Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Seriphyn on 20 Apr 2010, 16:15
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Derp (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1305310)
1) Seriphyn is an asshole, and he's also an egomaniac. Of course, he can be nice if he wants to, and he can also replace his egoism with humility if he wants to get laid. Or focus it into confident charm.
2) We all don't like to RP Mary Sues, so we custom-tailor our characters to avoid this from happening. Apply negative traits and positive traits, or RP them in different situations to see how they would respond etc.
Therefore,
3) People seem to get offended at the prospect of Seriphyn being an egomaniacal asshole. I mean, I can guess the first people's respond at that thread from an OOC perspective is "omg what an egomaniac!" in a less exclamative way, but more of a derogotary way? I don't know. The other response would be just to laugh, because that's what it's for. Another response is to facepalm because it's fail...but why is it fail? It serves its purposes perfectly. It promotes Seriphyn as an egomaniac, and shows how propaganda can be executed in the Federation.
The question is, is that we all don't like to RP Mary Sues, but people seem to take offence at aggressive characters. Even I've been on the other end of that, but also the executing end, of RPing Seriphyn as abrasive and aggressive, but I also get OOC criticisms or at the very least IC butthurtness at the nature of the character. But why should we? I RP'd Seriphyn going into the Last Gate once and acting very aggressive towards two pirates, which was met with IC hostilities (obviously) but I also wondered "Wait, you should be a sociopathic murderer that kills innocents daily...why are you getting so offended by Seripyn's abrasive attitude?"
Point is, do we all have to roleplay polite, nice guys that should try and get along with everyone? Do people find RPing people who are NOT agreeable get them in all sorts of IC/OOC trouble? I don't RP Seriphyn to be liked. I RP him to be Seriphyn. But I come across people who seem to RP for the former...maybe? I'd like to see what you think of this.
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It seems like you may have a number of assumptions about how other people react there. I'm also afraid that your point or question isn't very clear, for me. Could you please clarify?
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Okay, tl;dr
Do you think you can notice a separation of people who RP to be liked, whether IC or OOC, and people who RP just for it's own sake?
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Okay, tl;dr
Do you think you can notice a separation of people who RP to be liked, whether IC or OOC, and people who RP just for it's own sake?
I think people RP for a range of reasons. Do you see such a separation?
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First, I'd say that I perceive a lot of characters as abrasive and over-the-top. In some cases, that may actually have more to do with the player's personality coming thru, but in many (most?) the player is a fine, friendly person who plays a jerk. That topic alone could occupy endless threads.
But you seem to think that many people RP for validation in some way. Is that a fair re-statement of your working hypothesis?
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But you seem to think that many people RP for validation in some way. Is that a fair re-statement of your working hypothesis?
Yesh. I was just terrible at trying to articulate it :s
I think people RP for a range of reasons. Do you see such a separation?
Yeah, I think I could categorize characters who are RP'd in those two ways, either to be liked IC (we'll exclude OOC in this instance) or just to RP their character as it would. I think...
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Seriphyn was enough of a sleezeball when I shared a corp with him, that if Ulf saw him on the other side of a pub, he wouldn't go up and say Hi.
I have no problems with Seriphyn as a character, the RP is fine, and I think he's done good things for Fed RP, but my character, and indeed a few others that I know, would generally avoid him where possible - mostly because he's an arsehole.
What that means is that obnoxious characters get less RP from people who care about that sort of thing.
I don't like RPers who play characters that are obnoxious enough that normal people who have a choice wouldn't associate with them, and who then complain that they can't get no RP.
Perhaps I'm being too much of a delicate flower, but I generally avoid hanging out places that Ulf has no choice about whether to associate with people who are rude and obnoxious.
What that unfortunately means is that there are a lot of RPers out there that I will probably never get to know IC, but hey, thems the breaks.
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Seri, do you think that because other folks seem to avoid interaction with your character?
