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[Seriphyn]

I was discussing this with a pair of individuals in regards to EVE RP. I was going to create a vlog about how our characters aren't really seen as fictional creations, or validated, but rather they are seen as player-enemies. However, my two week break has actually decreased my inspiration to do so and EVE overall. EVE is a game about PvP and on-upping each other and, from my experience, RP is just another avenue to do so. If we are from differing factions, we are automatically of a hostile disposition to each other. It does not matter how much fiction we have behind our character, or supporting our characters, people will be reluctant to "accept" these pieces, as it reduces the character from being anything but a target. This is from my own perspective anyway.

In this topic, I want to challenge people to see how much of their character is left over if they removed faction loyalty from it. I like to think that Seriphyn stands up still, and that I try to press the Federation being secondary to his character. He is your typical tragic figure of much romantic poetry, where the love of his life and only son are taken from him, and he is forced to carry on regardless (mixed up a little with a 10 year old daughter who is all he has left of his deceased soulmate). He fights as a soldier for their sake, and must not only battle with the enemies of his state, but battle with the emotions of loss, doubt and his troubled upbringing. He found the company of another woman that has saved him from suffering in loneliness, but only time will tell if she can truly replace the one that he lost.

Stuff like that. I feel that there should be a greater emphasis on roleplaying personal relationships and interactions, and how the faction and EVE setting serves as merely a platform for this. Whenever I do RP the faction though, I prefer a more worldbuilding take on it, which is another thing I would encourage (discussing aspects of fluff, for example). However, the overly competitive nature of EVE bleeds through into RP, so it remains to be seen if it can break free from the innate nature of EVE 

[Valdezi]

After a year or so in EVE I was on the verge of taking one of those long term breaks Seri was talking about in his other post. The game was kinda boring for me. Then I stumbled across Placid Reborn somewhere, and I thought: 'This looks cool.'

I started doing research into RP corps and found the ILF. Myself and a bunch of my RL friends joined, and it's been great.

Since I've joined, the Intaki factional thing has become a huge part of my character, but his moral and political beliefs are complex enough that, if I decided to leave the ILF or the ILF ceased to exist, he would still be very much himself.

I also think that the personal relationships can be an important part of interaction, as you said Seri and a big part of what we do is building those relationships. Out of my own corp, I'd like to think my character has cultivated those relationships with a variety of different capsuleers, including yourself. Those may develop into something, they may not.

[Casiella]

I've been thinking about this topic from a related angle lately, in the sense that many of our characters and corporations focus strongly on factional loyalty.

Back here IRL, though, I am not primarily defined by loyalty to a government. My employer isn't, either. To the degree we feel that loyalty, it provides a backdrop to the decisions we make. Even if suddenly I controlled vast resources, they wouldn't immediately be used in defense of my country or whatever. (I'll leave the discussion on nationalism for another thread.)

[Orthic]

Personal relationships make you friends and sometimes enemies, factional loyalty makes you enemies and sometimes allies. I find that none of my characters are tied strongly to their factions - Orthic probably made as many enemies as all the rest of my characters have combined when he joined the Serps. But my focus is almost always on personal interaction rather than factional bickering, leading to more friends than enemies in almost all cases - Orthic's difficulties relating to people making him a noticable exception.

But yeah, none of my characters are built around their faction. The characters might gravitate towards a given faction after they've developed, not the other way around.

[Saede Riordan]

Well, I like the angels, and OOCly, I doubt I'd know what to do if RP ever took Nikita out of them, since OOCly, I'm an angel through and through.

That said, Nikita is a complete person independent of her faction. I've actually though a good deal about what would happen to Nikita's mind if the cartel ever truly dumped her. A lot of the mental walls she's built up to protect herself from grief and pain were built using her loyalty to the cartel, in a lot of ways, she has very little left besides her short term enjoyment of life, and the Cartel itself, loyalty to them is what gets her up in the morning.

Does that mean she'd be damaged without her faction? Yes, of course she would be, it would be like the wall she was leaning on suddenly vanished and she fell over. But she would still be a complete character, a whole person. A person who has lost everything and had her supports knocked out from under her, which in itself would be interesting, but whole nonetheless. I think if she was ever dumped by the cartel, she'd try to find some other group to cling to and delude herself into thinking she was with them the whole time.

It would be interesting, that's for sure.

[Z.Sinraali]

I'd be more interested in the aberrant psychology that would lead someone to admit/claim, in public, that their character isn't anything more than their factional loyalty.

