Consistency in roleplay?

[Elsabet]

I get it, it's a game you can change the reality of a situation in .1 second if you want to
lately all players are doing is backtracking their own roleplay, changing KEY character traits at the drop of a hat

Why is it on a roleplaying server things like this don't get mentioned, players aren't raked across the coals for making CLEARLY contradictory character views.

I mean maybe I take it a little more serious than others, I try and remember things characters do or say and how that might effect the future but then I see players that can't even remember if their character is Chaotic Evil or Lawful Evil
and act both ways when we ALL KNOW or SHOULD ALL KNOW that it's impossible for a character to be both chaotic and lawful at the same time... the least you could do is make some shit copout like your character has a deamon inside or something, not hard... but to not explain why a sudden change is made, that's bullshit.

welcome to pang bro

Meh I don't think we should look for faults in other role-players so much as we should be looking for ways to enjoy each other's company and enjoying rp. Overlook faults, build each other up...show what you want to see in how you act. Part of what is fun about role-played characters is that they can be somewhat unpredictable. Now I would agree with you Kat...if someone was role-playing a half-pixie, half-vampire, dragon/orc war orphan one day and the next day they decided to be a tree hugging elf. Or if someone named Mary-Sue who typically role-plays Queen of the Shard became a lowly beggar the next day for no good reason.

[Kat Asherstone]

I get it, it's a game you can change the reality of a situation in .1 second if you want to
lately all players are doing is backtracking their own roleplay, changing KEY character traits at the drop of a hat

Why is it on a roleplaying server things like this don't get mentioned, players aren't raked across the coals for making CLEARLY contradictory character views.

I mean maybe I take it a little more serious than others, I try and remember things characters do or say and how that might effect the future but then I see players that can't even remember if their character is Chaotic Evil or Lawful Evil
and act both ways when we ALL KNOW or SHOULD ALL KNOW that it's impossible for a character to be both chaotic and lawful at the same time... the least you could do is make some shit copout like your character has a deamon inside or something, not hard... but to not explain why a sudden change is made, that's bullshit.

welcome to pang bro

Meh I don't think we should look for faults in other role-players so much as we should be looking for ways to enjoy each other's company and enjoying rp. Overlook faults, build each other up...show what you want to see in how you act. Part of what is fun about role-played characters is that they can be somewhat unpredictable. Now I would agree with you Kat...if someone was role-playing a half-pixie, half-vampire, dragon/orc war orphan one day and the next day they decided to be a tree hugging elf. Or if someone named Mary-Sue who typically role-plays Queen of the Shard became a lowly beggar the next day for no good reason.

Someone that finally saw the entire point as simply as it is.

[Cyrus Tegyr]

Well if I understand that post correctly the suggestion is that from the start everyones been using an afk macro... I just got mine like 3 months ago because my roommate was sick of watching me stare at the screen macroing. So yeah I just realized the ENTIRE time I've been here has been under a false pretense about the people I shared a server with. C'est La Vie.
definitely makes sense the way in which the server looks at RP if this is the case.

Well congratulations? Or condolences? You can have either from me.

I don't know what you mean by the start, as I stated, from the time I returned to Pangaea (2 years ago or so), I have known of and knew of many people who used such macros. So if you've been playing for that long or shorter, than yes, from the start most people probably have been, I won't say everyone cause some might not have been or at least deny they were for fear of retroactive reprisals.

I get it, it's a game you can change the reality of a situation in .1 second if you want to
lately all players are doing is backtracking their own roleplay, changing KEY character traits at the drop of a hat

Why is it on a roleplaying server things like this don't get mentioned, players aren't raked across the coals for making CLEARLY contradictory character views.