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No, I think this because I seem to get OOC criticized for Seri's actions :s
Bit of an emotivist approach to things, hence why I was trying to make it seem a more universal, analytical topic :bear:
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In the general and abstract, RPing with an obnoxious character takes a lot more work, because apart from anything else, one has to come up with a reason for one's character to be talking to them. So, as Ulf said, people playing arseholes find their characters treated like arseholes . There's also the question of style of RP: some people enjoy having an argument IC and some seem to spend all their RP picking fights with people: others find that boring and avoid those characters. Neither is 'doingitwrong' but nor is either obligated to spend their leisure time doing something they dislike for someone else's diversion.
As far as people being unable to distinguish between an IC and OOC arsehole, it hasn't been my experience that's the case. I can think of several characters off the top of my head (no names no packdrill) whose players are liked in their RP circles while the characters themselves are disliked. I can also think of players whose characters were perfectly nice but who gave people the OOC irrits enough for them to find themselves shunned in RP.
The latter is much rarer. Likeability is hard to RP if you don't have it IRL.
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So many comments, but I just think I'll sum it up in one statement.
You make a character with the express purpose of him being unlikeable....
....and are in here wondering why he isn't liked?
Wait what? :s Tell me I'm reading that wrong. . .
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You make a character with the express purpose of him being unlikeable....
....and are in here wondering why he isn't liked?
Actually, I think Seri was saying that he made a character that was difficult to like, and people were giving him a hard time OOC for it.
Of course, it could be because some people find him irritating OOC as well.
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Personally I decided to stop pretending to be a nice person OOC. It made playing an unlikable character much simpler. 8)
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If I word this wrongly, please forgive me, and I expect gentle guidance should that be the case.
But I tend to agree with Ulph: the times I have seen Seri criticized OOCly (admittedly I have not been in the OOC channel in some months), the issues generally revolved around the player, not the character. I don't particularly have an opinion one way or the other, because I find Seri-the-player to be like most every other human I know: complex and full of both warts and shining moments.
In other words please don't take this as me joining in a dogpile. I just want to gently note that the real issues others may have with you could stem from dislike of "you," not "him." And since you can't please everyone, then I would further suggest just listening to constructive criticism and those who don't simply tear you down, and ignoring those who cannot or do not express their opinions in a way that helps you enjoy your gameplay and roleplay.
At the end of the day, EVE isn't really srz bznz.
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Ahh. I did misunderstand then.
Ok then. On that note:
I can say nothing for your case, Seriph, because I don't know you from Adam. All I know is I don't generally have problems with people OOC if their character is a douchebag so long as they aren't douchebags.
My character is unlikable, my forum persona is semi-likable (haha), I am a pretty mellow, down-to-earth kinda chap and most people don't have a problem with me OOC -- save for a few.
Though there was a time that someone decided that I was a horrible person and all this crap because their character got the shit end of the stick because of a horrible thing my character did.
But that's another story.
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Roleplay, at its very core is an attempt to assume the attitudes, actions, and discourse of (another), in an effort to understand a differing point of view or social interaction. Sprinkle in some internet spaceships, other actors, and some motivation/goals and we have ourselves a story. The question you may want to ask yourself is, does your character's behavior satisfy your curiosity/interest, or do you believe it's everyone else that's not developing the potential your character has?
Assuming the intentions of other player's OOC motivations is folly, and utterly demotivational. Trust me on that one, it's why I've been away for years. The question I would ask myself is: Are these individuals engaging me or am I approaching what I want in an awkward manner no one understands?
Also, consider that your character, the archetype you may have developed in your head has to evolve too. If he's branded an outcast for being an asshole, but ultimately you WANT interaction, you need to evolve as your character would- try something different? Meet different groups?
And yes I happen to totally agree with you about the likeable pirate thing. It's funny how roleplayers make a double-standard for the swash-buckling clean shaven pirate who only kills with a conscience (lol) and the blood thirsty gatecamping goons you run into at all the low-sec chokepoints. At one point Kaleigh was pretty fed up with them and got labelled as a drug-abused crazy person for giving them a serious hard time.
Capsuleers are messed up. :D
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You basic assumption is a fallacy.
