Realism & Fear v. Living in San Andreas

[SCANDALOUZ]

When it pertains to role playing, I've always addressed "realism" for the setting that we are in. For example: Children running around with AKs is unrealistic for a US-based playground, but it wouldn't be for an Africa-based one.

 

The obvious point a-side, I'm here to talk about role playing fear in San Andreas. The rules feel very set in stone, but why should they be?

 

A person new to San Andreas should probably be terrified to see a massive shootout in the middle of the street in Davis. A person who's grown up there should, well, be used to it by now.

 

Same goes with robberies. If your character lived long enough to get robbed a gazillion times in Los Santos, why shouldn't they be dismissive of the act ("Yeah, yeah, just go on with it) and why should such attitude often be labeled as poor role play and/or failure to properly role play fear?

 

 

What do ya'll think, and where do you draw your line in terms of what your character fears and does not?

 

 

// Pointless thread while I wait an endless line at the local clinic

[BINGBONGBALONEY]

Always enjoyed taking everything IC as is and developing around them situations instead of forcing inorganic reactions based off how you'd realistically react IRL.

 

Of course there's limitations and you should always strive to play a character grounded in the real world but if you had to cheese it everytime you heard a couple rounds pops off a block over you'd be racking up triathlon numbers by the end of the day.

[Koko]

My character lives in Rancho and doesn't react to any gunshots not immediately near him anymore. Neither do any of his neighbours. Despite this, most of his fellow ULSA students refuse to come visit his apartment unless they have to because they're majority upper middle class and they're scared. Makes for good character portrayal.

[Chaishi]

By this logic, people who grew up in Davis should rp as a paranoid PTSD patient who gets shot at on daily basis which is more of a reason why they should actually fear gunshots. It's all perspective.

 

When I'm roleplaying in those kind of situations, I tend to apply fear wherever death may come from. Intimidation without usage of guns or tools is, in many instances, not fearable. Threats include a fear perspective but it's mostly passive. All in all, you should apply empathy and try to think what your character would feel in the situation. That's really all there is.

[Law]

To answer your question why the dismissive attitude isn’t okay regardless of how long your character has been there, your character should know that people are ruthless in Los Santos and the “yeah yeah get on with it” attitude will get them killed, forever, hence why you should always roleplay fear when looking down a barrel.

 

To tie it to realism, no one would display that attitude if they died permanently, like in real life.

 

Of course, you can roleplay being desensitised to crime but it requires a solid backstory or in-game event.

[Koko]

46 minutes ago, Law said:

Of course, you can roleplay being desensitised to crime but it requires a solid backstory or in-game event.

Absolutely this: desensitization works fine, but this comes with also being more personally aware of how dangerous environments work, and how you survive in dangerous environments. You simply can't pick and choose.

 

You might not get scared by shots a block away anymore because you've learned through exposure that the gunmen will soon drive off and that you're not a target, but in the same vein, you have likely been seeing dead bodies at least from afar on the regular for a very long period of time over the pettiest forms of street beef.

 

If you live in South Los Santos, you simply know that the person holding you at gunpoint will shoot to kill 9 out of 10 times.

[DLimit]

My character resided in South-Central for 5 years. The character's friendly with the local gang members. However, if any of them ever appear to be aggressive? The character displays nervousness and fear, attempting to de-escalate the situation and leave the scene, unharmed, as soon as possible.

Left out some important details, but she's illegal.

[Engelbert]

2 minutes ago, DLimit said:

My character resided in South-Central for 5 years. The character's friendly with the local gang members. However, if any of them ever appear to be aggressive? The character displays nervousness and fear, attempting to de-escalate the situation and leave the scene, unharmed, as soon as possible.

Left out some important details, but she's illegal.

I can relate that a neutral inhabitant isn't targeted as often as they claim to be. I rp in South-central an unaffiliated sureno myself. I never had any issues, gangs are usually alright with such and don't jump on such at every chance possible. I can say, that I believed in a rather huge misconception about it.

[Naeno]

My character alongside many others have been conditioned to know that if anyone rolls up on you with a BF400 and a completely blacked out outfit, you're going to get shot. It isn't like this in real life but in this game characters have adapted to this being a common thing. You can't just ignore it.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Naeno

[alina2137]

This topic is both complicated and very simple at the same time. Skip to the last few lines for summary.

I'll put it like this: You don't roleplay to win, and you don't roleplay to constantly take Ls. Nobody wants a mugging to be a common occurance and those who happen to get robbed often or are exposed to crime simply grow to be insensitive to it. You hear gunshots, you go "Oh... shit. Here we go again.", you wait five minutes, maybe you go check out what happened when you deem the area is safe enough to report it or help the victims or whatever. This isn't shit roleplay.

Shit roleplay is the fact that people will hop on a BF400 in a blacked out outfit like it's some fucking favela and go around looking out for marks, instead of let's say camping up an alleyway close to a club where you know people will not appear unless they want to get in and out of their car and where you know they might have money to rob them of. Low risk, mid-high reward.

If you're being held at gunpoint in some shady ass alleyway, yes, roleplay fear. Nobody will help you, nobody will give a shit about you, one wrong move and you might as well die. But if someone pulls up to you on a BF400 in the middle of a street, where realistically there would be people around? I would not care, because only truly crazy individuals would have the balls to just pop a few rounds into you in the middle of a crowded street, with potentially armed witnesses or cops passing by. 

Now which side of the aforementioned scenario is more shit in terms of roleplay? The guy who doesn't fear his life, knowing he is getting robbed in a place full of witnesses and where cops are probably gonna come soon, or the guy who thinks he's in a fucking Brazilian favela on his dirt bike?

My point here is that it's fine when robbers demand or expect good roleplay from you. We demand that from each other, the server standards have to be met somehow. But when you pull off scenarios like that, pulling up in the middle of streets, gunning people down there, doing all sorts of other crazy shit - it is fine. Fine, considering the admins do not do anything about it. They let it happen, and therefore your character can learn from it and develop accordingly. Someone who's used to living in such a crime riddled shithole will probably be insensitive to crime unless they're actually being held at gunpoint or with a knife against their throat.

Your attitude does not get you killed in a robbery. A robbery is performed to gain quick monetary gain, you might pistol-whip someone for acting tough or disrespecftul, but by killing someone you put a lot of heat on yourself and you probably do not want to loot a corpse.
Good roleplayers understand that certain people do not care about getting robbed anymore, because to them it's a sad reality they live in and they just accept it how it is. They will proceed with the robbery like intended, taking ones' belongings and getting out of the area as soon as possible. But a so called "shit roleplayer" will kill you for no reason for the sake of being tough or because their ego was hurt by your lack of the "OH NO PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT." reaction.

TL;DR: Los Santos, in it's current state, is just Night City from Cyberpunk 2077 except we're missing drones, cyborgs and complicated tech weapons. The city is stuck in the 1990s because of a lack of something as simple as RICO laws. When you open a business in Los Santos, you do not think about when you're gonna get extorted, but rather how much and by who. It is inevitable. The city is a crime riddled shit hole, so people just roleplay it as one, and they do not care about you pulling up with a pistol to grab their money for the twentieth time in their shitty life. They will let it all go, and go get a new phone and withdraw some more money and move on with their day.