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Character Abandonment


Chuckles

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All of my characters have been played for years (unless killed, but even my last CK was for a character that was around 7-8 months old and was only getting started with long-term goals that might've created years of RP) so I definitely feel the frustrations. It's actually one of the central inspirations for my current character, who takes player character actions at face value. He's existed for over half a year now and is painfully aware that 95% of the phone numbers on his contacts belong to people who are either dead or left the State to never come back. He takes the standard model of romantic relationship of sleeping around with someone for two weeks until someone cheats/gets bored as fact, as well as the fact that some people simply get married in 3 weeks and then disappear a month later.

 

This affects his perception of the world and how he establishes relationships. To him, it's an IC given that people just up and leave one day, so he doesn't make significant connections.

 

But on the other hand, I understand why this happens OOCly. A lot of people join the "flavor of the now" faction/unofficial group out of inertia, or the buzz around it. There's a guy with a vision for something groundbreaking and he has 20 other buddies with him, you don't want to miss out. You start your character and then you're just not feeling it. Or the faction dies out in two weeks when interest wanes. Or it wasn't what you expected.

 

... in the same way, you might've thought of RPing something radically different by yourself, as an individual. You have this incredible idea about this thing you're going to do and pursue. Two weeks in, you hit a writer's block. Or the concept falls flat and doesn't really resonate with people. Or the server's bureaucracy fights against you in providing you access to infrastructures for your RP, like a business. Or you find out that this concept isn't as interesting as you thought, or that you simply can't RP it the way you thought you could.

 

In any case, most characters seem to hit a hard milestone around 2 weeks in, 2 months in, and then 6 months in, I find. A portion of characters are abandoned at each of those milestones for a variety of reasons. But 6 months is really where most people seem to find that their development freezes and they have to reassess their future. If they push through that, the character is there to stay.

 

The public is just also too used to getting tired of a character once they've seen it enough, and seem to wait for the next exciting take. A look at Facebrowser is enough to see that it's mostly a revolving door of the same handy people with Menyoo trying something different until their character stops getting attention.

Edited by Koko
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funny because i feel i got massive shit from people for rping my character post the fall of the faction i was in like that was the only purpose she served. it's actually i would argue seen to be a bad trait to rp your character even after their faction expires in GTAw by many of the people i've encountered and i almost did CK/NC due to peer pressure bc all they do is hop from flavor of the month to flavor of the month. "why don't you just NC? ur faction is gone" they tell me again and again, like all that matters is just roaming around, asset hoarding and DMing like that's all there is to RP here, on a character whose total life expectancy is however long it is until OOC drama rips the new faction apart.

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22 minutes ago, L I C E said:

funny because i feel i got massive shit from people for rping my character post the fall of the faction i was in like that was the only purpose she served. it's actually i would argue seen to be a bad trait to rp your character even after their faction expires in GTAw by many of the people i've encountered and i almost did CK/NC due to peer pressure bc all they do is hop from flavor of the month to flavor of the month. "why don't you just NC? ur faction is gone" they tell me again and again, like all that matters is just roaming around, asset hoarding and DMing like that's all there is to RP here, on a character whose total life expectancy is however long it is until OOC drama rips the new faction apart.

 

Are you surprised that this is the case when many people create characters that embody the lowest common denominator of what they think the faction needs/expects people to RP as to be accepted/promoted quicker?

 

God forbid your character survives her gang being dismantled or her OCG collapsing and decides to live their life.

  • Upvote 1
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People seem to believe in common misconception, that hanging out with their faction = roleplay. Wrong. 

Roleplay is everything your character does, from buying boombox or baseball bat to being arrested for something, or simply going to an IFC match.

Edited by Engelbert
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I do agree that it is a shitty move to just NC if it effects a lot of other people for what ever reason, but there is also nothing stopping you from buying a plane ticket and flying out of the city from an IC perspective. If your characters life is in danger or the possibility of a police investigation or a crazy ex E-girl coming after you, it wouldn't be too far fetched to leave the city so just bare that in mind! 

Edited by Late
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People should roleplay their characters for the stories they create. not because they like a faction. Faction roleplay for the sake of the faction is not as fun as when you portray your character IN the faction or outside of it.

Edited by Engelbert
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3 hours ago, L I C E said:

funny because i feel i got massive shit from people for rping my character post the fall of the faction i was in like that was the only purpose she served. it's actually i would argue seen to be a bad trait to rp your character even after their faction expires in GTAw by many of the people i've encountered and i almost did CK/NC due to peer pressure bc all they do is hop from flavor of the month to flavor of the month. "why don't you just NC? ur faction is gone" they tell me again and again, like all that matters is just roaming around, asset hoarding and DMing like that's all there is to RP here, on a character whose total life expectancy is however long it is until OOC drama rips the new faction apart.


The people who are sending you these kind of PM's have no clue how to roleplay, so don't take notice of them.

If people expect you to NC to join a faction, then the faction isn't worth joining, because it is just a meme and interest will dwindle in a matter of weeks.

Anyone who asks this kind of thing and uses it OOC and try to bully you into conforming are people I'd recommend you block and don't waste another breath responding too. They certainly aren't your friends & most definitely not worth your time.


 

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23 hours ago, TinyPotato said:

I share the frustration but don't believe there is a solution. RP only works with willing participants; anyone who's had to RP with someone 'forced' into it for some OOC reason can attest at how lackluster uninspired RP is. As much as it sucks if someone OOCly wants to dip, so be it.

 

That said, to share frustration and vent, I find part of the issue is quite simply this: People don't RP characters as much as they RP faction members. The character first and foremost exists to participate in an OOC group. Not many people RP the remaining members of defunct factions, for example. When someone feels that their character can no long serve its purpose, ie if the faction they intended to join didn't work out, they're more likely just to ditch it than deal with the fall out. If the character was made to be a gang member, and they get a reputation as a bitch/mark/sell out/hood hopper, that character cannot serve its purpose. Should the purpose of a character not be to portray a human life? Yes it should, in a purist sense, but that's not the attitude most of us have.

 

Its a decent courtesy, I think, to provide some sort of way to take a characters disappearance IC. I think being grown up and being able to admit a character didn't pan out how you wanted, its not fun and you want to move on, is understandable. I think appreciating that OOCly and finding a compromise where things can be resolved without requesting someone RP a character they don't enjoy for an extended period of time is the mature approach.

 

It would help, quite a bit, if factions that have IC adversity could actually like eachother OOCly and at an OOC level co-ordinate/harmonize RP. RP works best when we OOCly like and respect eachother and want to reasonably accomodate eachother on both ends. The best RP always happens when people take that approach. While I don't like reputations and keeping tabs on people OOCly I think if someone makes a habit of ditching characters with no consideration they'll likely find themselves less warmly received on new characters, and with people having less desire to involve themselves with them.

 

just wanna say my character Nicholas Lombana was a former LEO and after things went sour and he was even ARRESTED, a literal fall from grace, I've still cultivated a story around him working on a taco truck 

 

rp is what you make of it

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