Role Playing Question.

[bilbous]

How is it good RP to editorialise you thoughts and conclusions. For example made up out of whole cloth if I were to say /me smells Abominogs breath, gags and wonders if he had been eating consumers again and concludes that whatever he had eaten it was best to stand a little further away. This is very descriptive and all but what I wonder is not something that should be related in this manner, it has to be vocalised if it is to be shared with the participants at all and the conclusion should be expressed as an action needing no further comment. Yet I see this consistantly from those who seem most intent on Role Playing.

Collaborative writing is not role play and motivational asides seem out of context. If you are going to insist on introductions don't project your thoughts into my head. It may make things a little more difficult but if you want realism then Get Real!

[Karyuu]

A lot of the threads that are popping up lately are good discussions, suggestions, and "tutorials" for a Role-Play Guide. In fact I have a WIP guide stickied here just for such a purpose. If you have suggestions of what to do or not to do, post them there instead of starting a new thread in the future.

I'm going to start merging things from now on.

[bilbous]

Ok I'll try to do so. It seems to me that new threads (subject line could have been better) have more visibility then stickied archives. It might be a good idea to allow the threads to exist until they fall off the front page so that everyone gets a chance to view a fresh comment. I took your advice and added a post with a different suggestion to your stickied thread. I'm not sure it will be seen by those to whom it was directed.

[Syilph]

All in all, you have a good point there. The /me command isn't used in a realistic way if you express what your character thinks. People around you don't know that and shouldn't be able to find that out by "looking" at one of your actions.
Related to this, I would like to point out a small "issue" with character descriptions. Most players have descriptions that include parents' names, bacground history, hobies, stats, etc. That doesn't seem right since the description of your character should reflect your character's look, clothing, way of speaking, movement, etc. People should see only your "visual" features when looking at you, they can't know your mother's name or the fact that in the past, you saved a kid from drowning. A bit odd is that the system will add such things to a character's description right after creation, but considering the "under development" status of the game, things are susceptible to changes.

[Thyme]

I actually disagree with the claim that using descriptive editorials ruins role play.  To be honest, I don't think the purpose of RP is absolute realism, but rather something closer to similarity of realism.  Instead of seeing these descriptive editorials as providing unrealistic information to the other player you're RPing with, I think they function in two ways.

1) They provide a certain mood or context of personality/attitude of the character, allowing the other player to get a sense of what the character is thinking/feeling and therefore can choose to interact accordingly.
2) They offer a little bit of narrative play.  Since RP is similar to creating stories, when we role play with someone else, we're trying to not just engage their character, but the player.  Small side notes to RPs, I think, provide amusing and engaging incentives for players to engage with another character.

Therefore, statements such as:  /me smells Abominogs breath, gags and wonders if he had been eating consumers again and concludes that whatever he had eaten it was best to stand a little further away, set a certain mood for the character (namely, a slightly comic mood that simply gagging and stepping away might not provide) and offers some amusing comic relief for the player, who either might choose to ignore or play along with the joke.

What is harmless about these editorials is that since they are asides, the other player can choose whether or not to acknowledge the added details and act accordingly in the RP.  That player can decide to ignore the consumer breath suggestion, or play along with it
e.g. /me burps and then blushes awkwardly, mumbling something about eating some meat that didn't agree with her
or /me looks slightly offended at the stranger who stepped away from her, after having discreetly checked her breath and finding nothing wrong with it.
or if you want to ignore it... /me seems not to notice the strangers reaction

In all honesty, if you find these kind of asides frustrating, I think the best thing to do would be ignore it.  Chastizing players for using them I think implies a certain amount of bad faith (i.e. assumes that the other player is using the editorials to ruin the RP rather than make genuine attempts to engage).  They are easy to ignore since they don't actually change the course of the RP unless the player chooses to integrate it further.

[Syilph]

There was no mention about frustration, anoyance or any other feelings regarding anything that has been discussed here. It is only a debate about the realism of certain actions/features. As you said, we have to take our RP as close to realism as we can. And these ideeas mentioned above tend to lead towards that

[daehaz]

The way I see it, if you're "emoted" at like this, simply react to that which should be obvious to your character and ignore any omniscient info (which is mainly there for the players to understand the behaviour but not for the characters to really know). Not the thoughts or "wonders if..." parts but the "gags... it was better to sand a little further away" parts which are visible or perceivable. RP is not only about what you say but mostly how you react to that which happens around you. I have had some great RP through /me and /my only and it was all frustration free.

Now, a warning: emote when you need to, not because you can. It can get annoying when someone suddenly drops a 10 line emote which is totally uncalled for. I see this happening when some players want to get the attention of a crowd nearby but it feels more like an imposition. Edit it a bit, emote little by little and if you get a response (as in "What? Are you alright?" or "/me turns to <name>") which indicates that crowd shows interest in your actions, then keep going. Otherwise it feels like spam (it's not but it feels like it). Of course, for this to work well you should also try to emote things that are indeed perceivable:

"/me can't stop bleeding and the world around him can't stop spinning, his weak body soon to be lifeless..."

Yeah, right. You're sitting in the corner of the bar, nobody's around. You'll die alone. Unless your blood drops really, really, really loudly nobody has anything to react to here. Save that line for when people notice you're there and approach you. How can you get attention: make a noise. "Uggh... help...", should do it or, if you are an action person "/me stumbles around trying to find a place to lie down. He bumps into the table and the bottle on it falls and breaks. Shattered glass and cheap ale on the floor..." (though I would stick with the "ugh, help" one).

[Einnol]

Keeping with the same example:

For example made up out of whole cloth if I were to say /me smells Abominogs breath, gags and wonders if he had been eating consumers again and concludes that whatever he had eaten it was best to stand a little further away.

