The Art of Roleplay

[Torch]

I tend to skip over things like *examines the box, intrigued by its evenly proportioned six sides, marveling at it's precise 24 right angles, and running a finger along each of its 12 edges*

Ironically, this, in my opinion, is an example of some of the worst roleplaying.

Why? Simple. There's no way I can tell what you're thinking or specifically looking at beyond a certain object or possibly part of it, such as Asia on a map of our world. Many of these type of narratives include emotions and thoughts that wouldn't be known to the observer. Of course then the RPer would have to go to the trouble of only describing facial expressions and body language, and others would have to actually figure out or guess what the other is thinking or feeling. That'd be way too unrealistic, since in real life we always know what everyone is thinking.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, many of the people who do that are also considered good, when in reality (mine at least) they're quasi-cheating by telling things to the others that their characters wouldn't know.

[Nick]

Agreed, again.
If you haven't been greeted yet... welcome to the forums, Torch.

[chadpants]

For me, what sums up good RP'ing: Consistency.

[Mafia Salad]

This is my first RP game, and I hope that I'm doing a decent enough job RPing my characters. I really didn't know what I was doing for the first week or so, but through reading in this forum and playing the game I started to understand what I was doing wrong (and right). From what I've seen so far there seems to be a few aspects to good RPing, and they need to be balanced.


- Entertaining personality for the player; if you're not having fun with your characters then your doing something wrong.
If you don't have enough of this you hate playing your characters then you're going to stop playing them.
If you go overboard on this you can make everyone around your character hate them and kill them, or you could just wind up with a melodramatic character who becomes predictable after a short time.
From an IC point of view, an unbalance of this results in the character eventually going crazy for no apparent reason.

- Consistency; Your character should have a fairly consistent personality. People in RL have a tendency to do things the same way over and over again.
You should have a character, not a random series of events with the same name connected to them.
Being to consistent can make just as bad of RP, your characters should not react the same to all different types of situations.
IC its hard to deal with both types of characters when a crisis occurs. Ones being a hero they never were, and the other is acting like nothing has changed.

- Goals; Your character should be striving for something.
A character that is too goal oriented and has no reason to be striving for that goal isn't believable.
At the same time a character who doesn't want to do anything but get attention doesn't seem like a real person either.
Goals are good, but a personality behind them makes them better, and vise versa.

- Adaptation to surrounding; If the character is having a tough time, it should show. If they are successful in everything they do, it should show. If their world has just been turned upside down, it should show.
When a character has an impossible goal for their setting, they should change their goal when they realize it’s impossible. On the personality side of this, when everything goes right for your character, they shouldn’t be depressed… until something goes wrong.
If you character reacts in the best possible way to anything that happens they don’t seem to be normal either, decisions should be made based on the characters past experiences, even if the player knows that will mess up the goals or situation the character is in.

- Complexity; How deep is your character?
If your character is too deep, has too many secrets and alternative motives, then some of the things they do will seem inconsistent or just weird.
If they are too shallow they will get boring.
These problems can come from an unbalance in any of the other categories.


This is just how I’ve categorized the way I see things. I think putting too much emphasis on any of these is a bad thing, and I play each of my characters with a different balance of these ideas (I didn’t realize this until I started writing this post). I also think its weird to see young people who are very complex or old people who are very simple, how much of their life they live is an important factor for a character IMO, so as of now most of my characters are pretty 2D but developing goals and ideas and personality traits as they experience life, on top of the basic attributes they started out with. Anyone with criticism of my view on RP please tell me, I don’t want to continue to play poorly if I am.

[Lumin]

No criticism from me! That's one of the clearest explanations of good RP I've read here. You should put it in the wiki - somewhere where newbies can find it.

[Torch]

If you haven't been greeted yet... welcome to the forums, Torch.

Thanks, Nick! It's great to be here. I'm sure my friends and family will soon hate both Cantr and the forum, as I think I've found a new addiction. Hopefully I can tear myself away for work, I hear they don't pay us if we don't show up...

[AoM]

I agree with you about the *too much info between the asterixes* point. Welcome to the forums.

[MakeBeliever]

I also came here without ever playing an RPG game ever.

However i actually like*too much info between the asterix's*.
To me it's like the player has bothered to describe and sometime set a scene with their Character. A slip of their imagination and it makes that Character more colorful to mine.
I don't think i would enjoy the game so much without it now.
A very good example is the fight between Ian SpireTower and Brother Saladin on the Cantr Webzine.
Dont tell me that scene didn't have a lot in between asterix's.
So don't be a flat geek and keep *smiling brightly* and *sighing heaviily with your head in your hands*
or*falling to your knees clutching your sides in fits of giggles whilst dropping all your carrots on the floor*
All talk alone would just make it a flat world for me i'm afraid.
But hey, each to their own preference and everyone is an individual.

