State of civilian roleplay and portrayal

[Gore]

This is about civilian roleplay, not people getting the death sentence.

[Murat]

The vigilantism needs to stop. I’ve seen an IMEX member try and chase a kid down with a switchblade because he was vandalising a store. 

[peasoup]

1 hour ago, Ronnie two poles said:

What if, now hear me out...what if civilians are also portrayed by criminals too? As in, just because you're a criminal or in a gang doesn't mean you're not a member of society (civilian) or do normal things? I feel like people limit what a civilian RPer is. People who RP "civilians" feel they can't commit crimes or vice versa. I have a character right now who is a civilian, has a normal life, normal job, but does illegal things. He's a civilian who commits crime, but not strictly a criminal and nothing more. Think about real life, people commit crimes all the time, but they're still normal people who work, go to the grocery store, etc. Not strictly criminals 24/7.  

 

I've always felt there's also a lack of crime outside of factions or groups that aim to become factions. I know a lot of factions also encourage development outside of crime, but the fact you're in a faction might channel things into making crime your primary focus. And a lot of people do crime without being associated with any sort of organized group, in RL. They just do crimes of opportunity, or they need the money, but that doesn't mean they're in an actual gang or OCG or anything like that. It's just Bob and Tom stealing from the warehouse Bob used to work in or something like that. My legal characters end up interacting with criminals quite a bit, knowingly or not. Pretty much all of them do drugs, weed at the very least. Sometimes they do a few misdemeanors on the side to supplement their income. I've also played in an illegal faction, but mostly all of those would count as civilians. I do feel like the separation is too stark and "illegal" is assumed to be "illegal faction".

[gamerboy]

illegal roleplay is just more serious... i cant think of one serious legal faction that isn't leo related...? so no wonder the quality is deemed better in 4 year old illegal factions with faction threads that go 100 pages deep

[Cypher99]

4 hours ago, Murat said:

The vigilantism needs to stop. I’ve seen an IMEX member try and chase a kid down with a switchblade because he was vandalising a store. 

Yeah I can agree that was completely ridiculous. She actually CHASED him across the road 😂 I’m a civilian that has been on the wrong end of bad situations and I have my opinions about it, but I can agree that was a bunch of bullshit on her part lol.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Cypher99

[KinnyWynny]

4 hours ago, gamerboy said:

illegal roleplay is just more serious... i cant think of one serious legal faction that isn't leo related...? so no wonder the quality is deemed better in 4 year old illegal factions with faction threads that go 100 pages deep

dmec, lsfd, port authority, phmc, hope health, lsnn, city gov, state gov, prestige, ulsa, and public works

 

you may want to think some more

[Dom.]

11 hours ago, peasoup said:

 

I've always felt there's also a lack of crime outside of factions or groups that aim to become factions. I know a lot of factions also encourage development outside of crime, but the fact you're in a faction might channel things into making crime your primary focus. And a lot of people do crime without being associated with any sort of organized group, in RL. They just do crimes of opportunity, or they need the money, but that doesn't mean they're in an actual gang or OCG or anything like that. It's just Bob and Tom stealing from the warehouse Bob used to work in or something like that. My legal characters end up interacting with criminals quite a bit, knowingly or not. Pretty much all of them do drugs, weed at the very least. Sometimes they do a few misdemeanors on the side to supplement their income. I've also played in an illegal faction, but mostly all of those would count as civilians. I do feel like the separation is too stark and "illegal" is assumed to be "illegal faction".

This is probably because most illegal concepts that have nothing to do with cookie cutter gangs get scrutinized by FM sooner or later and shut down. 

[Koko]

On 1/14/2022 at 8:05 PM, roleplayer234 said:

Aspiring gangs and illegal groups have to pass a rigorous set of continuity criteria in order to exist. IFM set a standard when it comes to street gangs in terms of their portrayal and they do enforce that. That doesn't exist in the legal sense at all with the exception of entry requirements for portrayal set by the LSSD (which is not really surprisingly why the LSSD has the highest quality of roleplay amongst 'legal' characters on the server).

 

First of all nice bait. But since we're here, some thoughts:

 

Note how the people being put under stricter scrutiny (gangs and cops) share the fact that they will be handling guns and impacting the lives of other characters significantly (up to delivering CKs a lot more regularly than any "civilian character"). Gangs also impact what areas of the server people feel safe accessing and in general have a ripple effect on the server as a whole. See: Vespucci, South Central.

