Consistency in roleplay?

[Boris]

So apparently I should just read this as, half the shards characters are bat shit insane, ok.

Or simply accept / understand, that everyone don't have 100% skill in roleplaying. Some are at 85%, some 65%, some 40%... and Charha's at 105%.

- Boris

[Meghana Arroway]

On many RP shards, the starting level is set way too high for players who are not very good at speaking english. They're expected to perform miracles RP-wise from the moment they first log on. They're often not treated equally, and their chances of having fun are non-existant, so its very nice to see a shard such as this, welcoming everyone whether they are good or not.

Thumbs up.

[Kat Asherstone]

So apparently I should just read this as, half the shards characters are bat shit insane, ok.

Or simply accept / understand, that everyone don't have 100% skill in roleplaying. Some are at 85%, some 65%, some 40%... and Charha's at 105%.

- Boris

Used to be a RP school to resolve this issue

[Glarundis]

So apparently I should just read this as, half the shards characters are bat shit insane, ok.

Or simply accept / understand, that everyone don't have 100% skill in roleplaying. Some are at 85%, some 65%, some 40%... and Charha's at 105%.

- Boris

charha took as heighten skills storywriting,drawing and rp

as for the op, i don't think the problem is that some ppl can't talk/write that well or don't roleplay fully. there are very few players imo that roleplay all the time or almost all the time and try to be hardcore about it.

but atleast there should be some common sense about things, that's why there was the religion hopping piety penalty back then, to prevent one of many "temptations" of doing whatever you want with your char. that and the fact piety isn't rp based like before when we could go all the way up to 80 piety (which is argueable that it is OP etc etc, shouldn't exist, etc etc) makes a lot of ppl not care about rp as they used to. add the fact that it's pretty much "yo bro, pvp's the thing" and here we are. can't ppl remember when ppl used to roleplay before fighting at the graveyard and stuff?

[Kat Asherstone]

So apparently I should just read this as, half the shards characters are bat shit insane, ok.

Or simply accept / understand, that everyone don't have 100% skill in roleplaying. Some are at 85%, some 65%, some 40%... and Charha's at 105%.

- Boris

charha took as heighten skills storywriting,drawing and rp

as for the op, i don't think the problem is that some ppl can't talk/write that well or don't roleplay fully. there are very few players imo that roleplay all the time or almost all the time and try to be hardcore about it.

but atleast there should be some common sense about things, that's why there was the religion hopping piety penalty back then, to prevent one of many "temptations" of doing whatever you want with your char. that and the fact piety isn't rp based like before when we could go all the way up to 80 piety (which is argueable that it is OP etc etc, shouldn't exist, etc etc) makes a lot of ppl not care about rp as they used to. add the fact that it's pretty much "yo bro, pvp's the thing" and here we are. can't ppl remember when ppl used to roleplay before fighting at the graveyard and stuff?

There should be some incentives for characters that maintain character or something, it's true there are very few characters that are hardcore about it, but this is an rp server.

[Mike]

No but people in real life don't change like that, it's not RP for any character any "system" D&D up to real life itself for a person to suddenly change states, unless that is a state itself

So apparently I should just read this as, half the shards characters are bat shit insane, ok.

Fun trumps consistency, that's my experience from 10 years of RP. If you play yourself into a corner and things are no longer fun, change it up.

My personal preference is a medium level of roleplay to what I do. That usually ends up meaning writing stories to go into my characters' motives and backgrounds. I've only had a handful of enjoyable experiences roleplaying in game over several years though. RP in game is mostly just a pain in the ass that sometimes has to be done in order to get to the good stuff. That is not to say everyone is untalented or uninteresting to RP with, but rather that there is stuff to do that matters, whether that is hunting, crafting, PvP or some other form of productive activity and RP gets in the way and makes that take a longer time to do.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

There should be some incentives for characters that maintain character or something, it's true there are very few characters that are hardcore about it, but this is an rp server.

