Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Senn Typhos]

For the record, I totally love it when any character tries to portray mine (or any group to which she belongs) as the bad guys. Much more fun that way.

That!

[Vieve]

I have a feeling I'm (one of the ones) being referred to here,

Oh, good.  It wasn't just me who had that feeling.

[Inara Subaka]

For the record, I totally love it when any character tries to portray mine (or any group to which she belongs) as the bad guys. Much more fun that way.

OOC, I'm in total agreement. It makes for great RP.

IC, Inara doesn't see herself as the "bad guy" and is easily offended by such insinuations. It's also fun when she's doing business and people don't trust her because they think she's going to try and cheat them or blow them up... when she just wants to do business.

[Amann Karris]

My character is simply an old man.  An old man who spent most of his life fighting for a faith he doesn't believe, for people he despises, and for an Empire he sees as a house of cards about to collapse.

He actually prays every night that Jamyl gets beheaded, and that either the Minmatar Elders or Sansha would just swoop in and end everything.  He's a bitter, disillusioned, and cynical man going through the motions, and praying that his next leap will be the leap home.

That last bit may have been from Quantum Leap though.  He is old and crazy. 

Nikilaiki?  Well, she's just plain crazy.  Does she want to win?  Hell no.  She just wants the whole world to burn, and watch the pretty fires as everything dies, including her.

[Casiella]

Nikiruu isn't crazy. She's just someone I never got to RP enough with.

Which is probably the single most disappointing regret I have about EVE.

[Amann Karris]

Nikiruu isn't crazy. She's just someone I never got to RP enough with.

Which is probably the single most disappointing regret I have about EVE.

Trust me; as the person who unleashed the madness into the world, she's crazy.  I've been RP'ing her as crazy for as long as I've played her.  Just because she happens to be (kinda) right in some of her theories, does not negate the madness lurking beneath that oh-so-lovable exterior.   Also, I never get to RP with you either!  Of course, seeing as I'm not actively playing that's my fault. 

[Seriphyn]

Please take in mind that I am referring to the issue and not the characters. Even if you may find the OP targets you, I am more addressing this as a product of player/character interaction in the EVE RP community as opposed to the actual players & characters.

[Vieve]

Even if you may find the OP targets you, I am more addressing this as a product of player/character interaction in the EVE RP community as opposed to the actual players & characters.

Thank you for clearing that up.  Not that I felt particularly tarred by the brush of "people in the Fed RP bloc tend to shed their allegiance to the Federation if they have one bad hair day"; after all, it did take quite a few bad hair days for my characters to get where they are.

[Tiberius Wenchel]

I think some people are confusing what I've called hero syndrome* for their character wanting to win or accomplish personal goals. It's not about the character wanting to win, it's about the player wanting to win through the means of the character.

[Ken]

When you get down to it, RP is a game.

To me this is categorically untrue.  RP is collaborative storymaking that combines improv with more episodic forms of writing.  Since RP factors so heavily into my enjoyment of EVE, I suppose I don't see it as a game at all.  It's genuinely a virtual world in which, much like the real one, winning and losing is largely transient and subjective.  There is conflict in RP and there are winners and losers in that conflict, but unlike Vikarion, for instance, I don't perceive losing in a RP storyline to be a loss at all.  Whatever develops and advances the story and enriches the characters is a plus imo.

[Revan Marceau]

I'm completely new to EVE, and so I don't really understand how the storyline arcs work, but the general rule of thumb, in other MMO's, is that anything that is game-story driven, is generally dismissable in RP. Sure, you can RP the arc with some friends, but you'll always run into the dilemma that someone else might have been there already and done that, weeks before you did. Does that dismiss your RP because of it?

I feel personally, its in bad taste to RP anything that involves a story-arc that isn't player driven content, AND use it as a character developing device. But that of course, is just my two cents.


-----------------------------EDIT

And reading through further, I realize I might have missed the purpose of this topic a little... But my statement still holds a little true.

