The Art of Roleplay

[Leo Luncid]

Yeah, I agree, though I may have done that too. I sure wish other players would talk to me out of character and criticize my roleplaying; it may be of great help.

[Nick]

OOC convo in general is discouraged.

[Lumin]

Yes but creating characters in environments that would never bring up a personality like that is plain ridiculous, and bad RP.

I agree.

I get very annoyed when you get someone who spawns in a tiny primitive community, and the first thing out of their mouth is how do they get an iron weapon, or else they formulate some huge complex plan for a business and the machinery that needs to be built within their first day of spawning.

I generally come up with a few basic starting traits for my characters (outgoing, thoughtful, shy, selfish, etc.) and let them develop from there based on their surroundings and how life treats them. Except for the single silly character I once indulged myself in, I prefer to avoid over-the-top RP, because I know it irritates me a little when I see other people overdo it.

Crazy newspawns might be fun at first, but they tend to remain little more than caricatures their entire lives, and IMHO a little subtlety and restraint often makes for more interesting, 3-dimensional characters in the long run.

[EchoMan]

Nick means that strained "attempts" to roleplay by newspawns and near-newspawns tend to just result in cookie-cutter characters, as repetetive and boring as they are arbitrary.

Isn't that true for "newspawns" pretty much anywhere? IRL youths (at least in the "modern" times) seems quite stereotyped for the most part.

[KiNG KiLL]

I've experienced a few times when newspawns ask about "wich buttons you use in order to..." Or "I'm new in this game, how do you play it? Can you give me som tip?"

Most of them doesn't mean to spoil anything, but it still makes me boil sometimes. Especially when you try to guide them in the right mood by asking what game they are refering to, and then they still continue to ask about the mechanics of the game...

That's probably the worst thing you can do to a society, come to think of it. Imagine to have a newspawn who spends his first hours in life just to talk about real life events? I take it he would be dead or dragged off to prison in no time, but I still think he could manage to do some severe damage...

Oh... not that I ever have wished to do some damage to a society in particular... nooo

[tiddy ogg]

What I've done in the past is say something like: Go to sleep, and you might dream of a magic book called the Cantr Wiki, which tells you all sorts of magical things...

[KiNG KiLL]

Good idea... that reference should be allowed, as long as it's covered in role playing. Just like you did by speaking of books in dreams...

[BlueNine]

Ah the good old "Whoa this game is really complex" said by a newspawn...usually before picking up all the notes/items, raiding the houses and making off towards the next town...

Oh and it didn't even cross my mind to RP the tournament...will do next time

[Lauren]

Hm...

If newspawns are busy asking "how do u do this????!!one11!!!!1!!!eleven?????" then, I pretty much ignore them. Why explain? It's their fault if they can't follow the helpful hints on the main page.

Maybe it's 'coz I have been roleplaying for a long time...I dunno. You guys have crushed my hopes and dreams of being a great RPer... >< I feel that I do everything wrong!

Anyhow, off of the self-pity... I think that newspawns pretty much are all the same for the first year or so of their lives...even if employment / weapons / clothing happen in a short period of time, they don't -know- what they're doing with their lives yet, right? So they're all going to be about the same for a while... except their personalities.

[Leo Luncid]

OOC convo in general is discouraged.

That's why it's generally done privately between two people.

[El_Skwidd]

When I see a noob, I usually whisper to them OOC why I hate them. Meaning, go read these pages and get a better understanding of the game.

Some of them do. Most of them don't.

[Nalaris]

Not all newspawns are alike. Nalaris and Zhan have defined themselves pretty well right off the bat, Nalaris as overtly good hearted (an element unseen in my area as of yet) and Zhan as...intresting. Without revealing in game events, he's got a religion that could steamroll all of Cantr, if I get lucky. Jeremy is, admittedly, still somewhat flat.

The dream about the Cantr Wiki is a good idea, and fits very well with Zhan's character. Thanks for that.

[AoM]

In Cantr, a character is forced to begin life as an adult and thus is expected to have a developed personality. If everyone had the same personality at the beginning, life would be incredibly dull. So I only semi-agree with what Nick has said.

I agree that society should shape one's personality, and I think in a lot of cantr cases, it does.

But I don't believe that people should let society completely dictate what they become. Because that's not the way real life society works, and RPing a character that is nothing more than a product of its environment is poor RPing in my opinion.

I suggest that when starting off with a new character, you have a set personality in mind, one that has its own inclinations and ideas about how to solve life's problems. Then let society slightly mold you from that starting point.

The end result is a well-rounded personality the whole way through... you don't have to wait until you're in your fifties to have a character with character.

[Nick]

Eh, I don't know about your analogy.
20 year olds are not considered adults, they're considered children in game.
At least in most places.

[Savanik]

Yes but creating characters in environments that would never bring up a personality like that is plain ridiculous, and bad RP.

I don't know, I've had some great RP (well, maybe not award-winning, but a lot of fun for all concerned) with characters that simply could not logically exist in the game they're playing in.

One of these was in a game called 'Shadowrun'. The guy's name was Don Coyote, a physical adept (person who uses magic to increase their fighting skills) who had gone somewhat insane, and rode around on his charger (Harley-Davidson) with shield and lance, smacking the heck out of evildoers (gangers).

He would actually fit more into Cantr than he did Shadowrun. I mean, in Shadowrun, anyone that crazy would've gotten arrested and tossed in the looney bin some time ago. He couldn't exist there. But he was a lot of fun to play. Especially with the delusions, seeing everything as something else.

I suppose my point was - just because the character couldn't logically exist given their 'background' doesn't mean they can't be good RP material.

Besides, talking about 'character background' in Cantr doesn't exactly make a whole lot of sense, given all the other things that happen in-game.

Sav