We all play Mary Sues in EVE.
Some are just more blatant than others.
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I'm just...
I'm not going to read any of the other responses in this thread, so I'll risk being repetitive rather than risk getting into shit-fits.
Now. Disclaimer: very little of the following may speak to your original point, until you get to the end. But do me a favor and read it anyway. By Ashar standards, it's woefully short.
In terms of the anti-Sue equation, insofar as one exists, your logic is valid.
However, having taken that to the extreme for a bit when I was moar nutzier, all I can really say is that the more people not finding your char's quirks to be lacking in entertainment, the worse that little conclusion and trait assignment is serving you.
Intentionally marking yourself with animal scent may keep people from finding your aroma attractive, but you're still marked with animal scent.
The solution is to up the entertainment factor. One portion of tightening your science this way may include making the brunt of your targeted egomaniacal asshattery land on the heads of them as can take it. Finding these people and getting into a relationship with them that is conducive to this is in itself both a learned skill and a perishable one.
The rest of the deal is, well. Look. Here's what I go for.
Be hilarious.
If you can't do that (and fuck if I ever can, sheesh), fulfill an important community role.
If you CBA for that, provide SOME useful OOC function to SOME people. Mod a channel, clean up some community website, ingratiate yourself. Be good to your friends.
If you can't do that either, well, stop caring about whether or not people SHOULD appreciate something abrasive.
It's difficult to like stuff you don't like - it's kind of like getting into the sort of modern art that fucks with you, okay? Jarring aesthetics do not always trump a novel arrangement of elements. Or like being a toymaker. It takes a genuine freak to devotedly cater to the tastes of the very young, or whatever other demographic you get into.
Monkeys are dangerous animals, Seri. We're built not to like it when we get rubbed the wrong way. Don't pet the monkey contrary to the direction of hair growth; it may rip your face off.
Also, this reminds me of http://unhappyhipsters.com/ for some reason.
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Ha, did this become Seriphyn's confessional wall huh? :P
@ Ashar
Yes, in fact, the Quafe merchandise thread was intended to be funny. If Seri's going to be a controversial egomaniac, then why not be an amusing one that plays to Federal stereotypes? Ironically, Reppy's reply to that thread is the exact kind of thing I was expecting, to which that RP alt Kiam Arreiz mirrored. There is no reason why Seriphyn isn't a big Federal hero loved by everyone, but the RP capsuleers will refuse to believe this IC because the concept offends them! :P And in terms of fulfilling an important community role, I believe I do, being the face of Gallentean RP in all its controversies and whatnot.
@ Kaleigh <3
Ditto again at likeable pirate. Anyway, yeah, the overall notion of Seriphyn is that while disliked by a wide plefora of capsuleers, I do feel he is grudingly respected. People might think him to be a joke, an annoying pest, but this will not stop him/me from killing you in space solo (just look at the KB :P). This creates an interesting character I think, and many other characters will make the mistake of thinking Seriphyn a moron before he murders them in space.
He often plays to this deliberately, as well. It's just sometimes I enjoy him coming across as an aggressive type. He is from a working class area, for example, but it's just a shame when people have to godmod (like getting knee'd in the balls) when it offends them IC. Anyway, Seriphyn is by no means 1D. He has a public persona, but his handful of close intimate friends know his private one, and who he really is etc.
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You basic assumption is a fallacy.
We all play Mary Sues in EVE.
Some are just more blatant than others.
Your use of hyperbole (i.e. "all") makes your assumption a fallacy.
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Re: Mary Sue-ism...
I'm the most important person in real life. Why shouldn't I be the most important person in the game? >_>
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We all play Mary Sues in EVE.
Do you fully understand what a Mary Sue is? Why do you feel everyone plays one?
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Lall often suggests that Capsuleers are fuckweird compared to the rest of EVE; they are the Mary Sue social class.
There's various other points, but this one is the closest to useful.
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I give you an example of what I'm ranting about, occured about an hour ago. Seriphyn was behaving in an intimidating fashion to someone he thought was overly conceited, and it irritated him. In an OOC channel, I was like "Ah, need to eat, once Seri's done intimidating this person".
