[Theory of Roleplay] Long Term Development & You

[HaveADream]

After the large success of my previous Theory of Roleplay post, I’ve decided to make it a weekly discussion. This post is regarding long term development of our characters, including traumatic events that should affect the lives of our characters’ to a greater degree, the effect that our CK’d friends should or should not have on us, and the long term effects of our decisions, our guest for this discussion needs no introduction - it is the one and only, @akari! If you’re interested in appearing on a later Theory of Roleplay, message me on either the forums or on Discord at HaveADream#4339 with your name and topic you wish to discuss. 

 

Akari is in Italics.

 

By its very nature, activities within the server are very short term, serious injuries last no longer than a week, prison sentences are no more than an inconvenience (Soon to change!) and, just like a war-torn city, human life is cheap - but does that absolve us of our responsibilities to our greater character arcs? If you’ve been here long enough, your character will have a friend who has unfortunately passed away, now, ask yourself, would your character still think about that person, and is that reflected in your portrayal?

 

Ultimately, everyone here is here to have fun, and spending hours of your time every day to mourn and visit a virtual grave isn’t the most enticing thing to do - you may ask; how does this enrich my experience, how does this add depth to my character and is it even worth it? I spoke to Akari to get his views on the situation.

 

"Ultimately, I feel like everyone views their roleplay as more of a disconnected episodic adventure, rather than understanding their character as a three dimensional, breathing person with complex thought processes and, most importantly, a long-term memory. Massive changes in your character’s life should have an emotional impact on them, and in the case of someone else’s CK - more specifically, the death of someone who was close to your character, the impact should last longer than “____ is dead so my character is going to feel bad for the next two days and then they’ll be fine.”

 

"For example, my gal Akari was very close to Teya Garcia, a girl who had gotten herself roped up into a whole lot of drug and hostage-related nonsense up in Sandy Shores. While she did try her best to rescue Teya from that life - getting her a ride back to LS, giving her a place to stay, checking her in to rehab and keeping tabs on her during recovery, etc - she was eventually found and murdered, which ended up fucking Akari up hardcore - not only is she trying to cope with the loss of a dear friend/vague love interest, but she’s also been left in a state of constant paranoia, is generally left watching her back at every turn, and has a strong aversion to Sandy Shores/north SA altogether. So not only has this death affected her on a personal level, but interpersonally as well, as it completely altered the way she interacts with characters of certain personalities and backgrounds."

 

On the flipside, we can talk about the effect CKing (or even PKing) somebody else can have on your character. I’ve seen dozens of people try to RP ruthless hotheads, but we have to take a minute to draw ourselves away from the cinematic experience we picture this server as, and instead, look at real-world examples - most serial killers are driven by psycho/sociopathic tendencies. While it’s happened before, it’s VERY rare that someone of sound mental state resorts to murdering someone to solve a problem, let alone anyone who might inconvenience them. It’s even less likely for a character of sound mental state to walk out of that situation completely unphased and continue their lives as if nothing happened. If you’d like to use the excuse that your character is mentally unstable and therefore unphased by fatally injuring another person, then you’re by all means allowed to do so - but then you have to ask yourself, what are you roleplaying outside of this specific incident that helps support that particular aspect of them as a person?

 

Death is not the only long term consequence of the crazy world we thrust our characters in, most certainly. The role of addiction is a big one that I’ve seen represented quite well, with many characters being spotted hunting down clubs for the next big fix of their drug of choice, but what happens if your character doesn’t get their fix - do they shake, do they get aggressive? Research is a big part of portraying a realistic character, and addictions can become a very big part of the development of your character, while medical roleplay is severely lacking in this regard, the role of third-party doctors are becoming more prevalent. For example, your character spends their days and nights off their rocker with the closest white substance they can find, but if they eventually decided to give up, what would they do? Would they fall back into their old patterns or seek help, will they be pushed into their lifestyle of sin by those closest to them?

