ROLEPLAYING 101 PRT 2

Subject: ROLEPLAYING 101 PRT 2 Thu Sep 27, 2007 10:45 am

(OOC)

(Posted by Dave's authority and permissions, I did NOT make these up, they were existing)

Touring the plethora of guild communications from officers of all
ranks, sampling the logs I've received of different occurrences, and
milling about with the locals as other Screen Names, in OCS
role-playing rooms, on OCS message boards, and in role-playing groups
beyond this one, I have come to several conclusions.

First, I decided that on-line role-playing isn't what it used to
be. There used to be less acronyms, less "moders," less guilds, less
imbeciles, and less people with ridiculously high dice.

Second, I decided that hardly anyone grasped the all too simple
concepts of IC/OOC separation, a vital cornerstone to role-playing
anywhere, on-line or off. Since these basics of role-playing are the
basic things one must know to role-play in RhyDin, and in the OCS which
is in RhyDin, I decided it was about time to discuss them, among some
other things.

Dividing between the creator and the created.

You, the person reading this letter with rapt attention, are the
Player, on-line slang for such being "mun." You have created a
Character to have a learning, entertaining experience, hopefully -- or
just an entertaining experience.

Your Character is, quite obviously, not you. He may well share some
qualities that you have, or he may well be your exact opposite;
regardless, he is not you, and nothing he does really has to have any
bearing on what you are like.

You are a Player; the role that you play is your Character. The
things that you type up on the screen are the things that your
character is doing or thinking or saying or being, and causing your
character to do these things is what constitutes role-playing.

You do not exist. You do not exist.

Your character does not know that you, the mun, exist. This may shock
those of you whose characters insist that you exist, but you do not
exist in your character's world. It simply makes no sense whatsoever.

Your character interacts in whatever world you are role-playing him
in. He loves and plays and works and exists and dies, someday. He does
all of this as if he were real, because he is "real" as far as he is
concerned. He does not know that he is a character, and if he thinks
that he is, then he should be declared clinically insane.

Because you do not exist in your character's world, neither does
anything that pertains to your on-line experience. He cannot be on-line
or off-line unless he is an artificial life form or he has his own
computer.

To wit, your character does not receive IMs -- he does not receive
them in any form, be they IMsects, IMps, or whatever cute terms are
devised. Your character cannot see chat -- he cannot see the words
typed inside of animation brackets or read thoughts unless he is a
mindreader.

Your character cannot view profiles. Your character cannot be
"punted" unless he is a football. Your character neither sees Screen
Names nor knows about them. Your character cannot see "mun bubbles,"
attack "punt demons," or do any number of things which blur the solid
lines between the In Character world and the Out Of Character world.

It's not a complicated matter, but it's one that people seem to
forget. Anything about the on-line world which pertains to your
own-line experience and devices you use to role-play is OOC. This would
include, of course, dice; because no character attacks someone and then
has to pause, roll dice, and see if the attacks "hit."

When you role-play, you are acting. You are acting out the part of
your choice, and you are immersing yourself in that role. It is as
ridiculous for your character to make references to having a Player as
it would be for Yoda to begin having a conversation with his puppeteer.

Tie it all together, Vadermun -- my head is spinning.

OOC should remain OOC, and IC should remain IC, as far as these
matters go. Muns, dice, IMs, chat rooms, and the like are all OOC
terms, and will be met by confusion IC by any player with sense.

Many of us, however, like to use cute expressions of the OOC in the
IC to make IC communication easier. Most of these expressions are
understood, and eliminate the need to have lengthy OOC side-notes which
explain OOC things, instead keeping most things as IC as possible.

Some of those expressions are acceptable. Others of them are rather
ridiculous, such as ignore daggers, IMsects, mun bubbles, and the like.
If any member of the OCS stabbed another member with an "ignore
dagger," Vader would have him up on assault charges.

Some of the terms, such as a listing in the Rhydinian Directory, or
having personal records that can be viewed and submitted by some means,
can be an appropriate way to express "profile" information IC. When I
have my IMs off, saying that Vader's office door is locked can be an
acceptable method of expressing such IC.

However, these things are highly subjective, and should not be
forced on another player. Phrases or words like "not in the realms,"
"lifescroll," "hands of fate," "mindlinks" -- all of these are
euphemisms, as it were, of OOC things, meaning "off-line," "profile,"
"dice," and "IMs" respectively.

These are well and good ... but not every character has these abilities
or things; thus, these things should not be forced on every character.
Not everyone has the ability to planeswalk, so not everyone could be
"out of the realms."

Not everyone carries a "lifscroll" with him -- Vader certainly
doesn't -- so that reference is not always valid. Not all of my
characters can communicate telepathically, though nearly anyone can
receive telepathic communication; and none of my characters have "hands
of fate." Just because a Screen Name is signed on does not necessarily
mean that a character is "in the realms."

