Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE Character Development => Topic started by: Seriphyn on 13 Dec 2010, 10:17
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A quote from someone in the OOC channel...
I think most RPers in Eve are far too concerned with making their character the central protagonist of the main story arc, over which they have no control, instead of focusing on character interaction and personal side arcs, which they can control.
This has become very obvious with the rise of the Sansha arc...anti-Nation folks are attempting to "win" RP, whereas I feel the pro-Nation know that they can't "win", so they just do what they can do, have fun etc.
Is it a bad thing? When people try to become the "heroes of the story" (ie. an EVE protagonist) they try to "win" RP, and thus, this is automatically a break in the IC/OOC divide. OOC, they are trying to win at a game (RP), and will carry this out primarily through an 'in-character' fashion. Other times it gives someone a genuine motivation to play the game, so long as they don't tread on other people's toes in the process.
Not just with the Sansha arc though. I notice a lot of characters, and this isn't really a bad thing at all (it's just a per se), are dedicated to the success and prosperity of their faction. But how many of us, in the real world, seek to pursue that their RL nation prospers over others, and doesn't succumb to communism/terrorist/whatever? I'm training to be a submarine warfare officer in the Royal Navy, but my reasons for doing so is hardly to assert the United Kingdom's dominance over those "dirty [insert foreign nation] slavers". It's hardly to protect freedom and liberty either, as a Gallente loyalist would do.
Again, is this a bad thing? I see a lot of characters that want to serve the State and beat the Gallente, I see many Minmatar wanting to eliminate and eradicate slavery. Both these elements are being "heroes of the story". Now, take that to a real life context; the scale of these causes are the same as trying to bring about world peace. Idealistic otherwise, but that's just the realist/cynic in me. Perhaps it is a dramatic element of being a capsuleer; that is, being naive.
If you take a look at the plot motifs that explore capsuleers as being children, then this makes perfect sense...take the Gallente loyalists. There will be a single news item that will have the Federation painted in a bad light. At the drop of the hat, that Gallente will say "omfg fed so bad" and will go become a pirate.
Take this to a RL context. How many of you that disagree with President Obama, the Tea Party, or Guantanamo Bay have decided to pack up your bags and go join the Somalian pirates in the Indian Ocean? You are mature and adult enough to see "the bigger picture"...however, in EVE, this is not the case. A Gallente loyalist will throw a hissy fit, and go become something WORSE than the Federation with, say, the Guristas (eyes of the beholder yes, but on a very general and BASIC level, it's a democratic happynice state versus a band of pirates). It doesn't really make much sense at all, how one would abandon the country that they've lived in for years and years and years, have a good degree of cultural indoctrination, and then just leave at the drop of the hat.
All this makes sense, however, if you see capsuleer as children. "Waa waa my faction did a naughty booboo I'm going to play with someone else" in effect.
Now...how is this relevant to the topic? Less so, but what are you? Are you aiming to be a hero of THE story of EVE, whatever that plotline may be? Or are you just RPing a hero of your own story?
I am the latter. Seriphyn is purely a fictional construction within the EVE universe. He is employed by the Federation because he's always been employed by them. Moreover, his primary concern is his daughter; it's his day job (there is also the unconscious notion of otherwise being a complete nobody if he didn't try to be someone). The IGS grandstanding has a variety of reasons behind it, some will have explored this IC, but most will not. Why? Because capsuleers are children of course! They do not demonstrate the maturity and clarity of adults; they will see Seriphyn on the IGS and be like "Omg what a Gallente knob" instead of wondering "I wonder why he is a Federal loyalist?"...those who want to be a hero of their own story would need to develop some sort of multi-layeredness to their character, after all.
It's sort of like me, IRL. I think the British are a nation of folks that get drunk for no real reason, endlessly complain about things without doing anything about it, and otherwise attention-deficit magpies that don't seek to understand a issue properly beyond what they read on the tabloids. That won't stop be from becoming a Navy officer, of course.
...wow, this was long...but in terms of the EVE RP community, this is something I hold a lot of interest in...
tl;dr
- People trying to "win" the game of RP
- Capsuleers being children, hopping between factions with ADHD, showing no maturity/empathy in interacting with other characters
- RPing a character that influences your own story, or RPing a character that seeks to influence the main EVE story.
