Some points I felt like responding to:
I. This wasn't really intended to get as personal as it seems to have gotten, but may serve as a lesson on first instincts being good ones.
Seriphyn was mainly indicated in the original post because without proper indication of the speaker being the same as the author of the relevant IGS thread the context would not have been clear.
II. Breaks in immersion of the sort described above are a product of improper expectations of the environment.
The setting we share is for various reasons quite supportive of using player behavior to define the behavior of one of its elements: capsuleers act as players make them act.
Capsuleers often switch sides, and this can mean (and has meant) joining a group of former enemies because of being approached by them socially.
This isn't a bad way to reflect their capacity to be more affected by social pressures/ideas/memes than threats of death, which has been a long-running thread in the fabric of the setting.
I don't find people's face-value responses to this to jive well with their actions. Miz, we had us a chat about your character not long ago and the directions it may take in light of your distaste for certain circumstances which was reflective of this view (and please don't reconsider the decisions you seem to have made just because it would make me wrong :P).
Ulph seems to have rejected a situation as restrictive of his escapism or jarring or something and then immediately pointed out a perfectly plausible manner in which it might come to pass in the same breath. I suppose I will let that speak for itself.
Lyn's comment on Sansha affiliates being on either side of the line is also interesting. They're mostly capsuleers, but why would being a current faction supporter make a given individual a permanent supporter of a given faction? Because strong loyalties do not shift? Tell that to Wernher von Braun - the guy signed a pretty serious pledge to a certain Godwin-law-invoking figure long before he built rockets for NASA.
III. The setting is only as unrealistic as the player's capacity to make sense of it makes it.
This is mostly the same point as above. Degrees of accomplished realism in art are often judged by the response of the viewer, but here we are given the paintbrush. The setting has always been re-framed and reinterpreted by large groups of players.
As for comparisons to world leaders and tyrants in North Africa, if your analogies are poorly chosen, their utility will suffer.
IV. If a player seeks isolation over interaction because of low expectations, this is sad rather than realistic.
Lookin' at a certain Highlander guy here. Whoever convinced you that you shouldn't find ways to make more sensible or interesting interaction occur may have served only to impede you in drawing enjoyment from the game.
V. Character goals and motivations are a reflection of player goals and motivations; characters are tools to achieve ends as well as to create entertainment.
This is often overlooked in this community because of years spent munching on the red herring of OOC/IC separation.
People have no good reason not to understand the ramifications of a given action, excepting inexperience. Going through with it in the name of authenticity to character can only be answered by reminding them that characters can change.
The player of a character whose behavior over a period of time serves only to draw negative responses from others on a player level has little excuse for such choices save enjoyment. If you don't enjoy drawing negative player responses, choose to act differently.
"IC it's a clusterf***, OOC it's an excuse for good RP." - I would suggest that while the actions taken served to catalyze some interaction, the amount or quality of roleplay had between the various involved parties was not impacted in a significant fashion, let alone noteworthy for the quantity or quality shown.
VI. Political relations do not inherently lead to a lack of dialogue; political relations consist entirely of dialogue.
"There are any number of fantastic RP channels, groups, etc that I simply cannot interact with very much IC due to years of political associations. That is unfortunate for me, but this is how it works. If we don't respect those decisions and give them the proper weight and consequences, it looks incredibly silly."
This would make more sense in a given situation wherein one had had a breakdown of relations with every single member of a given faction or group.
It doesn't hold much water to claim that everyone on a given side of some line in the sand will share the same mindset. I find it often reduces something with great potential down to its most simplistic parts when people hold such positions, and I've not found Silas - or many others who claim otherwise - to hold the position in question interpersonally.
Frankly, I'm confused why people advance it.
VII. Intra-faction relations and complexity are only limited by the creativity of those participating in them, as we all know.
"The Amarrian block has recently demonstrated that there's quite a lot of potential conflict within their single faction; it looks quite a lot of fun." Thanks for underscoring this and for the praise, Ulph, I'm sure it's appreciated by the parties involved.
This is how it's been and how it's done, really, though it often happens behind the scenes. IntRA-faction conflict is there for the picking whenever anyone seeks to engage in it, including intra-subfaction or intra-bloodline conflicts.
There's certainly no requirement for any given party to engage in it in order to reach any great height - there's lots of ways to shine and inspire others if that's what one seeks - but if you can't tap into this whenever you want to because you can't detect its existence, you're missing something.
VIII. Assumptions as to the capacity of given individuals might need to be done away with.
"It's quite simple to IC ban someone from a 'physical' location." These things work both ways. Certainly one can bar a given player from entering an establishment mechanically, but in the case of individuals you're on decent terms with and trust not to make a hash of things, what if they actually seek to challenge their status as an outlaw? Why couldn't they overcome posted guards or security systems?
The reason we don't do these things is because of respect for other players; if one feels this respect is reciprocated, why not extend the offer to change the status quo?
IX. The form and meaning of consequence is not fixed.
"RP should have consequences. The only consequence that matters outside of having your stuff exploded is the limitation on who will talk to you."
Really? So a consequence to going somewhere you're not wanted, perhaps a place filled with those bitterly opposed to you, wouldn't end up with you getting assaulted? That's also a consequence - more generally, the change in the sort of interaction one gets in future is a consequence of choosing to peruse certain postures and actions, whereas one could easily make the case that getting a player to ignore you on a given character is as much a player-level consequence as it is anything else.
We tend to limit the nature of our consequential roleplay along mechanical lines too much, I feel. We could stand to take a lesson from freeform roleplayers there.
"Banning there would reflect the IC security arrangements for the venue. Nothing more."
I feel you're too familiar with the behavior of individuals that wouldn't make confrontations outside of combat satisfying if you've come to the conclusion that the best thing to do with a party one's ideologically opposed to is to bar them from all communications in any given venue. Which brings us along to this:
X. The availability of a given group or person for interaction need not be rigidly defined by in-character conditions if out of character creativity is brought to bear.
"IC I hate, loathe and depsise Sansha loyalists. More than I dislike Imperials in fact. OOC I have zero issues with players of either sort. Any IC interaction with oponents is likely to be severely constrained by the fact that they are opponents. For one thing I'd be constantly considering what I am saying and trying not to let slip anything useful to them."
Then you're not taking advantage of the opportunities presented to interact with people you have no problem with in a productive fashion, or you just aren't interested in the sort of roleplay you might have with a group of people you'd need to be cagey around. It's not for everyone.
If you 'have no problem with' the people involved - they're swell guys - then what gives? I suppose one could run headlong into Dunbar's Number or the limits of one's willingness to be extroverted or something.
I can assure you I've drawn enormous satisfaction from figuring out new things to do with characters that wouldn't be well positioned to explore more familiar avenues of interaction.
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Topic: Your opinions on the appropriateness of this gesture, please. (Read 15855 times)