A Lack of Consideration

[Queen]

So basically the title, but I'll explain what I mean: a general lack of OOC consideration between players and how their actions influence others in terms of roleplay.

 

This is not aimed at any specific group of players, but rather at the roleplay community as a whole from what I've observed over my time playing. When I first started out roleplaying, I didn't really notice it. I'm not sure whether it was there and I was simply looking at it the way you do something new: ignoring the flaws in favor of the new experience, or whether it was so long ago that I just don't remember it. As time went on, I noticed an issue that I saw plaguing a lot of communities I've been at in the past, as well as to some extent this one: a lack of consideration for our fellow roleplayers.

 

Now, I suck absolutely massive cock at turning my thoughts into words but thankfully I have a somewhat relevant example! As a new member of the LSPD, I've been somewhat pushed into a role where I occasionally more or less have a say in how certain situations play out. For example: traffic stops. My officer pulls someone over and as long as they remain relatively obedient, my character more or less controls the pace of this specific situation. Sometimes they can be a little bit lengthy, as I'm sure some of you know - however in my case, this particular stop was almost doubly so because I was having it all explained to me on the fly by my training officer. As such, I felt pretty bad that the guy that'd had the misfortune of speeding past me was now basically forced to sit there and stare at his screen doing nothing while I fumbled through the MDC.

 

I'd warned him beforehand through PMs that it was going to take a while as it was my first time. It took much longer than even I had reasonably expected, as I had to do the paperwork portion of it during the stop as well. It eventually got done, he was a tad agitated at how long it took, but I apologized for making him wait and we went our separate ways with(I assume) no hard feelings. On the flip side, a recent thread brought to my attention a certain attitude about traffic stops in particular: your character did something stupid, and they're suffering from the consequences. In this case, that's having to wait during a stop or whatever. I don't want to harp on the traffic stop thing as it's just the closest example I have on hand, but it brings up my main point.

 

IC consequences are not an excuse to strong-arm your fellow roleplayer OOC.

 

Roleplaying is in essence collaborative writing and is a hobby most of us partake in for fun. If I didn't have fun doing it, I wouldn't - I'd go do something else. I've ran into many a situation where one character essentially has say over what happens in the situation. So they use that advantage to make sure that an 'opposing' player has as little opportunity to do anything not within their wishes as possible. Sometimes this is born from necessity and is just a natural and realistic progression of IC events, but a lot of times when it does happen it's simply someone trampling over someone else for the hell of it. You can see so much of it in the reports section that it's ridiculous. A lot of conflicts between players lack any sort of consideration or OOC interaction at all until the point where someone wants to throw a fit. 

 

Please, keep in mind that you're not roleplaying with an NPC. There's another player controlling that character and the actions you take can directly influence them in more ways than you likely imagine. I'm not saying to kiss everyone's ass 24/7. There are some people you will never please regardless of how considerate you try to be within the limitations of your character's interactions, but that's just how it is. It's mainly odd to me because I know everyone here has been in a situation they haven't gotten any enjoyment out of - or more likely, hated. No one wants it, but there seems to be a rather large amount of people that think that as long as it isn't happening to them, it isn't a problem.

 

Be courteous to your fellow roleplayers. You might find that not everyone takes a mile when given an inch.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

[Flow]

This is just a part of common courtesy man, sorry that you went through it but there'll always be people who might not be all nice but at the same time you can't exactly report them, so just be the bigger man and play it out without a worry of how they act and feel or what perspeption they might have formed of you, or the PD. There's simply nothing you can do about it, you were right in your shoes.

 

On the other hand if someone's simply being a dick OOC and showing no regard or respect ooc, they can most certainly be reported. I went through something similar not too long ago and made a report cause sometimes people go way out of line OOC to the point it should be raised to an admin.

 

But all in all, there will be bad eggs, the right thing to do imo is just keep it IC, ignore the ooc crap, and report if necessary. Still a good PSA topic

 

[shareef2]

30 minutes ago, Pillowy said:

IC consequences are not an excuse to strong-arm your fellow roleplayer OOC.

This message should be displayed when you log in. I feel like people don't understand this at all. It's all about MG man...people can't separate their character from themselves. Sometimes I lose intentionally because that's just what would happen to my character. Sometimes I fuck over my 5+ year OOC friends ICly because that's what would've happened, none of them get salty over it. It's how the game works!

[goddessoflife]

I guess it's because people get really attached to some of their characters, and when things don't go the way they want them too it hits their nerves. I can definitely say that I did get salty once or twice.. Maybe more? because somethings didn't play out the way I wanted too. However as long as you don't reflect it on your characters actions or show through ooc means to the other player it's totally acceptable. We are human after all and do have emotions right? 

[Kuldeep]

Thing is, OOC and IC are two different entities, early you remember it would be good for you. But yeah, as Flow said you gotta be bigger man and let it happen, but just take care for next time, at least you will be learning something from the situation which you can keep in your head. I was being nice to everyone OOCly and ICly when I was new here, but you really can't do anything, just learn from past situations and be careful about it next time.

 

At the end, we all are playing a game.

[SaintBatemanofWallStreet]

Yeah, I mean the problem is that most people are self inserts with minimal story to their character. And when they have to take that L, they don't see it as their character losing, but them personally as losing. They're essentially playing themselves without consequences. It's the hallmark of someone who is not taking their character seriously, or is just not matured as a RPer to see that we're supposed to be telling stories.