- Characters with naive understandings of their factions vs. clarity/cynicism
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One can certainly support the ideals of their character's chosen faction without trying to "win RP". I'll fall back on my go-to example of Electus Matari: there's little question that, as an alliance, they support the Republic. But when something happens in the news that would give their characters pause, they don't simply go join the Cartel. Nor do the players labor under the assumption that their characters will completely end slavery themselves through their IG actions.
Similarly, IRL, I know individuals who chose to join the military for idealistic / nationalistic reasons (e.g. after 11 September) and others because for pragmatic reasons (nearly guaranteed job, education benefits, etc.) Even the former group doesn't generally think that they themselves will, say, end the Islamic extremist threat.
In other words, people can choose to "do their part" for any number of reasons without assuming that they as individuals will lead their faction to ultimate permanent victory.
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I'll try to keep this short and polite, but you're bitching about the "loud minority" and need to take a step back to get some perspective.
I'll talk about my own RP as an example: Inara doesn't want to be in the limelight, a quiet life of immortality working to provide for 'her and hers' is what she wants. The reason she left the State doesn't have anything to do with the State being smeared in the news, she just sees the her affiliations as better. It would be like someone from the UK deciding they want to move to the US (or vise versa) because they see better opportunities for them and those they care about there.
Unfortunately, (at risk of sounding clichè) with great power (being a Capsuleer) comes great resposibility (in her case billions if ISK in assets and thousands of slaves). So, life is rarely going to be "simple". Right now she's in the process of trying to get back some stolen "property" that won't be easy due to it being in an Amarr loyalists control. This doesn't mean she's the main protagonist, it just means she's doing what she needs to do to achieve her goals.
This is what most people are trying to accomplish, achieve their goals (whatever they might be).
I think one of the 'problems', if you can call it that, is that EVE RP is quite a bit different than most table top RP styles. On DnD, your characters are the protagonists,while in EVE the characters are the protagonists, the antagonistss, the innkeeper, the monsters, and everything inbetween; BUT, only the protagonists/antagonists are highly visible/vocal on IGS and/or in very public RP channels.
Sit back and ask think about the RP that you've (hopefully) taken part in that wasn't trying to "win" as you put it, but grew your character and was fun interaction (fun for you the player, maybe not fun for the character). I'm hopeing that those incidents are more common than the public chest beating that is common on IGS.
One of my favorite 'RP arcs' was one of the shortest, when Inara had to convince someone to do something nearly 100% against their nature for her benefit (I can't go into details here). There were a couple turnouts, and while one was preferrable... even if she wouldn't have managed to convince them, it would still be one of my favorite 'RP arcs' simply because it was fun to do. And, IC there's only a handful of people that know what happened; this is very common, but because it's not necessary (or even counter-productive) to put these things on IGS, it's not seen or heard by the masses
Okay, so I'm getting a bit long-winded, so I'm going to leave it there before I write a mini-novel.
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Everyone wants to be the hero.
I am guilty of this myself. Or I was a while ago, anyway. Nowadays I try to focus my actual RP on the shadowy back-end of things, but there was definitely a time when I enjoyed seeing IGS articles about my shenanigans.
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The original quote was from my rant last night, and I think Seriphyn very eloquently expressed my own frustrations. Perhaps I was being a bit hyperbolic by saying that most of the community has hero syndrome, but a lot of us certainly do. I know I'm guilty of it from time to time.
In my tabletop games, I've always tried to guide players to playing up their characters' respective weaknesses rather than their strengths. Usually, this leads to a lot of fun. For example, a D&D character might be super strong and be able to mush pretty much anyone's face in a fist-fight, but what about that intelligence score of six? Instead of playing that character as a one-dimensional super strong badass, a lot more fun can often be had by playing up the fact that he's nearly mentally retarded. Still, I've found that most players would initially rather overlook those low ability scores and focus on the more heroic side of their character exclusively. More often than not, a little nudge in the right direction can help a tabletop roleplayer overcome his hero syndrome and have a lot more fun with a character in the long run.
Obviously, Eve is different than a tabletop environment. There are a lot more players and thus a lot less flexibility in the world and story. We have to adapt to our circumstances, as opposed to being able to ask the GM to adapt to our own characters and ideas. If anything, I think this makes the consequences of hero syndrome within the community exponentially worse.
When looking for meaningful roleplay in Eve, it can be very frustrating to encounter other characters who are single-mindedly hellbent on accomplishing goals that I know (at least on an OOC level) are impossible and (more on an IC level) ridiculous.
