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[Lyn Farel]

Well to me those examples either enter in the disqualifier category, or either in the godmodding category.

If said capsuleer is commanding on bridge, then either he is doing nothing in space or just at 10% of his ship abilities or whatev (if capsule compatible ships are even usable in conventional mode at all ?), or he is being a liar and actually in pod like any capsuleer. If he doesn't use a crew on a frigate, sure, but above ? Is he running back and forth between ship stations or what ?

Both of those actions mean either some form of impossibility (piloting one's battleship with no crew or on bridge and still manage to retain all ship abilities in space), or some form of godmodding if you still force people to believe you (Accept that I invented such an awesome technology that everybody would hugely benefit from that allows me to command on bridge and without any crew without any loss of abilities !!1!1! And fuck yeah accept my telekinesis RP that has no tangible basis in PF damnit !!11!1  ).

Well at least ICly, they can be called liars. It usually go down very quickly when it comes (inevitably after) to OOC drama.

[Morwen Lagann]

Regardless of whether we apply the "it's a big cluster" principle or not, it is still entirely possible to genuinely be "doing it wrong" in RP. The issue is how you define the scope of the word 'it'.

For example, given the context of the thread: it is entirely possible for a player to be "doing it wrong" when it comes to portraying their character in order to solicit interaction from other characters - this has nothing to do with the "it's a big cluster" concept in the slightest. There are right and wrong ways of getting other characters to interact with yours. The details of exactly what is right and what is wrong may differ from player to player or even character to character but there are a number of things that are widely shared among players.

There are things you can do that will determine whether you get more or less interaction from others, and what the quality of that interaction is. However, what you do is not the responsibility of anyone but yourself. If you cannot portray your character in a fashion that makes people want to interact with it for better or for worse that is your own fucking problem. As has been pointed out in a few threads recently, there are a number of poorly-received characters that would be much better received if their players changed their approach to interacting with others, both IC and OOC, rather than going about it in the way that does not encourage meaningful interaction and subsequently pissing and moaning about the responses they get.

As I put it elsewhere, the onus isn't on everyone else to just lovingly accept the platter of shit that you dropped on the table in front of them with a loud clatter and a snarl. If you're going to drop something like that in front of someone, at least be polite about it if you expect them to reciprocate. Or, more politely, there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying "if you're looking for X response, you're doing it wrong by taking Y action."

While I was typing, it seems Lyn more or less nailed my response regarding what can genuinely be called "doing it wrong" as far as RP content itself goes. It's worth noting, though, that the drama does not always originate with the people going "hey, you can't do that." Often enough, it's the person disrespecting the lore that throws the "you can't tell me what to do!" shitfit.

[Silas Vitalia]

We also should remember the high correlation rates between special RP snowflakes and high levels of ooc/ic interpersonal difficulties.

In my experience the people that are the most special snowflake /  my character is the most specialist out of the box thing I can possibly think of, etc, are the ooc people who are the absolute worst to deal with, who are terrible at receiving the slightest bit of criticism, do not play well with others, and bring more derp to the yard than is worth dealing with.

Every once and a while these people are just new, don't know the PF, and turn out to be great RPers down the road.  That is a rarity.

[kalaratiri]

We also should remember the high correlation rates between special RP snowflakes and high levels of ooc/ic interpersonal difficulties.

In my experience the people that are the most special snowflake /  my character is the most specialist out of the box thing I can possibly think of, etc, are the ooc people who are the absolute worst to deal with, who are terrible at receiving the slightest bit of criticism, do not play well with others, and bring more derp to the yard than is worth dealing with.

Every once and a while these people are just new, don't know the PF, and turn out to be great RPers down the road.  That is a rarity.

QFT 

[Silas Vitalia]

We also should remember the high correlation rates between special RP snowflakes and high levels of ooc/ic interpersonal difficulties.

In my experience the people that are the most special snowflake /  my character is the most specialist out of the box thing I can possibly think of, etc, are the ooc people who are the absolute worst to deal with, who are terrible at receiving the slightest bit of criticism, do not play well with others, and bring more derp to the yard than is worth dealing with.

Every once and a while these people are just new, don't know the PF, and turn out to be great RPers down the road.  That is a rarity.

QFT 

You disagree? Why so?

*EDIT*

I always get that qft mixed up with 'quit fucking talking' thought you were zinging me

[Vikarion]

Pretty much agree with Silas. You can RP whatever you want. But I don't have to talk to you or your character.

For me, the best RP (best being defined as "that which I enjoy most") has come from people not trying to be special snowflakes, but trying to compose a story (such as Ciarente), create an image (as with PYRE and LDIS), or advocate for a cause (TSF, EM, PIE, etc).