I've gotten in shootouts with people, and had them get extremely angry with me for being the better shot I guess. People who think a K9 can't sniff a gun, or that my character would oblivious to someone with nearly a pound of marijuana on their person. And it's all the same "wHy pD NeVeR TaKe lOsS?"

I've had people try to tell me my character would miss a MAC-10 in a pat down. Sorry chief, my character has his flaws, but he's not window licking incompetent. You don't play ball with that, you'd have thought I slapped their mother.

[Alyssa McCarthy]

One of the most difficult lessons when teaching people how to roleplay is how to differentiate their characters persona from their personal ego.

 

An effective way of doing this is to note down things your character is good at and things they're terrible at and do your best to stick to it. This makes it easier so when a situation comes up that you're bad at, you can have fun making mistakes and the RP that goes along with it..

 

For a character like Alyssa it might be something like:

Excel's at: Water activities (she grew up near a naval base as her family has a long naval history), she can swim like a mermaid, knows her port from her starboard and knows how to sail a small boat etc.

Good at: Law (she's studying it, so her knowledge is okay, but she's by no means a qualified lawyer). Musically, she can playing the guitar and hold a note while singing and has an interest in photography.

Okay at: Athletics / Sports - Her passion for swimming helps her keep fit and healthy.

Poor at: Sciences / Maths and other STEM subjects. Computer gaming (she can play candycrush like a demon but besides that, she'll get thrashed at most things!). Artistically - outside of music and photography, she's no real experience painting / drawing.

Terrible at: Engineering, Fighting, Violence - overall, she's largely naive to the culture of the criminal underworld (Of course this is very likely to change as she grows as a character).

 

Personality traits: Kind-hearted, fun-loving, naive.

 

In closing, doing something like this also gives you food for thought about your character. Why they're the way they are, what their passions and ambitions are. Even the worst of gang members don't see themselves as the bad guy - they've reasons to be the way they are.

 

For those of you playing gang members & embroiled in the criminal world, consider:

What are the underlying motivations for them to be the person they are?

How have they found themselves in their position?

What situations makes them lower their guard?

What makes them vulnerable?

What situations or what kind of people would they be around where they might show any sign of weakness, redemption or regret?

 

For a character to be real, the answer won't be 'never' to the last three questions. If it is, you're not really playing a believable human.

[Ketamine Kowboy]

Like @SaintBatemanofWallStreet said, A LOT, of issues stem from self insertion.

[lambchops]

Sadly, some people take what happens to their characters IC a tad too serious OOC, leading to situations where OOC emotion is expressed because of what happens IC. While I do think we should always keep common courtesy in mind when making an IC decision that could do disproportionate harm to the other player's roleplay, I do also think the party that's on the receiving end should always remember that whatever is happening to them is probably the IC consequence of an action they undertook IC, and is thus part of the full package you ordered when signing up for this community.

 

Roleplay isn't just about following a tight schedule or doing things according to plan, just like in real life things do not always go your way and you agreed to this when you joined a community like ours. In my belief things not going your way adds another dimension to the playing experience and should never be cause for OOC grief or agitation. However, with this being said common courtesy should always be exercised to benefit the integrity of the interaction for both players, even if your character is enough of a dickwad to do something terrible to the other party. You should always, at least somewhat, keep their playing experience in mind. There is a balance to be found in that.

Edited July 15, 2020 by lambchops

[Baize]

It's a funny one, because people get invested in their characters and spend so much time playing that it almost becomes a second life for them. They care about what happens to them which I fully understand too, but as you've seen people find it very difficult to separate their character form themselves.
Quite often in law enforcement RP you will encounter issues where you are simply playing your role and doing your IC job only to be met with OOC toxicity simply because the player on the receiving end is upset that they got caught or believe that you're in the wrong.

I'll give a prime example of this exact situation.
During the recent riot scenes that were formulated across our server there was rightfully a lot of admin observation and tension both IC and OOC from everyone involved.
The first night it started a member of the LSPD or Sheriffs Department (I cannot be sure which group exactly) made a report to the administration because they believed that things were getting out of hand and unrealistic. Perfectly fine thing to do. If you feel like the roleplay is not up to standard, you are within your rights to make a report and await a staff members decision on the outcome.
What followed was a brief pause in the scene and members from both sides, albeit predominantly from the rioters side jumping into /b and muddying up the chat. Now while not all bad and derogatory it was effecting how the admins on scene were handling the situation. Several people from both sides were making conscious efforts to de escalate the OOC  tension and allow the admins to perform their role as arbitrators which could easily of ended up in a void situation simply because people weren't able to distance their in character role play scene from their real life out of character self.
It works both ways of course. I've seen plenty of people on the law abiding side of role play lose their shit OOC because they were robbed, or killed by someone.
It just boils down to common courtesy, respect for your fellow community members and the ability to switch off. Your character is not you. No matter how much time and energy you put into that character.
Sadly, this is the internet and behind a PC screen it's particularly easy to lash out without real fear of repercussion. Sure you might get jailed or banned, but the chances that gets reverted are pretty high and also it doesn't really damage you as a person. Simply your ability to play for X amount of time. This is why you see repeat offenders. The consequence doesn't out weigh the action.

Not everyone is like this though. It is very few and far between, you'll get to recognise the groups/individuals the more time you spend in the community and around the forums.

TL;DR
People can't distance themselves from their character and people often forget what a community is supposed to be.