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[Seriphyn]

It's real interesting, actually. A couple of years ago I came out here and publicly admitted some naughty/deceptive behaviour from myself, and apologized to I think one or two individuals. The irony of it is that both of these two individuals were being deceptive themselves, and weren't who I thought they were. The one I was apologizing to was someone completely different (someone I already knew funnily enough), while the one that originally disclosed my deceptive behaviour was a member of the community so prominent and well-respected that there is absolutely no chance anyone would believe the scale of the deceptions they pulled off. After a self-aggrandizing attempt at demonstrating an honest/transparent character, I look back embarrassed at that confession knowing that the two people that caused it were facades themselves, and realize how incestuous Internet relations can be.

The above is a very common question, but I want it to be considered within the context of the two following proposals...

Is the existence of social barriers in face-to-face interaction a restriction or completion of our personality?
Is the non-existence of social barriers in online interaction a freedom or deficiency of our personality?

In short, it's the idea of accountability and the social barriers. Is it necessarily true that the lack of social barriers online reveals our "true" personality? Or is that as fallacious as saying how alcohol reveals our true personality since it removes inhibitions, just like Internet anonymity? A common argument is for the former question, but I propose the idea that the existence of our social barriers is fundamentally core to our being/personality, NOT a limitation. It is a constituent part of our personality, which Internet anonymity removes from us rather than frees us from.

For example, I've done dumb shit online that I would never dreamed of doing in reality (thankfully I haven't done any of the sort). To me, it's the equivalent of doping up on booze to do dumb shit that Internet anonymity and 'freedom' can encourage. It's almost like a drug. It doesn't seem to be contingent on personal situation, either. Hedonistic bachelors like myself are equally prone to it as are married men with kids. Intelligence, self-awareness, and other such variables are similarly non-contingent factors. In that sense, it threatens all of us regardless of who we are.

So, yeah, my proposal is that Internet anonymity is not some emancipatory device that reveals our true selves. Rather it is a drug that pushes us beside ourselves to do stuff we otherwise wouldn't do, just like with alcohol. You're free to disagree with that, that's my absolute personal opinion...the question is, is are we to be held accountable for our actions online, or does its existence in a non-physical realm make it exempt from moral scrutiny? Who is at fault? Can we accuse those seemingly disinclined to not invest parts of themselves in the digital universe (such as forming friendships) who decide to act in a counter-moral manner of being 'bad' individuals? If those who keep at arms-length yet still trash the joint up exempt from judgement, are those who DO invest themselves emotionally into such environments exempt as well?

I don't think there's any answer to this question, but I'd like to hear thoughts from people with similar experiences.

[Jev North]

An anonymous, relatively consequence-free environment is definitely a place where your Jungian shadow can come out to play. Whether that's a good or a bad thing is up to individual judgment. I'm of the opinion that as long as the only real damage is done to game tokens and roleplayed characters, having conversation with the negative and repressed aspects of your personality is actually a healthy thing to do; you may learn things about yourself that would've blindsided you otherwise.

On that note - over the time I've been involved in online roleplay, I've learned that emotional overinvestment in a particular character, situation, or game is a very bad idea. You'll get burned, badly, often through no fault of your own; and whether that's just or unjust doesn't actually matter in the end. Better to learn to love the uncertainty, and how to pick up a new mask from scratch if everything does go south in a hurry.

[lallara zhuul]

I believe that the situation that the anonymity and the apparent repercussion free environment of the internet shows is the true character/colours of an individual.

Would you steal if you would not get caught?
Would you cheat on your loved one if you would not get caught?
Would you lie if you would never have to account for it?

I think there is at least two views on this in the psychology of this, in the other it is 'good' to get the unconstructive behaviour out of your system in an environment that is 'safe' and in the other it is just practice for the real thing.

I lean towards the latter.

If someone would steal from me in a game, I would never lend them anything.
If someone would lie to me in a game, I would never trust anything important that they say.
If someone would fuck everything that moves in a game, I would not expect them to have a monogamous relationship with me.

[Jev North]

If someone killed you in a game, would you let them anywhere near a weapon in your presence?

Edit: to put it in another way, the way I see it, some degree of trust games and ruthlessness is pretty much inherent to EVE. You don't generally blame people of having a personality defect if they betray an alliance in a game of Diplomacy, or lead you to false impressions in a game of poker. What's different here, other than the slightly overblown "EVE is real" tagline?

[Katrina Oniseki]

You should include more options in your poll. You have two superlatives and one reasonable option. Unless someone is trolling, I doubt you'll get anything other than "Depends". Speaking of, only the two superlatives are valid measurements of frequency.

Try adding "Usually" "Rarely", "Sometimes", and other things like that.

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

I was going to say...

[Seriphyn]

So picky! no worries, I'll update it to 1-5 scale when I get home.

[Vikarion]

I can't say that my real life character "never" influences my character, but neither can I say it never does.

I will say that I in no way see games as ways of practicing things I would like to do in real life. In real life, I am rather against shooting people indiscriminately, or stealing. And yet I've played Skyrim as a thief/assassin character. It's not that I secretly desire to kill people and take their stuff (although proving that you don't have secret desires is impossible), but that there's an implied and often stated qualification: games don't matter as much as real life.

I have engaged in deception in Eve (without lying), I've shot up people's ships, and I've constructed or helped construct stories with disturbing themes. If I were under the impression that Eve was, in any real way, not a part of that implied contract of unreality, I wouldn't be playing it.

There are two responses, as far as I can see, to that sort of stance. One is to accuse me of only being afraid of consequences, and the other is to claim that my actions still reveal something about me.

