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Author Topic: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.  (Read 9456 times)

Aria Jenneth

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #15 on: 23 Jul 2010, 00:37 »

You roleplay to have fun, not to win.

Everyone doesn't like losing, but when a person cheats in ensuring victory with placing the very fiber of roleplaying morals at stake, it becomes less fun for everyone. It leads to more bitter experiances, more paranoia, and less material offered for readers to understand of their characters to take in.

Ah, well said. It reminds me of the single simplest, yet best, summation of what constitutes a "power gamer," "twink," or "munchkin" I've heard: someone who has fallen for the fallacy that it's possible to "win" at an RPG.

Hence, you have your drama twinks ("My character's the most dramatic, so I win!"), your combat twinks ("My character's the strongest, so I win!"), your main-character twinks ("I've made this story all about my character, so I win!"), and on and on and on.

Mind you, CCP has stated that Eve's central theme is "power," so perhaps twinkery is being invited. Regardless, it's an approach I just have no interest in taking.
« Last Edit: 23 Jul 2010, 09:45 by Aria Jenneth »
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Alain Colcer

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #16 on: 23 Jul 2010, 09:51 »

ahh i like these threads so much

Vik, HTFU

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You roleplay to have fun, not to win.
In a non-consentual world like eve, this only applies to your side of the roleplaying

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Everyone doesn't like losing, but when a person cheats in ensuring victory with placing the very fiber of roleplaying morals at stake, it becomes less fun for everyone. It leads to more bitter experiances, more paranoia, and less material offered for readers to understand of their characters to take in.

Wrong, it is fun for the one cheating, griefing and doing whatever acceptable roleplay they have in their point of view. The person of group of persons targeted by such actions might deem it unfair, or non-fun.


My advice, roleplay like a capsuleer would do, what do people with power and resources do? they are a bit paranoid, they protect their backs, they do good and bad, great and little.

Your char is someone thrown into a completely dark and merciless universe, if you can't survive, then go back to a planet and become a farmer.

HTFU  ;)
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Arvo Katsuya

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #17 on: 23 Jul 2010, 10:26 »

ahh i like these threads so much

Vik, HTFU

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You roleplay to have fun, not to win.
In a non-consentual world like eve, this only applies to your side of the roleplaying
Bruno, there is no political insult-laden, IGS-esque debate on how roleplay works. It's a universal set of rules that become applied across any medium. A genre that has existed longer than most of the players that play this game are in years.

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Wrong, it is fun for the one cheating, griefing and doing whatever acceptable roleplay they have in their point of view. The person of group of persons targeted by such actions might deem it unfair, or non-fun.

My advice, roleplay like a capsuleer would do, what do people with power and resources do? they are a bit paranoid, they protect their backs, they do good and bad, great and little.

But they shouldn't break the fourth wall in order to do it, as well as create the atmosphere of stifling people from creating more detailed backgrounds and reveal blogs they wouldn't have any possible way of knowing in-character.

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Roleplay - Please read even what the evecyclopedia entry says. The guidelines three quarters of the way down the page.

There's way of cheating, stealing, griefing, and what not... and pulling it off in-character. Some of it can be justified quite easily, while other things would be more of a challenge. Why cut corners on a delicate matter, and turn yourself into a pariah in the process to those you regularly roleplay with? Why make OOC drama, and further blur the lines between IC/OOC which causes more rifts? You only get more misunderstanding and emotional implosions like Soter experianced with the Maut incident.

When two opposing entities can't have a respectible and professional relationship OOC, the roleplay you get IC continues to degrade. 

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Your char is someone thrown into a completely dark and merciless universe, if you can't survive, then go back to a planet and become a farmer.

HTFU  ;)

You just proved my point.
« Last Edit: 23 Jul 2010, 10:35 by Arvo Katsuya »
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Zag

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #18 on: 23 Jul 2010, 11:09 »

I think what Bruno was trying to say is that the very nature of Eve as a very competitive, brutal sandbox of drama makes it difficult to RP by a set of standardized and arbitrary rules. Sure, entities and persons can maintain a working OOC relationship in the interest of developing and creating RP but there are also entities and persons who have no interest in doing so since adhering to a set of arbitrary rules is anathema to them or runs contrary to how they play the game.

