The people of Roleplay (by Grollyvarst)

Introduction

As you might have guessed by the subject alone, this topic is one about people. It will be a slight bit broader, but in essence, people are the main thing.

This may sound a bit droll, but I find it is very important that everybody has a chance to read and get acquainted with the basics of people-to-people behaviour that can make or break your roleplaying experience. In order to do this, I shall start to label some styles of roleplaying. This makes things easy to read, for one. And it provides the thread with a simplicity that allows for some good discussions to those that cannot resist.

Disclaimer: Some of the descriptions are given without any kind of nuance. Reality may prove more 'interesting'.

Roleplaying styles

Depending on the kind of roleplaying game you play, there are some things to keep in mind. I'll get to that later on. First, I'll give a rough outline of the stereotypes of roleplaying games.

Our most lovely game the World of Warcraft is most certainly not the only game that allows for roleplaying. There’re famous pen-and-paper roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons, Vampire, GURPS, or what have you. Or Live Action RolePlay (LARP) for those that like it intense. Or even online chats that are purely intended for roleplaying. I will give a short list of different types of roleplaying games.

• Freeform roleplaying is the kind of roleplaying that allows for everything. Nobody "controls" the game, and nothing is "set in stone".
• What you see is what you get kinds of roleplaying are the other extreme. LARPs are of this kind, where you wear the clothes your character wears, swing the sword yourself during a battle, and such. There is no talking like "I do this and that". There's only doing.
• Can I do this kinds of roleplaying are the most widespread. There's a game master that rules the universe, and the players control their characters. They'll ask the game master for feedback on anything they do.
• MMORPG games provide a new blend of roleplaying; A mix of the above. There is a game environment that you "see", but often without a person behind it that can answer questions. There are a lot of people that play the game, and that have a lot of control in what they want to do. And still there're often people that govern some storylines, so that there is a bit of shattered guidance here and there.

An example from the depth of the abyss

Narrating
While playing your favourite Night elf Druid male, you stroll through some ghost infested ruins. You ponder your life and all that's gone wrong as some flimsy clad night elf lady steps out of the shadows.
"Silver?"
Of course, you are baffled. Who is this lady? And is this what it seems to be, a robbery?
"Get away before I send my ghost minions to eat your soul!", you cry out. Now that was the worst bluff ever. Well, too late to come up with something better now. Maybe the robbergirl will buy it and flee?
"Wtf? Godmoding b..*beep*"

Why this example? To get a feel of the basis of any roleplaying game: misunderstandings. This example has an extra layer that needs to be revealed.

Narrating
While you sit behind your PC, drinking your last coke, you stare at the bum of your Night elf Druid male. Probably you wonder why you rolled a male in the first place. But what the hell, his background story is cool enough. As you grind, you have plenty of time to think of your Druid's past.
Behind some other PC on the other side of Europe, some zit-faced teenager sits behind his desk staring at the bum of his Night elf female rogue. She's hot! Then this Druid loser comes in sight, so why not, time to get under his skin with some terrible roleplay. The zit-faced teenager is bored and in for some fun.
"Silver?"
Who knows, the Druid will probably be a bad roleplayer and think he's being begged for silver. It's been ages since someone actually played along with being robbed!
"Get away before I send my ghost minions to eat your soul!"
Okay, the zit-faced teenager starts cursing right now. That's it! Enough of this b..*beep*. He's had it with all those crappy roleplayers. If he wants to play, he can just as well call his friends for some D&D!
"Wtf? Godmoding b..*beep*"

What we have here, is the common "misunderstanding". I bet everybody has a lot of experience with misunderstandings in real life. Truth is, roleplaying games make a good breeding grounds for these things too.

The people behind the roleplay

This is where things become hard. Where many people play a game, there will be many different ways of thinking about the game. In every roleplaying style, this is noticeable in different ways. Oddly enough, I've noticed MMORPG games managed to gather the bulk of it.

• In freeform games, many misunderstandings come from "I do this" followed by "You can't do that!". Without a game master to decide who's right, these discussions can easily turn bad.
• In the "What you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) games, it's often a different kind of problem. People get into their roles deep. It turns nasty when suddenly something happens that one of the players takes personally. These games make it harder for people to drop out of character to work things out.
• And finally, in the "Can I do this?" kinds of games, it happens quite a lot that a player really had something else in mind than the game master. "Oh, I thought it looked like this", or "Hey, I assumed the history would be like this".

In the World of Warcraft, I see all these kinds of problems. Working back through the list again. How common is it that people "Assume" things about the lore or just don't know about the lore? Quite common!. And with the rules in place with no OOC in the public channels, people would have to go to whispers to get things sorted out. Many people just don't do this, unfortunately, leaving potential problems to fester. Finally, the freedom people have in their characters leads to a lot of different ideas of what would be possible, or even of what would be desirable. There's been plenty of discussions and flames on character stories that other players find unacceptable.

Last but not least, there's one issue that returns in every roleplaying game. How do you know if the other player(s) are actually playing? Or how can you be sure they know you are only playing? People are easily offended, and even more so towards relative strangers.  

The solution

As promised, there will be a complete lack of nuance in this post. Hence, there will be a solution: Communication!

You can't be certain, ever. But never ever should you shy away from asking other players, out of character, if there's something wrong. Or if they would fancy something or rather not. The whisper command is a very useful little thing, and when used properly, will give you a much more enjoyable roleplaying experience.

To conclude, the previous example

narrating
While playing your favourite Night elf Druid male, you stroll through some ghost infested ruins. You ponder your life and all that's gone wrong as some flimsy clad night elf lady steps out of the shadows.
[Nelf Rogue] whispers you: ooc: Hello. Do you fancy some roleplay? I'd like to have my rogue try to rob your druid.
Oh, cool. A robbery, that could turn out to be interesting. Of course your druid is baffled! A robbery! Darned, how would he get out of that one?!
You whisper [Nelf Rogue]: (Sure, let's have some fun)
"Get away before I send my ghost minions to eat your soul!", you cry out. Now that was the worst bluff ever. Well, too late to come up with something better now. Maybe the robbergirl will buy it and flee?
[Nelf Rogue] whispers you: ooc: Hmm, isn't that a bit over the top, controlling ghosts?
you whisper [Nelf Rogue]: (Don't worry, just play along. I'm not going to go haywire on you)
[Nelf Rogue] whispers to you: ooc: Okay then
...

Etcetera. This could turn out to be a very nice roleplay with bluffs and counterbluffs.

Well, that should be more than enough reading material for the lot of you. I do hope that this will help at least some of you get out some of the barbs that come with most roleplaying experiences.

Have fun, People of Roleplay!