As such, one should not always hold another character or Player to
one's own methods of expressing certain OOC things IC. Once, another
character, the president of a very prominent RhyDin "Forum," actually
argued with Vader, laughing at him because he denied that he had an
"overlord" -- overlord being her accepted way of phrasing "mun" IC.
That is simply not the sort of thing that should ever happen.

Be smart; try and make sense IC instead of blurring the lines
between IC and OOC so much that one never knows whether you are IC,
OOC, or some sort of inane mixture of the two that should be fled from
immediately.

Final thoughts -- threats, actually -- on the matter.

I hope all of you read carefully -- not because all of you have
problems with this subject, but simply because I'm losing patience at
an alarming rate with people who can't get these wretchedly simple
things through their heads.

If one won't, or can't, understand these basic, founding concepts
of role-playing, then, quite frankly, he would be better off not being
in this role-playing group, or any role-playing group at all.

I would especially like to think that Commander Players should have
these simple concepts down. Commander Player or not, however, it is
downright dangerous not to be able to separate between yourself and
your character; and anyone who cannot do that should not be
role-playing.

As I've said before, I have exactly no qualms about removing
someone from the guild for purely OOC reasons. If someone is incapable
of separating OOC and IC to the point that he becomes a nuisance and a
danger to himself and others, severance would be a very present option.

·¤· ·¤· ·¤·

Free Form, and we're not talking about diving.

AOL Rhydin role-playing is based on Free Form Role-Playing (FFRP),
"Free Form" defined basically meaning that you control your character,
not someone else. In freeform role-playing, each character is
completely controlled by his or her Player.

There are no obligatory dice, there is no obligatory game master, and
there are no obligatory elements of chance. Nothing can happen to your
character that you have not agreed to have happen to him.

That is the basis of role-playing in Rhydin. How, then, does
role-playing occur? And how does every character simply not declare
himself absolutely supreme to anything else in Rhydin?

Simple. FFRP is based on respectrespect for your fellow gamers, and
respect for other people's characters. Those who do not master
respecting other gamers will find themselves role-playing alone in
Rhydin.

Rhydin role-playing (FFRP) is a game based on, more than anything
else, respect and creative cooperation. You can't make another player
do anything he hasn't agreed to do, and merely having a character in
Rhydin, rumors to the contrary aside, does not mean one has consented
to AAs, DMs, or any other rules accept playing respectably with his
fellow gamers.

To creatively cooperate with another gamer, one cannot always have
things go his way. There are limits to how much one gamer can have turn
out in his favor depending on the situation, and that is why gamers
must respect one another, respecting every one's wishes and cooperating
accordingly.

However, cooperating does not mean that one must allow other gamers
to walk all over him. There are limits, and there is a lot of give and
take; but mature role-players should always be able to play to
everyone's mutual enjoyment.

It's all under control, but he doesn't know that.

The fact that nothing can happen to your character that you, the
mun, do not allow to happen to him should be very apparent now. In
effect, your character is invincible to an extent, invincible as any
star of the stage production that is your own.

However, the fact remains that your character, having no knowledge
that his death isn't written into the script of the day, has real
thoughts, real problems, real hurts, and real fears.

Unless your character simply happens to be cocky beyond belief, or
stupid beyond belief, when he walks into a room full of nigh omnipotent
demigods -- of which there are all too many these days -- he will be
terrified.

When an assassin creeps behind a woman picking flowers in a field,
and that woman has no weapons or special powers, she will be not be a
very happy camper; screaming would be appropriate. Though you, the mun,
may not accept assassination attempts, your character has no such catch
phrase to hide behind.

One of the most ridiculous things I've seen is when characters
stand up to would-be attackers and haughtily declare that they don't
"accept" assassinations because it is against their Forums' rules.
Then, usually something about "moder dice" is said contemptuously, and
I leave before a migraine starts.

You decide what does and does not happen to your character, true,
and you have the right to take your character out of any storyline
which violates your interests ... but your character is still a
character.

When my Vader character approaches some ancient deity of some sort,
he does so with caution. When he strides into the palace of a legendary
archmage, he is sure to have his personal super-class star destroyer
overhead with turbolasers charged, along with several teams of security
officers and Sith emissaries.

That's acceptable game-play. It makes some sort of sense. However,
some normal guilder approaching Vader with an insulting attitude, one
with no special powers that would realistically rival Vader's ...
that's just stupid -- not to mention galling since the player likely
wouldn't allow Vader to bring him to his knees as Vader surely would
have otherwise.

Morals of the story:

Don't let your characters fail to display the proper emotions

only because you yourself do not hold them.

Have an attitude; pay the price.

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