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[Ava Starfire]

The problem stems from the nature of Eve in itself. It is frightening to fail not because of the failure, it is scaring to fail due to the ensuing loss of all credibility or just ending like the laughting stock of the cluster. Most of the time, characters that fail, not in combat, but just manage to look silly in one way or another (the most lethal death ever in Eve RP), have the risk to end definitely wasted.

However, the best solution is to persist. Best examples of universally hated and laughed at characters like DK, Valerie, etc, eventually won their places because they continued to stand firmly.

I have lost more "RP" 1v1s than I have won.

I have lost every "Out of pod" fight I have ever participated in except one.

I dont think my credibility has suffered as a result of either. Far from. Ava feels very real to me, and others have commented the same, because she loses. She fails. She gets drunk and falls down and just in general has bad days. She is moody and often depressed.

Anyone afraid to fail because of ingame repercussions is missing out on what is, in my opinion, the best part about RP. Hey, anyone can look great and be all "rawr" when they win; how do they handle defeat?

[Saede Riordan]

When I first started RPing, I thought the best way to balance my character was to have her fail in spectacular ways and have Bad Things™ happen to her. What I realized later, and have basically lived by since, is that EVE is a brutal game. I don't need to make my character fail, in order fail. Its EVE, I'm going to fail, I'm going to have ships explode. Saede is in a lot of ways, really sticking her neck out. Alexylva Paradox has lots and lots of in-space assets, assets that could be destroyed. There's lots of ways she could lose badly and have pretty much everyone she cares about killed. I wouldn't try to fudge around that if it happened, if I lose, I lose.

The issue with having characters who never fail tends to emerge more when you have people who never place themselves in a position where failure is possible. Failure, like all other RP really, is consensual at the end of the day, if someone doesn't consent to losing, they can avoid it. You can claim quite a lot in EVE, while keeping yourself in a very secure position. I think that tends to be what tweaks me out a bit, when you see characters in NPC corps talking about their vast estates, 3 day old holder characters with thousands, nay, millions of slaves. No one can do anything about them. We can't attack them, we can't interfere with them, we can't really do anything to effect the state of their RP. I would love if more people had exposed assets, things that could actually be fought over, and its sort of sad that we've gotten away from that as a community. It apparently used to be much more the case, and hopefully, with a bit of boldness, can be again.

[Vic Van Meter]

As a wise man who taught me to RP once said, "Nobody ever wins at RP.  Either we all win together, or we all lose separately.  RP's not a competitive sport."

So success, failure, and especially the bits in between are all character issues.  What's important is to have a decent story come out of it.  Case in point, I ended a year-long forum RP thread by essentially having our troupe lose, yet the heads of this criminal organization won.  A few of the characters died, one killed by her own lover.  The only one who completely and totally won was the head of the organization, and he did it by losing.  Best ending I've ever directed in an RP.

So I wouldn't think about failure or success in those terms.  We're all working together to advance our characters.

[Lyn Farel]

I would say it mostly depends of the atmosphere. I have been able to portray weaknesses or failures in most channels or RP venues, even on the Summit on a few rare occasions. I would even say that Lyn tends to turn herself to ridicule pretty quickly.

But on venues like the IGS it's a whole different matter. I'm a lot more reluctant to fail on purpose - even if sometimes I do - because of the whole environment itself. The IGS is a special place where winning RP is king, as wrong as it sounds. I don't like that at all, but it's a ruthless place where you quickly end up with people slinging almost OOCly evelopedia links at the smallest occasion. The atmosphere does not tolerate well failure, and it usually can end up in characters ridiculed out forever.

Not always mind you. It also depends of the character in question.

[Steffanie Saissore]

Steff has had some rather spectacular failures of late...and at first my reaction was to simply shuffle it under the rug and not really think about it (i.e. run from the failure).  Ironically, Steff seems to be rather contrary in that regard as she's taken the failure and for the most part has rolled with the consequences.