From the other perspective, developing a character with the aim of having the biggest epeen within your own personal fiction can lead to very shallow, one-dimensional thinking about character development. Sure, your character might have an army of ground troops ready to wage an interplanetary assault on the Amarr Empire, but how does she feel about Jin Mei cuisine? What is her response to another character talking about Intaki philosophy? Hero syndrome tends to lead a player to ignore these simple questions and thereby be left at a loss for words in more mundane RP, which realistically must constitute the majority of our interactions. After all, we can't change world and affect the prime fiction on a daily basis. CCP just can't keep up with thousands of us doing that, and neither can any of us.
I guess what I'm really getting at here is that I think we all (myself included) should take a look at our characters, question whether or not we have been guilty of hero syndrome and perhaps adjust our focus away from world-shaking heroism to mundane but meaningful character interaction.
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I guess what I'm really getting at here is that I think we all (myself included) should take a look at our characters, question whether or not we have been guilty of hero syndrome and perhaps adjust our focus away from world-shaking heroism to mundane but meaningful character interaction.
There are people who try this.
I have a recollection though that some of the people who do have been given a hard time for RP that is pointless because it "doesn't happen in space". I seem to recall quite rude words exchanged over that idea.
Do you see your suggestion as being in opposition to that approach, or a separate concern?
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I personally don't enjoy going to the extremes of mundanity. In SWG, some players started "Project Uncle Owen", in which they wanted to focus on RPing moisture farmers and other regular folks. I never enjoyed that sort of thing because I wanted adventure and excitement.
So you need a balance: I mean, we do play 'demigods,' not station mechanics and whatnot. Whereas discussions of Jin-Mei cuisine and whatnot might interest some players (YMMV), I'd personally shy away from it. I can do that IRL: take my spousal unit out to a new restaurant, or invite a few friends over to discuss the interplay between libertarianism and the Sermon on the Mount.
But IRL, I can't go breaking into a rogue nation's data centers (at least not without significant personal risk :o ) or gambling billions of ISK on market manipulation. I also can't try to make contact with independent AIs or hunt cheating Russians.
So I choose to play up those aspects without trying to "win RP". We can go for adventuring and even some level of heroism without trying to turn EVE into our personal story.
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There are people who try this.
I have a recollection though that some of the people who do have been given a hard time for RP that is pointless because it "doesn't happen in space". I seem to recall quite rude words exchanged over that idea.
Do you see your suggestion as being in opposition to that approach, or a separate concern?
I don't personally see a problem with free form RP outside of space and mechanics. However, I think it is perfectly possible to have more mundane interaction and roleplay within the mechanics of the game. I'll try to give a few basic examples of this below.
Characters aligned with a particular corporation or faction could get together and run missions in character. It might not be the best ISK per hour for your character, but it does open up some opportunities for interesting roleplay and character development.
Characters with a mutual interest in a particular area or exploration in general might fly around a system, probe out some sites and take it from there.
I haven't done the whole lowsec PvP thing myself, so I don't know if this is already common, but in character PvP fleets would be a lot of fun. I did some organized, in character PvP in Age of Conan that was incredibly fun.
You could apply these same principles to mining, hanging out in a station, pretty much any in game activity explored in character with others. These things can be done within game mechanics, with meaningful RP and without attempting to permanently alter the entire universe in order to flex your epeen. The tradeoff is that by doing these things in character, you probably won't be maximizing your profit and efficiency in terms of game mechanics. As I see it, that's a pretty standard tradeoff for roleplaying in any structured game.
Casiella, you make a good point about balance. When I say we need to move focus toward more mundane character interaction, I don't personally want to do so to the exclusion of those awesome, epic events that make roleplaying so awesome and epic in the first place. Balance is the perfect word for what we need.
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Now Tiberius would just respond to the IC mails he gets from alliance mates... >.> :P
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Now Tiberius would just respond to the IC mails he gets from alliance mates... >.> :P
Oh snap! I actually had a response in mind, then I had four teeth out, got really narc'd and my cat broke his leg. In the midst of everything, I kind of forgot I actually had to type it out and send it. I should be getting back to you when I get home this evening.