Addendum: At least among the self-identified roleplayers that frequent this forum.

[Casiella]

Oh, I've played characters like that before, particularly when I had recently joined the game and tried to adjust to the RP environment here.

[Lyn Farel]

Lyn is not very loyal to any Empire, other than "greater" ideals like CONCORD, NRDS and stuff. Without the Amarrian Empire, she can move on to something else. She already did it in the past and worked for the feds in Solitude. Without her factionnal identity she is just a bookworm and the very archetype of the scholar.

Though deprived of her true loyalty to SCT (being unconsciously one of their pawns), I think she would lose anything left to her, her curiosity, her will, and she would eventually wander around without a goal or a purpose like a broken toy. Or just let herself die. So yes, ICly she is almost nothing without her faction, but in a roleplay way, the character has a lot of personnal attributes and a proper face that makes her to be her and not a faceless character.

[Ulphus]

Ulf is loyal to his clan, they're the people he grew up with. It just so happens they're Matari, and therefore he works for the betterment of the republic because that's part of how he makes things better for his clan.

If he decided the republic as a political institution was not worth supporting for some reason, I don't think that would affect his basic loyalty to his family.

[Z.Sinraali]

Oh, I've played characters like that before, particularly when I had recently joined the game and tried to adjust to the RP environment here.

See, that doesn't help, I can't go back in time and dissect Casiella-newbie's brain.

Ah well, maybe there's some traces left in there. Hold still.

[Casiella]

When I started to RP in EVE, I knew only a few things about what I wanted:

(1) Combat.
(2) Minmatar.
(3) Rationality.

So I rolled up a Brutor, Kudon Astraisx, and worked my way into EM because, as a new player, I had the impression that U'K consisted of, well, psychos. (Note, I'm not saying that I had a correct impression, then or now.)

I didn't really get the tribal thing, actually. Minmatar just looked badass and had lots of dakka dakka, plus the whole "rebel/punk" motif. So instead, I RPed that Kudon's primary loyalty lay with the Republic Fleet and the Republic itself rather than his tribe, because this fit into a nationalistic pattern I understood well from RL. (In retrospect, I probably should have gone Caldari at that point.)

Note, that doesn't mean I had no RP experience; on the contrary. But most of it lay in Star Wars, a universe I already understood intimately from childhood forward. (My dad raised me with tales of Obi-wan, Luke, and Anakin the way other dads raised their kids with Grimm's fairy tales). When I suddenly found myself in a layered, complex fictional setting that I didn't already know, I fell back on what seemed (a) interesting and (b) easy to understand.

My point in all that long-windedness is that roleplayers new to EVE frequently don't know where to start, so they go with what they know. And one of the things "we" know is loyalty to Westphalian nation-states (as well as to criminal gangs).

So yes, many characters will at least start out as basically whatever the in-game character creator spits out. That means characters not much more than a faction and a gender and maybe an idea about a profession.

[Graelyn]

If Grae lost Amarr, he'd move on to PHASE II.

Been planning for it for ages actually.

[Ken]

It's a good question, Seri.  I think people should consider it carefully when creating new characters.  As for my personal collection of RP characters, I think I have by and large led them all away from straightforward faction loyalties.  They do what they do out of desire, personal goals, or simply for the people they are close to rather than loyalty to a flag or anthem.  All of them happen to be citizens of the Federation, and one of them has done a great deal of work on behalf of that nation's military, but none of them are really drawn to exaggerated nationalistic ideals.

[Katarina Enaka]

Almost all of katarina would be left, I am well aware that I am new and probably not as experienced in RP as some of you other guys (and gals) which is actually why one of the first things katarina did RP wise was seperate from the state and seek a new home elsewhere, this allows me to build up her loyalties based on the persons she interacts with rather than based on what faction said persons are.

[orange]

Dex is a frontier industrial CEO who does not want "big central governments" telling him what he can & cannot do, but perhaps that is not how others see him?

He didn't start off there and PF informed the development of the character over time.  The player decision to join CAIN informed long term faction-affiliation.  The faction affiliation spurred character background development.  An out of character discussion with a friend encouraged exploring the industrial aspect of the game and eventual development of LDIS and the above one line concept behind Dex today.

A counter is at what point do the characters we play define various factions (or conglomerates)?  Yes, CCP has established the basis for each faction, but in many ways certain player character personalities define various factions.