There's people whose RP makes others RP as well and enjoy the story. The basic Non-OOC is very... AB; RP novice (%15)
I mean, when they say the level of RP in IRE games is so and so high, well, they're referring to the lack of OOC no the actual storytelling that is what RP is about. My humble opinion as table roleplayer

This is my personal belief.

One can roleplay and not be noticed. Being IC all the time is no great feat of roleplaying - it is a REQUIREMENT to RP. To be able to roleplay, one must be capable of total immersion.

Let me define immersion - it is where one is reacting to the surroundings. One acknowledges them, and their actions - one knows and accepts that this city is here and this city is here. The temperture is at this, and it is snowing/raining/sunny. It is night, and it is a New Moon. One realizes there's a big oak tree next to me, and not a birch. As far as they're concerned, it's there because the text says it is, and we accept it as reality.

Roleplay is more than just that - roleplay is where you think as your character thinks, you react as he reacts - not how you react. In my opinion, a true and great roleplayer is one who can take a role totally unlike themselves. To them, the character is a thing, a seperate entity, a life of it's own. We know how it should and will react, it's only limitations are those any normal living, thinking, breathing entity would be held by - knowledge, wisdom, and morals. Just as any of us are.

Just because someone is IC all the time does NOT make them a good RPer. I could simply be myself, and put myself in that setting - okay, it's a role. A poor one, poorely chosen, and essentially what happened to Erion, and sadly to Kalodan, too. Because I've stopped caring.

In the beginning, though, and for a good time, Kalodan was my pride and joy. Those were some great days. Great roleplayers? They don't exist.

Beautifully roleplayed characters - those exist. Gwylifar was one of them. Gregori, too. I never saw Guido as a character, Richter neither, but I also talked to them a lot on an OOC level - same as Narsrim and Munsi - so it kind of destroys the image of a character, too.

Honest to god good characters, to me, are rare. Tully? I loved him to death. But all it was, in my opinion, was a bunch of idiotic ramblings and naive, ignorant bliss, coupled with a stupid accent.

The people who have always stood out to me are: Tully, Ashar, Nok, Daevos, Gwylifar, Icarus, Munsia pre and post cow phase. Joli with her bubbly ness always made me want to make her evil.......Its just how i am.

I already said as much somewhere on these boards, but I couldn't disagree more.

Role-playing is acting.

Acting by pretending to be someone you're not is what high-school thespians do, and no one really buys the emotion. It's melodrama.

Acting by pretending to be yourself, drawing on genuine experience and genuine emotion, while projecting yourself into entirely different circumstances, is what professionals do.

The idea is that if you actually are able to put yourself on the place of the character you're pretending to be, that character actually takes a body and becomes "real" in the world you're making him interact with, and following the rules of said world. But that takes into account the way your character grown, its age, its history, its environment...

When somebody says that he had a specific kind of upbringing in a specific city or area, I expect that someone character to be acording to that. If that's the same person behind the keyboard or not, I don't mind. But what I find horrifiying is the "I wanna be different" syndrom when somebody looks like having been hit in the head with a lead bar just recently and it's acting in a way that is 100% impropper of their char. evolution.

To be fair, I'm not trying to win a contest or anything. So I'm not sure what you mean by "good". I certainly wouldn't say I'm the best player out there. Personally I just rank RP as "Good" or "Bad".

My inspiration for Tully comes from the more or less "lighthearted" roles some fantasy authors use. The "cute" Disney sidekicks are an example, the "short races" of Dragonlance are another good example. I've tried to give him depth, but that's something only seen from one-on-one interaction. I wouldn't say he's "ignorant".

I think a lot of people like him because I try to think of how to entertain /others/ when I RP, not so much myself. I try to provide some humor, quirkiness, and even comic relief at times. I also try to really interact with other players who work hard, such as Marina, Ialie, Qaletaqa and some gods.

He's definately not the archetype of the typical player, who also engages in commerce and combat, so I too wouldn't call myself the "best RPer".



Both are correct, somewhat. Acting is part of it, definately, and using your own emotions to help inspire you for a role is good. I was able to use my hiatal hernia problems for a little interaction with Marina.

However, I believe YoLF's note is good. Really good character actors understand their characters, not themselves. I really don't think, for example, Johnny Depp has all the qualities of every character he's portrayed--he studies and gets into the role. So I think using that analogy is flawed.

And remember, a MUD is not acting, so there's less emotional intensity. I tend to approach it with a writers touch.

Totally disagree. There's a hell of a lot more emotional intensity involved with these muds if you play them immersively than acting. You and a few others just seem to play from outside the game rather than inside it.

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

Well, as you may know from a previous thread of mine, I agree. Although as with anything emotionally intense, a certain amount of caution must be exercised.

The player can feel intensity, but I meant that actually performing emotionally is less connected. In other words, no matter how well you RP the person watching it will probably not react as emotionally as he would seeing the same thing on the big or even little screen.

I'm not saying the players don't get upset or feel emotions based on their own character's experiences.

Ahh...I see what you mean.

Hmm, you could be right, I'll have to think about that.

Roleplaying isn't acting, nor writing. It's a little bit of both, it's improvisation. It's about knowing your character better than you know most real people you know, and being able to play out his reactions; even though you may be drawing feelings from real experiences to roleplay your character (Hard to really pull off over text) what he's actually doing should be determined by your character's personality, not by what you would be doing in his situation.