Guide to Legal Civillian Roleplay | Part 1 | Creation, Development & Realism

[i dont wanna od in LA]

1 minute ago, ThatDutchPerson said:

If you mean that legal roleplayers sometimes commit petty crimes themselves too, I've amended that into the guide. They're no saints afterall! 😛

If this is not what you meant, I invite you over to my discord together with Yoak: ThatDutchPerson#9107 🙂 

Let me break it down this way. Gang members are civilians as well, mob members are civilians as well and so are MC members. That's where you guide loses any relevance. Let me give you another example; where would you put a corrupt cop category-wise? Are they a legal roleplayer? Are they an illegal roleplayer? Are they both? You need to re-word this guide entirely.

[ThatDutchPerson]

7 minutes ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

Let me break it down this way. Gang members are civilians as well, mob members are civilians as well and so are MC members. That's where you guide loses any relevance. Let me give you another example; where would you put a corrupt cop category-wise? Are they a legal roleplayer? Are they an illegal roleplayer? Are they both? You need to re-word this guide entirely.

My guide speaks of ''legal civillian characters'', with the emphasize on ''legal civillian character''. I amended that not 30 minutes ago throughout the entire guide to make that clear. Gang members are not legal civillian characters, mob members are not legal civillian characters.

 

However! 🙂

I acknowledge the title can be confusing.

I'll edit the title to make it more clear, thank you for your input!

Edited May 4, 2021 by ThatDutchPerson

[knppel]

28 minutes ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

You need to re-read my posts. I realize that it's pretty difficult to understand that, but if you're actually willing to help people improve - do it the right way. Guides like this do more harm than good.

I think what he means- correct me if wrong- when saying guides like this do more harm, is that they transport an incredibly stiff and unflexible way of portraying characters.

 

This isn't limited to conduct about crime around these characters only,it's about the fixed idea of "legal" and "criminal" characters, and the misapplication of the term "civilian" (as was mentioned by the quoted poster, everyone who's not in the police is legally a civilian as we have no dedicated armed forces).

 

Accordingly, I agree that the whole idea and following sermon following up loses relevance based on this misconception.

 

So, how to define legality then? Well, I'll quote Ned Stark and Littlefinger at this point to illustrate my point:

"But, isn't this High Treason?"

"Only if we lose!"

 

Just not committing a crime on its own is not enough to stay out of the criminal acts going on in town (again, while a different setting, Ned Stark is a wonderful example character to illustrate it just doesn't work this way, ha!).

Any guide that means to offer players actual help thus would need to focus on how to get by in this environment, not what background gives them most plausibility to deny a line of coke when offered one.

 

Last but not least, @ThatDutchPersonYou need to realize points of view differ- as much on characters in our game.

Just take my own character as example here:

for some cops she's a notorious criminal (despite never havingbeen charged, but they think to know better), for some mafiosi she's a saint because she's not burning and torching things left and right despite having quite good reasons to do so if she wanted, and for others again (both from the legal and criminal spectrum) she's just another annoying rich bitch in a sports car that doesn't do anything worth to mention.

 

Last but not least, in this generic summary of what to avoid one important thing is missing:

Do not create characters based on ooc agendas, such as once more trying to make "news" about a certain company, department, criminal org or individual in town messing something up all the time.

[For Ever]

Well built guide. Definitely will use it if I am planning to make a legal character at any time. Can also use it for role-playing a semi-legal character on my main account right now. Even Illegal role-players can use this guide, quite literally. It's not that off.

[bncal]

1 hour ago, ThatDutchPerson said:

I have to disagree with you, as the guide clearly speaks of a ''civillian legal character'', which doesnt neccesarily mean PD or SD. And afterall, further down in the guide you can see clearly that mallrat behaviour, although not specificly mentioned, is not recommended.

I made this guide as a direct result from various topics, these two in particular:

Looking forward to working with you! ThatDutchPerson#9107 is my discord.

The first topic is a blatant demonstration that doesn't matter how many hours you play gtaw (because he is not a new player, i remember him playing like 6 months ago), if your brain doesn't work you should change game. 