First, one small side note:  Unless poor Abominogs has already hinted to his foul breath (ie. /me says "Hi, everyone", with the stench of his foul breath filling the area), this is imposing the bad breath on him.  This is slightly unfair since our friend Abominogs may have excellent, mint-scented breath.    But, I don't think that is what this discussion is about.

The problem that I see is a lack of visual or audio cues that other characters can actually notice.  No character will see or hear 'smelling' and 'concluding'.  All they will notice is the gagging which could just as easily be caused by Harnquist's silent flatulence as much as Abominog's breath.  (Perhaps there is very little difference between the two.    ).  This example could also be done like this:

*/me sniffs and wrinkles his nose.  (visual cues of the smelling)
*/me gags and says "Abominogs, have you been eating consumers again?"
*/me takes a few steps away from Abominogs.  (followed by physically moving a few steps away)

[bilbous]

I actually disagree with the claim that using descriptive editorials ruins role play.  To be honest, I don't think the purpose of RP is absolute realism, but rather something closer to similarity of realism.  Instead of seeing these descriptive editorials as providing unrealistic information to the other player you're RPing with, I think they function in two ways.

(snip)


In all honesty, if you find these kind of asides frustrating, I think the best thing to do would be ignore it.  Chastizing players for using them I think implies a certain amount of bad faith (i.e. assumes that the other player is using the editorials to ruin the RP rather than make genuine attempts to engage).  They are easy to ignore since they don't actually change the course of the RP unless the player chooses to integrate it further.

First I did not say they ruin RP I said they were not RP. I was trying to say that instead of taking the easy way out and telling people what you think find some way of indicating it without spelling it out. If you want to take the easy way out the please feel free to assume that I have my name tattooed on my forehead. I am unlikely to ever say "My name is bilbous, please note that it is uncapitalized." And don't say "talking to the kran in the chainmail" It is perfectly correct to use my name in an action preface such as /me turns to bilbous "hi guy how's it going" Your character does not need to know my name in order for you to use it in descriptive narratives. Play at not knowing my name if you like but don't make it hard for me to know that you are talking to me ... for all I know there may be some other kran in chainmail standing behind me.

As far as chastising players go I said nothing in game and came and made this thread. I mostly don't comment about such things in game although if someone goes [OOC] to challenge me on something I will say something [OOC] in return. I do on occaision have [OOC] conversations but try to keep them syntactically correct by indicating with []. This brings up an idea that just occured to me. Perhaps a filter could be implimented such that a player could click a radio button in chat options and never see any chat within [] again. It should not be too hard to add but I don't know what the code looks like so I may be wrong. Then all we need to do is to educate players to always use [] for OOC.

Also please note my contribution to the WIP thread about knowing what words mean.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

"/me smells Abominogs breath, gags and wonders if he had been eating consumers again and concludes that whatever he had eaten it was best to stand a little further away"

NO NO NO

I try very hard not to be an rp cop but this confounds me me-

I agree with einnol about the imposition, and this extendes also to /me strikes x player.

IF Abominogs had bad breath indicated in his description or had meantioned it, the responding player would be better off say something like this"

* Xillix Queen of Fools  smells Abominogs breath, gags and appears to ponder what the smell's source was, after a moment of contemplation [insert player's name] shrugs and moves little further away.

if it is the case that emotes can be used to set a tone, this can be accomplished without unwitting players nearby being able to read the mind of the character emoting.

[bilbous]

If I may quibble with this just a bit

IF Abominogs had bad breath indicated in his description or had meantioned it, the responding player would be better off say something like this"

* Xillix Queen of Fools  smells Abominogs breath, gags and appears to ponder what the smell's source was, after a moment of contemplation [insert player's name] shrugs and moves little further away.

I think that

...smells Abominogs breath, something foul gags and appears to ponder what the smell's source was, focuses her gaze on Abominog, after a moment of contemplation [insert player's name]shrugs and moves little further away.
[character actually moves away a few steps, no need to say what can be plainly seen]
might be a bit better. That is just my opinion of course. The bit about focusing her gaze is justified because there is no capacity to operate the eyes in such a manner as to indicate what you are looking at.

While I am at picking apart roleplay it seems to me that any camera view other than through the eyes is contrary to good Role Play because that is the only viewpoint a character would have.
 

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

I accept those alterations, but the principles of what i said still stand and your corrections reflect this.  No need to worry about "quibbling" roleplaying is a subtle art, a fact lost on many. What is funny is that most of us reading this thread are already fairly well developed and using this conversation to enhance our rp, while those who need most to read these things are shouting hello to friends who just logged on.

I love our game and everyone dedicated enough to try to work out these little kinks, I commend you bilbous for bringing the issue up as it was something that bothered me as well.

[zanzibar]

I agree that internal dialogues in open chat are completely inappropriate.

[Narure]

If I may quibble with this just a bit

While I am at picking apart roleplay it seems to me that any camera view other than through the eyes is contrary to good Role Play because that is the only viewpoint a character would have.
 

Yes but what what your character hears is just as important... such as unseen foot steps, that otherwise couldnt be RPed in first person

[bilbous]

Indeed, I used the term quibbling because we were largely in agreement.

By the way, I am almost tempted to use the name Abominog as it strikes me as esthetically pleasing. However it is the title of a Uriah Heep recording I know little about but whose name has stuck with me for years. As such, it is, strictly speaking, an out of context name.


Audio cues are problematic as game mechanics are unlikely to provide the depth of possibilities on real life. Personally I never have sound on in games of anykind unless it is completely integral to gameplay. Such things are suitable to RP interventions just so long as you don't go to ridiculous lengths such as /me hearing a leaf fall in the woods registers Silent Sams presence, "Hello Sam."