The stuff I haven't enjoyed so much is the intensely "look how speshul an' wonderful I iz!" crap. If someone decides that their character doesn't need a pod, is part rogue drone and part dragon, or comes from old Earth with the teachings of universal peace that we all must learn...well, I'm not interested. Of course, if your character just thinks that, well, that's interesting. After all, I play a Caldari loyalist who dabbled with Sansha and nearly lobotomized his clone by stealing and jumping into another character's body. We're capsuleers, a little insanity is to be expected.

[Silver Night]

Well to me those examples either enter in the disqualifier category, or either in the godmodding category.

If said capsuleer is commanding on bridge, then either he is doing nothing in space or just at 10% of his ship abilities or whatev (if capsule compatible ships are even usable in conventional mode at all ?), or he is being a liar and actually in pod like any capsuleer. If he doesn't use a crew on a frigate, sure, but above ? Is he running back and forth between ship stations or what ?

Both of those actions mean either some form of impossibility (piloting one's battleship with no crew or on bridge and still manage to retain all ship abilities in space), or some form of godmodding if you still force people to believe you (Accept that I invented such an awesome technology that everybody would hugely benefit from that allows me to command on bridge and without any crew without any loss of abilities !!1!1! And fuck yeah accept my telekinesis RP that has no tangible basis in PF damnit !!11!1  ).

Well at least ICly, they can be called liars. It usually go down very quickly when it comes (inevitably after) to OOC drama.

Added bold for emphasis. That's the thing, right there. They can't force anyone else to believe them. RP can and should be pretty self-correcting. As you mention, it might mean OOC drama, but that isn't the same as other people having to play along IC. And drama, for the most part, takes two - if they are terribly insistent on everyone going along with something everyone doesn't feel like going along with, everyone has a block button.

There is no requirement that people interact with people who they don't want to interact with. There is nothing wrong with deciding someone is not a good use of your RP time. The often quite pervasive feeling that the onus is on you to accommodate someone else's RP is actually probably harmful.

Of course, if they are otherwise someone you enjoy RPing with, you might ignore a few idiosyncrasies, and that isn't to say that anyone with a few wrinkles should be written off. There are some finer points of PF etc that plenty of people disagree on vehemently, but they manage to make it work mostly (See: Soft Clones).

Ultimately, RP is a collaborative experience, though, and collaborative doesn't mean 'I write my own rules and you better go by them or I'm throwing the toys out of the crib'. If that's the situation, by all means, leave them to it and find someone more useful to spend your time on. This is even the case when we aren't talking about someone doing it wrong in the sense of some (to your perspective) gross violation of PF or normal RP standards. It would apply equally with simple (if serious) personality conflict or whatever else.

There is no requirement to try and give people some useful advice if they don't seem to be interfacing well with the community, either, of course. However, I myself do generally try that route first. If they turn out to be open to other perspectives, and willing to at least listen to how other people might view things, that's a win, and if not it doesn't take so much of my time that I would generally consider it any kind of waste.

Edit: And the lovely thing about all of that is, you can do it without going through all the trouble of waging a campaign of 'but they are doing it wrong' everywhere. People can come to their own conclusions, and most times those conclusions are likely to be similar to your own. PEople that disagree with you, well, they will be happy enough RPing with the person you are not happy RPing with, and that isn't your problem.

[Joshua Foiritain]

Tbh theres plenty of ways of doing it wrong and calling people out on it both IC and OCC is perfectly fine. Dont like it? Then don't come up with retarded ideas.   

But then people seem to confuse that sort of category with things that can plausibly happen.

People who fly using a standard bridge, instead of a capsule.

Hearing people claim this always makes me facepalm. It possible from a technical point of view? Sure. At the cost of perma-death upon ship destruction or skill & information loss upon death due to reactivating an old clone.

Claiming to control your ship from a bridge while still enjoying all the luxuries capsules offer breaks the plausibility though so its perfectly fine to call someone a liar IC. If they claim to be using a real bridge and actually impose the limitations this would come with on themselves then its fine.

If someone tries to shape reality to suit their special snowflake interests by cherry picking the options they like and ignoring any consequences this would have on their character then their entire setup is bullshit from the ground up because plausibility goes both ways.

[Katrina Oniseki]

Tbh theres plenty of ways of doing it wrong and calling people out on it both IC and OCC is perfectly fine. Dont like it? Then don't come up with retarded ideas.   

But then people seem to confuse that sort of category with things that can plausibly happen.

People who fly using a standard bridge, instead of a capsule.

Hearing people claim this always makes me facepalm. It possible from a technical point of view? Sure. At the cost of perma-death upon ship destruction or skill & information loss upon death due to reactivating an old clone.

