who may even have a way to enter the Realm without actually committing suicide, nobody has a viable reason to find the Realm anything less than 'absolutely to be avoided' outside legitimate insanity. Most living creatures are hardwired not to die.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Volki on October 31, 2013, 04:48:54 am
At Kaerli and Rigwyn regarding human error... I think flipping a coin or using math to determine the success of an action is inappropriate. Probabilities are better used to determine outcomes that are affected by variables we cannot be completely aware of. If you tell me to kick a target, I am going to hit it 100% of the time.

It would be okay to roll the dice for a character that had no skill, since there is some uncertainty. It would be okay to roll the dice for two evenly-skilled players in battle, as human error might be the only thing determining the winner. I think that a character's (roleplayed) skills and the player's ingenuity are the most important factors in a fight, and that all the players involved should be intelligent enough to agree on the outcome.

Giving other players a chance to outmaneuver your character is usually appreciated. Allow your character to make mistakes. I don't mean missing a target, especially if you're skilled at whatever. Something more human, like tripping due to exhaustion. There has to be a reason for error. Give the other player a chance to exploit it. Probabilities are boring.

I can't co-write when people aren't willing to give me an idea of what the story they want is, not without basically stomping on their story with my own.  I've bluntly asked people to brief me when coming into the middle of a story and they simply flatly refuse to do so.

Don't ask people what's going on when you walk into the middle of an ongoing roleplay. Do it once ICly (never OOCly, unless you can't tell what's going on presently), but don't ask again, or other characters will become annoyed with yours. If you need to know what's happening, wait for a lull or ask someone on the sidelines. If you've absolutely got to know, then have your character shake another for answers. Slap someone if you have to. But don't be a broken record and ask the same questions over and over.

And no good roleplayer complains when a story doesn't go the way they want. That makes it interesting.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: tman on October 31, 2013, 07:22:35 am
This seemed relevant.

Quote
Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling
#19:Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

The more skilled character doesn't always have to win the fight.  And it doesn't have to be a mistake on his or her part.  You're allowed to use "coincidences" to put your character at a disadvantage (or on even footing) to make things more interesting.

But trying to use coincidence to your advantage is godmodding.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Rigwyn on October 31, 2013, 07:39:53 am
Good point.

I watched "The People Under the Stairs" once again and noticed how in the introduction, the narrator discussed an archetype called "The Fool". In the story, the main character or protagonist, who was aptly named "Fool" would literally walk into dangerous situations. As seen in the card below, even the Fool's dog sees the danger and is trying to alert him, but he ignores the warning as he approaches the cliff. He has nowhere to go, because even if he turns back, he'll be burnt by the sun. At least, that's the way the author interpreted this.

What is admirable about this archetype is how it puts the viewer on the edge of their seat. You sit there suspensefully watching, wanting to warn the fool that they are about to get hurt.

As a player, we sometimes have to let our characters walk into trouble like this fool and become vulnerable. It does not mean that we have to play foolishly, but rather, there are times when like the dog, we know things that our character does not. We must hold back and allow our character to suffer from that lack of knowledge.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/90/RWS_Tarot_00_Fool.jpg/220px-RWS_Tarot_00_Fool.jpg)


Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: novacadian on October 31, 2013, 07:22:24 pm
For me the dice write the story in rpg. The player points them to be sure, yet the dice write the missteps, coincidences and all the other factors mentioned above. If one wants to write a store then my feeling is they should sit down and write it. If one wants to see a character develop on their own the dice should be employed.

Needless to say that is not the approach of most of the present players on PS. Yet my feeling is that it is the natural, and desired, approach of most players that have at least visited PS. The former have remained to some degree and the others move on.

Even development of the project works against all the suggestions on this thread to date. Game mechanics do not support the RP concept but baffle and confuse it by their mere existence.

The fact that there is no consensus on RP speaks volumes. Dice define things. They remove the ego of the player and allow the character to be presented with results that are not player manufactured but are what the life of the character presents to it.

My play would, perhaps, fall under the category of fringe RPer here on PS. Some players have communicated who their characters are well to me through game play and there is an enjoyment with interacting with them.

As an RPG GM it is hard for me to imagine anything other than disagreements if outcomes are left to player consensus in a general sense. There are no doubt pockets of players who through prolonged interaction have a means of doing so. This, again, is why it is likely that most players come and then go from PS; never being able to find that clique of their own.

This all begs the question of my remaining on PS. It passes the time, and has a community that seems comfortable to me. It is my practice to neither seek nor push away RP; yet effort is made to remain on that fringe allow others to do their thing. My ooc desc explaining my desire for dice has been removed over the last year after realizing that it just lead to my character being totally ignored.

You have to wonder though, why develop all the game mechanics if the stats and dice mean nothing to the players? That time could have been spent on things like GMs being able to freeze time, allow turn sequences, other things probably not even aware to me that would be helpful to aid this allusive thing called RP. Yet they were not. Instead hours and hours of coding have transpired to develop game mechanics that have little use to RP as explained in this thread and throughout the forum.

