Hyperrealism and gatekeeping role-play

[Coburn]

35 minutes ago, Woona said:

The person who knows the minimal knowledge for roleplay scenes is having a lot more fun than the person who spent hours researching every niche and bit regarding it. If you're too caught around with details that only you know and only care for then you're not having fun. No one outside of your circle of roleplay cares that you know "advanced" EMT training or that you know some niche case law, or what gang belongs in what part of Los Angeles. Literally no one cares for your niche knowledge.

Mr. No one  here.

 

I appreciate it when people go into detail as I'm sure there's more people that do. Just because you don't doesn't mean that others don't.

[stompkins]

5 minutes ago, Coburn said:

Mr. No one  here.

 

I appreciate it when people go into detail as I'm sure there's more people that do. Just because you don't doesn't mean that others don't.

Gotta agree with you here. I RP to relax, I’d rather a well thought out rp take place over an hour then a 10 minute rushed situation. 

[Mahitto]

6 hours ago, Coburn said:

Mr. No one  here.

 

I appreciate it when people go into detail as I'm sure there's more people that do. Just because you don't doesn't mean that others don't.

 

6 hours ago, stompkins said:

Gotta agree with you here. I RP to relax, I’d rather a well thought out rp take place over an hour then a 10 minute rushed situation. 

 

I don't think that not going into detail means that you rush the scene. There were at least two people in this topic who said they role-played a mechanic and a paramedic, respectively. Their role-play was still complex, still long enough, but instead of spending 30 minutes doing "/me uses the 7/16 12 point on a hexagonal 1/4 inch bolt in the lower north-east part of the turbocharger", they spent the same amount of time focusing on the actual development, talking and creating a connection with the person, while also doing good role-play. The person in the first case will be left with nothing, while the one in the second situation will be left with some potentially valuable character development.

[SweetDaffodil]

16 hours ago, Copa Cabana said:

Hyperrealism is a sword that cuts both ways. It can be good, but it also can be bad. Let me explain:

 

It is okay to be hyper-realistic. It's okay to enforce high standards as long as you have an easy way for players to learn. I will give an example from a time when I had a car thief character in Martorano Crime Family. I was sent guides how to steal cars and the run-down on how to get past different locks. When I had to chop a car? I was sent guides on how to correctly strip a car and how it should be RPed. In the end of the day it gave me more knowledge on things I would've never learned about. There is plenty of professionally written guides on the forums, and even if there aren't, you can always reach out to people in that field of RP for some source material to learn from or tips.

 

The only unacceptable "hyperrealism" is when you enforce an ultra high standard and expect everyone that comes to you be on that kind of level without sending them any material or showing any guides.

 

This 100%!

[Koko]

10 hours ago, Woona said:

The person who knows the minimal knowledge for roleplay scenes is having a lot more fun than the person who spent hours researching every niche and bit regarding it. If you're too caught around with details that only you know and only care for then you're not having fun. No one outside of your circle of roleplay cares that you know "advanced" EMT training or that you know some niche case law, or what gang belongs in what part of Los Angeles. Literally no one cares for your niche knowledge.

 

This right here everyone. Nobody cares about sweaty research unless it directly translates into fun.

 

It's great to have knowledge, but it should be to enable and channel creativity and RP, not as the world's most uninteresting Ted Talk.

[Topinambour]

1 hour ago, Koko said:

It's great to have knowledge, but it should be to enable and channel creativity and RP, not as the world's most uninteresting Ted Talk.

Essentially: the idea is to use that knowledge as a framework on which the RP can be put. 🙂

 

To give other examples of storytelling: Breaking Bad isn't a show about how Walter does chemistry for 45 minutes per episodes across several seasons. The chemical and technical parts exist, but often they're ways to convey the story forward, show how Walt and Jessie evolve over time, how their minds degrade oftentimes, etc. The Practice is sometimes described as one of the best legal TV shows around, it's not because each episode painstakingly describes legal procedure: it's pretty detailed, but each time the technical legal details are here to help propel the story forward, the development of the characters, ... Even more recently, Spiderman No Way Home isn't a movie about how a wizard explains how a spell works for 120 minutes; the spell and the multiverse stuff are the beams on top of which the story is built. 

 

The technical stuff IS important, it's why I describe it as the framework / the main support beams. But they aren't the story ^^' 

[Cool_guy]

I think writing every single mundane detail in what your character is doing and how their doing it is boring as shit. More importantly, how does it make things more realistic? I think a lot of times it makes things feel a lot less real. 