Certainly, it's polite to try and not be an asshole by using info disseminated OOC in an IC fashion but not everyone in Eve is polite. One can cry foul that another party is not following the pre-arranged rules or they can find methods to deal with it if and when it arises.

At the end of the day, people play the game in the manner they choose to do so and often that is going to cause friction between how others choose to play.

I'd say it's far better to just assume people are going to use what you make public against you and manage what you choose to make available.

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Aria Jenneth

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #19 on: 23 Jul 2010, 12:51 »

I think what Bruno was trying to say is that the very nature of Eve as a very competitive, brutal sandbox of drama makes it difficult to RP by a set of standardized and arbitrary rules.

Rules about the IC / OOC divide can be a lot of things, Zag ("unrealistic" is a favorite), but "arbitrary" they most definitely are not. Using OOC knowledge IC that the character would not know is the equivalent of Hamlet reading ahead in his own play, finding out that Laertes' blade is poisoned, and consequently changing his actions to ensure that he survives the bloodbath that is the final act.

You can say, "Well, if everybody can do it, that's fair enough, right?" But it's not like there's no reason for the rule against it.
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Zag

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #20 on: 23 Jul 2010, 13:08 »

I'd agree Aria, a poor choice of words on my part. I'm not attempting to defend the behaviour, however it does occur. It's part of the reason why I've decided not to release any sort of fiction to the wider community until the events that have occured are long past or are not a 'secret'. Then again, I've never really held much faith in the IC/OOC divide in Eve and simply plan for the worst.
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The Cosmopolite

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #21 on: 23 Jul 2010, 13:14 »

Actually, Aria, in my experience people's differing views about the OOC/IC divide often do amount to a fairly arbitrary, and often unilateral, drawing of the line to suit particular interests. And actually Zag, your choice of words reflected the reality quite accurately and you had no need to apologise for it.

That's the whole reason the subject is so wracked by controversy so often. There is no universally agreed standard as to what is OOC and what is IC. The various schools of thought on it may take principled positions, to be sure, but they differ and some people very definitely put out arbitrary 'rules' on the basis of which they then proceed to make moral judgements.

I have to say this topic is the one where you are most likely to see hypocrisy in action (saving the presence of everyone on this forum of course...) and I have seen people abuse the OOC/IC divide so many times it isn't funny any more. Particularly noxious are those abuses designed, I say designed to pose the dilemma to people, without their consent, of (a) observing what is notionally the holy OOC/IC divide and being deprived of their ability to play the game to the full or (b) disregarding what is notionally the holy OOC/IC divide and subsequently having opprobrium heaped on their head from all and sundry.

I say to people quite openly, the hypocrisy surrounding the OOC/IC divide is the one thing that had done much to make very many people feel it is near worthless in the game of EVE and it is very often the people who hoot and holler loudest in its defence that have done so much in the past to bring it into disrepute (saving the presence of everyone on this forum of course...) .

I'm sorry to tell you that most RPers in EVE (ie. EVERYONE THAT PLAYS EVE) couldn't give a tinker's cuss for the OOC/IC divide. Why that is, well, ludicrous notions such as putting strategically or tactically significant information into the public domain and then expecting it to be ignored because it has a given label pasted on it are at least part of it.

Cosmo

Aria Jenneth

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #22 on: 23 Jul 2010, 14:35 »

That's the whole reason the subject is so wracked by controversy so often. There is no universally agreed standard as to what is OOC and what is IC.

I tend to think that there is no universal standard because persons with a special interest in justifying its breach place it in controversy.

"That which your character knows, not that which you can justify your character knowing, is IC."

The edges get a bit blurry, of course, so it's usually best to just stay away from those.

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The various schools of thought on it may take principled positions, to be sure, but they differ and some people very definitely put out arbitrary 'rules' on the basis of which they then proceed to make moral judgements.

"These are our standards, we think they're good ones, and we believe following them shows good judgment and good sense of fair play."

Not sure I see the problem.

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I have seen people abuse the OOC/IC divide so many times it isn't funny any more. Particularly noxious are those abuses designed, I say designed to pose the dilemma to people, without their consent, of (a) observing what is notionally the holy OOC/IC divide and being deprived of their ability to play the game to the full or (b) disregarding what is notionally the holy OOC/IC divide and subsequently having opprobrium heaped on their head from all and sundry.

