[Discuss] Role Play Island.

[Kathleen Stalnaker]

On 9/4/06, Lyman Stone <lymanstone at alltel.net> wrote:
> Okay, a few things...
>
> 1. As Alex said, does a newspaper count as RP? I'd think it would,
> its pretty heavily IC involved and definately shapes your chartacter,
> and it gets use IC. I'd count newspaper as RP.
>
> 2. I agree, Alex, there should be discussion and conversation. My
> point was that not all RP consists of describing all your actions,
> and all your innermost thoughts.
>
> 3. About the RPing everything publicly. Its not powergaming to use
> secrecy. Here's the thing, I've had my characters' THOUGHTS used
> against them, and I've seen it happen to other people, where they RP
> their character THINKING something, and other players act accordingly
> to their thoughts, which is impossible. Because I am a sentient
> creature, I learn from mistakes, and no longer publicly RP sensitive
> info.
>
> 4. Roleplaying is not like writing a story. A story you sit down and
> plan out from the beginning, or at least have a fairly fixed idea
> where its gonna go, what its gonna be about. IMO, RPing isnt like it.
> I absolutely hate it when people sit down and plan out their RP. IMO
> (again, just my opinion, take it or leave it), you should improv it.
> You'll make more mistakes and be more realistic like that, because
> all life is improv. If we're gonna be hyper-RP-sensitive, lets all
> have flawed characters, and make them, usually, NOT think when they
> act. Lets make them be human, and live life improvisationally without
> having their players plan out their actions. When you plan it out,
> you've just done the ultimate sin of RPing: Godmoding. You've just
> set an RP in stone when you pre-plan an RP. From what it SOUNDS like
> (please, correct me if I'm wrong, but please dont hang me), you all
> want us to plan out RP stories.
>
> 5. My character doesnt show your character his thoughts, so why
> should I show YOU my character's thoughts?
>
> 6. Another way RP isnt like a story. RP has many, many authors. A
> story usually has one, sometimnes two, rarely 3, and almost never
> more than three authors. If everyone goes and writes pages and pages
> about what their character does.... we have a novel lacking a strong
> plot, lacking a central theme, lacking cohesiveness, and lacking
> strong authorial voice. Thats very bad for a novel, fine for a game.
> We dont need to RP a cohesive, consistent plot. Lets let the plot
> develop, shall we?
>
> 7. This may be fairly controversial. But I think a problem is the
> characters themselves. There are so many, for lack of a better term,
> FEI regulars. People who have been there since the dawn of time. On
> the one hand, thats good, because it means highly developed
> characters. On the other hand, its bad, because its very intimidating
> for new players, and results in what we might call obsessing over
> trivialities. RPs start to get written about obscure and, really, not
> that important topics. I want to read an RP about, say, a realm being
> overthrown. But ya know what? I could really care less about reading
> a 2 page RP about you walking through the castle gates and looking at
> the town around you and noticing, SURPRISE! THEY'RE PEASANTS! Okay,
> so this bullet mentioned two things: characters being overused, and
> people RPing about trivialities.*
>
> *Okay, excessively RPing trivialities. A one paragraph RP about
> entering a city or something isnt overkill, but when people do
> massive RPs about little things it just becomes overkill.
>
> So, thats my opinion, take it or leave it. I'm not trying to offend
> or anger anyone, I'm sorry if I did.
>
>
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I think there is great RP everywhere in this game...even on the East
Continent.  Some weeks are better than others, but RP is still great.
The trouble I think is that sometimes the great RP is contained with
in a realm and we don't see it get outside the realm much.

FEI has the RP list, but not everyone is subscribed to it and not
everyone posts to it.

The argument that you should be able to post private conversations
publicly and not have others act on them is great in theory...but it
doesn't always work out well, because human nature often dictates self
preservation and if you know something that affects your realm even if
your character isn't supposed to know it..it is tempting to make
decisions based on that knowledge.  And yes rumors abound and perhaps
you could RP you got the info through the rumor mill...and that would
be acceptable, but I don't see it happen that way very often.

I do think it is a travesty that a judge takes
gold...bans...executes...deports any prisoner without talking to
them...with out RPing it...and I believe that is true throughout the
game...

We have the talk to prisoner option for an option...to talk to
them...so use it...don't just take their gold, or torture them, or
whatever with out talking to them.

The game is supposed to be interactive.  I am sure there are those out
there who don't think I do a great job of interactive, especially
lately, but I try and that is all anyone asks.