EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources > EVE OOC Summit

Self-identification vs. Non-identification in RP

(1/6) > >>

Veiki:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=516990

So reading through this thread it struck how there seems to be very different approaches as to how people interact with the lore and game world when it comes to their RP and I suppose it could be broken down into to two options:

1. My character is essentially "myself" or an idealized version of myself.

2. My character is not myself, or has as little to do with myself as possible and for all intents and purposes I treat them as NPC.

Reflecting back on my own experiences in RP these past few years, I think quite honestly there is absolutely no way these two different approaches can be reconciled in any real or effective manner, due to:

If a subsection of roleplayers approach their characters as "themselves" with a different fictional guise on this leads to (in my mind):

a) the potential for emotional over-investment in the character

b) an inability to see the different approach, "This character is not myself, it is essentially a fictional construct," because the standard held is that anyone else roleplaying must be doing it in the same way -- via author insertion into the game world.

This will lead only to severe misunderstandings and drama such as the following over the years:

- You roleplay an Amarr, you must believe in RL slavery and are a religious person yourself.
- You roleplay a pirate and pvp as one, you must be or want to be an actual killer yourself.
- You roleplay a Sansha, you must actually want to enslave the entirety of humanity in a messianic utopian vision.
- What do you mean you felt nothing during that avocado smashing ERP session?

This gets even more hilarious and potentially extremely salty when people who self-identify as their characters in RP try to second guess or metagame the intentions and motivations of other players through the in-game actions and interactions of their characters.

Personally, I think these two differing approaches are pretty incompatible as a whole.

Utari Onzo:
People find influence for characters from wherever they like. Utari is a magic blend of a few bits of me and a whole lot of either totally opposite me (religious vs my athiest as an example, alcoholic vs my now teetotaller) and totally nothing like me (obsessed with tea, as in the good stuff)

The important thing is to 1) not second judge the choices of other people and 2) trust, and expect, that people won't take things personally or get over emotional about fictional stuff.

If someone wants to play an avatar of themselves they understand it comes with risk tags for that character. As an aside and a warning to all I'll be watching this thread like a hawk as, while the comments are fair, the topic itself reeks of a lot of YDIW. I expect people to discuss this maturely.

Aradina:
Some elements of a character are going to be influenced by the player, of course. That's just unavoidable. Aradina is influenced by some aspects of me but I also hate my characters so with quite a few more negatives. What's the opposite of idealized? I'm too tired to google that.

Her being bad with people for example is because I'm bad with people and if I could pretend to be better with people, I wouldn't be bad with people. There are certainly "acceptable"(careful word usage, six hours sleep, words are hard. Not saying all other examples are unacceptable) examples of self insert-y aspects to a character. Most peoples characters sexuality matches theirs for example. I don't think anyone has an issue with that. Characters tend to have similar tastes in music, entertainment and food simply because it's hard to suddenly come up with something that you don't like as a like, because you have no experience with that. Unless you come up with a list of likes and dislikes in advance anyway.

There's also traits that the player simply likes. Personalities, aesthetics, etc. I'm a big fan of cyberpunk kinds of things, so Aradina has cybernetics and wears black, and visually similar shades, clothing all the time. Because I think that looks neat. (It does look neat.)

Complete self inserts are annoying, as in characters that are exactly like their players and their players will take things personally. But overall there isn't always anything wrong with a little bit of wish fulfillment. I got into Eve because I wanted to be a badass space pirate(failed. Turns out I'm not actually a fan of that kind of gameplay), not sure I can fault someone for doing just that and getting really into the role, unless they're a dick about it anyway.

Veiki:

--- Quote from: Utari Onzo on 24 Jun 2017, 08:47 --- the topic itself reeks of a lot of YDIW. I expect people to discuss this maturely.

--- End quote ---

Not at all, this is me noticing that in a game like Eve which is heavily driven by conflict, confrontation, and occasionally things blowing up. When I RP I take a backseat from my own character and derive their actions from a fictional worldview which might on occasion result in the aforementioned then the end results seem like they're going to differ greatly because the point of interaction also differs.

If I can't even be sure that the people I'm going to interact with aren't going to be personally offended by the actions and results of roleplay that leads to conflict then really what's the point of actually roleplaying anything but non-confrontation and appeasement (thus excising the deployment of a whole lot of archetypes) because hey, the expectation is that you shouldn't do that because people will be upset in the real world about it all?

Because there does seem to be quite a difference of approach in perspective and methods of immersion/interaction and if the lowest common denominator is, "Don't do anything that might offend someone because they're really emotionally invested in the character," Then I guess the only option left is to roleplay baking bread or something I guess to make sure no one gets offended ever.

If one perspective is the deep identification and emotional investment in a character as the player and the other is the use of the distance to maintain a character's archetypes in play then under any conflict dynamic the former is going to make -a lot- of assumptions about the latter because the standard held is an assumption that the people playing in that manner identify to the same extent they themselves do.

So, if the prevalent attitude is quite frankly, "I am my character," For all intents and purposes then those who play by distance to their character are potentially always going to cause a whole lot of misunderstanding and really the only sensible option left seems to opt-out completely on the basis that they're going to offend people who RP with a lot of self-identification in a game like Eve.

Utari Onzo:
My point was not "do not offend anyone/play it safe." My point was if people want to go to the level of playing an idealised version of themselves then that is their choice and it very much is YDIW to tell them they can't.

My other point is that people who choose to do that should understand the risks of immersing themselves to that level, and have no one to blame but themselves if 'bad things' happen to their character and they can't handle it OOC. It's the age old debate that people should RP as they like, but when two or more characters bump into each other, the OOC/IC divide should be distinctly held dear by both parties. Failure to hold to that by one side is that side's fault and no more.

TL;DR if people want to play self inserts that's fine by me, but I really don't care if some of mine, or someone else's legitimate RP upsets them beyond the keyboard.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page