See, I've never understood the willingness to attribute foul motive where you can't be sure of it.

Let's set aside the smokescreen for a minute, here; I think enough time has passed that we can deal with this without acrimony.

In our own clash on this subject long ago, Cosmo, Jade and I came at the issue from such completely different angles that it was sort of funny, in a deeply sad way. I don't play this game for power; never have. Consequently, I didn't feel that there was anything remotely invalid about IC-ly saying something harsh about Star Fraction in a "private journal"; all I was doing, from my point of view, was laying out my character's thoughts for the general amusement of the masses. I wasn't acting as some sort of George Will of the fictional blogosphere; I was just offering a glimpse of Aria's thoughts and motives. Heck, to this day, what she's thinking still interests me much more than whether she's right.

I can see Jade's angle on it (I don't share it, but I can see it). What I never understood was the willingness to attribute my actions to malice.

Heck, maybe sometimes they are based in malice. But I've never really observed people to set out to cheat very often, y'know? Some will, obviously, but mostly? Mmmm ... don't think so.

Also, avoiding this kind of dilemma's pretty easy-- I don't read opponents' blogs or other "reveals". In my case, it's mostly because, over the long term, my memory for facts is better than my memory for sources. I can maintain the divide easily over the short term. Over the long, it gets a little misty, and I have occasionally caught something making the jump.

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I'm sorry to tell you that most RPers in EVE (ie. EVERYONE THAT PLAYS EVE) couldn't give a tinker's cuss for the OOC/IC divide.

Mmh. Most of that population disputes CCP's assertion that they're all "roleplayers" and we're "immersionists." Regardless, the "immersionist" community is pretty insular; and a lot of the OOC info out there is useful only to another immersionist.

IE, "My character is sleeping with your character's boyfriend" is potentially combustible "immersionist" material. Posting, "We launch our invasion of AAA space Wednesday at 0500 EVT, from system XYZ-PDQ," in a public blog is ... kinda just ... dumb.

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Why that is, well, ludicrous notions such as putting strategically or tactically significant information into the public domain and then expecting it to be ignored because it has a given label pasted on it are at least part of it.

We ignore it the same way and for the same reasons we ignore the content of the Eve novels, Cosmo. CCP has a habit of providing more backstory than our characters can reasonably be aware of. Are we at least agreed that it is not appropriate for our characters to know, for example, the truth behind Jamyl Sarum?

It would be strategically useful from the angle of having our characters figure out what's "really going on," but it's sort of hard to find an immersionist who'll assume such knowledge or a non-immersionist "roleplayer" who cares.

Personally, I've avoided reading the novels; I just don't want to know. And maybe that's the answer to all of this: no more publishing short stories, blogs, etc. Only, that's significantly less fun, and I have to admit that one of my reasons for not reading the novels is that they're ... well ...

... apparently just not that good.

Big temptation. Small payoff. Meh.

But it doesn't seem unreasonable to be able to write a story or a blog or whatever in which your character figures, and expect to function as something less than a billboard.
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Alain Colcer

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #23 on: 23 Jul 2010, 14:39 »

Zag always finds way to better explain what i was trying to say.

In a non-consentual game, you can't agree with other parties as to where does the real line between OOC/IC divide really is drawn. You can't agree in what would be acceptable RP or not acceptable RP. Even if there is an official evelopedia entry as to what people understand, not everyone will agree with the written definition.

You either answer in RP, adapt in RP, or fight back RP to what your opponents throw at you, or leave the game park.

I actually had to leave the game park once, in a emoragequit way, to finally understand just how pervasive are the non-consentual aspects of this game.
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Z.Sinraali

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #24 on: 23 Jul 2010, 14:48 »

Err...a rule is intrinsically non-arbitrary. That's the entire point of establishing a rule, so that you don't have to rely on the capriciousness of individuals. Now, the application of a rule can be arbitrary, but the rule itself...nuh-uh. It can be injust, or ineffective, or disproportionately impactful, or any of a number of other things, but arbitrary is not one of them.
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The assumption that other people are acting in good faith is the single most important principle underpinning human civilization.

The Cosmopolite

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #25 on: 23 Jul 2010, 15:11 »

That's the whole reason the subject is so wracked by controversy so often. There is no universally agreed standard as to what is OOC and what is IC.