As I’m pretty sure a decent chunk of people know OOCly, and a few know ICly, Akari struggles with mild prescription drug abuse, after breaking a bone whilst dealing with a few other stressful factors in her storyline on the side. While she’s acknowledged that this is a problem and doesn’t particularly like this fact about herself, she hasn’t made any real effort to stop, and it’s worsened enough that her body has become fairly used to the dosage and she’s generally pretty functional while high. I’ve been trying my best to RP this out cover to cover - she’ll excuse herself from situations early if she hasn’t had a dose in a decent amount of time, she generally avoids alcohol if she’s taken any recently, and she’ll start showing physical symptoms and increased irritability if she’s been going long enough without (Apologies to everyone that has had to deal with my eye-scratching and dilated pupil RP)

 

Meanwhile, I used to RP with someone whose character would snort lines of coke on the nightly and would suffer no lasting effects. Though I will give props to the fact they actually used the scripted item, I had not once seen them RP out any physical symptoms of long-term abuse, or any sort of withdrawal if they hadn’t used in a while. My personal opinion is that if you want to give your character any sort of addiction, you need to make sure it’s burdening all facets of their life, and not just popping in and out where you see convenient. Also use the items, for god sake.

 

To me, long term development has a major role in how your character actively interacts with the world around them, I’ve been in situations where I have not been happy with my characters actions due to both the backstory I’ve enriched them with, or the events that have unfolded since their stay in Los Santos began as I've felt it hasn't properly mirrored what my character should have done. To counteract this, I tend to keep a copy of my characters ‘story so far’ open, which I do update after a significant change in their development. Speaking to Akari, it was obvious that long term developments are sometimes forgotten or disregarded altogether, eventually becoming a footnote in the biography of their lives. 

A thing I’ve had people question me about is how Akari tends to view other characters, including vividly retaining her viewpoint of them for weeks or months on end. But if you think about it, how many people in your life have given you strong first impressions, even if you haven’t really talked to them much on a personal level? Now take into account your character’s personality - are they one to hold a grudge or are they lenient with their second chances? Are they reclusive or open about their feelings? Are they a cynic or do they try to see the good in people?

 

If someone gives you shit on your first meeting, you’re likely to keep a bad taste in your mouth. Likewise, if a stranger is nice to you, you’ll probably think of them fondly. Your character should be doing the same - if they’re petty, beef shouldn’t be squashed just because it happened longer than two weeks ago!

 

Of course, you are most certainly free to develop your character and their willpower to resist these changes in whatever way you wish. It is so understandable to accept that you occasionally follow a path for your character to then want to change it entirely, I’ve done it, Akari has, and I’m sure the vast majority of us have - our characters are dynamic representations written as two-dimensional collections of words, but whether your character responds to the past or prefers to bury it? That’s up to you. 

 

Trauma, long term development and commitment is a way to enrich your experience and enrich the character you represent, as well as pulling them further away from yourself and establishing their own identity, far from your own. To me, long term development is a tool to build your character, and in the pursuit of realistic portrayal, it’s important we self-reflect on the paths we have to lead our characters and decide the way forward in a believable matter, your characters' past could define their actions today, and nothing stops that past from forming a major role in the life of your character.

 

Thanks for reading, let me know your thoughts.
 

Edited July 12, 2019 by HaveADream

[akari]

0/10 edited my all lowercase

 

the reason long-term character development (or lack thereof) and poor portrayal strikes a particular nerve with me is because people don't realize that most of what we're doing here is writing. i didn't come here to shoot guns or drag race - first and foremost, i came here because i enjoy writing fiction and i have a story i want to tell.

 

so when i see people go about writing their characters in a way that's grossly incongruent with the experiences they've had up to that point, it bothers me knowing it's something i or any other writer would never be able to get away with in proper, single-author prose.

 

thank u for letting me ramble about akari isayama for 2 paragraphs

[UTOPIA]

You can find a lot of this sort of character development in /some/ illegal factions, most illegal factions I have been a part of love to roleplay their character development whether it positively or negatively effects them, as aforementioned; being addicted to drugs, severe injuries, etc. I am referring to The Vanguard in this case, a lot of great roleplay to be found all around, just need to ... be wary of the babies in sports cars who dress like they are fresh out of middle school.

[Guest]

As a person with multiple long term characters, the hardest is to write all those close people who die into the story. My system is to write everything into the past, that's why its most easiest to RP as a 35-40 year old. Then you can write all the prison sentences and deaths into the 20 year period and stretch them out in there. Of course I RP the initial effects as it should be but with time I just fade them out.

