StarGateWars Forums

Posted: **Fri Nov 14, 2008 10:36 am**

I would like to take some of your time to discuss on peoples' understanding of roleplay, what roleplay is, where it's best applied and how it conflicts with interactions that would be considered to be a part of 'real' life communication.

I had, within the last half an hour or so, constructed (by my own opinion) a well thought out and creative peice of writing designed at pleading the case of an individual where this huge and frankly ridiculous server wide war is concerned - but it got caught up in the ridiculous mill of personal approach and ultimately recinded by the person it was written for because it was apparently causing more damage than it was intended to fix. I know for sure that the intentions were clear cut and I know for sure that the resulting effect would be wide and varied, but to have something retracted because of an inability to realise role play.

Please note, that this post is me. You're talking to Louis. The person behind the creativity of the character you also know as Diamond Dust. You're also reading the thoughts of someone who is becoming increasingly annoyed at the seeming inability of forum users who fail to recognise the difference between roleplay and real life.

Moderators are able to clearly define wether or not they're posting from a player perspective or a moderator perspective (which of course refects upon the integrity of the rules and requires no roleplay whatsoever). For the most part, the moderators do a pristine job at maintaining an ingame character upon the boards, and for the most part, so do a lot of players that are not moderators, BUT, here lies the problem with the rest.

Where is the line? Where is the 'thing' that tells people wether or not someone is playing out a character or not? Or is it just down to interpretation or a sheer lack of that causes the confusion. I personally find it frustrating that people can get confused. Or is it my confusion? And infact this is not a board for roleplaying at all?

Please forgive me for sounding like I expect everyone to be at the peak of their most creative genius at every given opportunity to sign onto the boards, because I understand that some people neither have the patience, not the desire or the ability to do it, but please, draw the line.

You tend to find that half of the nonsense that comes about from wars and such is a product of poor communication around here, and the inability to read between the lines for the sake of e-drama, for lack of a better expression. There seems to be a very hasty mentality towards taking things personally. Some people are literally confused by what they read here, because they fail to grasp the ultimate and stark truth, that it is just a game. A game that gives me a lot of pleasure. But a game that seems to be lacking in common sense at the moment.

Rant over - sensible posts are welcomed.

Posted: **Fri Nov 14, 2008 10:38 am**

Diamond Dust wrote:because they fail to grasp the ultimate and stark truth, that it is just a game

People will always fail to realize that as long as they take this game way too seriously

Posted: **Fri Nov 14, 2008 11:51 am**

semper wrote:This game is a role play for me. The line is drawn on a personal communication level, not a public one. The forums, my general actions in game are all just that, a game. My msn and pm's are a different thing, because they reach at me directly..

Semper wrote:I dont flame, very often. I generally make points that cannot be accepted because they are not 'nice', they are not, for want of a better definition 'part of the plan', so people react badly, think im being an ass and taking it all very serious. When in fact as Jim said in his post. This is a game forum, with a very corrupt and rotten community, I believe I am fair, I have fairly logical points and beliefs, though they are cruel. I dont butter people up, and I dont pretend to be the nice guy to a group of strangers on a public forum. This is not the place for personal problems, its a place where people go to escape to be who they want without the harsh realities of real life leaking in (this is role play), a place to play games. None the less life does leak in, as is inevitable. The new players dont respect the old, the old dont care about the new, and a lot of people act above their station, then when one bad moment hits, it all comes crashing down, sometimes even for the briefest time, and their persona, their created character, whether genuine or not, falls to a new level, which could have been avoided had they been wiser, had they been honest to begin with and not tried to be 'superman'.

This is, largely a very friendly place on the surface, but people like myself will always be here, people waiting to enjoy the fall of the 'created characters', because its just too easy and just too god dam fun to miss.

Conflict will always be here because of clashing personalities, some willing to speak up for what they believe when they shouldnt or when they should, things that are not accepted because they are eccentric, and things occurring because of peoples inability to communicate efficiently.

To sum it all up, life sucks ass if you cannot take things with a pinch of salt even in the worst times, this is how things are, how they always have been and how they always will be. People dont need to 'mature', people wont 'mature' or evolve, some people will get respect, others will not, they just need to be more open minded and learn what to take with a pinch of salt, how to argue, how to ignore, or how to use the log out button for good and just to stop worrying about every little thing.

