Hecter mentioned power rp.. Reminded me on a thing I wrote about it a while ago.. At least some thoughts on it.. perhaps it could be of some help to ppl new to rp or something. Its probably riddled with typos tho.. *cough*
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Allright.
In a game like World of Warcraft which is about epic battles and great heroes and the like, and being your average human behind most of the characters, Power RP is a widespread phenomenon.
Imo the two biggest kinds of Power RP is the one that dictates the reactions and feelings of a another player, the other is "power reactions" to other players RP.
On a small level first:
The first kind of Power RP should be more or less self-explanatory, but let me clearify anyway.
Quint: "Opathu, you look like a girl"
Opathu: *Rips Quints bony arm out of its socket*
Now as a likely outcome it may be from calling Opathu a girl, this is power rp as he takes direct control over what happens with Quints body. People get very touchy about their IC chars after a while and everything that affects them in some considerable way should not be emoted out there without the recipients agreement. Preferably let the effect of the cause be emoted by the recipient of the initial emote.
Quint: "Opathu, you look like a girl"
Opathu: *takes a hold of Quins arm and pulls forcibly*
Quint" *Quints bony arm is ripped out of its socket* "oi!"
Cause and effect thing going on here, the other player emotes the Cause, but it should be up to yourself to give the Effect. Now, giving a proper Effect to a Cause (love using silly terminology and capital letters) is hard, especially when the Effect is expected to be negative.
Which brings me to the other kind of Power RP, the denying of others RP.
Now, the balance between the giving and taking of RP interaction is a delicate one and easily overstepped one way or the other, but this just demands experience and prefereably to know the one you RP with.
RP between two persons that involves more then just empty chit chat, but also active emoting between eachother should be like pitching "ideas" to eachother, one pitches an idea/emote, the other either accepts or denies the idea, either is fine, but the more acceptance the more interesting RP.
This puts some responsibility on the pitcher as the idea he throws must be catchable. Do not throw something at a player that is impossible/very hard to accept, a.k.a Power RP. BUT, the recieving end of an emote must be able to sometimes be able to swallow his pride and accept a an emote with negative outcome to yourself by giving the proper accepting emote back. To yield in a situation might not allways be that easy, but it damn well improves the rp.
There is nothing more enjoyable RP-wise than a rp session where the flow between giving and taking, pitching and accepting flows fluently between the "actors".
I tend to play along to Power RP if it has mild exterior effects, like the other day. "elf backhands Quint making him fall into the water" This is clearly Power RP as the pitcher gives both cause and effect. But I had Quint fall in the water cause in that situation it was better for the situation as a whole to just accept it rather than to deny it as Power RP. There is no need to freak out every single time something like that happens.
But, when it comes to feelings, mental reactions and stuff that invades the sanctity of the characters personality, people tend to get really touchy.
such as,
*you feel tremendous awe and fear as you lie your eyes upon Twiglet*
This is a very often thing used in flagrsp/mrp description and its blatant Power RP. You are invading the privacy and freedom of another characters personality. How can you know how what said character has experienced in his/her lifetime? How can you possibly know how that person is put together to know how he/she will react to you? You cant.. Poeples feelings and reactions to things are their own and no one else has the right to say otherwise.
Yes yes.. mind control.. fear spells.. blah blah.. when rp'ing with these things its still up to the recipient to give the effect, though then the responsibility lays on him/her to give the proper effect to the cause, if not otherwise is agreed upon OOCly.
On a greater level:
Power RP is most easily indentified in the direct emoting/interaction between characters.
But there is also what you might call power rp in the general behavior of people. Now, it is *not* for me to say how one should play his character, *but* I will come with some suggestions that should benefit a rp community as a whole, such like within a guild.
If you scale a characters social superiority of inferiority in interaction with others by the numbers 1-4 where where 4 is the most superior (am I perhaps using wrong words for this? hm.. self esteem? strength? whatever.. hopefully you get what I mean) you will find that most people will want to be 4's.
If you take a gang of six 4's and split them up into two groups of threes (yesss!) And put them facing eachother with some distance between them, and tell them that they have an invisible rope between them and tell them they are going to have a tug-of-war(or whatever its called) until one group wins. Who will win? No-one, because its not their physical strength that decides who wins, but the ability to one of the group to yield and act out the loss. This will not happen if everyone wants to be 4's and the tug-of-war will be a boring and completely unintersting status quo.
My point is, that if we throw in some 3's, 2's and 1's in there the situation suddenly becomes vastly more interesting as the interaction becomes much more dynamic and things happen, resulting in someone yielding and an actual outcome is to be had. Try organizing an rp duel and prior to the fight discuss who should win.. *cough*
Anyways.. all this blah blah is related the general behaviour of folks in the guild.
Tell me, when your character writes an application to join the reknown Theatre of Cruelty, he delivers it, gets an interview and finally gets accepted into the guild, is the first thing you say to a higher level officer in the guild "god you smell bad, Bony McRottenFace"? And then not accept the IC anger rp back?
In this guild its not overly much rank pulling, but this is a good example of general power behaviour, yes ofcourse there are punks out there who genuinly have problems with authorites and they all want to be 4's (god forbid you could actually have fun being anything less) But when *everyone* tries to be 4's and never yield to anything howver obvious it should be in the situation, well then the RP just gets boring, stale and unintersting.
One of the new recruits keeps calling me Sir, now I enjoy that very much, not because I get a hard on from someone calling me sir, but because these days its seems to be a fresh breeze rp-wise.
Allright, I know know not everyone out there tries to be power emoting 4's that never bows his head to anyone, no matter what, many out there are excellent and respectful rp'ers and this is *not* to get everyone calling the officers for Sirs and bow to them, not at all, its just an example to point out that the rp can become more interesting and dynamic when ppl accepts being perhaps sometimes less than a 4.
(trust me.. most of the time its way more interesting and more fun to be had when being less than a 4. like in a situation where someone is trying to capture you, why not let yourself be captured and hauled away? not miracously escape and thus actually end the RP situation right there..)
Not saying that no-one can be 4's.. we need the 4 !#%%%*@s just as much as we need the cute 1's
And.. im starting to rant.. I think.. I got most of my points across..
rate your characters personality.. is he a 1, 2, 3 or 4? And rp with that in mind.. its a great thumb rule to have actually..
Quint is mostly a 3, can often drop down to 2, but with anger go up to 4 heh..
anyways.. Im' just sayin.. Power RP is boring RP..
PS: RP is about having fun and if you dont want to listen to what I've said to have fun, then *%#! what I'm saying.. Just suggestions to how better RP within guild..
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