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State of civilian roleplay and portrayal


roleplayer234

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20 minutes ago, Kassandra said:

You know what I do when someone is playing a cringy or weird civilian character? I ignore them. 

 

You know what I do when someone is playing a cringy or weird illegal rper? I can't ignore them, they're making me run my pockets for the third time this week in front of Mission Row. 

Or driving into business lots littered with CCTV CIM’s without any proper portrayal of fear RP, but if we shoot at them for trespassing it’s non-fear RP lol. 
 


@roleplayer234

 

In fairness, the groups I’ve been a part of in the legal/civilian areas have pretty strict standards. Legal RP suffers from the same issue of “strays”. There are always going to be the outliers who ruin the image for the rest of us who want to be more serious in terms of our role play.

 

Im confident that most of the issues our group deals with on a daily basis are not stemming from the serious illegal factions, more so the ones that don’t take things as seriously or the lone wolf “I’m bored, gonna go do some crime” type players. Both sides have their issues and it’s an issue of rule and RPQM enforcement at the core, for both sides.

Edited by Cypher99
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8 minutes ago, Kassandra said:

You know what I do when someone is playing a cringy or weird civilian character? I ignore them. 

 

You know what I do when someone is playing a cringy or weird illegal rper? I can't ignore them, they're making me run my pockets for the third time this week in front of Mission Row. 

I'm sorry if it comes out as a personal attack. It isn't. I just want to use this example and I'm on your side believe me. When you say "3rd time this week in Mission row" makes me think that, your character should either be bankrupt, has a fetish to get robbed, or is just plain dumb to keep going in mission row without different measures. But there's one more exaplanation which I think is the right one. You totally don't care OOCly and gave up because of how poor the robbers are RPing, and you just give them the money and get done with it. Cause personally that's what I do myself. 

As for the main topic. I can't even reply to this proper bait that tries to make a thread about civilians, and then involves legal factions at the same time. Makes me think that the Author is either baiting really hard with a new account, or has a poor understanding on how to separate civilians from legal factions. However, he's correct halfway there. Civilians look like they're out of caricatures, with bizarre looks and bizarre behavior. There's some cases where characters are part time law-enforcement and FD, and part time clowns.

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3 hours ago, Gambler said:

just plain dumb to keep going in mission row without different measures

 

The problem is that every measure suggested by the same people that are perpetuating the problem, aren't really allowing their suggested 'measures' any chance to succeed. In fact, we've only seen the opposite - they're actively betraying the promises of what will work by targeting the people trying to implement those "measures" as a last desperate big to roleplay on the server. Let's review, shall we?

 

- Arm yourselves

Cool in theory, but a personal firearm no longer works with the current fear RP rules. If you pull your gun before, you'll be reported for poor RP, because you initiated the encounter with an act of violence, and no criminal is required or willing to admit that they were PLANNING to rob someone. @Drew_Banks reported the people he tried to rob, because they recognized the impending robbery and subdued him. 

 

- Travel in groups

Groups are being targeted, and in quite a few instances, criminals are targeting groups twice as large. The size of your group is no longer a deterrent, meaning people are always going to be at risk, even if they gather for an event outdoors.

 

- Stop taking risks

This is happening in literal line of sight of police stations. Officers are being gunned down just for wanting to issue a traffic citation. We're seeing gangs escalating to violence because they're not afraid of drawing attention to themselves, and don't have any issue with killing anyone that reacts to their suspicious behavior, cops being a favorite target. If they're killing cops, literally armed and trained personnel, what chance do civilians stand against the criminal element?

 

- Push the police to fix it

With what? Every time the police get some measure that helps investigations, it gets shut down. Any time a measure is proposed to limit the rampant crime, the suggestion is shut down because "iT wOuLd nEgAtIVeLy imPaCt tHe cRiMInAl cOMmUnItY".

 

There's no different measures that can be employed at this point, because with every practical measure stripped or not even capable of working in the first place, the criminal element is emboldened to just have their way even despite their recurring and increasingly loud complaints that "nobody goes outside anymore", a complaint that will happen again, and again, and again... despite the people voicing such complaints refusing to do anything about fixing the problem.

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29 minutes ago, DasFroggy said:

 

The problem is that every measure suggested by the same people that are perpetuating the problem, aren't really allowing their suggested 'measures' any chance to succeed. In fact, we've only seen the opposite - they're actively betraying the promises of what will work by targeting the people trying to implement those "measures" as a last desperate big to roleplay on the server. Let's review, shall we?