Someone had gotten things wrong. It is not clear to me if it is the, now, small group of professed RPers or the developers who have things amiss.

 :oops:  :offtopic:

Ok.. my advice Kaerli is to come up with a good dice system to use here in PS with the aid of MyPlane. Try to draw to that system players like myself and the countless others who come here thinking RP is RPG only to find that is not the case. You may be surprised how many more there are that desire the use of dice than those that don't. That is not to mean the regular players presently on PS yet those that come and instead of going again would remain if they could find such a system of play in existence here.

 
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: bilbous on October 31, 2013, 10:17:03 pm
Is this the controversy thread reborn?

Role players who ignore game mechanics are cheaters who might as well be on irq. If you are role playing abilities in the game that you have not bothered acquiring then you too may be a marysue because your character may be well rounded but it is no more than a child playing pretend. You have not put in the effort required to accomplish your resume. If you are role playing abilities that are not available in the game you need to be reasonably certain that they exist in the realm. Lack of evidence for them weakens your position. If you never develop your base stats then everything you claim to be able to do should be done very poorly because you have a child's stats.

If you do not do this you are not playing PlaneShift, you are doing the equivalent of writing Star Wars, or DnD fan fiction. You might as well claim a lemur could forcibly impregnate a kran for all the sense it makes.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Rigwyn on October 31, 2013, 11:25:55 pm
Is this the controversy thread reborn?

Role players who ignore game mechanics are cheaters who might as well be on irq. If you are role playing abilities in the game that you have not bothered acquiring then you too may be a marysue because your character may be well rounded but it is no more than a child playing pretend. You have not put in the effort required to accomplish your resume. If you are role playing abilities that are not available in the game you need to be reasonably certain that they exist in the realm. Lack of evidence for them weakens your position. If you never develop your base stats then everything you claim to be able to do should be done very poorly because you have a child's stats.

If you do not do this you are not playing PlaneShift, you are doing the equivalent of writing Star Wars, or DnD fan fiction. You might as well claim a lemur could forcibly impregnate a kran for all the sense it makes.

+1 Evil :)   

By your logic, those who train but ignore roleplay are not "playing Planeshift" either. That's a pretty large audience to accuse of not being a "True Scottsman". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman)

I'm not sure who exactly the "Strawman" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man) here is supposed to represent either. Was this mean to represent all role players in general, a few who you dislike, or a specific one?

Like some other roleplayers here, I have stats to back my character (http://planeshift.teamix.org/myplane/profile/Rigwyn_Setson/), however I am probably one of the most outspoken players here when it comes to disregarding stats and just focusing on roleplay. Like those of you who enjoy training and dislike roleplay, I enjoy roleplay and dislike all the boring training.

/me takes a long stick and puts a marshmallow on the end.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Volki on October 31, 2013, 11:44:18 pm
lol wow

My character could, using mechanics, destroy each of yours in duels. I don't think there is anyone I haven't beaten in a fair duel. But ICly, my character often loses fights because it's far more interesting. If we were to use dice and base everything on levels, then my character would be a demi-god.

Novacadian, PlaneShift is not online D&D. It's a 3D game with text-based roleplay. These are two entirely different types of roleplay. We play for plot, not competition.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: bilbous on November 01, 2013, 12:54:58 am
RPGs didn't really make the transition from tabletop to computers very well and role play was drastically changed in the transition from psychoanalysis/drama class to tabletop rpgs. I think the real point I am making is that role playing for the sake of role playing isn't really a game. Things happen but you can't win, there is no ultimate goal to achieve, no way to compare your progress to others, you might as well be on a group donkey tour of the grand canyon. The obverse of that is that role playing games are not really role playing. They are more like model car racing where you build your car and put it on the electric track in order to beat the other guys car. Sure you can pretend you are a race car driver but you are not really playing that role any more than you are when you play  Off Road  (http://i.ebayimg.com/t/IVAN-STEWART-OFF-ROAD-CHALLENGE-ARCADE-MACHINE-OFFROAD-/00/s/MTAyNFg3Njg=/z/HN8AAOxy79JSY0O8/$T2eC16RHJHUFFiYNdth9BSY0O8E61Q~~60_57.JPG).

So I guess I'm just saying don't sweat the small stuff and Stop being so mean to Kaerli!

(http://web.ncf.ca/cr502/great_googley_woogley.gif)


Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Kaerli_Stronwylle on November 01, 2013, 12:59:53 am
As an aside: why ignore someone over something without bringing that issue up with them first? I am tired of people refusing to address me over their concerns/complaints.  Gossiping about someone DOES NOT FIX ANYTHING, kapiche?
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Taya on November 01, 2013, 01:20:55 am
Kaerli - when I had issues with you I told you exactly what they were and we talked it through until an understanding was reached. I have had no issues RPing with you since, though I do find your RP can be a little repetitive and so focused on mechanics that I can lose interest. On the other hand, I've seen some nice RP from you as well. I personally think that the thing maybe driving people away from you is how much you talk about your RP issues instead of just getting on with the RP itself. Sadly I don't know what to suggest that I haven't already suggested many times in the past.

bilbous - I guess I'm a cheater then.  But well, having the time to level a skill the mind-numbing amount of hours to max it isn't going to make someone be suddenly capable of RPing that ability well. Doesn't even mean they'll understand the settings. Just that they have an amazing capacity to tap certain keys over and over. I'd much rather place more value on whether the person has a good understanding of settings and how to develop plot/character/interest/other things that make them worth my time. I play my main at far below her actual levels. I play (some of) my alts at far above theirs. Why? Because in both cases it makes for a better story.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Rigwyn on November 01, 2013, 01:21:14 am
Quote
As an aside: why ignore someone over something without bringing that issue up with them first?