Claiming to control your ship from a bridge while still enjoying all the luxuries capsules offer breaks the plausibility though so its perfectly fine to call someone a liar IC. If they claim to be using a real bridge and actually impose the limitations this would come with on themselves then its fine.

If someone tries to shape reality to suit their special snowflake interests by cherry picking the options they like and ignoring any consequences this would have on their character then their entire setup is bullshit from the ground up because plausibility goes both ways.

I suppose it is all about execution.

[Desiderya]

There's special and then there's special needs, after all.

[Louella Dougans]

I'm not sure exactly how much this is relevant but:

I've noticed something, happens more with some groups than others, but what it is, is this:

There's a character, who behaves in a particular way, and is associated in some way with one of the main RP factions. Other people use that character, as a tool, to berate and criticise people who are also associated with that RP faction.

This puts those people into an uncomfortable position IC and OOC - that is, they are often compelled, when interacting in a public setting, to defend not just their own position, but the position of someone else, with whom they may have only a slight connection.

Example: Diana Kim, the Caldari extremist.

Some players, use Diana Kim as a tool, to berate and criticise other Caldari players. If the Caldari players don't justify Diana Kim's actions, they get more criticism, for not being "true Caldari", much of the criticism coming from non-Caldari. If they do justify Diana Kim's actions, they get criticised for it, for a lot of the same reasons.
And if they have no interest in justifying or condemning Diana Kim who they might not have interacted with - maybe they're from different time zones  - then again, they get criticised.
This criticism often lands more heavily on certain players than others, and I suspect it's because of some kind of grudge against those players.

Another recent example would be Anyanka Funk and Nauplius, both Sani Sabik. They're pretty extreme as far as I can tell.

There are a segment of the eve "rp community", who will use those two characters, as a tool, to force other Sani Sabik players to RP a certain way. "But what about Nauplius?" would be asked, and if those Sani Sabik players condemn Nauplius, then "well, looks to me like your religion is pretty divided, hurdurr" would be the response. If they justify Nauplius, then "well, looks to me like your religion is pretty divided, hurdurr" is also the response. If they don't want to RP about Nauplius, and want to RP their own thing, well that's just tough, they should have thought about that before being Sani Sabik.

It's all a bit petty and disappointing really.

[Lyn Farel]

You mean the common issue of strawmen everywhere ? I never really found them so hard to deal with, since strawmen are everywhere. If someone calls someone else out basing themselves on strawmen like that, just call them out of using stupid strawmen arguments and bullshit logic (aka making generalities out of single examples) if you feel diplomatic and rational, or just point at their own strawmen of their own faction (which should also exist since strawmen are everywhere). Or point at them as strawmen themselves, which they often tend to be too. vOv

[Silas Vitalia]

I'm with Lyn in theory.

Unfortunately with RPers being such a small pool of players to begin with, you might only have a handful of players for some of the factions, and if 30 or 40% of your faction's RPers are behaving like idiots, it will give you some public relations headaches

Every faction has to constantly deal with this.  From Amerr derp derp masochist in public slaver abuse to Sabik space lesbian vampire derpery to the over the top caldari space fascists .

Then again, this does represent real life, too   For all of the reasonable adherents to any political party or religion or ideology, there's always the one dude who is in your group who has to yell the loudest about the worst possible things and give you a bad name.   

[Lyn Farel]

Or the one infiltrated of paid by the opposite party to make you look bad...

Owait... Like with strawman alts.

[V. Gesakaarin]

I'm of the opinion that if you want quality RP then you have to at least be willing to put some degree of effort into creating content. Sure, there's probably going to be a lot of cliche and boring characters that say cliche and boring things for me. However, I think seeking to put content out that's qualitatively better than what such people write is much better solution to such players and characters than complaining about it -- even if people will continue being cliche and boring with their character concepts and executions -- because bitter whining is just as bad for me as reading Diana Kim, Nauplius or Anyanka.

Those who recognize RP is a collaborative effort I'd say are correct but to have really good RP I think needs a further recognition that some of the best works of human philosophy, literature, science etc., was due to the simple fact that you'd have thinkers in those fields all in the same social circles and sharing their ideas with each other in private settings whether it was on the left bank in Paris or in the drawing rooms of London.

While I think inclusiveness is fine, it's also those RP channels such as OOC, Summit, IGS and the like that I've found most often drown out the voices of real quality and intelligence with sheer, overwhelming, mediocrity. Thinking on it recently, I've come to the conclusion that if I want quality RP in the future then I probably have no other option than to create private channels to act like those informal networks of salons, drawing rooms, and cafes with like-minded people who share similar interests in RP discussion and interaction.