 

- Arm yourselves

Cool in theory, but a personal firearm no longer works with the current fear RP rules. If you pull your gun before, you'll be reported for poor RP, because you initiated the encounter with an act of violence, and no criminal is required or willing to admit that they were PLANNING to rob someone. @Drew_Banks reported the people he tried to rob, because they recognized the impending robbery and subdued him. 

 

- Travel in groups

Groups are being targeted, and in quite a few instances, criminals are targeting groups twice as large. The size of your group is no longer a deterrent, meaning people are always going to be at risk, even if they gather for an event outdoors.

 

- Stop taking risks

This is happening in literal line of sight of police stations. Officers are being gunned down just for wanting to issue a traffic citation. We're seeing gangs escalating to violence because they're not afraid of drawing attention to themselves, and don't have any issue with killing anyone that reacts to their suspicious behavior, cops being a favorite target. If they're killing cops, literally armed and trained personnel, what chance do civilians stand against the criminal element?

 

- Push the police to fix it

With what? Every time the police get some measure that helps investigations, it gets shut down. Any time a measure is proposed to limit the rampant crime, the suggestion is shut down because "iT wOuLd nEgAtIVeLy imPaCt tHe cRiMInAl cOMmUnItY".

 

There's no different measures that can be employed at this point, because with every practical measure stripped or not even capable of working in the first place, the criminal element is emboldened to just have their way even despite their recurring and increasingly loud complaints that "nobody goes outside anymore", a complaint that will happen again, and again, and again... despite the people voicing such complaints refusing to do anything about fixing the problem.

Totally. I agree with you. The reason why I said that is because, even if you try to do realistic things as you mentioned above, you get met with unrealistic circumstances like what  actually happens, instead of what should happen. But the whole point of that paragraph is that, people just give their belonging and get done with it.

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7 hours ago, Gambler said:

I'm sorry if it comes out as a personal attack. It isn't. I just want to use this example and I'm on your side believe me. When you say "3rd time this week in Mission row" makes me think that, your character should either be bankrupt, has a fetish to get robbed, or is just plain dumb to keep going in mission row without different measures. But there's one more exaplanation which I think is the right one. You totally don't care OOCly and gave up because of how poor the robbers are RPing, and you just give them the money and get done with it. Cause personally that's what I do myself. 

As for the main topic. I can't even reply to this proper bait that tries to make a thread about civilians, and then involves legal factions at the same time. Makes me think that the Author is either baiting really hard with a new account, or has a poor understanding on how to separate civilians from legal factions. However, he's correct halfway there. Civilians look like they're out of caricatures, with bizarre looks and bizarre behavior. There's some cases where characters are part time law-enforcement and FD, and part time clowns.

Its hyperbole to be honest, mate. 

My point is that I can't ignore cringy illegal rpers when they can force you to interact with them with with negative consequences if you don't. 

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Let's not mix-up civilian roleplay as roleplay that is immediately roleplay of lower quality or roleplay that can be seen as being "mallrat" adjacent. Saying civilian roleplay is low quality in general terms is a gross misconception and to be honest, a little silly. All roleplayers do civilian roleplay. You can be the biggest kingpin out there, but when you're going to your local bar alongside Stacey Staceyinson, the pink haired Kawaii driver. You're doing the exact same roleplay as that roleplayer, you are... doing civilian roleplay.

 

I completely understand what you're referring to as civilian roleplay. You mean legal roleplayers either in or not in a legal faction. Typically these characters encounter a large amount of wealth through script jobs and more often than not, do not know or will not roleplay their assets realistically. Often roleplaying their $20,000 earned from their mechanic job that day, literally as them earning $20,000. When that $20,000 should be more realistically roleplayed as something closer to $200. But, because of the way they poorly roleplay the portrayal of assets, it bleeds through the rest of their roleplay. There's one very simple piece of action you can make about this. File a roleplay quality management report, especially if you think they're a repeat offender. 

 

Returning back to the term "civilian roleplay" in regards to legal faction roleplayers. As previously mentioned throughout this thread, legal factions often have a very high bar for entry, however and I have seen this first-hand. Once you've broken past that bar for entry and after the farming of a few tasty weekly script pay checks, there is a tendency to see a good chunk, but not the majority by any means. Of player's quality of portrayal when it comes to assets and their overall portrayal suffering, as such. You can absolutely have a nice car if you're a fresh Police newbie (or any rank). But, the way you're roleplaying that car needs to be approached from a realistic standpoint. I.E. Maybe the car is from a dealership and is heavily used, cosmetically and maybe, even performance-wise isn't doing the greatest, or something similar. One layer of assistance we get when encountering player's in legal factions is the ability to report offenders to their legal faction itself and have an investigation done into them. I know, it can be seen as 'snakey'. But, if you're genuinely concerned by someone's portrayal in a faction, it's at your discretion to go ahead and bring this up to the faction.

