Defining Bad Roleplay

[frenchfisher]

I hate those too, but if that comment was made to me, my characters are far from being plain psychotic.

I just tend to sound rude. The thing is that psychos, mads and evil chars without a reason to be that way are far uninteresting..

Who says that psychosis, anger, and evilness can't be inherent?

I'm not saying I disagree with your assertion that horribly stereotypical "bad people" are annoying... the most interesting thing about evil people is their self-justification. But you don't need a "good reason" to be malevolent, even from the moment you spawn.

[joo]

I think the #1 annoying RP habit I find is people who insert thoughts or other non-visible or audible information into emotes. Things like:

*Looks at her leave, thinking he's probably never going to see her again*

or

*Sits on the ground, bored from the lack of stimulation*

Things like that really piss me off, as they're essentially forcing impressions on the other characters when they should let players work out what's going from good RPing. In short, anything between asterisks should only be something heard or seen.

[Sebas]

I think the #1 annoying RP habit I find is people who insert thoughts or other non-visible or audible information into emotes. Things like:

*Looks at her leave, thinking he's probably never going to see her again*

or

*Sits on the ground, bored from the lack of stimulation*

Things like that really piss me off, as they're essentially forcing impressions on the other characters when they should let players work out what's going from good RPing. In short, anything between asterisks should only be something heard or seen.

Agree, it's really annoying seeing people who do this. And they are many, seems that they don't know...

[Vazalco]

I'll tell you what pisses me off about bad roleplay: someone who is terrible with grammar, barely knows how to roleplay, and who is obviously only concerned with their character fighting and being stronger and better than everyone else's character (it's not the character's motivation -- it's quite obviously the unintelligent, uninspired player's).

[Gran]

Who says that psychosis, anger, and evilness can't be inherent?

I'm not saying I disagree with your assertion that horribly stereotypical "bad people" are annoying... the most interesting thing about evil people is their self-justification. But you don't need a "good reason" to be malevolent, even from the moment you spawn.

Well, evilness can't be inherited, although anger and some mental disturbs can be. Also, by "Good Reason", I meant a reason that actually matters, what differs the shallow villain from the real baddie. I mean, would someone turn evil because of "Darn, someone ate the last piece of apple pie!!! NOOOOOO!!!".

You know what is generally bad rp? Controlling animals!!! Like 'Go boarmon! *boar attacks person x*'. That's simply ackward, although there was a recent event of simulating a manade of wild animals running through the city (many animals were actually migrating into it) so people would run and climb up high places to hide. It was fun since most of the townsfolk engaged, but would it be way too exagerated?

[Voltenion]

It was getting too exagerated, and that's why I ended it like a pro

Annoying Rp for me is the change of personality some charries happen to have on the most sad times for my characters. Like, they guy your charrie most trusts, you've counted on him for some years now. You give him an important key.... You see him entering the important building, you see him leaving town on the rickshaw you borrowed him.... --" Like, it's really cool when they change with time: but no one changes radically to the extreme oposite of what he once was! Really, if you want to change him, wait for the right time and do it well RPied...

There are other things... Which I don't remember now.

[SekoETC]

That sounds familiar... of course if you give someone keys they're gonna desert the town even though they had spent decades serving it loyally. Some people just can't handle responsibilities. If you're gonna go adventuring, at least give the keys to someone before you go.

[Money]

I don't like plain psychos. Multiple Personalities are lotsa fun but get kinda hard to RP. Please don't reveal my charrie if you know who it is.

[*Wiro]

The only "bad" roleplaying I've seen so far was just the roleplaying in general.
It's too kind and nice. There have to be more evil people.
People that enjoy stabbing you. People that put you in a building and give you food if you work on their projects. Heck, they will even kick you around.

So that's why I've been making some evil characters lately. Just for the heck of killing others and hurting them.

[SekoETC]

Not suicidal newspawns I hope? Since that's just retarded. Why would a newspawn have a reason to make others suffer? My evil or insane characters all feel like they have been mistreated in their past. Being evil just for the sake of causing up commotion is bad rp.

[*Wiro]

No, that's not really evil. Just plain stupid and annoying.
And I disagree with what you said.

Imagine a character that just loves attention, no matter what kind.
He or she would possibly stab random people and steal stuff just to get some attention and to cause some commotion around.

Or a character that's sick in his/her head and is doing "evil" things because of that.

A newspawn has, most of the times, a personality at the start.
A nice, caring personality would be possible, or perhaps a blood-thirsty one.

And if a newspawn isn't supposed to attack people and be evil, then a newspawn isn't supposed to help others and be nice either.


Edit!
I just got an example of bad roleplaying.

