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What do you think of medical roleplay?


KinnyWynny

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Ah medical roleplay, probably the only area of roleplay where it’s completely OK to walk off sixteen gunshots, ignore the nurses frantically going /b huh? and completely go on with your day.

 

 

Medical roleplay on this server has a lot of issues, as someone who’s been doing it basically since I’ve started this server, and has been roleplaying stuff like medieval barber surgeons and SS13 maniacs, I’ve decided to get the communities feedback on the kinda ‘eh’ state of medical roleplay. Please be courteous.

 

To explain what I mean by ‘eh’, it’s definitely improved, we have a functional-ish ER that is growing instead of shrinking for once, the LSFD has more members, and it seems everyone with access to a rotary craft is starting their own Lifeflight medevac service. But it’s still flawed. For some reason the standard of medical roleplay is this old algorithm of questions and answers dated from LSRP. Which as someone with experience outside of GTA, kinda baffles me.

 

And it’s kind of the reason everyone hates medical roleplay here, in my experience. Instead of going to a Physician character and getting a diagnosis based on some symptoms you decided to roleplay, it’s the patient who’s required to get that information, and to get a diagnosis, and not the medical roleplay provider, which is literally backwards. Instead of Paramedics telling you your vitals, it’s you, who has to frantically google whatever the fuck blood oxygen is at the last minute, ever wonder why everyone who gets shot is more stable than the orbit of the moon? This is why. Ideally the Paramedic should have the resources to guess vitals based on how a patient acts. Was he awake when he got shot? High pulse and high blood pressure until he loses enough blood for his pressure to drop, and then you and your paramedic can work out when you pass out. Communication is key here too.

 

That’s where you come in, how would you like to improve GTAW‘s medical roleplay scene? How do you think factions and Paramedic/nurse/doctor roleplayers should improve? Would you be OK with getting a diabetes diagnosis if the your doctor asked for permission and walked you through it OOCly? Instead of giving him the diagnosis yourself.

Edited by KinnyWynny
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  • KinnyWynny changed the title to What do you think of medical roleplay?

I have a long-standing history with medical RP, both on this server and others. I started my career in GTAW as a member of FD actually, back in 2018, up to really high ranks.

 

I've also been a nurse at PHMC, so I've had experience in hospital RP as well as paramedic RP.

 

My opinion is that Medical RP is great when it isn't too cerebral and when it's centered around the patient, not the symptoms. My approach in an FD ambulance? Read a room. IF the guy is RPing conscious, communicate with him. Be human. Be approachable. Keep technical questions simple and easy to answer. But most of all, don't use a character as a puppet for you to throw emotes into the air. A medical scene should not have the same effect as jail time. Ask questions to your patient. Is there anyone you can call? Is their mom around? Explain what you're doing verbally instead of with emotes, inform the human being instead of silently manipulating his body. There's many options to be more inclusive and make a scene more interactive.

 

Medical RP is very intimidating for outsiders, and people who RP medical scenes for 20+ hours a week can often forget it. Think about whether your questions enhance the experience of medical treatment, or if it truly matters in the context of the greater scene. Is it worth it to ask for the level of blood oxygen of someone when it will pause the flow of the scene for 5+ minutes?

 

Make it about the patient experience. It's a give and take. When a patient wants to be involved with the more precise medical aspects, they'll let you know through their RP. Then, if they're invested, emphasize on the medical aspect of EMS RP. Go mad with treatment and detail. If the patient is not involved, emphasize on the emergency aspect of EMS RP and expedite. Make the scene feel rushed and action-packed. Don't keep an unwilling person on the floor for 40 minutes over a small accident or something out of their control.

Edited by Koko
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1 hour ago, Koko said:

Don't keep an unwilling person on the floor for 40 minutes over a small accident or something out of their control.

This is an important part, yeah.

Medical RP can be cool, or even sought after. I was sad to realize there aren't any GPs on the server even 😛 

But being forced into a 2-hour scene because of a minor bump, at 3:30 am while you were going to bed... it happened to me, twice, on a previous server, and it's HORRIBLE. When the entire fire department ends up near you, all because you had a minor accident while near an FD member, and you're stuck because they go "You RP or we report" ... At some point I would rather have been banned for good, seriously ^^' And it's part of why, on that server, most people never called FD for anything. 

 

Which is why I'd say emphasizing the "reading the room" and "adapt the RP" parts are important. Most people don't care much about the difference between using Vicryl 3-0 thread or staples, and a long slew of emotes that are about technical medical details can turn them into spectators of a scene they'd rather not be involved in. Trying to support interactions, while keeping it smooth: those 2 points are what led to the coolest medical RP I've been a part of (because yes, I've seen some horrible shit like the one described above, but also some super cool interactions 🙂 ). 