:bash:
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I don't think Seri is implying that all capsuleers behave this way, and some of the responses thus far have suggested that their authors took his point a little too personally, but I tend to agree with him. We actually had a good chat about the "capsuleer as a child" the other night, and I think it is a very appropriate description of what our EVE characters can represent in a literary sense. Give me a minute to elaborate.
A capsuleer is a person who for whatever reason has essentially been granted an indefinite lease on life. They are immortal. Moreover, they are trained and equipped such that in a rather short span of time they go from being flesh-and-blood people with no particularly hyperbolic traits to what are effectively conscious starships bristling with weapons (or full of impossibly valuable loads of cargo). Putting aside the cloning aspect, the transition from baseliner to capsuleer is, imo, a rebirth. The new pod pilot has undergone a great ordeal in their training and survived their first interface with the pod and the danger of mindlock that presents. Their very perception of the world morphs such that their basic senses are fed not by bodily organs but by camera drones and feedback systems. They zoom around New Eden suddenly unrestricted by race, age, or national laws and boundaries, and one of their first choices after this liberation is to select a new name by which they are identified (some, of course, choose to make no change at all).
Thus the capsuleer is a person entirely recast upon assumption of their career as a pilot: they are an infant god and the cluster is their plaything with all the possibilities once closed to them as a 'normal' now open all at once for their exploration.
I think all this new found power and perspective permits our characters to make radical reassessments of the world and their place in it. Dramatic divergence from their previous philosophies and loyalties is not necessarily an inconceivable move, though it may take some time for that change of heart to manifest. This is at least how I prefer to rationalize the fact that you can't start an Intaki capsuleer character in the State, or roll an Angel loyalist trained in Utopia. We all pop out of an academy in one of the four big empires and then start to make our own way in the cluster. (Granted some folks prefer to write that off as a consequence of the game's limitations, and that's perfectly fine.) Seriphyn is right in that it is a bit absurd for someone who was born and raised in the Federation to suddenly decide they are a die-hard Gurista or Blooder or Sansha without elaborating on some rather convincing motivating factors, but the rise from man to demigod provides the moral wiggle room to justify almost any change of heart.
Now, this needn't have anything to do with how one chooses to RP, which seems to be the driving element in this thread atm. On that topic, trying to "win" at RP is just altogether silly, but we've been over that before...
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When you get down to it, RP is a game. EVE, obviously, is a game thereby facilitating a game. However, not all games have the typical "win and lose" goals we associate with the word. Case in point, can anyone "win" at EVE? (glib comments aside).
As for those seeking prosperity for their nation, well, I don't blame them. It's nice to play the hero, save the world, kill the bad guys and get the ladies. Its not my taste, but, there you go. The problem is, since we were kids we've been shown countless examples that lead us to believe the hero HAS to win. Even in the 1990s when film directors suddenly developed a passion for killing the hero at the end, he usually accomplished something beforehand.
Is this the wrong way to go about it? In my opinion, most obviously. It ruins everything, for everyone, everywhere. Personally, I play Senn as a survivalist, as I'm sure lots of other non-legal faction RPers do. The fact is, if people played the "hero" without trying to stomp on everyone else's shoes and bitching over IGS every hour to MAKE themselves the hero, that'd be fine in my book.
Of course, the other obvious problem is that in a world as dark as EVE, a dyed-in-the-wool hero sticks out like a sore thumb. :/
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I have a feeling I'm (one of the ones) being referred to here, especially after the long Summit Caldari versus Gallente discussion that occurred recently. I think that some people may have the perception that I'm playing Vikarion as "the Hero", and that I see him as one. I could be wrong about my being considered for this category, but I'll explain nonetheless...
I've become relatively less inclined to see a difference between IC and OOC over time, especially as people have taken OOC communications or concepts of mine and used them IC. So I tend to, as far as in-game ideologies and factions go, say nothing that will undermine my character's position significantly. Thus, you'll never know if I really do think the Caldari State's system really is a great idea - I will not give anyone ideas about how to attack my character, or my faction.
Why is this? It's not because I see Vikarion as "the Hero". Nor is it that I actually take Eve's plot all that seriously. It's because I like winning, and I dislike losing.
I play a State loyalist, a character who believes in the virtues and values of his culture and civilization. As such, he opposes those things he believes are dangers to his civilization. And, as his player, I also must oppose those things in the game, otherwise I am merely claiming labels that do not, in actuality, apply to me. Of what use is a State loyalist who accepts that the Federation has the right of things, if he is trying to help his faction win?