[akari]

46 minutes ago, deanbell said:

You can find a lot of this sort of character development in /some/ illegal factions, most illegal factions I have been a part of love to roleplay their character development whether it positively or negatively effects them, as aforementioned; being addicted to drugs, severe injuries, etc. I am referring to The Vanguard in this case, a lot of great roleplay to be found all around, just need to ... be wary of the babies in sports cars who dress like they are fresh out of middle school.

the thing i have with the classic "there's good roleplay to be found if you look!" response to these sort of complaints is that i feel like, if we're on a heavy RP server, i shouldn't have to be going around looking for the good eggs?

but i do. and when i find them, i end up sticking to them like glue across any and all characters, because i view them as "tried and true." i recognize this is a problem that can and usually evolves into the clique mentality, another widespread issue that i'd like to shed some light on in the future. people seeing RP as something you have to "sift" through can give us a pretty elitist mindset, whether we're aware of it or not.

 

1 minute ago, Tr1bal said:

As a person with multiple long term characters, the hardest is to write all those close people who die into the story. My system is to write everything into the past, that's why its most easiest to RP as a 35-40 year old. Then you can write all the prison sentences and deaths into the 20 year period and stretch them out in there. Of course I RP the initial effects as it should be but with time I just fade them out.

i don't blame anyone for not wanting to have a drawn-out reaction to every single death that happens within their character's social circle, especially in places like illegal factions where stone cold deaths can be much more common - even i've been one to gloss over more "minor" deaths. the real problem i'm having is that, like kalani said in the original post, character's lives are viewed as cheap and disposable. i can't tell anyone they're not allowed to kill off their characters for good, or attempt to kill off others'. i just wish it wasn't such a common occurrence, so it would hold a bit more weight to our overall story.

[Midsummer Night's Dream]

1 hour ago, akari said:

0/10 edited my all lowercase

 

the reason long-term character development (or lack thereof) and poor portrayal strikes a particular nerve with me is because people don't realize that most of what we're doing here is writing. i didn't come here to shoot guns or drag race - first and foremost, i came here because i enjoy writing fiction and i have a story i want to tell.

 

so when i see people go about writing their characters in a way that's grossly incongruent with the experiences they've had up to that point, it bothers me knowing it's something i or any other writer would never be able to get away with in proper, single-author prose.

 

thank u for letting me ramble about akari isayama for 2 paragraphs

 

Well done, Akari. Your post was too well-written, coherent and easily justified to be a ramble! And I completely agree with it; it's why I roleplay what I roleplay — prosecutors tell stories too, just in a more formal setting.

[HaveADream]

Just now, Midsummer Night's Dream said:

 

Well done, Akari. Your post was too well-written, coherent and easily justified to be a ramble! And I completely agree with it; it's why I roleplay what I roleplay — prosecutors tell stories too, just in a more formal setting.

Woah - she didn't write it all ?

 

On topic - I completely agree with what Akari has said - you really shouldn't need to look for good roleplayers, while I don't think the server is cliquey, those who have been here long enough absolutely do stay in their own social circles out of fear of the potential of poor roleplay, which I think drives away some new players too.

[SaintBatemanofWallStreet]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, akari said:

 

the reason long-term character development (or lack thereof) and poor portrayal strikes a particular nerve with me is because people don't realize that most of what we're doing here is writing. i didn't come here to shoot guns or drag race - first and foremost, i came here because i enjoy writing fiction and i have a story i want to tell.

 

so when i see people go about writing their characters in a way that's grossly incongruent with the experiences they've had up to that point, it bothers me knowing it's something i or any other writer would never be able to get away with in proper, single-author prose.

 

First off, everything was well done, loved the read. But to be honest, the only thing that really needed to be said through the whole thing and still get your point across? Right here.

Roleplay servers, in general, are set up as a fallacy for most to be long term platforms for the majority of players simply due to mechanics. Cops on the server who've been in the department for a long period of time have a body count of 30+ people. Paramedics and firemen have seen more dead bodies than most people could ever imagine. There is enough gang violence happening to probably warrant the National Guard showing up. Gangsters are getting shot at by each other and the cops so frequent enough you'd think the hood was actually Fallujah.

