Roleplaying and Criticism

[The Old Hack]

Roleplaying and Criticism

Okay, I am going on a bit of a ramble here.

I am not against the discussion of roleplaying per se. But I have time and again seen it used in a really negative way, in the form of 'You are roleplaying wrong' coming in a large number of variations. Accusations against people of always playing the same character is a popular one; not reacting the way the accuser would have is another. A third is roleplay after subdual. (That one is a little iffy. People being poor losers can make them roleplay badly, and I am not innocent in that regard. But then people being poor winners can make losing suck even more and at that point it becomes tempting to just say 'fuck it' and do your best to make the experience as bad for the winner as it is for you. Particularly when you are a vindictive piece of shit like I am.)

My point is, I have time and again seen IRC being used as a means to attack people whose roleplaying style you do not like. For that matter, it is also often done in Tells. And all it ever does is to poison the mood and ruin the enjoyment. It becomes particularly demoralising when a DM steps in and starts telling a whole quest group off for being bad roleplayers. Yes, I know IRC is not supposed to be used that way, but that is cold comfort when the rule is at best very sporadically enforced and even DMs violate it when they feel like it.

I feel it would be much smarter to either be _constructive_ in your criticisms or, if you absolutely have to condemn a particular form of roleplaying do it in the form of general examples where you take care not to point fingers. And even then you should take care to offer positive counterexamples if possible. Also, remember this: Your mileage may vary. Not everyone roleplays the same way. If they are having fun doing it their way and they are not doing any harm otherwise, why does it matter if you wouldn't do it? There are players who are very fond of playing gnomes. Other players love playing clerics of a particular faith. Is that a reason to yell at them that they always play the same character and they are all identical in personality and build? And even if it were true, why would it be wrong for them to do so as long as they observe character separation and are having fun?

Maybe the best way to express my feelings would be simple comparison. Which do you feel would have the better chance of having a constructive effect, do you think:

"Um, I don't understand your character motivation here. Why are you acting like this? Have I done something to make you react this way?"

or

"You are roleplaying wrong. The whole player base hates you because you disrespect them and from now on you should roleplay exactly the way I tell you to."

I can't speak for anyone else, of course. But personally I would be far more likely to respond reasonably to the former. The latter would invariably trigger an incredibly rude response from me that I might regret later but wouldn't be bothered to apologise for because I would still be angry at the person who sent it.

~tOH.

[Random_White_Guy]

Just to add some here, a few common criticisms of RP i've found in my time here either by my own experience or other PCs.

- If your PC had no part in bringing down the villain, sitting in the trial like 1840's france shrieking "HA HA WE GOT YOU FOOL TAKE YOUR WORTHLESS FATE GARBAGE" is entirely an IC possibility but it adds a degree of dick punch to any situation. If you haven't been responsible for the fight, don't have much history with the PC, or etc it may be more prudent to find a new and creative way to show your disdain. Throw some fruit or otherwise, sure. Vocalizing though your involvement in the ADventuring Mob that brought down a criminal doesn't warrant nuking a PC. IT leads to a lot of people just wanting to end trials ASAP, die before being brought in, and other things.

- Not every PC needs to play 10,000 types of characters and it's quite okay to do things like be known as "The guy who plays awesome Barbarians" if that's what you really, really enjoy about EFU but find new takes on the concept. Don't just become a guy in armor with a giant two handed weapon who just runs around bashing things and smashing on people. Try new weapons, try new gods (Uthgardt vs Garagos very different barbarians), different armors (Loincloth Savage vs Breasplate), etc. EFU has so many awesome and dynamic ways to create PCs from perks to asthetics and it does make things stale for PCs and DMs alike.

- You don't have to be the MVP of every DM event. One reason a lot of people avoid larger DM events is because everyone competes trying to make one more flavorful emote, one more shout to the one NPC in a mob of 15+ PCs, and trying to get themselves noticed. We all do it from time to time, certainly, but depending on the situation not everything is best for your Elven Nihilist to shriek and run around that everything is pointless and this NPC should just kill us all or what have you. Sometimes it's cool to let other PCs shine - for example the Jergali Paladin taking the fore in the fight in a mummy's tomb, a Watcher handling the pursuit of a criminal, or maybe even letting the boring House of Knowledge scholar lead us through a treasure hunt.

- If people are quick to go OOC over PvP it leads to a serious souring of everything for a lot of folks, particularly those who go and PvP a lot. Just because you got Subdued doesn't mean the world has ended. Lots of villain PCs have the wind knocked out of their sails if you go "JUST KILL ME ALREADY, STOP MONOLOGUING VILLAIN". It's okay to be frustrated and angry at PVP but try to find ways to keep that frustration IC rather than sucicidal PC tendencies.

There's a few more undoubtedly but I feel like addressing a few things that cause those criticisms can help them be avoided.
 

[CollegeDropout]

Accusations against people of always playing the same character is a popular one; not reacting the way the accuser would have is another. A third is roleplay after subdual. (That one is a little iffy. People being poor losers can make them roleplay badly, and I am not innocent in that regard. But then people being poor winners can make losing suck even more and at that point it becomes tempting to just say 'fuck it' and do your best to make the experience as bad for the winner as it is for you. Particularly when you are a vindictive piece of shit like I am.)

Just be respectful of other players and don't do this anymore thx ^

[The Old Hack]

Just be respectful of other players and don't do this anymore thx ^

I am afraid you are missing the point. This was exactly the sort of thing I argued against. I even mentioned that I had handled situations like that badly, so why did you bring it up?

But since you insist on bringing direct quotes up, let me give you a general example of the kind that makes me resentful and causes me to respond badly. This is from IRC:

[01:00] you should try to RP after subdual once in your life
[01:01] you just coast by while disrespecting the playerbase time and time again, and it's really annoying. Play the game, TOH.

In this example, an angry player 1) assumes I never roleplay after subdual, 2) accuses my roleplay of being invalid and 3) claims to be representative of the entire playerbase. The last part particularly astounded me as I had not known that the playerbase had voted the guy their collective spokesman, and you'd think I would as I am part of the playerbase. I mean, I should at least have gotten a vote. I simply don't get why people think they will get any sort of constructive response from this kind of thing.

As to the rest of your example, I sincerely apologise. But I happened to be dead tired at the time and my roleplay is never improved when someone my character has barely if ever met and has not had as much as a single RP interaction with that indicates potential enmity invis ganks me fully buffed while I am unbuffed and then melodramatically pronounces "REVENGE!" after having struck me down. I made an assumption I am frankly speaking not proud of there that I might not have made if I had been less tired and had had just a little idea of why the invis ganker might not like me.

[zDark Shadowz]

Why would someone collect screenshots of a specific players reaction to the same situation? How would they be present for that reaction 3x?