I dont take this forum seriously, I take very little in my life seriously, it was how ive been brought up, because its just too dam short to worry about things and listen to everyone and everything or be concerned what he thinks what she thinks..it just too much. Go with the flow, pick something you do good and enjoy and do it, have fun. I like arguing, and yeah, being a git in the eyes of most. I didnt choose such a thing, but thats the way it is and im happy to role play with it. I may sound serious, but believe me when I leave this topic I dont think about it twice till the time I might or might not sign in and by chance end up in this section again.

but at the end of the day...its all subjective..so yeah..think want you all want, I dont care anyway... lol

Cheerio chaps!

Posted: **Fri Nov 14, 2008 12:23 pm**

common sense is as so many have said not all that common...

one easy way to distinguish roleplay, is by using colors...
moderators are usually skilled at distinguishing due to them having to play (at least) two roles... that of a user, and that of a mod... mods tend to use some color or other effect to specify when they speak as a mod, and when they speak as a user...
many people that roleplay a lot on these forums also use colors for this effect... an excellent example of this is the user (and mod) .:VOID:. who has 5 different characters defined by colors in its signature, and that does not include just speaking as a user...

another way some roleplay is through the use of actions... this is done in many ways, sometimes in Italic text, other times in Bold text, or perhaps by placing an "*" in front of and after text, or by fake BBCode boxes like this [Joke]text[/Joke]... there are of course other ways, but we cannot list all ways, simply because we do not know all ways...

the next major way to roleplay, is through the use of so-called multies... some might think this means cheating, but not when it is kept to the forums... a person can legally control any number of forum accounts here, but only one game account... the majority of users only use one account, many might have two, and some have many... a few might even have dozens of forum multies...
this type of roleplay is usually distinguished by each account having its own personality... one might be incapable of taking anything seriously, while another might be that of a wise old person... and there can of course be any sort of personality thinkable (and a few unthinkable ones)...

another major type of roleplay, is through the use of "stories"... this is a method that requires a lot of work, but is also hard for some to distinguish from regular writing... we believe the post referred to by Diamond Dust was of this kind... this method is often mistaken for regular writing, if a bit more complex than normal, and as such is treated as normal writing... one easy way to distinguish this, without using any of the methods mentioned above, is to add some marker on top stating that it is roleplay... its not very fun to have to do that, but at times it is necessary
to do so, mostly due to those not able to set ingame and forum apart from each other...

so all in all, defining roleplay takes time, simply because there are many forms of roleplay...

Posted: **Fri Nov 14, 2008 4:08 pm**

Common sence is not always common virtue

Posted: **Fri Nov 14, 2008 4:24 pm**

Well to me, if its good "RP" everyone knows.

Plus it helps if its used in the right place and context, but yes to many take this game to serious

Posted: **Fri Nov 14, 2008 4:34 pm**

~FreeSpirit~ wrote:Common sence is not always common virtue

You stole my saying...seriously!!!

It's based off a saying from WWII.

Uncommon Valor, was a common virtue.

I know i've said my version over msn.... :smt013

Posted: **Fri Nov 14, 2008 10:15 pm**

Role play is great but to often used as an excuse to behave like a gerk and then claim its just role play. I am not reffering to actual game play like farming for naq and uu or massing a planet theif when needed but more I am speaking to those who use the game as an outlet for personal failure and take out their life failures on others trying to have fun. I am not sure where the lne is but I know there is one and people cross it alot. When people begin to extort others or bully people so they feel bigger and others feel smaller i think that is classless.

It tends to be the ones that play the bad guys that are actualy not nice people it isnt role playing its just them getting to behave in a way they couldnt in RL because someone would fire them or better yet gank them in the junk.

In all role playing is great but I have yet to see people be consistant because if they where they wouldnt likely be a part of an alliance if they are playing a bad guy unless the alliance was all bad guys which would be a very unhappy alliance.

Here is a question, where are the good guys in this so called role playing game?