 

Civilian roleplay if well done is awesome but there is this mentality where a civilian has to be strapped, has to buy the big car and do 100 jobs with one character. I hope this guide will be andressed to this category of players, because today's civilian scene sucks 

 

edit: anyway the author wrote the guide for players that are focused on the legal side, idk what you all are talking about 

Edited May 4, 2021 by bncal

[ThatDutchPerson]

Hey @knppel, thank you for your input! I'll go through it quote by quote! 🙂 

 

14 minutes ago, knppel said:

This isn't limited to conduct about crime around these characters only,it's about the fixed idea of "legal" and "criminal" characters, and the misapplication of the term "civilian" (as was mentioned by the quoted poster, everyone who's not in the police is legally a civilian as we have no dedicated armed forces).

This was already addressed, we are talking about legal civillian roleplayers and this part specificly about new characters, not one's that are in the server for already more than a year. Mob members are not by definition legal characters.

 

16 minutes ago, knppel said:

for some cops she's a notorious criminal (despite never havingbeen charged, but they think to know better), for some mafiosi she's a saint because she's not burning and torching things left and right despite having quite good reasons to do so if she wanted, and for others again (both from the legal and criminal spectrum) she's just another annoying rich bitch in a sports car that doesn't do anything worth to mention.

If your character has a clean sheet and is not meant for solely illegal roleplay, which I know Carry is not meant for, then the character is defined as a legal civillian. Thats the definition we are going with in this guide, due to the lack of a single full complete community agreed definition.

If your character was made to live a legal civillian life, and not meant to wound up in some form of criminal scheme or felony activities such as voluntairy murder, then we are talking about a legal character. Unfortunately the lines are very grey and thin, and its quite a challange to define what a legal civillian character exactly is.

 

For the purposes of this guide, to full definition I stuck by with is;

''A legal civillian character is a character that was originally created to live by the law, with the occasional petty crime. A legal civillian character can become an illegal civillian character when it gets involved in a criminal organisation and/or voluntairy commits felonies for its own personal gain or for the gain of the group it associates itself with.''

[knppel]

This definition and everything based around it becomes obsolete however as soon as I am ingame and situationally have to explain the cops that this coke in my pocket is not mine.

Or explain Johnny B. that I didn't tell the cops anything when he suspects me to have done so to get away, on the other end.

 

How I personally define my character is completely irrelevant- it's people's reception that matters, up to the point where this can define the actual criminal status of a character, when charges for a crime they didn't commit are applied (didn't happen to me here, but it is one potential scenario). The same counts for the other example- that I tell Johnny truthfully I didn't tell the cops shit, doesn't mean he has to believe me.

 

Granted, to a degree I can influence this reception with my portrayal, no question, but the definition is pointless still- it's solely based on your own reception of your character and doesn't even take in account wether a character is convicted or not, to start with. Which makes a big difference in all parts of society, as LEO-types will view me with disregard and suspicion ic, wheras for criminals (wether convicted or not) I'll be more trustworthy if I have served time (even and specially if I wasn't guilty, but took blame for someone else's deeds- which is a catastrophic scenario if I try to be "legal" and see my character as ruined when that concept breaks).

Edited May 4, 2021 by knppel

[mggy]

Quote

• Having tattoo's all over your character's body which have little to no meaning at all, apart from looking cool.

90% of the people I know IRL have meaningless tattoos. I literally have a tattoo that doesn't hold any particular meaning just because I wanted it. I think this isn't exact something that makes something not-realistic. People can have tattoos with or without meaning

[knppel]

8 minutes ago, mggy said:

90% of the people I know IRL have meaningless tattoos. I literally have a tattoo that doesn't hold any particular meaning just because I wanted it. I think this isn't exact something that makes something not-realistic. People can have tattoos with or without meaning

My sister works a grocery store irl and has tattoos all over lol.Their whole point? Looking freaking cool.She loves to show them off. Having some all up her legs also gives an amazing excuse to lift the skirt briefly.

let's please not get into the details of what's a "civilian" or how they have to look, that is a totally superficial debate🥱

[ThatDutchPerson]

7 hours ago, ThatDutchPerson said:

Are there exceptions? Yes, as with any case, there are exceptions. But keep in mind that these are extremely rare and IF you are going to portray one, your roleplay is expected to be almost above server expectations. Exceptions are exceptions, and never the average.

@mggy that might be the case and that would count as the above. I appreciate the input though! 🙂