Well this goes back to the age old problem of who is put in charge of RP? The RP Police?
It's impossible to script something that monitors and records every conversation, well to record wouldn't be impossible as I recall, just impractical because then someone would have to spend countless hours reading through tons of cfg files and I doubt anyone would want to do that and besides finding someone to do it, there is a matter of saving that data. Since everything seems to be done here by committee from an administrative stand point (admins and gm's vote on things on their forums) then the RP Police would have to make a case, submit it and get it voted on whether it is deemed worthy or not of some mystical reward from the gods which can't be really explained in game anyways thus ruining RP, kind of like Honesty Items for bug rewards, but no one complains about those, you know, kind of brought down from the heavens with no RP story to back those items.

Than there is the whole matter of what criteria should be met?
Should they focus on in-game RP and board RP or one or the other? Some people never post stories for their characters on the in-game forums while others spend copious amounts of time it seems writing up story after story and posting them.

Finally, probably not the last of the issues but certainly the last one I will bring up, English as a second language.
For those of us who have either grown up with English as their first language or have a good grasp of it while it is their secondary language, RP is fine and dandy, other then perhaps proper etiquette when approaching players with whom you have not been properly introduced or the popular "Bank Box" or "I Buy" or "I Sell" which has been done by even the most ardent of "RP Upholders". That isn't to say I support NPC RP, it's a necessary evil that we put up with here on Pangaea because we don't have right click capabilities to bring up the buy/sell windows but, to keep the atmosphere somewhat real we RP with our NPC Vendor counterparts. I've had at times painful in-game rp encounters with people who if I am honest, do not have even a basic grasp of English, it's hard to understand and even follow as words are either missing or in the wrong order. This is alright, as someone who doesn't speak a second language I think it is commendable that someone is taking to learning a second language even if it is for a 17 year old game but in the end, what I meant to get to in probably shorter time with this final issue is, it's again hard to police RP if the person that is being policed doesn't have a good enough grasp on the English language to at times make sense when typing things out.

[Meghana Arroway]

It's impossible to script something that monitors and records every conversation, well to record wouldn't be impossible as I recall

Who needs scripting? Certain standards always exist on RP shards.

Than there is the whole matter of what criteria should be met?

Hmm? It's good as long as people put a (very) small effort into their characters. That's what makes RP a quality thing!

Finally, probably not the last of the issues but certainly the last one I will bring up, English as a second language.

As Boris earlier pointed out, even those with little to non-existant english skills can make great progress. When I started roleplaying, my proficiency in english was, well, not too good. I made progress and today I enjoy very good RP.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

well my scripting comment comes into effect when you notice that gms are not online 24/7, there are people who cant when staff are online due to timezone issues.

I didn't fully expect anyone to answer my hypothetical questions, they were kind of meant to point out some serious issues for a system that rewards rp, those being difficulty in monitoring, RP explanation of how your character got the "World's Best Rp'er Tee-Shirt" and quality control, while I understand fully what good rp and bad rp is, it's based on my preferences but they might differ from someone elses. All I am saying is it would be hard to police this issue with any kind of strict criteria and quite honestly I wouldn't like that anyways because the nice thing about Pangaea is, while there is a back story to the shard, rp can be fluid, it isn't set in stone.

As for the incentive for better quality RP should always be in being able to play this game on this shard, if that isn't good enough for you and you feel you need more incentives to RP, it's time to pack it in and move on to another game/shard.

[Kat Asherstone]

You guys seem to be missing the point
This is not a language/semantical issue, this is literally a logic issue.

If you say your character is a banana, you can't turn around and say you're a grape
You can't say my character is a troll.... tomorrow a vampire and the next day a werewolf

You can, but you're no longer Roleplaying, which is why that type of misplay should be noted

This is literally like you watch the entire star wars franchise and then when they bring in the new movies it's like "zomg darth vader ISN'T lukes dad?!" naw we just figured we'd have this other guy be the dad cause it felt better


as for backing yourself into a roleplay corner... that sucks, done that many times and NOT ONCE have I skimped out of the roleplay for some halfassed "what I want for fun" thing, that's trash roleplay. i even had a character that HAD to become a murderer because of the way in which current guild alignments were during the time, did I want to hell no... but the character is more about honor and for them to say fuggit would be ENTIRELY BAD ROLEPLAY... so I didn't do it because IT WOULD BE BAD ROLEPLAY

people don't change their Modus Operandi without cause, and honorable character will not suddenly stab someone in the back because "it's fun" for that moment