The thing is I play this game like chess and I treat others like I would my opponent sitting across from me. I role play but in that I pretend to be in control of an entire army and multiple worlds, but I never forget there are people behind each keyboard and that my actions wether I think they should or not affect that person and their game play.

I again wish to say that for the most part people should just be considerate and use some sense of integrity. Play the game and have fun smash your enemy when needed and when needed remmeber people are more important then a game and more important then your freaking game play. If people played this game with integrity we wouldnt have wars that last forever and alliances hlding grudges and picking on people because they would admit it when they are beaten and all would congradulate their opponant and move on no hurt feelings or angry people.

I hope this is taki i the right light

Posted: **Sat Nov 15, 2008 2:16 am**

the good guys here are the ones that one rarely notice... those that help newbies, give support to people, etc...

the people that try to hide bad behavior behind the name of roleplay rarely last all that long until someone punishes them for their behavior... for example, use of bad language (not as in poor language) isnt allowed, not even when people try to hide it as roleplay...

for example, two sections that people willing to learn more about roleplay can visit, is the race sections, and the temple both of these sections have many roleplayers, both of the good and the bad kind...

Posted: **Sat Nov 15, 2008 2:58 am**

Well since I kind of won the roleplayer of the year award I would say it like this:

Dont just practice roleplay here or then but build your game around it. It is a GAME and you play it how you wana play it, if we all did roleplaying I think it would be even more amazing and for my fun and I hope for the fun of someone else I RPG and base my game on it, try to drag the entire alliance and empire in it and through that the community, what then an individual does is up to him

So to answer the why some dont get it: Dont practice it from time to time, but instead build your game around it.

To bring RPG back in this game is one of the goals I have set for myself when coming back and well I ll do my best to apply it
Not just words, actions

Blue

Posted: **Sat Nov 15, 2008 3:25 am**

I thought everybody was roll playing !! you mean to tell me that you are all like this in RL :shock:

*locks doors , pulls blinds*

Posted: **Sat Nov 15, 2008 11:58 am**

As Zeratull stated there are several role players in the race area and in the spam temple. What brdavs stated i must also agree with build the game around ur roleplay not ur roleplay around the game. If ur really interested in people who roleplay all i can say is stay tuned

Posted: **Sat Nov 15, 2008 2:03 pm**

there is of course also the kind where people roleplay in (almost) every single post... people that do that may often also use other roleplay types...

we for example have a rather difficult form of roleplay that few think of as roleplay... (notice how we always use "we" and such...)

Posted: **Sat Nov 15, 2008 6:02 pm**

I role play, I play a role

Teacher- to those who wish to learn or grow
Student- To those who will teach me
Friend- To all who will allow it
Example- To all to the glory of God the father

I play many roles to many different people. As an alliance leader through the years I have taken the chance to teach more to my members then just how to play a game but rather when they where willing i taught them what is was to be truly strong of character and mind.

There are roles that need to be played in this game my hope is that more would fill those roles. We dont need more tauri or goauld but rather many of the young kids in this game need freinds and mentors and as strange as it may seem they value this game and the people in it so we ahve a chance to help people while having fun playing a game.

At the end of the day if all I did was win an alliance war and grow to a huge account then that would be a waste of time, but if I ahve done those things and cared for people along the way then that is truly great.

I know alot of people in this game that put others first unforunatly they are normally more silent people and tend to be in the shadows. Maybe its time they heard more from thsoe people.

Posted: **Sun Nov 16, 2008 3:14 am**

TheWay wrote:Role play is great but to often used as an excuse to behave like a gerk and then claim its just role play.

This has happened all too often.

However, it is normally easy enough to spot when people are roleplaying, or when they're being directly abusive - but again, it has got more common to be the latter over the years as the game has developed and, as a consequence, bred more arrogance because of the way it changed. Additionally - some of the best roleplayers are copied (badly) by some other players - mainly because they were extremely good at roleplaying, although those that copied them didn't didn't seem to realise that it was just roleplaying. Also, a lot of people have in the past mistaken excellent roleplaying for people being a jerk...

...Esker is a great example of this - playing the tyrannical Goa'uld down to a fine art. Although many people got annoyed at his style and claimed he was being a jerk, the truth is he was behaving exactly like his character should.

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