With one of my characters (lets call her Eliza), I had a house.
The leader of the town gave me some iron and the right tools to make a lock.
I start working on the lock and everything, and when it's almost done, someone comes in (lets call him Jacob).
He fires at me with his bow, I block the attack with my shield and he doesn't say a thing. At all!
It was rather obvious that he wanted to die. The town leader is really strong, and I am as well.

I wouldn't mind to have my stuff stolen, and my whole town pillaged (OOC, that is. IC I would, of course!). But if the pirates pillaging my town dont say a SINGLE word and don't show a SINGLE action, then I'll get ticked off for sure!
I love roleplaying, and agree with anyone saying that it's not always about having success and having good things happen to your characters.
But if it's like this then I don't enjoy it one bit.

Sometimes the newspawns that do the obvious theft-attempts are the best RPed ones.
Announce that they're stealing everything and drop a note saying so, too.
Then leaving after insulting them a little.

Much better than the silent thief that suddenly leaves and one week later you noticed there's no more iron.

[Voltenion]

That's stupid Wiro. It's true, yah. People make a character before they are even born, and that's why so many disapointments happen. Really, does it make sense to you that there is a sad or rude newspwan when he hasn't seen anything but smiles and people helping him? It doesn't, at least to me it doesnt. I've had a completly mad character and blood thirsty... He was born in the middle of a war.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be evil charries in cantr. I'm just saying that you should try making them well Rpied. It's really sad to see a character you worked alot on be killed for no aparent reason. Really, you might be having fun by killing and killing but you are just making others leave the game. Why do characters tend to become evil pirates when a second ago they were waving to the town leader and thanking him for helping him out with his new boat? What happened so fast that made them totally change their personality? Why do characters steal everything on the ground once they are born? They shouldn't even know what is valuable or if they were going to see those resources again or not.

Now there are some charries who might be more confortable with going the "fast way" to achieve their goals (goals that aren't killing just for an axe, but more like revenge for something... Or maybe make something out of a location[s] ) . And that's good, It makes the game fun. If it was their type of personality from the begining.

And there's still chance to make a psico charrie or two... Like: Why did my girlfriend had to die? WHY? *looks around* Why did mine died and not yours? HAAAA!!!

It just doesn't make sense to make evil characters without a reason, guess that's what Seko was saying. And I totally agree...

[*Wiro]

Random personality-changes, ugh. So annoying indeed.
I've had some of my characters slightly change their personality.
One of my characters started as a rebel. She wanted to take over the city and kill people. The people taught her that killing isn't the best way to go and that the leader of that place was doing a great job.

The only reason I would see to have your character do something completely different, that goes against their personality, would be that the way they showed themself wasn't really them.
Basically a spy. First he acts nice, and once he has the keys he will pillage the village.

Other than something like that it would be pretty stupid.

And let me say that I agree with both of you when you guys say that a character shouldn't be sad and mean when spawning between all kinds of nice people.

But then again, what if he or she spawns in the middle of a war between two blood-thirsty clans? Then can he/she still be nice? I'd say no.
Either join the "fun", be a coward and run or panic.

I guess that in this discussion there are all kinds of definitions of "Bad roleplaying" that's different for everyone.
Some might think that killing you just for your items is stupid and bad roleplayed, others might see it as a smart thing to do of that young man. (This is entirely OOC, considering the character died).

Allthough I still completely disagree with the psycho characters needing a reason. My character is sick in her head. No reason for that at all.
It just happens to be that she was spawned (or born, if you prefer saying it like that ) like that.

[Tiamo]

Characters spawn at the age of 20. That means they have a whole youth behind them, they should know how things are done locally. They probably have developed some kind of personality.

I don't think it is strange that a character starts his or her life in Cantr with a clear personality. The problem of course is that the other characters at the spawning location are supposed to know what kind of character the newspawn is.
Maybe the player writing a note containing the newspawn's special characteristics would do the trick?

[SekoETC]

You can't really say that a character has lived the first 20 years in the town they spawned in when no one knows them and they don't know the people. Good players can adapt to a role that's suitable for the environment based on clues they see during the first moments of their life, so I think it's better to leave a character a bit vague until the player gets more familiar with the environment. You can plan things in advance but not like you had to reveal everything at once.

Oh, I remember one guy in Omeo saying he would like to have a shower. Do Cantrians know what a shower is? It never rains, there are no waterfalls, people don't tend to get washed, unless stuff like that is assumed to be natural and just not mentioned because the game needs to be simplified to avoid mundane activities such as having to pee and poop and drink and wash yourself. Actually I think Cantrians do those things just because they're human, but when I hear the word shower, I think of a metal nozzle connected to water pipes and Cantr simply doesn't have that level of technology, especially in a place like Omeo. (Well, at least Omeo back then was very primitive.)