Skip to content

Roleplay & You

I basically live for writing and roleplay so if this game doesn't have a vibrant roleplay community, I won't play.

Who else is in my boat? Who isn't?

"They are elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty."
— Oscar Wilde


"I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
— Margaret Atwood

«1

Comments

  • I'd say I'm medium-heavy into RP. I always stay in character and react to situations as my character would, even write in game texts and such. I'm not a huge fan of long-form emotes, though, largely because I'm not the most social person to begin with and also because I get nervous I'll take too long/write something that comes across poorly.
    I'm gone.
  • I've found long emotes only really work for me in very small groups or one on one, unless they're pre-written for a performance or a speech or something. 
    Vote for Starmourn! Don't hurt Poffy.
  • I'm having trouble seeing a difference between option 2 and 3, but I guess option 3 is the closest to me. I have nothing against RP but frankly, I suck at it. My characters always end up having the same personality as me.
  • Jerom said:
    I'm having trouble seeing a difference between option 2 and 3, but I guess option 3 is the closest to me. I have nothing against RP but frankly, I suck at it. My characters always end up having the same personality as me.
    There is a noticeable difference. I've always imagined that those not concerned with RP tend use a vocabularly that does not reflect a perspective of their character's reality. This may seem subtle to some or perhaps nitpicky but I've always felt that if you were actually interested in RP then you would consider what your character thought about something beyond just using replacement words, for example, to represent game mechanics. I would expect a level of depth and thought from those who seriously consider themselves as roleplaying.

    Beyond that, there are also things like people who just stand around in spots for long periods of time and don't respond to people. I established this pattern with people who are more focused on PK than roleplay, but given as I don't get to know everyone too well I could be wrong. Another one is where people cut and paste lines directly from the game into city chat or into their motto or warcry.

    I agree that the lines between the two are blurry but just think of it as a level of consistency and not necessarily quality of RP. Just look for the inconsistencies and you'll find those who don't want to RP all the time.
  • I honestly feel like I've gotten a lot better at RP lately, which isn't to say that I'm great, but that I've improved from mediocre. Over in Achara I was splitting my time between two characters and not fully getting into either, feeling stifled I guess? But then I decided to focus on one and started really approaching decisions from my characters perspective. For instance, I'd made her as a Depthswalker because 'oooh shadows and a scythe!' but I realized it didn't fit what her personality and interests were shaping into. So I took the 50% lesson loss and changed to Shaman. It wasn't a conscious decision to change her character and personality to adapt to a different class, but changing to a class that fit what her personality evolved into when fleshed out. Aaand I'm rambling now.
    I'm gone.
  • @saturnine it took me several characters before I got the feel of RP in Achaea. Part of that was inexperience and laziness, and part of it was trying a bunch of things until something stuck. The important thing was to get to the point where I felt comfortable.
    Vote for Starmourn! Don't hurt Poffy.
  • Rkansas said:
    I say I RP sometimes, but really it's not a lot. The first MUD i really felt good at RPing is in Achaea, though tbh I am not good with RP because i can't ever keep the lore in my head or in order. I would like to learn to RP better in SM. I would like to make a real good character and learn to make those long emotes and stuff. 

    If anyone has any pointers on that don't be shy about pointing them out to me. I love to learn, but I am slow at it.

    I should be sleeping but I’ve been thinking about how I build a character and now I’m wondering how y’all do as well.

    For me, I go in with a rough idea with a few basic points to build from. I don’t like anything too detailed because the most interesting part of my characters isn’t their past but how they fit into the unraveling story in the game. I see how a character reacts even to the intro ... How they feel about the situation they find themselves in. How they react to NPCs and other played characters. Within a week or so of solid playing with interactions I have a foundation to build from.

    But now I’m curious how others do it. Please share!
    Vote for Starmourn! Don't hurt Poffy.
  • For me, I develop a character with a history, persona etc, and try to let that guide the character's decisions, even if I as a player know it is the less beneficial or efficient way to do it.

    I'll 'actively rp' as has been described here when I'm in the mood but that is secondary to the long term development of the character and story.

