Black & White versus a spectrum

[Gryphboi]

It's hard to achieve a good balance between standard 'civilian' roleplay and 'illegal' roleplay, when people hardly try to avoid conflict and always want to escalate situations. Everyone's a 6'8'' bodybuilder going to the club, doing a little coke or MDMA and carrying a switchblade/dusters/PF/stolen firearm. There's no actual 'legal' roleplay, because the nature of the setting somehow manages to attract characters into situations they'd realistically have nothing to do with.

[SugarDavis]

4 hours ago, orca112 said:

Because your character is a law-abiding citizen, it does not mean they will not stand at the risk of slipping down the spectrum. Troubles with the job, the wife leaving and looking for some extra cash? Getting hooked on alcohol and drugs to compensate for the struggles or stress on the day-to-day job, eventually eating up your money leading to acquisitive crime? Covering for your child that may or may not have committed a crime after hanging out with the wrong people? There are many reasons why your character might step into the "gray". They are still the same character and goals and ideals may remain the same.

This kind of roleplay is too complex for the average player - who is more concerned about their multimillion dollar bank account they earned from hard work as a delivery truck driver. Not to mention carrying out criminal activity would potentially mean getting thrown in jail which means losing your CCW permit and at that point why even play the game? Being a criminal is also not advantageous for them because being in jail means you can't spend 7 hours locked in one of your 4 houses doing lesbian e-RP with the homies. 

[TheSenate]

I think the primary divide between legal and illegal roleplayers comes from an inherent conflict of interests between the two groups. 

 

While, at times, their interests overlap and the two groups can benefit one another. For example a "legal" business owner can open a business which provides a place for everyone to roleplay, legal and illegal alike. However, these interests also have a tendency to diverge when it comes time to do exactly what it is that makes illegal roleplay, illegal, commit some crimes and make some victims, and this is exactly where we start to see conflict between the two groups. Most legal roleplayers don't want to constantly be made victims, it's well known that the per capita crime rate on GTA roleplay servers, all of them, is through the roof and well beyond what occurs in the real world, even in high-crime areas (I work in one). Legal roleplayers come here seeking an experience that is primarily centered around friendly and/or romantic social interaction with maybe an extra little project on the side like running a business or working in some other industry like healthcare or public works. They tend to align themselves in a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of alliance with their cousins, the LEO roleplayers, most of whom come here seeking nothing more than the most in-depth and dynamic law enforcement experience you can find in gaming.

 

Illegal roleplayers though, they're on the other side of the spectrum from those legal roleplayers, these are your guys and gals looking to live out all their favorite criminal themed movies and TV shows, or at the very least recreate something they saw in a documentary or read about online. Like I said above, criminals are humans too and sometimes their interests will align perfectly with the rest, they want a social experience too, it's part of roleplay. However, many of them also want action, they want to take center stage and make big moves and a lot of the time that means robbing people who OOCly (you can never escape OOC motives) don't want to be robbed, killing people who OOCly don't want to be killed, and forcing people who don't want to roleplay injuries, to roleplay injuries. They have to ruin someones day.

 

Basically, everyone comes here seeking a different experience and people are extremely self-centered. Most people come here with at least a loose plan in their head of how they want things to turn out, when things don't turn out that way, they get frustrated. Legal roleplayers hate being victims all the time, LEO (many of them) roleplayers acting on behalf of the legal roleplayers and driven by the fact most of them treat this game as LSPD:FR dymanic edition are inclined to catch criminals who don't want to be caught, and ruin factions who don't want to be ruined. It's a conflict built into the very fabric of GTA Roleplay and it will never be resolved in its entirety because GTA Roleplay seeks to cater to different groups seeking different experiences.

Edited May 12, 2021 by TheSenate

[Wolfhound]

Thing is, this problem has existed since the SAMP days and people have been stuck in this cycle, but in reality there should be balance, aka the gray area. There are people who dedicate their characters to be centered around one certain thing: factions. Someone makes a character to be a police officer where they succeed and only do police work, neglecting the other aspects of roleplay and thus, they possibly deny themselves more roleplay opportunities. It should be encouraged for people to try associating with both sides of the coin, it does not necessarily mean you should go and commit crimes to achieve that. And it's completely understandable that there are bad apples who discourage others from trying, even I stay away from such folk, but trying some change never hurts.

[Lurleen]

Everyone is in a gray area but its still possible to identify if a character is legal or illegal. A college student who uses drugs and gets into fights even gets arrested is still a legal character. A mob member who sells drugs and guns but also goes to clubs and pubs, has a wife and does legal activities is an illegal character.

[i dont wanna od in LA]

18 minutes ago, Lurleen said:

Everyone is in a gray area but its still possible to identify if a character is legal or illegal. A college student who uses drugs and gets into fights even gets arrested is still a legal character. A mob member who sells drugs and guns but also goes to clubs and pubs, has a wife and does legal activities is an illegal character.

No. Neither of them deserves to be locked within those confines. They're both unique in each their own way and that's that.

[paym4n]

Slapping a legal or illegal label on characters just ruins the fluidity of RP in my opinion.

 

Like a few others have been saying here even your "illegal" character has a personal life and maintaining this is just as important as maintaining the illegal side of it to create a proper and in-depth character that's enjoyable.

And wise-versa goes for your "legal" character. Avoiding everyone that could possibly affect your "legal" stuff in a negative way is also boring, in my opinion.

Edited May 13, 2021 by paym4n

[DoomedAmerica]

Weekly illegal RP vs Legal RP thread 

[Alyssa McCarthy]

Anyone who labels themselves as a legal or illegal character have already fallen behind what it means to make a good, interesting and diverse character.

 

[Planters80mm]

21 minutes ago, Alyssa McCarthy said:

Anyone who labels themselves as a legal or illegal character have already fallen behind what it means to make a good, interesting and diverse character.

 

This, if you put barriers in front of yourself to stay legal then your character will never reach it's full potential, let your character's story unfold as it should. Don't be afraid of losing assets, being cked or going to jail. Labeling your character just forces you to avoid some roleplay situations that your char might've done.