I tend to think that there is no universal standard because persons with a special interest in justifying its breach place it in controversy.

Be careful! Some might think you were showing a willingness to attribute foul motive where there is none.

But actually, that says much the same as I am saying but in a different way. My view is that it's more often the people who preach the Holy Divide who clash with one another because they're engaged in a factional war over which end of the egg should be opened at breakfast.

You can see this all the time. And sometimes it leads to people throwing up their hands and having done with the Church of the Holy Divide.

At this point, I welcome all such to the ranks of apostasy.


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"That which your character knows, not that which you can justify your character knowing, is IC."

The edges get a bit blurry, of course, so it's usually best to just stay away from those.

I should say so. But you immediately demonstrate how these rules can be arbitrary. First point: how do you know what your character knows? Second point: knowing what your character knows, well, do you simply assert it? Because I think it's rather more in keeping with community RPing to justify it. Yet your definition throws justification out of the window. Why? It's, I'm sorry, just an arbitrary judgement. That's factually what it is. I say that as neutrally as possible. I don't place a moral tone on the word 'arbitrary'.


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The various schools of thought on it may take principled positions, to be sure, but they differ and some people very definitely put out arbitrary 'rules' on the basis of which they then proceed to make moral judgements.

"These are our standards, we think they're good ones, and we believe following them shows good judgment and good sense of fair play."

Not sure I see the problem.

I don't see much of a problem myself. It's still arbitrary though.

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I have seen people abuse the OOC/IC divide so many times it isn't funny any more. Particularly noxious are those abuses designed, I say designed to pose the dilemma to people, without their consent, of (a) observing what is notionally the holy OOC/IC divide and being deprived of their ability to play the game to the full or (b) disregarding what is notionally the holy OOC/IC divide and subsequently having opprobrium heaped on their head from all and sundry.

See, I've never understood the willingness to attribute foul motive where you can't be sure of it.

I've never understood the willingness of many to ignore foul motive just because it can't be proved to the standards of a court of law.

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Let's set aside the smokescreen for a minute, here; I think enough time has passed that we can deal with this without acrimony.

What smokescreen that? Some willingness to attribute... you get the point by now...

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In our own clash on this subject long ago, Cosmo, Jade and I came at the issue from such completely different angles that it was sort of funny, in a deeply sad way. I don't play this game for power; never have. Consequently, I didn't feel that there was anything remotely invalid about IC-ly saying something harsh about Star Fraction in a "private journal"; all I was doing, from my point of view, was laying out my character's thoughts for the general amusement of the masses. I wasn't acting as some sort of George Will of the fictional blogosphere; I was just offering a glimpse of Aria's thoughts and motives. Heck, to this day, what she's thinking still interests me much more than whether she's right.

I can see Jade's angle on it (I don't share it, but I can see it). What I never understood was the willingness to attribute my actions to malice.

Heck, maybe sometimes they are based in malice. But I've never really observed people to set out to cheat very often, y'know? Some will, obviously, but mostly? Mmmm ... don't think so.

Big confusion here, not helped by this being ancient history and over the years hijacked as an issue to portray those on one side as 'anti-RP', 'RP rapists', etc, etc. I don't recall malice being attributed to you the player. I recall your character being challenged in an IC arena as to her motives in a particular matter. Now, I know what the response is but at the end of the day the 'label' is only going to be respected if there is no suggestion that it is being abused. And this is the central core problem with the Holy Divide.

It gets abused. It is brought into disrepute in the minds of people. And then even those not actually abusing it, as you may very well not have been doing, are caught up in the maelstrom.

Periodically, we get a generational influx of new EVE RPers who all believe instinctively in the IC/OOC divide because they come from RP backgrounds where such things are, let's be honest, essentially regulated and they're immediately faced with the unregulated market in RP and RP standards that is EVE. And the whole thing erupts again.

Even though most old hands have pretty much learned to rub along knowing the various foibles of the other people involved in EVE RP there is neverending refreshment of the controversy. Something I have learned to accept as simply the way it is.

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Why that is, well, ludicrous notions such as putting strategically or tactically significant information into the public domain and then expecting it to be ignored because it has a given label pasted on it are at least part of it.