I mean maybe I take it a little more serious than others, I try and remember things characters do or say and how that might effect the future but then I see players that can't even remember if their character is Chaotic Evil or Lawful Evil
and act both ways when we ALL KNOW or SHOULD ALL KNOW that it's impossible for a character to be both chaotic and lawful at the same time... the least you could do is make some shit copout like your character has a deamon inside or something, not hard... but to not explain why a sudden change is made, that's bullshit.

welcome to pang bro

And I perfectly understand consistency in RP, the need, the want, the desire for others to be consistent without changing their story line every other day, though if indeed it had stayed there perhaps this topic would of actually solved something, but instead it became a pissing contest to see who could stack the most posts on top of each other before someone else posted, whines and insults being slung around from BOTH sides and finally most importantly, after 12 pages of all this drivel I have to thank Leonesse cause after all that has been slung around in this thread, Leonesse was the one to bring it back on topic, after 12 pages of this shit Leonesse not Kat Asherstone, not I nor anyone else tried to bring this back to the original topic at hand.

Anyways I have said my peace on this thread already. Was a nice time killer while I did some inscription, though no one tried to RP with me in the Imperial temple.

Thanks again Leonesse, you reminded me what this thread was actually about, I tend to forget when I read 40+ posts from the same person(s) stacked in two's, three's and four's on top of each other what the point of something was.

[Vaux27]

Yep, this is a RP shard, and we should let people RP how they want. We also shouldn't have some standard made up in our mind, and collectively talk shit about a player base. I would suggest not to hold personal RP or anyone else for that matter on some sort of pedestal, people RP how they want.

How in the world this made 12 pages, I'll never know.

[Charha]

How in the world this made 12 pages, I'll never know.

For one thing, I jumped in around page 7 and started whining about alignments. I realize it was kinda off topic. You could say it was a reflex.

Anyhow, it seems to me that every now and then in pretty much any gaming community where RP is involved there comes a post in which the lack of RP or bad RP is addressed. Kat, was it your intention to only bring the matter of inconsistency to people's attention or did you suggest that the players and the GMs take action in game to make things better?

To carefully sum things up, I guess so far we've agreed that it's okay to slap afk macroers with .ooc gumps to "wake them up". And while we should encourage people to RP by showing them a good example, we shouldn't point our fingers at people who are a little clumsy or new when it comes to RP. We want people to enjoy themselves, so optimally the game mechanics and RP should go hand in hand without there being a pressure to excel in any specific field like PvP or RP.

[Kat Asherstone]

Well if I understand that post correctly the suggestion is that from the start everyones been using an afk macro... I just got mine like 3 months ago because my roommate was sick of watching me stare at the screen macroing. So yeah I just realized the ENTIRE time I've been here has been under a false pretense about the people I shared a server with. C'est La Vie.
definitely makes sense the way in which the server looks at RP if this is the case.

Well congratulations? Or condolences? You can have either from me.

I don't know what you mean by the start, as I stated, from the time I returned to Pangaea (2 years ago or so), I have known of and knew of many people who used such macros. So if you've been playing for that long or shorter, than yes, from the start most people probably have been, I won't say everyone cause some might not have been or at least deny they were for fear of retroactive reprisals.

I get it, it's a game you can change the reality of a situation in .1 second if you want to
lately all players are doing is backtracking their own roleplay, changing KEY character traits at the drop of a hat

Why is it on a roleplaying server things like this don't get mentioned, players aren't raked across the coals for making CLEARLY contradictory character views.

I mean maybe I take it a little more serious than others, I try and remember things characters do or say and how that might effect the future but then I see players that can't even remember if their character is Chaotic Evil or Lawful Evil
and act both ways when we ALL KNOW or SHOULD ALL KNOW that it's impossible for a character to be both chaotic and lawful at the same time... the least you could do is make some shit copout like your character has a deamon inside or something, not hard... but to not explain why a sudden change is made, that's bullshit.

welcome to pang bro

And I perfectly understand consistency in RP, the need, the want, the desire for others to be consistent without changing their story line every other day, though if indeed it had stayed there perhaps this topic would of actually solved something, but instead it became a pissing contest to see who could stack the most posts on top of each other before someone else posted, whines and insults being slung around from BOTH sides and finally most importantly, after 12 pages of all this drivel I have to thank Leonesse cause after all that has been slung around in this thread, Leonesse was the one to bring it back on topic, after 12 pages of this shit Leonesse not Kat Asherstone, not I nor anyone else tried to bring this back to the original topic at hand.