As to the first, I think that that can be rejected without further argument. As to the second, well, of course everything you do reveals something about you. But there's no way to tell what it reveals. That scammer who spent a year worming his way into everyone's trust may just be in it for the challenge, may see it as just another facet of competition, or whatever. That smacktalker in local may just be trying to get you to make a mistake so that he can scram your ship. Or they may be bored. In a game where everything is presumed to be unreal and not ultimately important, empathy and compassion have little role precisely because we have nothing to really be concerned about.

If you make a dumb decision and lose your ship, I might laugh. If you lost your car, I might very well try to help. It's not that I'm camouflaging my evil property-destroying ways in real life, it's that there is no property in the game. Similarly, stealing - I'm not actually taking anything in a game...etc, etc.

[Lyn Farel]

Out of the context of a game, what Lallara said.

In the context of a game, that's another matter. That's a game.

[Seriphyn]

Well you all confused me and I updated the poll to have 6 options. "Depends" is now "Maybe". No idea if I'm even satisfied with that selection.

[GoGo Yubari]

I believe that the situation that the anonymity and the apparent repercussion free environment of the internet shows is the true character/colours of an individual.

Would you steal if you would not get caught?
Would you cheat on your loved one if you would not get caught?
Would you lie if you would never have to account for it?

I think there is at least two views on this in the psychology of this, in the other it is 'good' to get the unconstructive behaviour out of your system in an environment that is 'safe' and in the other it is just practice for the real thing.

I lean towards the latter.

If someone would steal from me in a game, I would never lend them anything.
If someone would lie to me in a game, I would never trust anything important that they say.
If someone would fuck everything that moves in a game, I would not expect them to have a monogamous relationship with me.

While I don't think this issue is clear cut by any stretch of imagination, I find Lallara's viewpoint to be quite odd, coming a from a role-player on a forum discussing role-playing.

To put it in practical terms, I might play decide to role-play a thief. That would mean that I'd steal from other players within the game. Does that mean Lallara-in-RL doesn't trust me with his money? In effect, that'd be saying that you don't trust your money to anyone who is willing to role-play a thief. That'd be interesting. I'd love to get a clarification.

Applying the same logic, I could look at Lallara playing a religious fanatic who endorses slavery... not exactly sure what that would mean in relation to our RL relationship in this scheme.

[Jalenar Frost]

I used to have a coworker who would regale me with stories of his D&D days.  He told me to never be alone with anyone who liked to play a paladin.  Apparently in his eyes, this was the same as announcing you were a child rapist or worse (the opposite stance of Lallara?). 

I’ve seen both extremes of this scale and then those who seem to play as themselves.  I think I generally tend to be me, minus the baggage, plus the fantasy setting and influences. 

In short, I don’t think you can make any rules or strong assumptions about what in game behavior will tell you about the user, either as to their character, or likely actions. 

[lallara zhuul]

GoGo.

I think you actually hit the nail in the head.

First of all, the OP was not about roleplay.

Second of all, very few roleplayers actually have the IC/OOC divide in place and they 'role' play Mary Sues.

I would be lying if I would say that there is zero me involved when I was playing Lallara.

All the anger that poured through that medium was me, but the choices and the arguments were made from her viewpoint.
Once I did not need that outlet for anger anymore, that also changed and slowly the 'need' for her to even exist anymore.
She is still there, living her life, but the player has no need to take part in it anymore.
Mainly because the social cons and having an outlet for my emotions in an MMO do not outweigh the mindless grind and the horrible gameplay that is EVE.
I think, for me, its called growing up.

[GoGo Yubari]

You know what, I may agree to a large extent.

But! While any character is of course 100% me from some perspective, people are complex creatures. I stand by the claim that I can play a villain without it meaning I am untrustworthy or that I allow my darker impulses to control me in my day to day life. I don't think I'm unique in this.

Like you said in your earlier post, maybe it is about going through some things constructively in safe medium. Yet I'm not sure if that means that in the absence of the medium they'd come out in some other way. I think the medium itself has an effect.

That brings me to another point. While I do sometimes like playing the villain, these days I also understand that the things that I act out in life end up influencing me. So I also try not to make all that stuff just darkness and evil.

So, to sum up, I think the subject is complex and what's true for some, may not be true for others. What we do in a game is just one part of a whole and there are lots of inputs/outputs to a person's personality. It's about balance and from just observing my behavior in an online game you'll get an unbalanced view of things (especially if you only get an exterior view).

And I think that last thought is one reason why this forum - or its predecessor - was made in service to the role-playing community. It's group therapy.

[NISYN Aelisha]

Going with a strong no here.

I tend to focus on playing characters which I have little aspiration to being IRL, but who have something that attracts my interest in 'what would it be like to live a day in their shoes'.  Right wing nationalism, IRL, doesn't appeal to me in the slightest, but I will happily have Solarienne attack feds simply because of the colors they fly, and likely have her continue to do so even if the war were ever to end.  Simply put, I do not feel strongly political in the real world, and the only trickle back to real world from eve is a few 'this one time, in space' stories with friends.  The trickle in?  Probably a strong sense of pragmatism, as any uni-race ship pilot I have flown with will probably attest to (why limit yourself?), but this can be said of many simple-level qualities such as tactical preferences in starcraft, they are tactical or simple decision making routines that though shaped by experience, say little other than 'Person X has Experienced Y, possibly in Z type of work/education'. 

I do not feel that anyone can reasonably make any personal assumptions as to the personality of a real person, through their eve persona, unless they are specifically playing a carbon copy of themselves.  Even then, the internet filters us in interesting ways.