However, as you've kind of hit, it's all about the person behind the character. The one who wants to tell a story. Sadly, most "want to tell a story" when it's convenient to them, and don't when it's not. This goes down to people not really wanting to take a loss that is detrimental at all. And instead of going back to the drawing board when the character fails, they force it. These places are bred for characters to take every death and life changing event with a grain of salt. Whether it be because they watched Gangland and someone being interviewed said that's what they gangsters do, or they see interviews with cops more or less saying the same thing. Cool. Got it.

I've played both legal characters and illegal characters on this server. For them to not be shaking messes from the stuff that goes on here, you almost have to have them pre-exposed to this sort of chaos and violence in their back story. My character, good guy Brody Chapman has a severe amount of PTSD from being deployed. He has a hard time relating to most people around him because they haven't lived that life and is generally on an IC level by his peers probably thought to be kind of a standoffish asshole because of it. Little do they know I made him that way so when I see some of these other characters that are played like hot garbage, when he says nothing and is generally speechless, it's because I'm banging my head against the keyboard.

I could diatribe about how it's pretty bad with both legal and illegal characters on here, but honestly, I think I'd just be wasting my time writing it all out for someone to be like "Nuh uh, because, in this one event, I had my character cry for a day about X, Y, and Z." which is fine. You do you. But that doesn't necessarily make it right. And that goes for people on both sides of the law. Cops are basically professional gunfighters by either circumstance or choice, and gangsters are banging sunup to sundown with nothing in between.

I'll conclude this by saying that there are some fantastic players on both sides. Yes, this is true. But the one hidden gem in a sea of mediocrity or even downright poor character portrayal drags it all down. If you are a hidden gem out there? Keep doing what you're doing. I'm glad you're there. Problem is, everyone thinks they're that elite level roleplayer, even when they're not. I'm not. I know I'm not. But I always strive to be.

[shiroq]

Like the person above me said, you have to look at the server as a very condensed thing. Like for example as he said many cops have 30 or even more kills. In real life this doesn't happen many cops never even get to shoot their guns. The example of gangs and criminals going to kill people often etc, well that's because a real life gang might have 100-3000 members, while on the server the numbers might be 10-30 at most. Most of the members will never get to kill or do anything like that because there will be always those people that do it and in real life it doesn't happen so often because everything on the server is accelerated due to population and also the size of the map. 
For example as a criminal if I have a meeting with another group that might take me 2 hours, but in real life that kind of meeting would probably take up a whole day, traveling even in a city like LA takes a very long time due to traffic, size of the city etc. While in the game you can drive from one side to the other side in about 2 minutes maximum 5 even if you follow the speed limits.

Another thing about people developing their characters is that no one really wants to stay at the bottom for long. I mean we do not have dedicated chefs, bartenders or even mechanics. Most people take up these jobs just for money instead of actually rping their character being in that position.

I think if people were to take up these "niche" roles there would be much more rp and would make it more interesting. For example when I ran the Del Perro pizza we had a player who came in rping as a chef and his actual chef rp was amazing, and it made it so interesting for all of us to be there and just to have him work there because he was dedicated to that position and we didn't see him working as a bouncer 2 hours later at a club.

I think a lot of  "quality of life" improvements should come to the server like for example renting, currently renting is useless as everyone buys a house due to the fact that most rented places are not really their own unlike in real life. I think if property managed allowed for real estate agencies to exist and actually rent properties which the players would "own" for the time they are renting so that they can safely store their belongings etc would make it much better. I would really love to have a rent system that maybe is rather weekly rather than hourly as this would make renting much more appealing for businesses and so on.

I'm currently renting out a house for three people, during the first week of them being active it was worth it. But the second week they have played much less and makes it less appealing to rent the house to them as it's not earning any income. But if the rent system was changed similar to the business lease where would they pay weekly or even monthly and once they don't pay up that means they lose the property, maybe given X amount of days to clear out their belongings or they could ask icly to get them back etc. This kind of improvement would make more players interested in renting in my opinion and the house owners that are renting the houses would actually be interested in it too as their earnings and the investment they made wouldn't depend on the player actually being online most of the day for them to earn enough to make it worth their while spending 100-300k on a house to rent it out.