The response I got was "Seri... do you really you're intimidating them?"
This is the issue. Who's you? Me? Seri, yes. Seri was behaving in an intimidating fashion. Whether the person gets intimidated is a different story. But why am *I*, not Seri, getting that kind of OOC comment? :ugh:
I sometimes wonder if people find the concept that a historically offensive and controversial character that is Seriphyn is now worth a damn in terms of RP weight :P
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You probably got an OOC response because you made an OOC statement. :)
And the person saying that may have tried to say that your RP didn't strike them as "intimidating" in any sense, which would beg the question of how others did perceive the behavior.
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There is no reason why Seriphyn isn't a big Federal hero loved by everyone, but the RP capsuleers will refuse to believe this IC because the concept offends them! ... while disliked by a wide plefora of capsuleers, I do feel he is grudingly respected.
To move from the specific to the general, I feel that there's a certain amount of collaboration and co-operation required by all RP that isn't strictly supported by game mechanics. For example, while if you blow up my ship, you blew up my ship, my assertion that Cia is about 5'5" tall is exactly that: an assertion.
When it comes to how we present our characters in RP situations that presume face-to-face contact - like bars -we all seem to largely agree to accept how another player indicates their character appears. There's no reason why I have to have Cia respond to Verone as if he's exceptionally tall, but the player tells me he is, and going against that would be, in my opinion, just plain rude.
There's another aspect to non-game-mechanic RP, though, where things get more complicated and harder to negotiate, and that's our character's non-game backgrounds and the way they're perceived by others. In my own case, I have RPed that Cia comes from an important family in the smallish city on the insignificant world where she grew up. As far as I know, no-one else RPs that their character comes from Debreth on Annelle XI, so the world I've created there doesn't impact on anyone else. Nonetheless, I can't force anyone to accept that this is Cia's background.
The wider you spread your character's background influence, the more you're impacting and to a degree imposing on other players to adapt their RP to accommodate yours. If I create a character who, pre-pod career, was a 'famous holo-actress of Cluster-wide renown' then I am, in effect, making an OOC request or even demand to every other RPer in the game: if their character has even the slightest exposure to the entertainment industry anywhere in the Cluster, I am telling them that they have heard of my character.
That's quite different to, say, (to use Verone as an example again, sorry Verone!) Verone IC acting like a big pirate lord who people ought to know about: Verone is, IG, through game mechanics, a big pirate lord who people ought to know about. It's also different from the one-day-old Velator pilot carrying on like the Dread Pirate Roberts - those claims can be proved or disproved in the game, through game actions.
It's when we get to things that can't be proved or disproved by other players that we have to be especially careful that our own RP doesn't impinge on others' freedoms to RP their own characters. No one could prove or disprove that Cia's mother was the mistress of Jaques Roden and on the cover of every holo-magazine like the Brangelina of Eve, but if I make such an assertion I am offering other players a very stark choice: validate my RP by adapting yours, or contradict my RP.
The problem with that is, it brings my RP into both IC and OOC conflict with people who just don't want to play that particular story. If I'm standing there in my alt-skin saying "I am cluster-wide famous actress" and they're saying "I never heard of you" I have in effect godmodded their character to be ignorant.
Much better, in my opinion, to give people an easy in and an easy out: make your backstory local, and contained. Then if they want to be part of your character building, their character can say 'Oh, right, I heard of you, that holomovie you starred in never got the wide release it deserved, in my opinion' (to go back to the holostar example) or else 'Hmm, can't say the name rings a bell, of course, I never really got into Jin-Mei martial arts opera flicks'.
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'Hmm, can't say the name rings a bell, of course, I never really got into Jin-Mei martial arts opera flicks'.
*Must resist making a Jin Mei martial arts opera holostar alt now* >_<
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Do it!
Doooo eeeet!
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You need to get out of these ooc channels. Clearly, if people find it necessary to inflect a characters actions/behavior on the player they don't grasp the divide.