Consider placing your character into difficult circumstances more often

[Umay-argent-dawn]

@Cormier-argent-dawn

Play a baker. Play an adventurer. Play a general, a beserker, or a necromancer, play anything you want, but for the love of God - please provide tension to the characters around you. The stage we all share is supposed to be an entertaining one and if your character is permanently content, well-off, healthy, or has no drama going on, then your character might as well be considered irrelevant.

I don’t think you understand what tension is - and if you do understand what tension is, then I don’t think you know what roleplay is. Rather than re-write it, I’m just going to link a definition from the last time you started the “tension” discussion - which people are of course free to dispute.

Continuing the discussion from Why criminal role-play doesn't last, or have a place on AD:

@Umay-argent-dawn

In literary criticism, plot is considered distinct from story. Plot refers to the ordering of events of the story, as they are shown to the reader or audience. Plot is structure . It is exposition - elaboration - inciting incident - complication - climax - falling action - resolution - denouement. Tension as you describe it depends on that structure. It depends on the investment and expectations of the reader or audience. It is more than just risk or jeopardy, it is more than just the stress and anxiety involved in worrying for a character’s fate, it is the anticipation of a problem or conflict and the knowledge that, one way or another, it will be resolved in a way which has lasting changes for the character, for good or for ill.

Random RP has no plot, or structure, or narrator of any kind. To me, the joy of random RP, or casual RP, or improv RP, or social RP, or whatever you want to call it, is that it is entirely character-driven, not plot-driven, and - unique amongst all mediums of fiction - it allows for a kind of story-telling which mimics the ebbs and flows of everyday life. It allows for perhaps the fullest, most true-to-life realisation of a complex human psychology in fiction, allows for the full range and breadth of human thought and feeling to be expressed, allows for the development of truly three-dimensional characters. Of course, there’s the possibility for storylines, or character arcs, to develop organically as a result of a character’s experiences and relationships - but, like in real life, there’s none of the neatness of plot, none of the tidiness of narrative.

So, to begin with, let me just say that I agree that realistic characters should be imperfect, and that they should have flaws and weaknesses and problems just like any person in real life.

I would also say that while random walk-up RP has no plot or structure, it can have tension, of a different kind than described above. Tension comes from conflict and struggle, and in narratives, its most basic form can be characterised as a problem that needs to be overcome.

In the first place, social RP can have conflict. Characters can disagree, they can annoy, bore, anger, upset, and hurt one another. The dramatic stakes here, and the tension, would be the damage done to a relationship, or to a character’s psyche, in the form of mental/emotional anguish, and any lasting changes it wreaks.

In the second place, characters can have problems that need solutions. These can be external, material problems, like poverty, sickness, bereavement, or persecution. Alternatively, they can be internal, such as anxiety, depression, insecurity, anger, ennui - the list is endless.

The issue for me is that you seem to view RP as a plot-driven medium, and secondly, you seem to view RP characters as plot devices - as NPC quest-givers whose job it is to provide you with a neat, tidy, pre-packaged problem to solve.

In addition, there’s absolutely no possible way to tell if characters are “permanently” well-off, content, or healthy, or even if a character that appears that way is actually content and well-off. Most real people don’t divulge their problems and secrets to total strangers during their first encounter. It’s a little ridiculous to judge the content of an entire server’s cast of characters based on initial impressions alone.

@Cormier-argent-dawn

If you, as a role-player, are not providing a character to the community that encourages constructive interaction, even if it is only small like a baker telling a tough-looking fellow that she’s having problems with her father-in-law’s ill-health, then you aren’t role-playing. You’re just socializing online. Your character is the equivalent of a SecondLife avatar.

But real people socialise. Real people are at times happy, content, and untroubled. There’s nothing wrong with characters socialising as long as they are in fact characters, with their own personalities and flaws and habits and quirks, speaking, acting and behaving in their own unique ways. Is your character incapable of socialising? Have they no thoughts, feelings, or opinions of their own? A morality, or philosophy, alien to you as a player? Isn’t -that- worth RP’ing? If they have all these things, then what exactly is your issue?

@Cormier-argent-dawn

I don’t really have a problem with a small few playing this game like its a chat window, but when I log on at peak hours and can’t find a single character who has an issue to engage with, then there’s something seriously wrong, and maybe someone needs to be given the authority to start dealing out issues to stop role-play getting sedentary and stale.

I think the core of the problem is that you feel entitled to engage in a meaningful way with character’s issues. You want your RP to have some sort of lasting effect on a character, whether or not it makes sense, or it is earned. I’m extrapolating a little here, but I’ll elaborate below.

@Cormier-argent-dawn

As a disclaimer : I don’t have a problem producing role-play for myself . I can do that. That isn’t the issue. I can write plots and construct interesting situations. But what is the point of most role-players playing powerful, or capable characters when almost no one is making an effort to be the victim, the clueless apprentice, or the flawed character who needs help.

I think you definitely have a problem creating roleplay for yourself. Your issue is that not enough people are playing victims for you to help. Your issue is that not enough people are providing you with tension.

Why do you need tension to be given to you on a plate? Why on earth isn’t your own character providing you with tension? Do they not have problems or issues of their own that need solving? Do they not have hopes, dreams, fears, desires, and ambitions? Do they not have goals or motivations? Is the only thing your character does wander around Stormwind looking for people to fix or help? What real person acts or behaves in this way?

Tension is something that your character should carry with them. It should be an absence, a lack, they want to fill - a desire for love, friendship, happiness, power, knowledge, wealth - a desire to live meaningfully, to make a difference. It should keep you invested in, and interested by, their actions and reactions. Perhaps your characters inability to find victims to rescue plunges him into doubt and depression - unable to make the difference he wants to, he feels empty, without purpose, and turns to drink. Perhaps it is itself a symptom of narcissism, megalomania - a messiah complex.

The “tension” of random RP is entirely on you, and your character, to generate and sustain - not for other characters to create for you. In addition, if that tension is based on a character flaw or personality defect, its a tension that will likely never go resolved - and nor should it. People aren’t capable of total re-invention. Wounds heal, but scars remain. This is why flaws are important in social RP - a character’s temper, or anxiety, or low self-esteem, however mitigated, however managed, will likely be a gnawing tendency which continues to affect both their mood and their interactions with characters around them - leading to more conflict, more problems, more growth and development, more fun.