    I'm not going to tell everyone about the specifics of my character either. Some may come out in rp but most is just for me and my own enjoyment.

    If I log on, say nothing and pk someone seemingly at random - it's not. The rp around pvp is what makes it fun for me. Without the rp I'd just hang out at the arena.

    Not that I make a habit of that sort of pvp; it's just an example.

    For me the rp is everything but my interpretation of rp seems to be different so I picked #2
  • edited October 2018
    Syaja said:

    I should be sleeping but I’ve been thinking about how I build a character and now I’m wondering how y’all do as well.

    For me, I go in with a rough idea with a few basic points to build from. I don’t like anything too detailed because the most interesting part of my characters isn’t their past but how they fit into the unraveling story in the game. I see how a character reacts even to the intro ... How they feel about the situation they find themselves in. How they react to NPCs and other played characters. Within a week or so of solid playing with interactions I have a foundation to build from.

    But now I’m curious how others do it. Please share!
    For me it always starts with an idea, though interestingly I recently watched an interview with a writer who said the exact opposite.

    An idea can be something as simple as a word, a belief that I hold, a question that I want to ask, a moral that I want to impart, a theme that I want to explore, etc. For example, 'duality' — I once had a character that I set up with two very distinct personalities, not in the split identity sense, but rather a hidden nature vs. a public face that they presented to the world. Their name represented that duality, their ethnicity, their parentage, their supernatural powers, etc. There was a duality to everything they did and everything they were. Another example, 'change and revolution' — I wrote a story in which I wanted to explore 'change' in every sense of the word, within a world I'd designed. It underwent sociopolitical change, religious upheaval, geographical change (through natural disasters), and explored both the process of revolution and the aftermath of it for everyone involved. The characters, similarly, underwent significant changes and I wanted to dive into how they each cope with that. Some crumble, some are rebuilt. Alliances, relationships and loyalties change as people rediscover themselves. Etc.

    I might want to impart a grimdark, nihilistic GRRM-esque moral of nobody wins and everyone loses and life isn't fair, in which case my character's backstory will probably reflect that through a series of unfortunate events and the character will be a bitter wreck of a human being who's experienced and been shaped by betrayal. Or since this is sci-fi maybe I wanna explore an optimistic world of possibilities in terms of what the future holds.

    I'll then flesh out the details starting from the outside in. Once I have the overarching theme I build the skeleton — race, gender, class, city etc. — and then begin filling in the more superficial details like appearance, style, quirks, mannerisms, accent.

    I'll share I have two concepts I'm juggling currently. One's Celestine Ascendancy because I like the theme there of economic inequality and might want to create a glorious business magnate who indulges in all the excesses of wealth while contemplating (and maybe flirting with) the poverty of the world below, the injustice of the world she lives in and an insidious desire to find something more meaningful in life than all the material possessions she's gathered around her. One's a dirt-poor Scatterhome Human Scoundrel who feels a strong ancestral tie to Earth, has a tattoo of it on her back and feels a general sense of displacement in the cloak-and-dagger alien universe where she's got to scrape by to survive. Thinking about the aesthetic of these characters would be last on my list after figuring out who they are as people and where they come from, which in turn comes secondary to the core concept I want to explore with them.

    It also helps to figure out what you actually like doing and build from that. Don't make an intrepid explorer unless you like exploring. Don't make a business magnate unless you like shopkeeping and politics. Don't make a Human in the Celestine Ascendancy unless you like the idea of having your character treated like a second-class citizen. Don't make a Decheeran if you'd feel weird not expressing a binary gender.

    (Someone mentioned being self-conscious about rambling so I hope this ramble makes you feel better.)

    "They are elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty."
    — Oscar Wilde


    "I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
    — Margaret Atwood

  • I respectfully disagree with the importance of Bartle's classification. The article linked is two decades old, online gaming has changed so much since then that very little of what it says applies anymore. Even MUDs, which are more resistant to flow of time than many other games, are a much different animal than they were 10 years ago, what about 20.