We ignore it the same way and for the same reasons we ignore the content of the Eve novels, Cosmo. CCP has a habit of providing more backstory than our characters can reasonably be aware of. Are we at least agreed that it is not appropriate for our characters to know, for example, the truth behind Jamyl Sarum?

It would be strategically useful from the angle of having our characters figure out what's "really going on," but it's sort of hard to find an immersionist who'll assume such knowledge or a non-immersionist "roleplayer" who cares.

Personally, I've avoided reading the novels; I just don't want to know. And maybe that's the answer to all of this: no more publishing short stories, blogs, etc. Only, that's significantly less fun, and I have to admit that one of my reasons for not reading the novels is that they're ... well ...

I am happy to ignore some things or pretend, for IC purposes, that certain things are not in my knowledge or better to say in the knowledge of my character. I quite agree that this is important in RP. But I'm sorry to say that I don't believe this is something that can be done at the unilateral desire of others.

CCP are the arbiters of what is and isn't PF. They are the only authority we all would acknowledge as RPers. The only one. For me to ignore what they clearly intend to be private knowledge is totally different, as a case, to me ignoring what one individual has presumed, yes presumed, to label as public OOC but private IC without any consultation whatever with anyone else.

Now, for the most part I am happy to observe the Public OOC/Private IC distinction because for the most part people don't deliberately or inadvertently abuse it. They really don't.

But I make no apology for saying that if someone wants to play the nonconsensual game they'd best be prepared for the nonconsensual consequences.

So if someone involves my character in material, without my consent, and labels it Public OOC/Private IC, without my consent, they can pretty much whistle for my respect of the Holy Divide. It doesn't exist because they've embarked on the nonconsensual path by their choice.

This is the key point that people won't swallow. I know why. I can understand it. But people over-react. They think that people who refuse to observe an imposed Holy Divide won't respect any kind of IC/OOC divide. It's balderdash.

Once more: enter into nonconsensual RP with someone else's character outside of the confines of the mechanics of EVE and the official forums and you enter into a wild and unregulated world. You cannot rely on the protection of some arbitrary label round your neck. And any hue and cry about that is totally synthetic.

Cosmo

The Cosmopolite

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #26 on: 23 Jul 2010, 15:19 »

Err...a rule is intrinsically non-arbitrary. That's the entire point of establishing a rule, so that you don't have to rely on the capriciousness of individuals. Now, the application of a rule can be arbitrary, but the rule itself...nuh-uh. It can be injust, or ineffective, or disproportionately impactful, or any of a number of other things, but arbitrary is not one of them.

I think the notion that rules are always intrinisically non-arbitrary would be disputed by very many people. I certainly think you would find a long list of people to oppose you who had been on the wrong end of an arbitrary rule.

If a rule is established by the arbitrary choice of one party then it's simply an arbitrary rule.

Possibly you could argue that it's not, in fact, a rule. I wouldn't have difficulty with that if you wanted to define matters in that way.

Possibly you could argue a good rule is not arbitrary and again I don't think I would oppose you on principle there.

But no rules are ever arbitrary no matter how or by whom they are established? No, I'm sorry, I must differ with you on that.

Cosmo

Arvo Katsuya

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #27 on: 23 Jul 2010, 16:11 »

At the end of the day, no matter how many times this subject came up in the past, now, or in the future. Or how long or thought out the post is at twisting semantics over a concept so simple.

The people who argue about these rules are usually the powergamers. They desire power. They desire to 'win' the RPG. To push the envelope in what they are able to do in front of their peers without them pointing their fingers in contempt. And when the said standard becomes lowered and everyone stoops to such a level, it gets pushed again so the powergamer can again have the edge against its flailing opponents.

I don't know what else to say in this as I know whatever I will say, someone else will spin such a reason to weave in and justify their own means. And its fairly dissapointing.
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Aria Jenneth

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #28 on: 23 Jul 2010, 16:36 »

That's the whole reason the subject is so wracked by controversy so often. There is no universally agreed standard as to what is OOC and what is IC.

I tend to think that there is no universal standard because persons with a special interest in justifying its breach place it in controversy.

Be careful! Some might think you were showing a willingness to attribute foul motive where there is none.

Heh. Cute.