There is a lot of  opportunities to make the rp on the server much better but it's up to the players to make the effort. Most of the players just go "oh yeah no one else is doing it so why should I?" But if you make the effort to do things differently, you will certainly be noticed quickly. But like everything it all just depends on people making the effort. We can have these discussions for years and nothing will change unless WE as the community take these steps to improve.

[akari]

58 minutes ago, SaintBatemanofWallStreet said:

Roleplay servers, in general, are set up as a fallacy for most to be long term platforms for the majority of players simply due to mechanics. Cops on the server who've been in the department for a long period of time have a body count of 30+ people. Paramedics and firemen have seen more dead bodies than most people could ever imagine. There is enough gang violence happening to probably warrant the National Guard showing up. Gangsters are getting shot at by each other and the cops so frequent enough you'd think the hood was actually Fallujah.

However, as you've kind of hit, it's all about the person behind the character. The one who wants to tell a story. Sadly, most "want to tell a story" when it's convenient to them, and don't when it's not. This goes down to people not really wanting to take a loss that is detrimental at all. And instead of going back to the drawing board when the character fails, they force it. These places are bred for characters to take every death and life changing event with a grain of salt. Whether it be because they watched Gangland and someone being interviewed said that's what they gangsters do, or they see interviews with cops more or less saying the same thing. Cool. Got it.

this is a very good point and something i mentioned in passing in my original take - most people seeing this server as cinematic. this is actually a conversation i had just lastnight with a friend of mine who mains a PD character - while i am aware of usual LSPD "agenda" (patrol, routine traffic stop, bang bang shooty shooty, script revive, bad guy arrested), i don't think all of it should be chalked up to robocop syndrome as some people like to insist. it's also a huge, HUGE problem with the general "cop allergy" on the server. where the police are always the bad guys, and calm cooperation is never an option. hell, i know a huge chunk of west-side civilians that outright refuse to have a neutral/positive interaction with the police, and it's just like.... why? do you all go around IRL refusing contact with anyone who is or might be involved with a cop?

 

let me preface this next part by saying i'm a nineteen year old eurasian kid living in the east coast suburbs. sometimes i wander out into the more densely populated cities in my area. i've never spent any long amount of time in the "ghetto," and i have absolutely no idea what actual, real-life gangbanging is like, so i don't feel i have any real place to speak on it. but what i can speak for is more upper-class civilian delinquency, and how it's played out on this server.

in my time being an absolute goblin, the most crime i've run into is rampant marijuana use. i've met exactly one other person in my age range who has a thing for cocaine, a few acid droppers here and there, and a handful of prescription addicts. i have not seen or known anyone who possesses an illegal gun in my life.

i've also heard dozens of wild stories from my mom, who grew up as a low-to-middle class japanese immigrant in urban california. while she's had more brushes with coke, acid, and shrooms (people actually do those??) than i have, she can also attest to the fact she's never run into anyone whos part of any sort of illegal gun trade, and knew of even less people who owned legal weapons compared to the experience i've had in my area.

 

despite being america, guns aren't really as common of a thing in more urban areas as people seem to assume. marijuana and pills, absolutely, but i would say harder drugs are a lot more rare. now let me stop rambling and pull this all back to GTAW, where any script drug is not at all hard to find and everyone and their grandma either has their CCW or owns a gun under someone else's serial, and the difference is fairly staggering.

 

22 minutes ago, shiroq said:

There is a lot of  opportunities to make the rp on the server much better but it's up to the players to make the effort. Most of the players just go "oh yeah no one else is doing it so why should I?" But if you make the effort to do things differently, you will certainly be noticed quickly. But like everything it all just depends on people making the effort. We can have these discussions for years and nothing will change unless WE as the community take these steps to improve.

this summarizes the entire point kalani and i are trying to make, and why Theory of Roleplay was created. rest assured, nobody is here just to complain - i know i try and go out of my way to be the difference, but it's hard when you're only one person. it's why i wanted to take this particular topic to the public.

 

thank you both very much for your input?

Edited July 12, 2019 by akari