It is not the responsibility of my character, and, by extension, myself, to be fair to the other side, or to accept them as anything but villains. It is the responsibility of my character, and thus, myself, to do everything he can to ensure the success of his faction. This is war on the political, propaganda, and economic fronts as well as the military. It isn't my responsibility as a Caldari loyalist to make things fun for Gallente loyalists - my responsibility is to wipe them out. I gain nothing from admitting that the Federation has good points, and everything from painting them as evil to the core. It is to the advantage of my faction and my character to appear and act - and even be - the good guys, even if I'm not. This is war, and I fight for my side. My RP is primarily a catalyst for conflict, and while my character and faction may actually exist in tones of gray, that's not what he'll seek to portray.
My goal - unattainable, but still my goal - is the destruction of the enemies of the State, whether that be the Federation and Federation loyalist characters, Sansha and Sansha loyalists, or anyone else. Whatever it takes in-game to get closer to those goals I will do. So of course my character paints himself and the State as heroes. And I make no apology for that. If your like to RP your character as less than a hero, and the character being open about it, more power to you, and I respect your RP. But as for me, I intend to win.
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I guess I agree with this, at least personally. I see a lot of the loyalist RPers have their characters all heroically trying to *end slavery* or *stop the Sansha Menace* etc, while going nuts over what they're doing, they seem sometimes to lose sight of who they are. I try not to make my characters the big hero, and don't give them lofty grandiose goals. Instead, I like to focus on the growth and changes in the character themself. At least, that's what I do with Raxip, I'd be more likely to be more plot-y with my other toon, if I RPed him more.
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For the record, I totally love it when any character tries to portray mine (or any group to which she belongs) as the bad guys. Much more fun that way.
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For the record, I totally love it when any character tries to portray mine (or any group to which she belongs) as the bad guys. Much more fun that way.
That! :D
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I have a feeling I'm (one of the ones) being referred to here,
Oh, good. It wasn't just me who had that feeling.
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For the record, I totally love it when any character tries to portray mine (or any group to which she belongs) as the bad guys. Much more fun that way.
OOC, I'm in total agreement. It makes for great RP.
IC, Inara doesn't see herself as the "bad guy" and is easily offended by such insinuations. It's also fun when she's doing business and people don't trust her because they think she's going to try and cheat them or blow them up... when she just wants to do business.
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My character is simply an old man. An old man who spent most of his life fighting for a faith he doesn't believe, for people he despises, and for an Empire he sees as a house of cards about to collapse.
He actually prays every night that Jamyl gets beheaded, and that either the Minmatar Elders or Sansha would just swoop in and end everything. He's a bitter, disillusioned, and cynical man going through the motions, and praying that his next leap will be the leap home.
That last bit may have been from Quantum Leap though. He is old and crazy. ;)
Nikilaiki? Well, she's just plain crazy (http://nikiruu.blogspot.com/2010/12/protocol-dark-public-log-002-cycles.html). Does she want to win? Hell no. She just wants the whole world to burn, and watch the pretty fires as everything dies, including her.
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Nikiruu isn't crazy. She's just someone I never got to RP enough with.
Which is probably the single most disappointing regret I have about EVE.
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Nikiruu isn't crazy. She's just someone I never got to RP enough with.
Which is probably the single most disappointing regret I have about EVE.
Trust me; as the person who unleashed the madness into the world, she's crazy. I've been RP'ing her as crazy for as long as I've played her. Just because she happens to be (kinda) right in some of her theories, does not negate the madness lurking beneath that oh-so-lovable exterior. ;) Also, I never get to RP with you either! Of course, seeing as I'm not actively playing that's my fault. :bash:
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Please take in mind that I am referring to the issue and not the characters. Even if you may find the OP targets you, I am more addressing this as a product of player/character interaction in the EVE RP community as opposed to the actual players & characters.
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Even if you may find the OP targets you, I am more addressing this as a product of player/character interaction in the EVE RP community as opposed to the actual players & characters.
Thank you for clearing that up. Not that I felt particularly tarred by the brush of "people in the Fed RP bloc tend to shed their allegiance to the Federation if they have one bad hair day"; after all, it did take quite a few bad hair days for my characters to get where they are.
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I think some people are confusing what I've called hero syndrome* for their character wanting to win or accomplish personal goals. It's not about the character wanting to win, it's about the player wanting to win through the means of the character.