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I think the important thing to note is as you said, instead of a Paramedic telling you your vitals, its you. And don't get me wrong, I think Medical roleplay flows a whole lot better without the verbose back and forth of what is x, and what is y. But to me, unless a player chooses to give me control over that, I'm not going to do so. Its their character at the end of the day, and if they don't want to roleplay into a critical condition and such, I wont really force them to. So as much as some other vitals make more sense, unless that player is comfortable with me creating their vitals for them, I'll let them do so. And I typically always ask.

 

There's basically two types of scenes, the ones where circumstances have caused your patient to be their against their own will, and the ones where they came of their own volition. At the end of the day, myself personally I will always gauge if the person wants, or doesn't want my roleplay. If they do not, then I'll simply do the bare minimum to ensure they'll survive transport and then proceed to put them in rapid transport. If they seem confused over vitals, I'll send them a direct message and offer to rather take over or give them the expected ranges. And if they do want to be there, then I'll continue with the roleplay for along as it takes and people are enjoying it.

 

Medical on scenes are sometimes the bottle-neck, with Police or Sheriffs, and patients waiting on their stabilization before they can go and continue their own roleplay. The whole concept of reading the room is totally correct.

 

Now with that said, I'll add probably the most unpopular part of my opinion. There are a lot of factions and subsets of roleplay, such as criminals with kidnappings, robberies, and breakins, police with detentions and so on; where players are put into situations against their will, and not particularly what they want to be roleplaying. And in the same way people being robbed are expected to extend the courtesy of continuing that roleplay, and so on. I think as Koko said, it's a give and take. Patients should have some level of acceptance that their characters are injured and there is going to be a small period of time they are in medical roleplay. And in a perfect world, all these subsets of roleplay will keep it short for those who want it short, and verbose otherwise.

Edited by KaythPlus
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I'm currently in FD (Lifeguard), and I think the only thing I have to say that sucks is when we go on scene, spend a while roleplaying etc with the patient, take them to hospital and then not even an hour later we see them running around, jumping, doing everything like the past incident never happened.

Now I get it, roleplaying injuries can be boring if there's no one to RP with in the hospital, but if there ARE people on duty please roleplay with them, give them RP. If there is no one on duty at the Hospital then at least roleplay for the rest of the day (And potentially couple more depending on injuries), the aftermath of said incident. If you've been shot? Don't go back shooting the same day and acting like it never happened. Jumped off a building? Don't then go running an hour later. 

 

On scene however, I love reading the scene and trying to make things a bit more light hearted IC, especially when people roleplay being scared etc. My character doesn't want to just bag someone up and leave, I prefer providing roleplay and ensuring those who are on scene understand whats going on. So if you don't know vitals or what injuries to do, or how to RP I often pm the person with advice as well as explain what I'm doing and what could happen. For those who have never been in a medical faction and have no experience with medical incidents IRL it can be overwhelming with 5 people asking you different things. The only time I'll try and hurry things up slightly is if someone is clearly not enjoying what's going on and aren't happy to roleplay, since it makes no sense to spend extra time on a situation people aren't enjoying.

 

 

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I think the "barbaric" state of the surgeons and average people trying to roleplay as doctors, EMTs, etc are completely fine. I don't know If FD has an academy like PD does but making an over-detailed manual for a doctor or judging somebody because he used the wrong kind of scissors to treat a gunshot wound is not fair. 

If people want to learn about how to roleplay a better doctor, It's okay, but as you said most of the people just want to get out of the hospital asap.

 

It's like drug roleplay, some people just snort 50 grams of coke in two seconds and start screaming, some people take their turns with a joint and watch netflix for 50 minutes. It's the nature of roleplayers, the question is do they want to spend their time roleplaying something or not. In my opinion medical roleplay is quite complicated and there's no reason to make it harder than It's used to be. I think the same about the law enforcement and government roleplay in general, people shouldn't need a damn PhD in real life to have some fun.

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2 hours ago, Coburn said:

Because LFM doesn't want people to start any medical factions outside of Hope and PHMC.

Yet both PHMC and Hope offer opportunities to become GPs and almost nobody applies. Also there is a provision in the MLRA to allow for stand-alone doctors offices, but the government hasn’t done anything with the act since it came out.

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1 hour ago, TheSenate said:

Yet both PHMC and Hope offer opportunities to become GPs and almost nobody applies.

Because those of us who want to work as GPs want to be independent.

 

Evil circle really.

 

Quote

Also there is a provision in the MLRA to allow for stand-alone doctors offices,

 

Again, doesn't matter what is ICly permitted when LFM actively oocly prevents the creation of medical factions

Edited by Coburn
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2 hours ago, Coburn said:

Because those of us who want to work as GPs want to be independent.

 

Evil circle really.

 

 

Again, doesn't matter what is ICly permitted when LFM actively oocly prevents the creation of medical factions

There's currently no restrictions on private practitioners from an IC standpoint, there's zero regulation who can become a Physician. There is the MLSA act but that isn't being enforced.

 

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