 

People don't experience or focus their attention on every little detail around them in reality. Hyperrealism in roleplay portrays the reality that autistic people with photographic memory live in. Most real people don't think and don't experience every detail around them. What people do experience and remember are the emotions they feel and associations they make when something happens. 

 

Here's an example. Let's say there's a character called John Guy and his role on the server is that of an alcoholic who lives in a trailer park and acts in a way that most would describe as white trash. Here's the detailed, accurate and realistic description of his appereance:

 

John Guy is a white man that stands at 210 centimeters tall. He's not particularly muscular but he's got a slight beer belly. He's got blue eyes and greying hair. He's balding in a way that's typical of male pattern baldness. He's got wrinkles in his forehead and dark bags under his eyes. He's wearing a dirty white tank top. He smells like pabst blue ribbon beer.

 

Is this what you think and experience when you see a person with these traits in reality? When is the last time you took note of somebodies eye color in reality? Most people don't notice exactly how many centimeters or inches a persons height is in reality. Unless you're an engineer or whatever you're probably just gonna think  "damn what a tall guy" when you see a man who's 210 cm's. What's the point of all these details when you could just go:

 

John Guy is very tall but his fat and untrained body makes him look silly. He's old and he's aging poorly. He smells like an alcoholic. He dresses like a spousal abuser.

 

With a description like this other people will actually get the point of what sort of character you're trying to portray. In a lot of ways you could probably cut this even shorter and still get your point across. For instance you could go "John guy is an ugly and greasy old white trash alcoholic!" because this is likely something you'd feel about this person in reality on sighting him. 

 

This applies to the descriptions of actions and shit like that aswell. 
When you piss in reality do you think of what you're doing in a detailed sequence of events?

Is the act of pissing one where you open the zipper then pull the pants down then pull underwear down slightly then contracting pelvic muscles in a way that allows urine to escape the urinary tract?

Isn't it more accurate to the actual experience to just say that you whipped out your peener and sprayed yellow in the white bowl? The only interesting detail is really whether or not you flushed. Technical details aren't worth shit if they're uninteresting. 

 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Cool_guy

[eTaylor]

3 minutes ago, Cool_guy said:

I think writing every single mundane detail in what your character is doing and how their doing it is boring as shit. More importantly, how does it make things more realistic? I think a lot of times it makes things feel a lot less real. 

 

People don't experience or focus their attention on every little detail around them in reality. Hyperrealism in roleplay portrays the reality that autistic people with photographic memory live in. Most real people don't think and don't experience every detail around them. What people do experience and remember are the emotions they feel and associations they make when something happens. 

 

Here's an example. Let's say there's a character called John Guy and his role on the server is that of an alcoholic who lives in a trailer park and acts in a way that most would describe as white trash. Here's the detailed, accurate and realistic description of his appereance:

 

John Guy is a white man that stands at 210 centimeters tall. He's not particularly muscular but he's got a slight beer belly. He's got blue eyes and greying hair. He's balding in a way that's typical of male pattern baldness. He's got wrinkles in his forehead and dark bags under his eyes. He's wearing a dirty white tank top. He smells like pabst blue ribbon beer.

 

Is this what you think and experience when you see a person with these traits in reality? When is the last time you took note of somebodies eye color in reality? Most people don't notice exactly how many centimeters or inches a persons height is in reality. Unless you're an engineer or whatever you're probably just gonna think  "damn what a tall guy" when you see a man who's 210 cm's. What's the point of all these details when you could just go:

 

John Guy is very tall but his fat and untrained body makes him look silly. He's old and he's aging poorly. He smells like an alcoholic. He dresses like a spousal abuser.

 

With a description like this other people will actually get the point of what sort of character you're trying to portray. In a lot of ways you could probably cut this even shorter and still get your point across. For instance you could go "John guy is an ugly and greasy old white trash alcoholic!" because this is likely something you'd feel about this person in reality on sighting him. 

 

This applies to the descriptions of actions and shit like that aswell. 
When you piss in reality do you think of what you're doing in a detailed sequence of events?
Is the act of pissing one where you open the zipper then pull the pants down then pull underwear down slightly then contracting pelvic muscles in a way that allows urine to escape the urinary trac? Isn't it more accurate to the actual experience to just say that you whipped out your peener and sprayed yellow in the white bowl? 