It doesn't take a foul motive, though, unless you consider "maintaining the ability to use all available resources to collect and protect power" a "foul motive."

It's a motive I don't share, but that doesn't make it "foul."

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But actually, that says much the same as I am saying but in a different way. My view is that it's more often the people who preach the Holy Divide who clash with one another because they're engaged in a factional war over which end of the egg should be opened at breakfast.

Aren't you trivializing it rather unnecessarily? The way I roleplay affects your roleplay; the way you roleplay affects my roleplay. We're sort of all in this together, which is what makes this such a sticky issue.

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I should say so. But you immediately demonstrate how these rules can be arbitrary.

Let's keep in mind that "arbitrary" does not mean "vague." It means "random" and, usually, unreasonable.

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First point: how do you know what your character knows?

Can be tricky, but usually it's just a "reasonable judgment" question. You know what your character would reasonably know. (You'd be amazed how often this comes up in real laws. Negligence, for example, is based on a "reasonable person" standard.)

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Second point: knowing what your character knows, well, do you simply assert it? Because I think it's rather more in keeping with community RPing to justify it. Yet your definition throws justification out of the window. Why?

If you know, factually, that your character would know it, you probably shouldn't have to "make up" a justification. How do you know New Caldari is the capital system of the Caldari State? Uh, I learned it in school. How do you know Timmy fell down the well? Frank told me. How do you know that Ushra'Khan isn't NBSI anymore? Well, they announced it.

Maybe I'm not seeing the problem you're getting at-- could you provide an example?

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It's, I'm sorry, just an arbitrary judgement. That's factually what it is. I say that as neutrally as possible. I don't place a moral tone on the word 'arbitrary'.

This is one of those spots where you don't but the whole wide world does. Might I suggest "personal judgement?" Or "vague?" Or "unclear," as the situation demands?

"Arbitrary" goes a good bit beyond any of these, meaning essentially "pulled out of a hat."

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I've never understood the willingness of many to ignore foul motive just because it can't be proved to the standards of a court of law.

Meh. In my experience, people are at their worst while they're standing on supposedly high principle (myself occasionally included). They rarely act with a "bwahaha" actually in mind, though maybe some mischievous snickering.

So, I tend to assume people mean well until they demonstrate otherwise.

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What smokescreen that? Some willingness to attribute... you get the point by now...

Again, not malice. This is an old issue between us, and the forum rules forbid acrimonious confrontations. There's a whole stack of reasons to dance around it.

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I don't recall malice being attributed to you the player.

Me, Omerta (mostly Omerta; the theory at the time was that Yuki and Kale had put me up to it) ...

... Jade's comments on Chatsubo, when I finally read them a couple years back, were kind of a revelation.

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I recall your character being challenged in an IC arena as to her motives in a particular matter.

Yep. I mishandled that, or it wouldn't even have gotten through, there. The posting was a violation of IGS rules, which do (or, at least, did; haven't checked lately) respect the "holy divide"; I just misplayed my hand by responding to the challenge and thus ratifying the otherwise forbidden action.

But that's not where most of the outrage was cropping up, turns out.

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It gets abused.

Maybe sometimes.

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It is brought into disrepute in the minds of people.

Cosmo, I have got to ask-- where do you get your word-choice habits? You've got a very elevated manner of speech; I mean, I talk like a dictionary (well, an American dictionary), but you go way, way beyond that. Are you classically educated?

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And then even those not actually abusing it, as you may very well not have been doing, are caught up in the maelstrom.

Sometimes. It seems to me like it's worth the risk.

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Periodically, we get a generational influx of new EVE RPers who all believe instinctively in the IC/OOC divide because they come from RP backgrounds where such things are, let's be honest, essentially regulated and they're immediately faced with the unregulated market in RP and RP standards that is EVE. And the whole thing erupts again.

Not sure it ever dies down. I've never found it at all difficult to find other experienced "immersionists" who take the divide seriously, at least in their own actions. The arguing may end, but that doesn't mean everyone's switched sides.

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I am happy to ignore some things or pretend, for IC purposes, that certain things are not in my knowledge or better to say in the knowledge of my character. I quite agree that this is important in RP. But I'm sorry to say that I don't believe this is something that can be done at the unilateral desire of others.