Anyways I have said my peace on this thread already. Was a nice time killer while I did some inscription, though no one tried to RP with me in the Imperial temple.

Thanks again Leonesse, you reminded me what this thread was actually about, I tend to forget when I read 40+ posts from the same person(s) stacked in two's, three's and four's on top of each other what the point of something was.

Leonesse was the ONLY one who actually read and understood the point, thank her all you want, I am too but it's just because she actually understood the topic at hand. If you missed that simple point well then you clearly missed why posts had to be made in 2's and 5's to answer idiotic responses from players looking to undermine the discussion. One was given a ban for going off topic, in fact at SEVERAL points I noted that people were off topic, If you don't like the way in which it was done I would suggest going Leonessas route and actually reading and comprehending before posting. That's all I have to say on this topic, server wants shit roleplay that's fine, I can bring my A game of the worst roleplay possible.

[Charha]

Discussions tend to branch out. It's okay to usher people back into the original point, but there's no need to tie one's panties in a knot.

That being said, I think I understand your point as well, Kat. Inconsistency in RP is kinda clumsy and annoying. However, I'm still a little bit confused about whether we were actually trying to think of some concrete ways to either enforce (yikes) or simply sway people into sticking to their original character templates and perhaps showing some better RP in general, or is this topic here only so that people could agree with you that inconsistency is bad RP and big changes to characters' mindsets ought to be backed up by good stories?

If the latter's the case, so... Hey, inconsistency sucks. Man, I hate it. Have a good day, y'all.

[Kat Asherstone]

Discussions tend to branch out. It's okay to usher people back into the original point, but there's no need to tie one's panties in a knot.

That being said, I think I understand your point as well, Kat. Inconsistency in RP is kinda clumsy and annoying. However, I'm still a little bit confused about whether we were actually trying to think of some concrete ways to either enforce (yikes) or simply sway people into sticking to their original character templates and perhaps showing some better RP in general, or is this topic here only so that people could agree with you that inconsistency is bad RP and big changes to characters' mindsets ought to be backed up by good stories?

If the latter's the case, so... Hey, inconsistency sucks. Man, I hate it. Have a good day, y'all.

As totalitarian as it sounds, we should be looking for ways to enforce consistent roleplay. whether it be that players are ogligated to have their characters information filled out IG or having some form of story on the boards, or both, we have ways in which the characters can be concrete enough that things like being a demonic serial killer to a friendly clown the next day CAN BE EXPLAINED, and SHOULD... and when it's not, that's TRASH roleplay and when you do that you're just disrespecting the fact that Pangaea is a roleplaying server.

[Charha]

As totalitarian as it sounds, we should be looking for ways to enforce consistent roleplay

This answered my question, thanks. I guess the next question would be HOW to enforce consistent RP. Any thoughts on that? Is there really any positive or subtle method for enforcing consistent RP? Perhaps changing religion or guild or class might require the player to write a RP post about it here in the forums? Just an idea, though. I don't even know how that could be implemented. The head priests might be in a key position there.

All in all, I personally feel that enforcing RP is a slippery slope. I fear things might eventually get ugly if GMs started actually interfering with the way people RP or build their characters. I feel less strongly about players, counselors, guildmasters and headpriests setting the guidelines, even though that kind of "you must be this good at RP to join our club" mentality doesn't necessarily sound too encouraging.

Edit: I mean, uh... Of course writing character bios and stuff like that is always a good thing, and it ought to be encouraged, but is there a good way to enforce it? It's nice that we're finally able to write stuff on the in game paper doll, but sadly only a few seem to bother with that stuff.

[Glarundis]

enforcing consistent roleplay seems a bit harsh, but on the other hand, it seems stupid for an rp server not to enforce it. i wouldn't jail chars/players based on inconsistent rp, but maybe stats/skills could be dropped?your char is clearly out of his mind and has a mental problem, so he'll lose some lore and knowledge skills and stuff