[Torch]

So don't be a flat geek and keep *smiling brightly* and *sighing heaviily with your head in your hands*
or*falling to your knees clutching your sides in fits of giggles whilst dropping all your carrots on the floor*

Nope, actually I think I didn't explain it very well. Those are, to me, acceptable and actually good RP emotes. It shows what you're doing, beyond what the mechanics of the game allow. (Of course to be true to the RP, for the third one you should actually drop your carrots.)

My point was that many people use things like that but expand beyond what your character would actually see: *similing brightly because I'm so happy blah blah blah happened* or *sighing heavily with my head between my hands because I read a note that made me sad* or something like that. All three of your examples only tell me what my character would see and know, allowing the realistic misinterpretation of the reasons for the actions assuming a) more than one thing is occuring that might cause them or b) my character fails to make the connection.

Keep the *actions* - kill the *thoughts/emotions* in my opinion. (For the record I use *actions* extensively with one of my characters, as she's mute.)

[Lauren]

But, does that include something like...

*she jumps up, startled*

Or... *his heart beats wildly as he frantically stumbles for the key...*

The second one is a bit TMI, but it helps set the mood, no?

[Torch]

I think the second one is definitely too much info (but then I'm a hard-liner on this stuff) since all my character would see would be the other character checking his pockets or moving things and looking under them or whatever. I could (and likely would) infer he's looking for something, and if there were keys mentioned in the dialogue or we were approaching a locked door I might make the deduction of what he's looking for. In my opinion, a better version would be:

Character says: "Now where are my keys?"
followed by:
Character says: "*fumbles around, quickly checking in all his pockets*"

My character wouldn't know his heart is racing, nor what he's looking for without added info. I can likely figure them out, especially if it's a pressing matter that he find them. I'd assume the physical reaction and the object he's looking for.

I think the first is nearly right, although I'd remove "startled" myself. Either something just happened that would make it obvious, or it would lead into interesting RP of "What's wrong?" "A spider startled me, that's all" etc.

Showing only true actions allows the other characters the chance to misinterpret, which actually can be more realistic. Also, I feel that I'm almost disrespecting the other players if I force-feed them more information than they need. Most actions, in context of what's going on, are relatively easy to figure out, or as in real life would spark someone to ask what's going on. The ones that are misinterpreted will cause even more interesting RP. Also, and I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes, but I feel if I give too much I'm insulting the other players, not giving them credit to be able to figure things out for themselves.

Just my 2 cents. With that and a buck thirty-something you can get a soda from Hardees.

[Lauren]

Gah! Fast-food... *vomits*

But anyway, I see where you're coming from. I'm a victim of doing both... too much information, with too little information. *shrugs* Anyway...I don't think I said hello yet, but... HELLO!!!

[KiNG KiLL]

I can see your point, Torch... but the game would be a lot less fun if people just spoke to eachother without describing emotions. No matter how RP is played in real life.

I admit to be a criminal if giving away information that are invisible to others is a crime. And I will continue to break the law...

[Torch]

Hi! Wonderful to meet you. Seems like one heck of a cool bunch of people I've stumbled across here. Hate to disagree on first encounter, but hey, I'm that grouchy old guy in the corner you wish would just keep his opinions to himself. Mom said pick something and be good at it, and it didn't matter what. She's regretting that now.

I think the real point is to have fun with it. I don't really rate people as I play, and I really hope they don't rate me too often. As long as people don't go way over the top, I go with the flow. Since the topic came up though I figured I'd force my views on everyone.

EDIT: Hi KiNG, nice to meet you! I see your side of it too, and I'm not adamant in-game about it. I usually just overlook it, chalk it up to my eccentricities, and go on... (See above paragraph.)

Keep on breakin' the law, somebody's got to or the cops will go out of business!

[Lumin]

Agree with everything you've said, Torch. My characters are not psychic, and if they seem to be constantly having episodes of mind-reading around certain people, they'll go out of their way to avoid them. I've even had to move out of a town once because someone there was driving me just nuts, and 'they're a crappy RPer' wouldn't have been a good enough IC reason for acting hostile around them. I put those kind of characters in the same category as the people who constantly make OOC comments, who would be right below the folks who never use capital letters or punctuation on the annoy-o-meter.

And I think that a lot of times all these *stares sadly down the road, heartbroken and wondering when his love will return* are nothing but laziness on the part of the player. Do they have no concept of facial expressions, body language, dialogue? Why not use a tiny shred of imagination and do something like:

*stares down the road with a forlorn expression, resting his head and his hands and heaving a sigh* "I wonder how long Sue will be gone?"

And any writing teacher will say that the most important thing to remember is show, don't tell. (Especially when you're dealing with a game like Cantr, played from a second person POV. It's not and never has been omniscient.)