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When you get down to it, RP is a game.
To me this is categorically untrue. RP is collaborative storymaking that combines improv with more episodic forms of writing. Since RP factors so heavily into my enjoyment of EVE, I suppose I don't see it as a game at all. It's genuinely a virtual world in which, much like the real one, winning and losing is largely transient and subjective. There is conflict in RP and there are winners and losers in that conflict, but unlike Vikarion, for instance, I don't perceive losing in a RP storyline to be a loss at all. Whatever develops and advances the story and enriches the characters is a plus imo.
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I'm completely new to EVE, and so I don't really understand how the storyline arcs work, but the general rule of thumb, in other MMO's, is that anything that is game-story driven, is generally dismissable in RP. Sure, you can RP the arc with some friends, but you'll always run into the dilemma that someone else might have been there already and done that, weeks before you did. Does that dismiss your RP because of it?
I feel personally, its in bad taste to RP anything that involves a story-arc that isn't player driven content, AND use it as a character developing device. But that of course, is just my two cents.
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And reading through further, I realize I might have missed the purpose of this topic a little... But my statement still holds a little true.
I think what makes EVE a great game, is the ability to really carve your own place into the Universe. I don't have to be apart of the main conflict, or make any huge contribution to the main story arc for my character to be worthy of rememberance... no, what makes RP as special and as wonderful as it is, is that we have the room and opportunity to create our own place in the universe. Make our own stories. That doesn't mean that interlocking parts of our stories with the main arc in some fashion or another is a bad thing necessarily... but when this occurs, it should never be in some large amount that anything your character does, would have direct impact on the main story arc. (that's more or less the 'heroism' you speak of.) Rather, a better thing to do, is use the main story arc as a means to fuel the ambition and goals of your character. What purpose does he have in this? Why would he be there?... and most importantly, what significance is there in his contributions? Its a huge balancing act, that you find in any universe, be it EVE, or Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars... but, I guess to put it simply:
The events of the main story should be allowed to mold your character, the actions of your character should not mold the main story. Not in a way that your taking the pen out of CCP's hands and putting it in your own... especially when there are already so many other people fighting tooth and nail for that same pen.
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The events of the main story should be allowed to mold your character, the actions of your character should not mold the main story.
This is beautifully put.
EVE is a bit better than most games in this respect, as there are very little "story arcs" that can be done multiple times with a different character as the Saviour Of The World. Some storyline / faction missions etc are in that category, but e.g. for CCP-lead events, if you were there, you saw the others who were there too.
But still, I find the attitude where you do not attempt to be the guy who changes the story, but the guy changed by it, is what appeals to me.
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When you get down to it, RP is a game.
To me this is categorically untrue. RP is collaborative storymaking that combines improv with more episodic forms of writing. Since RP factors so heavily into my enjoyment of EVE, I suppose I don't see it as a game at all. It's genuinely a virtual world in which, much like the real one, winning and losing is largely transient and subjective. There is conflict in RP and there are winners and losers in that conflict, but unlike Vikarion, for instance, I don't perceive losing in a RP storyline to be a loss at all. Whatever develops and advances the story and enriches the characters is a plus imo.
But again, when I say "game," I don't mean to imply the same structure as something like, I dunno, chess for example. Outside of a basic structure (ie. godmoding being frowned upon, recklessly breaking canon, not RPing Gimli, son of Gloin in EVE) there aren't many "rules" to RP. That being said, there ARE characters, settings, storylines, etc., all the things that make up a plot that is told over time.
The difference is, RP has players. People that control one pawn out of the whole story, develop their character, and play through as they wish. This is similar to the structure of a tabletop RPG. We're not throwing dice to determine how the storylines play out, but we are playing one character, out of a cast, in a fairly stable universe (in terms of continuity). And just like in a tabletop, we don't necessarily have to accomplish a goal, or hell, even survive, for the story to be exciting and fun for everyone involved.
However, a tabletop RPG is still a Role Playing Game. And as long as there are games in the world, there will be players that min/max and optimize their rogue, put in weirdass Illithid prestige class levels so they can eat people's brains, and always ask the DM to let him roll to quote, "kick the orc in the nuts."
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You can define "a game" to both include and exclude (all, or some) RP. Without an exact definition, there's no point in arguing whether RP is a game or not.