The one thing that I have also found though is that dwelling on weaknesses and failures begins to feel like a different form of attention-seeking (something I myself am not comfortable with, being the centre of attention and that has come over into Steff as well). Bemoaning failure after failure can almost be as bad as the perfect person who never fails at anything. Yeah, EVE is grimdark, but I've already mentioned this before, grimdark 24/7 doesn't work; there does need to be some hope etc...

I do fear to fail, but at the same time, I'm finding a certain amount of thrill in taking on challenges in EVE. I fail at PVP...might get better at it  (I hope), but I had fun nonetheless. I really wasn't expecting much with the whole orphanage thing...that's been a success with a glaring failure along the way. And I'm absolutely terrified that the masquerade event is going to be a disaster...but I'm pushing on with it (please come...please....sorry just had to throw that in there...or better yet, don't show to see how terribad it could be). Regardless, I'm having fun even if I'm getting sniped at on the forums or in channels.

Long story short: personal perspective failure is bad...from a writer/storyteller's point of view this is just fuel for the creative fire 

[Kopenhagen]

This is new to me, discussing Jude in public.

One reason therefore is that I have never really had a plan with him, I simply played him as made sense, and this has given him a certain character. Then I based future decisions on the observations other made about his character.

Jude has been called a stoic by some. And this makes his rp bland sometimes. Perhaps the best way to put his perspective on success and failure is from the poem IF, by Rudyard Kipling

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same"

(A wonderful poem by the way, one I read often)

This is not to say Jude does not fail or succeed. He just does not make a big deal out of it,

However, I think any who get close to him will see he carries his failures around him like a cloak. They are there to see in much of what he says and does, but they are all part of him, not some external thing. His best failures makes him grow, his worst ones makes it very hard to see anything more than his public persona.

Anyway, just my take relating to a very specific character. The amount of corps I have started should indicate that I am willing to try things at least.

[Streya]

I tend to tie my roleplay with gameplay pretty intimately, to the point where a failure on my part as a player can also be considered an in-character failure (most often in the form of losing ships or other assets). This is probably a pretty high-stakes way of doing things, but I prefer this over "deciding" whether or not Streya fails at a given task. By having my success or failure be dependent on my skills as a player I prevent myself from having Streya make claims which are too tall or unbelievable. In other words, with the way I roleplay I'm forced to accept failure because asset loss is undeniable in a game where killboards are public.

It's pretty fun IMO, since it intensifies the consequences of success or failure and how it impacts e-reputation.

[Lithium Flower]

I was thinking a lot about it lately, and I think it is time to change my attitude towards failure. Despite I still consider them fun, sad fact, they stain reputation of my character, and not everyone will value it. One rather annoying case have opened my eyes on this.

In short, one unpleasant player agreed to roleplay with me, for me to lose. Conditions of losing were chosen by said player, and, as I understood it, implied rather humiliating (from point of view of said player) consequences, that losing party had to follow. Nevermind, I have agreed to them. Unfortunately, when the time came to RP itself, said player simply withdrawn  when realized, that it required exact playing, and not receiving this result "for free". So, when I confronted character of this player with losing, I got complete denial, rivers of drama and mounds of insults (and I prefer to stop it here, no more details will be given, and I won't answer any questions about this part to prevent escalation/drama/further tears/derailing etc, unless asked in private)

I am not saying that everyone is like this. I sincerely hope that there are no other peoples like this in RP community. And I am not saying, that I will stop losing completely, and become something like "Im a kameira/duster/whatever thus you die, when i try to cut your head off with my sword/draw my gun/whatever". Instead, I will be "trading" my loss with something from your character as well. And of course, I will continue to provide "guides" how to defeat my character, if any of you will be interested, if your method won't work. Of course, for a price as well.

Otherwise, I will keep my character a hard nut and will try to make her to behave like a professional, like she should be.

Oh, and for those, whom I already promised my loss... my word remains in force, don't worry, you can defeat me without giving anything in return.

The only thing that bothers me now, is that I don't know how long I will be able to keep it this way and will break again to losing for fun on any occasion...

Onward to long road of building die hard character~~ go! 

[Arista Shahni]

Glad to see you back.  I thought you were gone forever

*tackle*

Reason for me to resub, add a tickmark!