 

One genuine cause for lower-quality (or what might be perceived as lower-quality) "civilian roleplay" is: legal roleplay is always going to be "noob friendly" where illegal faction-based roleplay is not and I'm going to explain this. Boris Borisikanova a third generation Russian, just joined the server, he's never roleplayed before, but has watched a lot of streamers or YouTube videos on roleplay and wants to give it a shot. He probably wants to roleplay a criminal character, but doesn't understand how to get into that sort of roleplay, especially with the high learning curve this server has. You need to learn rules, commands and just norms of the server and how it works. Before you can really start to get into a flow of roleplay. So, as a result he will roleplay a grey character, balancing between illegal and legal roleplay. Then, somewhere down the line he'll hear about insert legal faction of choice here by an IC friend and be ushered into that sort of roleplay. Where as, it is a lot more unlikely (but not impossible) that he will be ushered into an illegal faction or group, just due to the unconscious walls illegal groups appear to have from outsiders at times. Boris' roleplay is going to be viewed as lower-quality by some, due to the fact he's probably been seen roleplaying around a few various groups, had a few jobs IC and is not finally in a faction. This isn't a portrayal issue, it's very realistic for people to test the waters of multiple career paths and such, but instead, this sort of exploration of the server is his unconscious way of learning how the server operates. We almost all when through this phase when we made our first character(s), unless you're entering the server with established OOC friends, you have to go through this learning process.

 

I'm someone that does pretty much exclusively factionless legal roleplay. Sure, my character's interact around criminals, but that doesn't mean they're criminally aligned by any means, nor does it mean they hold any loyalty to the criminal organizations that their friends are affiliated with. Some people don't like that and think legal roleplayers should stick to legal groups and illegal to illegal groups. But, that's just not how real people work in the real-world. No one is exclusively illegal or legal in real-life, as people we often dip and slide under certain laws and rules to make them fit our life at that time. Doesn't necessarily make someone a criminal or illegal, just makes them human and as such, that's how I roleplay my legal characters.

 

Last thing I want to touch on is mallratty roleplay. I see this time and time again in discussions, in Discords, on the forums and even people I know in my DMs. There seems to be this assumption by illegal roleplayers, that only legal roleplayers can be mallrats. Which is not the case at all. I have seen countless members of various factions be that OC, MC, gang or any other type of illegal group. Doing "mallrat roleplay" and what I mean by mallrat roleplay, is poorly portrayed assets, often owning multiple expensive properties, vehicles and sometimes businesses, without the correct character development and portrayal. As well as, business or more specifically, club / bar hopping and just hanging around, not particularly adding or creating any roleplay. These characters have no outward goal or desire to progress. In short: they're roleplaying their second life. Then these illegal roleplayers justify the fact they are roleplaying all of these assets by claiming, it's them storing their dirty and illegally obtained money in physical assets, so that it does not seem as suspicious. When in-reality they just want to have a nice car or property.  In follow-up from a few of my points. I very frequently see illegal faction roleplayers literally only roleplay around their illegal faction, with the only goal and their character's personality being their illegal faction. This is extremely concerning to me, because more often than not, these characters are irresponsive to roleplay of outside groups. Sometimes forcing hostile interaction, but that's not the topic we're talking about here.

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13 hours ago, DasFroggy said:

This is... actually more a result of how civilian characters interact. Civilians are typically more passive in roleplay outcomes, as their interactions are often social or professional, during which the average worst outcome is "You're fired" or "Your face is stupid" and that's about it. 

 

Meanwhile the average outcome in an interaction with criminal characters is usually either loss of actual tangible assets or suddenly being unsubscribed from life. 

 

Civilians rarely go out to initiate an interaction in which violent loss of property or life are the desired outcome, so they typically don't end up in reports unless they respond poorly to violent loss of property/life and/or they have cat ears.

As should be the aim of all roleplayers.

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34 minutes ago, Coburn said:

As should be the aim of all roleplayers.

Well... to be fair, if you're playing a criminal, at some point there will be shit going on 😛 

 

7 hours ago, Gambler said:

Totally. I agree with you. The reason why I said that is because, even if you try to do realistic things as you mentioned above, you get met with unrealistic circumstances like what  actually happens, instead of what should happen. But the whole point of that paragraph is that, people just give their belonging and get done with it.

