God RPing

[Pestilence]

Is it just me or is lately everyone possesed by some ubercreature this or that or atleast has some supernatural abilities? Like having a skin that is strong enough to counter all blades or something?

It's really starting to bug me how often some people seem to be falling back on godlike abilities to gain an edge in an RP. Specially if they also start commenting OOC on how you are doing something impossible.

An example of what annoys me. In an RP I followed someone to a hideout in the sewers. There had been a kidnapping and we were face to face with the evil guys. They weren't really persons but something else aparently. "OK" I though and shrugged as that should be able in an fantasy setting afterall. Was prepared for a fight I would probably loose as I asumed the transformation probably made them stronger rather then weaker somehow

Then suddenly someone walked in aswell. He attacked the two friends I was with and seeing his back was turned to me I put a knife to his throat. He smiled and desolves the knife. He also commented OOC that we shouldn't even think of stabbing him as his skin was so well trained blades couldn't possibly cut him.

You raising the eyebrow yet?

I mean come on we just had a post by the devs stating roleplaying should atleast be based somewhat on skills you actually have ingame. Now I don't mind a special move or some special ability to make your character unique but atleast have it be based somewhat on skills that are ingame or will be.

Invincible godlike people are the worst roleplayers in my opinion as they kill the joy for everyone else and they are often people who can't take it when someone else does the same as I have seen in many cases where it became a simple "Who got the fanciest godpower" competition that I leave fast as it's very annoying if you are playing a person thats within mortal standards

Thank you for reading my rant

[Phinehas]

Great rant. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also agree with what you've said. Touched on the very basic weakness of most RPers, you have.

[Thoughtcrime]

First of all...how does one train their SKIN?

Second, you're absolutely right. Although I'd rather people RP as a godly character than actually take time to become one, it totally ruins the fun of a story to be all-powerful. The best way to avoid this would probably be to work out between the two parties who would get killed, their limits on how powerful they can be, and how then can die. Otherwise people are just going to get unruly and wreak havoc everywhere.

[Phinehas]

First of all...how does one train their SKIN?

Second, you're absolutely right. Although I'd rather people RP as a godly character than actually take time to become one, it totally ruins the fun of a story to be all-powerful. The best way to avoid this would probably be to work out between the two parties who would get killed, their limits on how powerful they can be, and how then can die. Otherwise people are just going to get unruly and wreak havoc everywhere.

The best way is to teach people what roleplay is, and what it isn't. If you are all-powerful, you are not roleplaying. A role that you play would be defined, that is why it's a role, if you just keep adding power to it as necessary, you are going outside the boundaries of your role, hence you are no longer roleplaying, you're just being pathetic. Seriously though, I think I'll avoid this by RPing with people who know what they're doing. A little selfish, but it works.

[Siteri Kidachi]

I think people probably do this sort of thing because they think that getting killed or hurt will ruin their story idea...

However, part of the point of RPing is that it doesn't always go the way you plan... because YOU aren't the main character. People have to learn to adapt to what other people do while still getting the story told.

[Phinehas]

I think people probably do this sort of thing because they think that getting killed or hurt will ruin their story idea...

Although there's some truth in that, I think most of it still stems from ego. Everyone wants to be the smartest, strongest, most famous, coolest, fastest, etc. Part of human nature. In fact, I'm the only one I know who isn't obsessed by the desire to be better than everyone else.

That was supposed to be funny. Laugh now.

[Easton]

Agree with Siteri here..

I agree 100% that someone using abilities just to make them invincible is selfish, no fun, and, therefore, pointless.

Here's something i just kinda thought up on the spot.. not sure if it makes sense, but here it goes:

In RP everyone has a bubble around then. When you perform an action, it should only bump other people's bubbles, not pop them. If you pop them, then they are out of the RP and left with nothing to do. In your story Pestilence, i see two examples of this. Once is when the person acted like you slitting their throat had no effect on them, and the second was when you tried to slit his throat. No one wants to RP a character just so some person can jump out of the shadows and slice them in two. How would you expect everyone to comply with that? Both cases, to me , are incidents of bad RP. Don't burst anyone's bubble, just push them around a bit. 

Easton

[Pestilence]

Wow wait a sec there Easton making asumptions here. I didn't slit his throat. I moved my knife to his throat. I didn't try to slit it. He had everychance to quickly move his hand in between or drop to the floor so there would be no more neck or something more inventive. The only stretch I made was that seeing he was busy with two people already he wouldn't notice me till the knife was near his neck.

[Akaye]

I completely understand your rant Pestilence. There are a few characters in planeshift I like to avoid roleplaying with for these reasons you ranted about.

I think these godly roleplayers fear having people see weakness in their character for whatever reasons or they can never lose. It becomes a competition on who's character is better ... stronger. I don't think they understand that it is more respected to have a character with flaws. Having the abilility to admit flaws gives you so much to roleplay with and makes stories interesting. It also helps give ideas to the evil (or naughty natured) characters, on how to prey on the good characters so that they have some roleplay content to work with. This makes the roleplay seem realistic in my opinion.

