Lyn brings up some interesting scenarios so I'll address that first
How would you make your character (A) react when another character (B) brings up ICly something on which you as a player (p-A) is in fundamental disagree with the other player behind (p-B) ?
Like the most stupid example but likely to happen :
Character B : "What do you think of soft clones ?"
Character A : "Soft clones do not exist"
Character B : "Of course they exist, I have several of them, as well as saves in an implant"
Character A : "Liar"
=> OOC drama.
Ok there, fine, players A and B start to ignore each other, as well as their characters.
I think the simplest solution is to not bring it up. This is of course a very 'meh' solution, but it works well in a lot of cases. To give a bit of an example, Saede and Ava have a lot of very fundamental differences in perspective surrounding religion, philosophy and Minmatar society. Saede's solution to avoiding conflict with Ava is to not bring it up, thus starting arguments. Anther example, my father is a republican, I'm a (dirty) liberal, and we don't remotely see eye to eye on it, but we still manage to peacefully interact as long as we don't discuss politics. So if you have a fundemental disagreement with a player on the nature of canon, you can just avoid talking about it and starting unneeded fights. To solve you example then, the best solution would have been for player B to not bring it up in the first place when they knew it had to potential to create conflict. This isn't an amazing solution I'll admit. The better solution would be for the players to come to some sort of consensus, but when that's not possible, just choosing not to force the issue isn't a terrible way to go about it.
Let's take another example. Someone says his character B has a special ability that you disagree with OOCly.
Character A and B take part in an event. Player B starts to use his ability even knowing you disagree with it, after all, he is free to have his fun too, which is legitimate.
How are you supposed to explain that to yourself, and your character ? How to react ICly after something like this happens ?
I'm not sure what you might be referring to here, but lets go with a relatively extreme example of someone deciding they're a wizard and starting to sling magic around everywhere. The solution to this is really just, ignore it, don't let it effect your character. In most cases people won't force something on your character, and if they do you can call them out for the more relevant OOC issue of them godmodding your character, then of the issue of whatever it is they're doing. If they're not actually effecting your character, then its pretty easy to just let them have their weird fun and just let it go. Again, its not an amazing solution, but there are solutions.
A well know and discussed case now.
Player A blows up player's B ship in space. There is nothing to loot, but player A claims that he abducted player B crew as part of his RP.
Player B disagrees OOCly and claims ICly that never happened.
This is a pretty clear case of outright godmodding and should rightly be called out as such.
Player A doesn't care and sells those slaves to someone else, player C, who starts to do all sort of stuff with them.
This escalates further with not only godmodding but another player (C) being party to the godmodding. If I were player A in this case, I would contact player C and see if something couldn't be worked out with them. Godmodding like this is only really legitimate if other players identify it as legitimate. If player C doesn't go along with it, the buck stops there. This is a case where the community shouldn't be supporting/endorsing godmodding in that manor, its poor form.
Eventually player A can still claim it's fake, that it's other people and not his crew and it will be up to everyone ICly to believe him or not. But it will still make a lot of OOC drama behind. That's basic godmodding, even out of good intentions.
At best it will lead to disagreeable solipsism, at worst both versions of what happened are conflicting. Most of the time it will just be 2 versions of what happened conflicting but as they are exposed ICly, everyone can ICly deny them, so it's fine. But what isn't is the OOC behind.
It is godmodding, I agree. But its not caused by having disagreements about the canon, its outright infringing on another player's existence without their consent, and that's not okay. If someone came to me and said they wanted to capture my crew after they'd blown up my ship, I'd probably go along with it. But if they just went ahead and did it without asking, I'd consider that godmodding and (I think rightly) call them out on it. To give another example. If someone wanted to turn their character into a suicide bomber and blow my character up with it, if they talked about it with me beforehand, I would probably agree to it and help them sort something cool out (because yeah! roleplay conflicts), but if they just ran up to my character somewhere random, and tried that, I'd remove my character from the channel, and again, call them out on it OOCly. That's really in my mind the best way to deal with that sort of godmodding, don't legitimize it by responding to it or giving it the time of day ICly. Its an OOC issue and should be treated as such.
People trying to invent new things that have no basis whatsoever in the Eve universe are typically just trying to be sexy and original. Sorry, this is an MMO. There is no originality from players - we are in a premade world with its own canon.
I disagree. As long as there's no conflict with the existing canon, I see no reason expanding the universe. I mean, my corporation is out in wormhole space forming our own space civilisation right now. That's pretty original. Should we be denied and told we can't start our own faction because 'there is no originality from players and this is a premade world?' I don't think so at all. There's tons of originality and room for player made stuff in the universe. Napaani, Happy Chips, Starsi, there's all sorts of player made things in the universe, and I think saying 'no, you can't make stuff up' is unnecessarily restrictive to everyone. Where would we be if we could only roleplay within the bounds of existing canon? How many times would we have walked the same tired roads in 10 years of RP? After the 300th slaver vs. nonslaver argument in the summit, it starts to get stale and people start looking for something new. This is supposed to be a living breathing universe, and it should be allowed to do so.
So, while clone backups are possible, and useful in cases of genuine accidents, what then is their usefulness in RP? other than situations for showing off? E.g. "I explored an uncharted world" and other such grandstanding? Is there a use for them in RP ?
Or is it just one of those things that has no direct usefulness in RP, because using it just gets messy and overcomplicated ?
I think so. As an example, I think it was about half a year ago, that Katrina Oniseki was assassinated outside a restaurant by a dust merc with a high powered rifle. This kicked off quite a bit of very interesting seeming RP, and while I wasn't involved in it, from the sidelines it seemed like a pretty awesome arc, with Katrina not only trying to deal with her violent death and memory loss, but also hunting down the people who hired the mercenary and all of that. Its entirely possible to use softclones to create cool RP events, it just (like anything else) requires some application of tact.
In closing:
The solution is to not try to freaking assassinate people at events.
/thread