I think what makes EVE a great game, is the ability to really carve your own place into the Universe. I don't have to be apart of the main conflict, or make any huge contribution to the main story arc for my character to be worthy of rememberance... no, what makes RP as special and as wonderful as it is, is that we have the room and opportunity to create our own place in the universe. Make our own stories. That doesn't mean that interlocking parts of our stories with the main arc in some fashion or another is a bad thing necessarily... but when this occurs, it should never be in some large amount that anything your character does, would have direct impact on the main story arc. (that's more or less the 'heroism' you speak of.) Rather, a better thing to do, is use the main story arc as a means to fuel the ambition and goals of your character. What purpose does he have in this? Why would he be there?... and most importantly, what significance is there in his contributions? Its a huge balancing act, that you find in any universe, be it EVE, or Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars... but, I guess to put it simply:

The events of the main story should be allowed to mold your character, the actions of your character should not mold the main story. Not in a way that your taking the pen out of CCP's hands and putting it in your own... especially when there are already so many other people fighting tooth and nail for that same pen.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

The events of the main story should be allowed to mold your character, the actions of your character should not mold the main story.

This is beautifully put.

EVE is a bit better than most games in this respect, as there are very little "story arcs" that can be done multiple times with a different character as the Saviour Of The World. Some storyline / faction missions etc are in that category, but e.g. for CCP-lead events, if you were there, you saw the others who were there too.

But still, I find the attitude where you do not attempt to be the guy who changes the story, but the guy changed by it, is what appeals to me.

[Senn Typhos]

When you get down to it, RP is a game.

To me this is categorically untrue.  RP is collaborative storymaking that combines improv with more episodic forms of writing.  Since RP factors so heavily into my enjoyment of EVE, I suppose I don't see it as a game at all.  It's genuinely a virtual world in which, much like the real one, winning and losing is largely transient and subjective.  There is conflict in RP and there are winners and losers in that conflict, but unlike Vikarion, for instance, I don't perceive losing in a RP storyline to be a loss at all.  Whatever develops and advances the story and enriches the characters is a plus imo.

But again, when I say "game," I don't mean to imply the same structure as something like, I dunno, chess for example. Outside of a basic structure (ie. godmoding being frowned upon, recklessly breaking canon, not RPing Gimli, son of Gloin in EVE) there aren't many "rules" to RP. That being said, there ARE characters, settings, storylines, etc., all the things that make up a plot that is told over time.

The difference is, RP has players. People that control one pawn out of the whole story, develop their character, and play through as they wish. This is similar to the structure of a tabletop RPG. We're not throwing dice to determine how the storylines play out, but we are playing one character, out of a cast, in a fairly stable universe (in terms of continuity). And just like in a tabletop, we don't necessarily have to accomplish a goal, or hell, even survive, for the story to be exciting and fun for everyone involved.

However, a tabletop RPG is still a Role Playing Game. And as long as there are games in the world, there will be players that min/max and optimize their rogue, put in weirdass Illithid prestige class levels so they can eat people's brains, and always ask the DM to let him roll to quote, "kick the orc in the nuts."

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

You can define "a game" to both include and exclude (all, or some) RP. Without an exact definition, there's no point in arguing whether RP is a game or not.

I like Greg Costikyan's definition from I Have No Words & I Must Design:

A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal.

I highly recommend that essay on the nature of games, and on the topic of

There's a lotta different kinds of games out there. A helluva lot. Cart-based, computer, CD-ROM, network, arcade, PBM, PBEM, mass-market adult, wargames, card games, tabletop RPGs, LARPs, freeforms. And, hell, don't forget paintball, virtual reality, sports, and the horses. It's all gaming.

But do these things have anything at all in common?

By Costikyan's definition, a collective storytelling thingy where players make decisions as characters (their "tokens") to try and achieve the goals of said characters, managing the resources (abstract and concrete) those characters have, is "a game". That there is no winning condition is not an issue to him as such.

[Ken]

By Costikyan's definition, a collective storytelling thingy where players make decisions as characters (their "tokens") to try and achieve the goals of said characters, managing the resources (abstract and concrete) those characters have, is "a game". That there is no winning condition is not an issue to him as such.

A definition that broad could just as easily cover real life as well.

I'm inclined to define "game" more narrowly, particularly in a way that there be clear conditions for winning and losing.  When those conditions are highly flexible or open to interpretation (to the point of even being completely subjective), I don't consider the activity a game any longer.  It becomes an exercise or a fantasy.  Thanks for helping me place my opinion in perspective.  I will check out that essay.

[spoiler]

* Ken rolls to kick Senn in the nuts!

  [/spoiler]