 

A cringe civilian character might make you shudder and want to eat your own face, but statistically in terms of impact at most they'll be reported for breaching rule 19 or for driving like an idiot (which are realms not exclusive to civilian RPers). So you can easily not interact with these characters and ignore them without it having an impact on your life. Not the case with gangs and cops.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Koko

[roleplayer234]

6 hours ago, Koko said:

 

First of all nice bait. But since we're here, some thoughts:

 

Note how the people being put under stricter scrutiny (gangs and cops) share the fact that they will be handling guns and impacting the lives of other characters significantly (up to delivering CKs a lot more regularly than any "civilian character"). Gangs also impact what areas of the server people feel safe accessing and in general have a ripple effect on the server as a whole. See: Vespucci, South Central.

 

A cringe civilian character might make you shudder and want to eat your own face, but statistically in terms of impact at most they'll be reported for breaching rule 19 or for driving like an idiot (which are realms not exclusive to civilian RPers). So you can easily not interact with these characters and ignore them without it having an impact on your life. Not the case with gangs and cops.

 

It's not just about the stereotypical cringe character that most would agree is bad. It's about the constant self-inserts and severe lack of limitations on depiction that most legal factions seem to have. I have to watch what I say here because again I'm aware I'm close to the line but I say this with as much respect as possible: from my perspective as someone who has been involved in whatever you want to call "illegal roleplay" on this server for years at this point, the faction that seems to have the highest standards on the legal side of the server is the LSSD and that's by quite some margin. 

 

There's exceptions here and there but what I'm saying isn't really a secret nor is it ground-breaking. However I made this thread time at a time when gang roleplay was just being freely mocked and criticized despite the fact that well established gang factions and numerous unofficial groups have far better depiction than the people who were writing screeds about how all (M) characters should be banned, or that gang roleplay is garbage. Yet often when you looked through the roleplay that these people put out, it was just the usual self-insert type roleplay that really shouldn't be a model for anything.

 

This really doesn't matter anymore because the doomsday situation I thought might happen has been avoided thanks to IFM. It's just a shame because it would be good to have more interactions with believable civilian characters but unfortunately even beyond the stereotypes, the depictions just feel like they're rarely mature enough and I doubt it'd fly if those factions had limitations that were as strict as illegal factions/the LSSD. Perhaps if the number of civilian self-insert characters was reduced too there'd be greater understanding that cops here aren't OOCly here to stop all crime or that stopping all crime is something that is even desirable. 

 

 

 

[Koko]

37 minutes ago, roleplayer234 said:

This really doesn't matter anymore because the doomsday situation I thought might happen has been avoided thanks to IFM. It's just a shame because it would be good to have more interactions with believable civilian characters but unfortunately even beyond the stereotypes, the depictions just feel like they're rarely mature enough and I doubt it'd fly if those factions had limitations that were as strict as illegal factions/the LSSD. Perhaps if the number of civilian self-insert characters was reduced too there'd be greater understanding that cops here aren't OOCly here to stop all crime or that stopping all crime is something that is even desirable. 

 

Most honest civilian depictions I've seen (and played) were ultimately all mocked to death by illegal RPers they shared their space with until their players found no fun playing them or just resorted to becoming funny meme characters. I have RPed in and around illegal RP spheres for years now, even playing exclusively civilian characters in South Central (to greater or lesser success). The problem aren't well established factions, groups and gangs. The problem are the rogue elements (the sort of unofficial groups that last 2 weeks and then get bored and try a different concept) that literally will not let you RP in a space as a civilian unless you want to be their punching bag for their Discord screenshot laughing circlejerks.

 

For many people, this leaves public civilians to be sort of jokey/troll NPCs because it is legitimately hard to play a normal civilian with an arc in many places. People want realistic civilians around them mostly as accessories and props to their own RP. Some civilians want to be some sort of protagonist of their own self-insert story just as much as some gang characters want to be the next Tony Montana in 2 weeks of RP.

 

Ultimately the problem is that there are not enough infrastructures out there for civilians to do things. The server caters to the so-called mallrats because you become a mallrat when you have nothing to do, nothing to create, and nothing to spend your money on other than flash cars and a penthouse. You become defined by what your character owns and the lifestyle you paint yourself to live, because there's nothing for you to do on the public sphere that isn't one of 5 jobs or one of 6 legal factions (and isn't just you RPing with yourself). 

 

Acquiring and operating a simple, small business for RP unless you have the OOC connections for a property (which many people would love to) and going through Property Management feels like pulling teeth, so we continue on the same spiral of people not being able to start their own small businesses to offer the server and give their characters purpose and meaning behind some hedonistic ERP trip.