Kaerli,

As for why people don't confront you? I think its a balance between not wanting to be rude or impolite and possibly hurt your feelings, and perhaps feeling like what they are saying is just not sticking. No offense, but talking to you can sometimes be like talking to an automated telephone tree.

In the past, you have had a reputation of being invincible, defying physics at your convenience, knowing everything, and flat out not taking damage when hit. You used to "play stats", however, you had also ran with the assumption that your stats were higher than they really were. How convenient. I think I speak for many folks when I say that this is not enjoyable. RP fighting with you is sometimes like trying to argue with a robot or pull teeth.

Imagine for a moment, two robots role playing with each other and getting caught in an infinite loop.

When people do things like this, I sometimes try to discuss it with them . If they understand what I am saying then great. If they don't, if they refuse to understand, or if they keep pulling wild and irrelevant arguments out of their ass for the sake of complicating the topic, then I walk away and RP with someone else. Quibbling over RP is not enjoyable to me, so I try to avoid it where possible.

You seem like a fairly decent person, someone who I would possibly hang out with, but when it comes to these discussions on RP rules, I'm divided on whether you actually "get it" or if you are deliberately "not getting it" in order to frustrate me for your own satisfaction and enjoyment. Again, I don't think I'm alone on this viewpoint.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: novacadian on November 01, 2013, 01:58:59 am
Novacadian, PlaneShift is not online D&D. It's a 3D game with text-based roleplay. These are two entirely different types of roleplay. We play for plot, not competition.

The difference of the styles is clear to me. Truth is RP could be done anywhere. In an IRC, street corner, bus stop, you name it. Just because one can RP here does not mean the software and it's development is being directed to that style of play. It seems quite the contrary.

That is the incredible contradiction with PS and probably it's downfall in terms of player base. ie The players and policy are heading in one direction and the software development in another.

Yet those who stay love it for it's quirky self and continue to beat this dead horse around.  ;D
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: bilbous on November 01, 2013, 02:15:06 am
Just because I think it is cheating doesn't make it so. In an ideal game levelling would be much easier than it has traditionally been in PS, it is considerably better now. There are too many levels now, instead of expanding abilities they have been effectively diluted. I don't feel more powerful now than I did three years ago. Back then I could hunt ulbernauts by timing my swords and dancing, now they do not do enough damage to make it fun. My 400 rank stats are barely distinguishable from when max possible was ~80.

The settings have expanded too but it seems somewhat verbose the more I read, the less I know. Do I really need to know what the sea-folk call their version of hide and go tag if I can't participate in it myself? It is nice to have people working on this stuff but how does that help me play one of that race or set myself as different from a kran?


Anyway I feel guilty of straying off topic too long. Kaerli, next time don't ask me if I role-play just say some stuff that you think might be jointly interesting and see how I respond. I will always deny being a role-player because I am generally lazy and somewhat anti-social but I do try to honor that part of the game when it smacks me upside the head (don't really do that, it is just an expression). If I am running around all over the place it is hard to make me stop and smell the roses because it usually means I am actively engaging with the mechanics, questing or some such. I'm more likely to participate if I am at a stationary workplace, most of what passes for professions are deadly boring and distractions are more welcome. That said I haven't been in the game much lately and am working a good deal right now so might not get in more often, time when I have been unemployed were the times I played the most.

I will also say that Kaerli's reticence to accept those she consider strangers has an off-putting effect that goes beyond the character, you could try to counteract that by playing another character that talks to everyone and thinks people are bosom buddies until it is proven otherwise.
Title: Re: (Others) throwing in the towel
Post by: Rigwyn on November 01, 2013, 05:26:51 am

Quote
The settings have expanded too but it seems somewhat verbose the more I read, the less I know. Do I really need to know what the sea-folk call their version of hide and go tag if I can't participate in it myself? It is nice to have people working on this stuff but how does that help me play one of that race or set myself as different from a kran?

Knowing something about kran culture and history enables you to play a believable kran - one that is more than just a collection of stats.

Given an Enki and a Kran with identical skills and stats, what makes them different? Numerically speaking, they are identical. From a mechanics point of view, it does not matter which one I choose. If we just look at numbers, then one could argue that it would make more sense to have just one race.

It's the things that the game mechanics are completely blind to that makes them different: Culture, mannerisms, history, biology, diet, preferred architecture, beliefs, past wars and alliances, the way they speak and address one another and so on.