Technical details aren't worth shit if they're uninteresting. 

 

 

 

I think the FD is the perfect example. A lot of paramedics could bore you with very convoluted actions mentioning complex medical terms to a point where they might as well be speaking Latin. But most don’t. 
 

It’s also important to understand that GTA W is a complex amalgamation of many, MANY communities. We don’t just have players from GTA San Andreas, wel also have people from other V platforms and from places like IMVU, Second Life, Garry’s Mod, Roblox and many more. All these people all have different expectations and different ideas about roleplay, it’s format and interaction. In those communities all those players have   many unique and different backgrounds with different approaches to their roleplay. Hard fact is that sometimes you just have to accept that this is an international community with people from all walks of life, and that not everything is going to go exactly to your personal specifications. I might like a certain style over another, a little tolerance goes a long way. (Speaking in general, not specifically to you)

[Cool_guy]

2 minutes ago, eTaylor said:

I think the FD is the perfect example. A lot of paramedics could bore you with very convoluted actions mentioning complex medical terms to a point where they might as well be speaking Latin. But most don’t. 
 

It’s also important to understand that GTA W is a complex amalgamation of many, MANY communities. We don’t just have players from GTA San Andreas, wel also have people from other V platforms and from places like IMVU, Second Life, Garry’s Mod, Roblox and many more. All these people all have different expectations and different ideas about roleplay, it’s format and interaction. In those communities all those players have   many unique and different backgrounds with different approaches to their roleplay. Hard fact is that sometimes you just have to accept that this is an international community with people from all walks of life, and that not everything is going to go exactly to your personal specifications. I might like a certain style over another, a little tolerance goes a long way. (Speaking in general, not specifically to you)

Yeah I get that but I was mainly pointing out how it dumb to think that more details is good RP and less details is bad RP. I personally think that it's always the case that RP is way more interesting and fun when communicated in a way that's interesting and fun. That's why it's very stupid when people act superior over how many verbs and adverbs they used when describing the lack of emotion their characters display when faced with temptation, danger and great success in their respective careers. 

 

Honestly if you just add an occasional exclamation point to the end of your /me's and you're way ahead of most. Like literally just going /me looks angry! describes things way better than going on about how your expression changes into a glare and what not. 
 

[shaobadman]

17 hours ago, Mahitto said:

 

 

I don't think that not going into detail means that you rush the scene. There were at least two people in this topic who said they role-played a mechanic and a paramedic, respectively. Their role-play was still complex, still long enough, but instead of spending 30 minutes doing "/me uses the 7/16 12 point on a hexagonal 1/4 inch bolt in the lower north-east part of the turbocharger", they spent the same amount of time focusing on the actual development, talking and creating a connection with the person, while also doing good role-play. The person in the first case will be left with nothing, while the one in the second situation will be left with some potentially valuable character development.

 

i'm realising that players in this community value time very differently, i've seen many instances of your first example and these "characters" are so void of any development or personality that they could be replaced with ai/npc, their character's role seems to be their primary function

 

 

14 hours ago, Koko said:

 

It's great to have knowledge, but it should be to enable and channel creativity and RP, not as the world's most uninteresting Ted Talk.

 

new mantra to follow

 

12 hours ago, Topinambour said:

Essentially: the idea is to use that knowledge as a framework on which the RP can be put. 🙂

 

To give other examples of storytelling: Breaking Bad isn't a show about how Walter does chemistry for 45 minutes per episodes across several seasons. The chemical and technical parts exist, but often they're ways to convey the story forward, show how Walt and Jessie evolve over time, how their minds degrade oftentimes, etc. The Practice is sometimes described as one of the best legal TV shows around, it's not because each episode painstakingly describes legal procedure: it's pretty detailed, but each time the technical legal details are here to help propel the story forward, the development of the characters, ... Even more recently, Spiderman No Way Home isn't a movie about how a wizard explains how a spell works for 120 minutes; the spell and the multiverse stuff are the beams on top of which the story is built. 

 

The technical stuff IS important, it's why I describe it as the framework / the main support beams. But they aren't the story ^^' 

  

you could use scrubs as another example, i'm sure people who work in hospitals point out all kinds of flaws in the show but the average viewer definitely never cared, and the writers didn't spend the whole 20 odd minutes per episode focusing on teaching the viewer about medicine, we all know scrubs didn't portray a hospital with 100% accuracy, but it made for some very entertaining tv regardless and that's what you want from fiction