I could say a ton more on the topic but really we are never going to get rid of Godly roleplays (If that is even considered roleplaying), the only way around them really is to talk with them and hope they understand when you ask for them to tone it down and stick to more realistic tactics, or just avoid them all together. Perhaps you get lucky and they don't realise what they are doing. Then they give you the opportunity to help them develop character flaws and learn from you how to roleplay out those situations.

Either way  godly roleplaying sucks and can be more harmful to roleplays then helpful. It can gain you a reputation to the point where people flee at your very appearance just to avoid that kind of crap. In the end Godly roleplayers only lose out, and it can be a very lonely world without playmates.

[Pestilence]

Well the most annoying thing as seeing becuase of this and earlier events I felt like me week has been pretty much spoiled RPwise. Mostly becuase I tried to roleplay with other people. To just follow someone who I knew was to strong to really be hunting rats to see if perhaps there was something going on to meet new people that way.

I mean I don't think that sticking to yourself and staying in tight packs is a good thing to do as a roleplayer. You should try to involve other and to have your RPs intermingle so there really is a community, but for the first time I can really relate to the roleplayers who do form groups and only roleplay in that group.

As I say many times. Planeshift should be about having fun.

[zhai]

Very interesting and accurate post. I've come across RPs where some characters seemed to be invincible no matter what. It's a turn off or, as Easton put it, a "bubble popper". Now, I won't just repeat what others have said, so here's my two trias: just like nobody is the main character of anything, nobody really is in control of everything. Even players behind an event or casual RP cannot predict nor control all the outcomes, and pretending to choose the one we like best is well... pretencious. We should always leave room for failure because that's the biggest of possibilities most of the times. I sometimes roll the dice when something depends on me RPing a certain ability, giving myself a fair chance of success as well as failure (depending on the experience I have in such situations, among other things), especially when it comes to affecting or reacting to other people's abilities.

And I try to RP abilities I have somehow "acquired" during my PS time (based on what my character has gone through since I started playing and learned in-game). For example, Rangers RP whistles as a means to convey simple messages because it's part of their training. To me it is not enough that a character's background story claims having certain training, a certain object or strength that would represent an advantage over other players if this hasn't actually happened in-game or if they haven't actually spent any time building those abilities through previous RP.

I've been told stuff like "I've always RPed that character has a very strong resitance to poisoned weapons" or worse "My character has the ability to read minds" when that character hasn't really trained any magic way at all (if there's any related to mind-reading for that matter) or learned that stuff from someone else who's bothered to RP their training or research. If one tells me "My character has telepathic abilities so he'll try to read your mind", the key is that they should try. That means they have to attempt it somehow and, most importantly, that they can fail at that. It's not up to them if they succeed. Again, dice could help here or if I'm into the RP they are having I can /tell them what I feel like sharing. But that's me being generous and it should not be taken for granted.

Invincible characters are not necessarily bad RPers, but they are selfish. It's more like they just enjoy roleplaying with themselves... if I have a chance to let them have their fun, I do so by walking away. Play alone, got all you need for your fun. It's tiring having to negociate every little move you make around these characters (especially if the main reason is that they want to be a certain way). This also applies to those who claim to be the most utterly evil, or the most dangerous ones around... and also to those who claim to be the holiest, most delicate and purest spirits in Yliakum.

*Pop* There goes the fun...

[Mirashi]

First of all...how does one train their SKIN?

Second, you're absolutely right. Although I'd rather people RP as a godly character than actually take time to become one, it totally ruins the fun of a story to be all-powerful. The best way to avoid this would probably be to work out between the two parties who would get killed, their limits on how powerful they can be, and how then can die. Otherwise people are just going to get unruly and wreak havoc everywhere.

Body developement.

[Pestilence]

Invincible godlike people are the worst roleplayers in my opinion as they kill the joy for everyone else

Invincible characters are not necessarily bad RPers, but they are selfish.

Seeing roleplaying is a group effort I feel that qualifies as bad. Perhaps not bad in that they can't roleplay, but even wprse in that they CHOSE to not follow the rules of good roleplaying.

I mean the new player who doesn't know roleplaying that well and goes a little overboard might be annoying but is exusable. The people who know better are really much more of a problem. Specially seeing that way the new players will think it atleast is one way of playing. I mean I think there are several people who have been godpowered several times and just decided that if that is the way people play they should just have to think up one for themselves.

body developement would be I think training muscles.

[Mirashi]

Well it's the only explanation I could possibly give for someone like that. Either that or they were a Kran.

[Pestilence]

Well I could think up of one explanation. Saw once on discovery of monks who were trained in hand to hand combat since they were children. They were able to grab blades with their hands without bleeding or anything. even do this with certain parts of their body. This could be somewhat of a explanation, but that technique qas in no part fullproof however. It only worked if the monk in question knew where the blade was going to hit and only at certain points at his body.

The body can be trained a lot to withstand such blows, but if the blow is unexpected they would be just as screwed as someone who did not have that training becuase the body wasn't prepared.

Same with Karatefighters. In the highest tournaments both sides in a fight get blows that could kill an untrained man, but they also mentioned what was the biggest threat.again that unpredicted blow. I even saw a guy take about ten kicks and not even flinch and then during traaining he got one hit who wasn't even as hard as those other but somehow he didn't expect anything from that direction and that was when he became unconsious.

And hmm had not thought of the Kran possibility, but afraid it wasn't a Kran in this case