That's one thing we can absolutely agree on yeah :x But I'm out of reactions for the day, so I can't give you a thumbs up sorry xD

 

I like to distinguish realism and verisimilitude. For an RP game, to me at least, the latter is the objective, not realism - because roleplaying games have a game element, that means if it's fully realistic, it will be just as boring as... well, real life. Not an objective to go for ^^' However... there needs to be a VERY MINIMUM of verisimilitude, for the game to remain enjoyable. 

 

To take a movie example: Superman can fly and has laser eyes. It's not realistic. But within the context of the Superman franchise? It's explained, so it's believable. We're good! As a spectator you have some suspension of disbelief, mine is pretty high so y'know what? No problem, laser eyes. If however suddenly Superman can also breathe fire, with zero explanation, that verisimilitude disappears - even though breathing fire isn't much more outrageous as having laser eyes. But the lack of reasoning, of explanation, of context set within the universe, ... makes it so people will frown, if it happens.

 

And here we are, with this big problem: like Gambler and others said, a lot of stuff on the server isn't realistic - and I'm super OK with that. However, quite a few things (including, those random robberies in LoS of Mission Row PD) also aren't remotely believable, even in the context of a roplaying universe like GTAW's 😕 Even if you make an effort, as a player or spectator, you just can't see any way this could ever work. 

 

And again, I'm not saying we should go for full realism. If a bit of outlandishness and whimsicality can create some really cool, enjoyable RP with amazing stories? Let's throw realism through the window, I'm all for it! But once more, a minimum of believability should be kept around, so the RP can be enjoyed without everyone wondering what the fuck is going on, all the time ^^' 

Edited by Topinambour
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2 hours ago, Topinambour said:

And again, I'm not saying we should go for full realism. If a bit of outlandishness and whimsicality can create some really cool, enjoyable RP with amazing stories? Let's throw realism through the window, I'm all for it! But once more, a minimum of believability should be kept around, so the RP can be enjoyed without everyone wondering what the fuck is going on, all the time ^^' 

I'm all about being unique in your own ways, as we all are in real life. I'm fine if people want to spice up their characters a little, but try to keep them in the realm of realism. 
We all are weird in our own ways sometimes, but that's why we sing in the shower with our shitty voices and not in the streets. I'll give you an example.

I've roleplayed a psychologist for a long time, have a degree in psychology IRL, and also made a full guide about 2 years ago on psychologist RP, so allow me to say that I have some expertise here. What's obvious in that kind of roleplay is that people who RP patients, have some symptoms caused by trauma or stress. Sadly, 90% of 40-50 patient symptoms and traumas, were all the same with the same stories, which led me to believe that they were making it up on the spot mixed with a lot of movies influence, which resulted in repeated stories. Sometimes it also was them projecting their IRL issues but sugarcoating it a little, which I could feel it, and honestly, it touched me a little. But that is bad when you see only the aspect of roleplay, which is the only thing that should matter. Am I heartless for pointing out roleplayers who mix, and hyperbolize their characters? Maybe. But I've never blamed them. If they're allowed to keep roleplaying like that, more power to them. The real problem comes from those whose job is to enforce the rules of roleplay, not the roleplayer. Nothing wrong with having a medium/light RP server and accommodating these players, but there's very little left to claim "Heavy" here anymore.
 

  

4 hours ago, Wremlish said:

I have seen countless members of various factions be that OC, MC, gang or any other type of illegal group. Doing "mallrat roleplay" and what I mean by mallrat roleplay, is poorly portrayed assets, often owning multiple expensive properties, vehicles and sometimes businesses, without the correct character development and portrayal. As well as, business or more specifically, club / bar hopping and just hanging around, not particularly adding or creating any roleplay.

That really doesn't help the case in the grand scheme of things does it? Pointing more bad portrayals just makes sure that someone drags more people in the mud pit. Good read tho', Loved the argument on clearing the missconceptions to the trollish and bait author.

Just wanted to say something about: 

4 hours ago, Wremlish said:

There's one very simple piece of action you can make about this. File a roleplay quality management report, especially if you think they're a repeat offender. 


It doesn't really work. Tried it, but just doesn't work. Reported a few and what I got back is..."Everyone makes mistakes". "Stop cherry picking" "You're looking for the needle in the haystack". Also got the silent treatment meaning it just died out eventually.
But hey, I at least got denied a house cause it was too far from work according to Property Management.(Time and Space works differently in GTAW) And when I brought it up to RPQM they doubled down. I guess they do stuff sometimes.

Edited by Gambler
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