    My approach to roleplaying is simple: I either go all in or don't really bother. This is one of those games where I intend to go all in. For me, the most important part of roleplaying is concept - think what kind of person your character is, and stick to it. But don't assume too much, because growth that occurs in game might go in a totally different direction than what you have planned. Also, make sure the character is fun to interact with and not annoying or disruptive. These are the basics from which everything else flows.
  • Jerom said:
    My characters always end up having the same personality as me.
    I don't know how you are at RP in general (you seem pretty competent in the RP stories), but playing yourself doesn't automatically make you bad at roleplay. In Achaea, my first character that I made, I just started playing and knew nothing about the game, so I just played myself. And she stuck, so I'm stuck with her. It's not TOTALLY me because obviously IRL I don't revere random city divine, but when it comes to making decisions I don't have to ask myself "what would my character do?" because it's just me so I just do whatever I would do. I admit it's a bit of an RP lite way of doing it, but I still do plenty of RP, and it's fun.


    Syaja said:
    Rkansas said:

    I should be sleeping but I’ve been thinking about how I build a character and now I’m wondering how y’all do as well.

    Please share!

    I made a couple alts in Achaea, after my first character, that were deliberately NOT me, once I'd got the hang of the game. They were a lot of fun, but I didn't have time for alt life so I went back to just playing my main. I also have three character concepts ready to try out Starmourn with. 

    I think I tend to first pick an org, race, and class that I like (and that fit together well), and then I let that inspire the character. What I want from a character also comes into play ("I've been playing a sweet young female for a while, I want to try something different. Let's do a gruff older male"). Once you get this picture of a few basic points in your head, you can start crafting the backstory of why they are the way they are, which tells you how they will react to different people and circumstances in the future. :)
  • Unless rp somehow benifets me then I'm mainly only here to pk.
  • Cubey said:
    BTW op can we not use "gay" as an insult? We're not 14 year olds here.
    I'm IRL queer as a cucumber. It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, hence the no caps and deliberately bad spelling. I apologise for any offence caused.

    "They are elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty."
    — Oscar Wilde


    "I'll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before."
    — Margaret Atwood

  • The only reason I started to play MUDs is because I enjoy RP -- so naturally my only real interest in Starmourn is going to be roleplay. Everything else comes after that, and to me, helps enhance the characters rather than being the primary source of entertainment.
  • I have fun with too many aspects of these games to focus on just RP to the exclusion of everything else, doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. I tend to inevitably end up as a jack-of-all-trades.
  • Kestrel said:
    Cubey said:
    BTW op can we not use "gay" as an insult? We're not 14 year olds here.
    I'm IRL queer as a cucumber. It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, hence the no caps and deliberately bad spelling. I apologise for any offence caused.
     I understand, no offense taken.
  • I came here to chew bubble gum and pretend to be a space outlaw, and I didn't bring any bubble gum.
  • It looks like there's gonna be part of RP to go around, which is exciting. :)
    Vote for Starmourn! Don't hurt Poffy.
  • Kestrel said:
    Cubey said:
    BTW op can we not use "gay" as an insult? We're not 14 year olds here.
    I'm IRL queer as a cucumber. It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, hence the no caps and deliberately bad spelling. I apologise for any offence caused.
    Aw man Kestrel... that actually just made me laugh out loud...

    Does that mean I'm a 14 year old??
    image
  • ...but back on topic:
    Traveler said:
    Jerom said:
    My characters always end up having the same personality as me.
    I don't know how you are at RP in general (you seem pretty competent in the RP stories), but playing yourself doesn't automatically make you bad at roleplay. In Achaea, my first character that I made, I just started playing and knew nothing about the game, so I just played myself. And she stuck, so I'm stuck with her. It's not TOTALLY me because obviously IRL I don't revere random city divine, but when it comes to making decisions I don't have to ask myself "what would my character do?" because it's just me so I just do whatever I would do. I admit it's a bit of an RP lite way of doing it, but I still do plenty of RP, and it's fun.
    I do this a lot too, especially when it's a new setting/game/style that I'm roleplaying within. Even if my character isn't necessarily exactly me, I will give myself that crutch of allowing parts of my personality to come through in a character, that way it's a lot easier to react quickly to things in a gut-check situation. I find this can make characters a lot more believable as well. 
    image
Sign In or Register to comment.