I like Greg Costikyan's definition from I Have No Words & I Must Design (http://www.costik.com/nowords.html):
A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal.
I highly recommend that essay on the nature of games, and on the topic of
There's a lotta different kinds of games out there. A helluva lot. Cart-based, computer, CD-ROM, network, arcade, PBM, PBEM, mass-market adult, wargames, card games, tabletop RPGs, LARPs, freeforms. And, hell, don't forget paintball, virtual reality, sports, and the horses. It's all gaming.
But do these things have anything at all in common?
By Costikyan's definition, a collective storytelling thingy where players make decisions as characters (their "tokens") to try and achieve the goals of said characters, managing the resources (abstract and concrete) those characters have, is "a game". That there is no winning condition is not an issue to him as such.
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By Costikyan's definition, a collective storytelling thingy where players make decisions as characters (their "tokens") to try and achieve the goals of said characters, managing the resources (abstract and concrete) those characters have, is "a game". That there is no winning condition is not an issue to him as such.
A definition that broad could just as easily cover real life as well.
I'm inclined to define "game" more narrowly, particularly in a way that there be clear conditions for winning and losing. When those conditions are highly flexible or open to interpretation (to the point of even being completely subjective), I don't consider the activity a game any longer. It becomes an exercise or a fantasy. Thanks for helping me place my opinion in perspective. I will check out that essay.
[spoiler]/me rolls to kick Senn in the nuts!
:o[/spoiler]
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What about zero-sum games?
Hm, this may need a new thread.
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I prefer being the hero of someone else's story.
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By Costikyan's definition, a collective storytelling thingy where players make decisions as characters (their "tokens") to try and achieve the goals of said characters, managing the resources (abstract and concrete) those characters have, is "a game". That there is no winning condition is not an issue to him as such.
A definition that broad could just as easily cover real life as well.
I'm inclined to define "game" more narrowly, particularly in a way that there be clear conditions for winning and losing. When those conditions are highly flexible or open to interpretation (to the point of even being completely subjective), I don't consider the activity a game any longer. It becomes an exercise or a fantasy. Thanks for helping me place my opinion in perspective. I will check out that essay.
[spoiler]/me rolls to kick Senn in the nuts!
:o[/spoiler]
Well, the problem with this topic is (as with pretty much every topic ever debated on Backstage, so has it been, so shall it always be, for ever and ever amen) we can't just draw an arbitrary line between our two options. I mean, charades is fairly open to interpretation, although I suppose the basic rules aren't. But again, even in RP there is a "skeleton" of rules, however vague they might be. Still, that doesn't really defeat your submission of anything open to interpretation not being a game, nor does it refute the fact that people trying to "win" at RP ruin it for everyone.
So, I guess this might be considered a moot point. Whether or not you consider RP to be a game of any variety, stomping on everyone else's sandcastle so you can be the hero is the fast track to a collective kick in the teeth from the rest of the community you'll alienate in the process.
[spoiler] You have activated a spike trap. Roll your save against DC 34 or take 2d10+5 damage. [/spoiler]
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I prefer being the hero of someone else's story.
For Ze'ev
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq0llrCYtCQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq0llrCYtCQ)
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I don't actually think Costikyan's definition covers everything in life; for example the way he speaks of "tokens" excludes shared storytelling where players do not really control individual characters, and the way he speaks of managing imaginary resources excludes things like children's play in a dollhouse, where imaginary resources are not limited by "what makes sense" in a pre-conceived world.
Not that I am sure that matters much to this discussion, really.
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Meb will never be the hero. I don't think she really wants to be.
Meb will never win Eve. She's already lost the game.
But Meb made (and will make again) RP great fun. She's not even a major villain. She did some pretty bad things. She's plucked at peoples strings and still has goals in her life (however long that may be).
She gets her kicks in the game and that's all that counts to her. Thankfully, it's my privilege to join her on the ride :twisted:
I guess, what I'm trying to say is that, to me, winning the game comes way down the list to things such as playing the game, telling the story and making lots of spaceboats assplode ^_^
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She gets her kicks in the game and that's all that counts to her. Thankfully, it's my privilege to join her on the ride :twisted:
This...
Honestly, I just ride along with my character. Where he goes, what he does, that's him...I don't think though any of my characters want to change the world....wait....I did just create Ze....*clears throat*
Ahem, anyway. I love it when the story changes me, more than the other way around.