Mm. "Unilateral desire of others" is another one of those subtly misleading phrases-- it makes it sound like they're just saying, "And the entire last half-hour of intense roleplay is now to be considered OOC knowledge, because I just said so."

... as opposed to, say, "Hey guys. This is my in-character blog. These are my character's private thoughts, so even though this log does actually exist somewhere in Eve, please don't use its contents in-character." Then he goes and posts something unflattering about another character, who proceeds to whang him on the head with a frying pan the next time they meet in The Last Gate, following that with a wardec.

Now, that's a sort of extreme example, of course. More likely it'll be something subtle; one that gets me in trouble is when somebody tells me about their character's background in an OOC conversation, and a year and a half later I end up inadvertently using that detail for some purpose or other. See, that's bad. It is not good. I should not be doing that. It's entirely understandable and, I hope, excusable that I end up doing that, but it is bad, and as a result I've started kinda trying to avoid situations where that could happen, such as, say, looking at stuff Aria shouldn't know.

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... if someone involves my character in material, without my consent, and labels it Public OOC/Private IC, without my consent, they can pretty much whistle for my respect of the Holy Divide. It doesn't exist because they've embarked on the nonconsensual path by their choice.

Terminology again. "Involves" implies that your character is, in some way, inherently entangled in it. Like, he figures in a story or something. On the other hand, if I just write something unflattering in a blog containing my character's private thoughts, how is your character really "involved?"

Sure, there's a chance of someone coming by, reading it, and developing a negative OOC impression because of it. But then, there's also no rule preventing you from going and making your own OOC blog, and writing similarly negative impressions about the perpetrator.

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They think that people who refuse to observe an imposed Holy Divide won't respect any kind of IC/OOC divide. It's balderdash.

I think it's more that they think those who refuse to observe an "imposed Holy Divide" (another bit of loaded terminology) will fail to respect it when it matters. Say, upon stumbling across some truly damaging bit of strictly OOC information.

That is what's really at stake.

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And any hue and cry about that is totally synthetic.

Granted, any kind of border is to some degree "synthetic," but that doesn't make it useless, bad, or lacking in a point. The failure of actors on TV to notice the missing "fourth wall" is synthetic. England as a nation state is synthetic. So is France.

An immersionist environment in a setting like Eve will, necessarily, be synthetic because we have to make it. My objection to breaches of the divide is not that it is "holy." It's that it severs suspension of disbelief, forcing this world into that world in a most obtrusive and unwelcome way.

It taints the setting, and the fact that the setting is already heavily tainted in this way doesn't make that a good thing.

My own angle on it is that what I mark as OOC, I have marked as OOC for a reason: because that info is sufficiently unobtainable that any claim to have obtained it is functionally godmoding. That is an angle with which, at last check, CCP's IGS mods agree.

The boundary is real, and I will enforce it in my own case with the tools at my disposal. The larger game is not regulated; that is true. The IGS, however, is.
« Last Edit: 23 Jul 2010, 16:44 by Aria Jenneth »
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The Cosmopolite

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Re: Vikarion's RP - notice of intent.
« Reply #29 on: 23 Jul 2010, 16:40 »

What's to spin?

The facts are simple. This community is fractured on this question. And it's not just a simple single fracture. It's compound.

As to the concept. It's not a simple concept. It's a sophisticated concept. It may be simple to explain, in one variant or another, but its implications are very complex. You may accuse me of spin but from other people, and I don't call your motives into question, Arvo, because I think you're genuinely disappointed by how RP in EVE works when it comes to the players co-operating with one another, but from others, I have seen this argument too: the concept is simple so anyone arguing about it must be a powergamer (or worse).

However, you make an interesting remark that touches on one of the central problems when it comes to EVE. It's not a pen and paper roleplay game. It's not a storytelling roleplay game. It's not even a live roleplay game.

It's a RPWG. A roleplaying wargame.

And that is something some are in deep denial about despite everything about this game and every piece of major PF and every pronouncement from CCP pointing inexorably to the fact that this game we play is a MMORPWG.

People want to win? Of course. It's war. What else are they expected to desire?

The 'it's bad to want to win' side to the debate is really pretty hard for me to understand given the game we are playing.

I'd be with people who take that view to the hilt if this were Universalis or Talecraft forged into an MMO. But it ain't. It's EVE.

Cosmo
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