I Challenge You To...

[*Mr_Otyugh]

I've noticed that there has been a rising number of "gamer mentality" happening around SCoD, where IC conflicts have been resolved more or less by OOC understanding that it's a player, and not an NPC. Another part of it is that characters are somewhat snow-flakey in that they don't feel "real". Now instead of making this a rant, argument or whatever statement.

No, I actually want to challenge you to... ... follow the evidences, instead of trusting the player saying it wasn't them. [i]Make a conclusion based on those findings, and assume there's more room than total denial or total acceptance in between.[/i] ... have your character become angry about something, and act according to it. [i]Pick a fight verbally, or if things go too far then even non-verbally, get the character genuinely aggravated/offended about something.[/i] ... get your character irrationally afraid about something. [i]Consider there to be more levels of fear than just flailing arms and screaming. Instead, fears are something that can be overcome, but they are deterring you not to.[/i] ... have your character adopt an "addiction". [i]I don't necessarily mean drugs or alcohol or other such obviously hazardous substances. You can become addicted to a lot of things. With addiction I mean something which they'd so rather do, that they are neglecting their duties.[/i] ... get the character have some (IC) racist traits. [i]Actual evil exists, and even more so, many species are actually and literally evil. Planescape or not, most outsiders are still manifestations of extremes, they aren't relatable or deserve understanding, they're weird and creepy, and you'd rather not have them next to you because of outlandish smell they extrude, their piercing gaze is creeping you out, the aura makes you feel sick. The point is, most races are weird and aren't supposed to get along together, mostly because of nurture. This goes to the side of playing them as well by the way.[/i] ... act upon jealousy the character has. [i]The character decides to try to do something about being a jealous of someone else. Either by attempting to take what the others have, or by trying to achieve better than the others in a competitive fashion.[/i] ... have your character be manipulated successfully into something. [i]The character feels compelled enough to at least act part of the way as suggested by the manipulator. They've made a fair enough case to not be dispelled right away.[/i] ... become inconvenienced by physical, magical or mental penalty. [i]The character becomes injured, cursed, sick or otherwise detrimented enough to not be cured or treated by a single spell. Time to find a treatment![/i] [/li]

I might come up more later on. But it's a start!

If you wonder why, well I believe a game should be played by the way it was intended to. The less dysfunctionally people get along, the more room there is for character growth for everyone, the teachers and the students alike.

[*coyotesage]

Love me some snowflakes.

[*SyntheticRose]

What about those of us who are playing characters who are pretty much literally snowflakes? I mean, I play someone covered in ice who uses primarily Hellrime Blast, and is a Winter Fey. What's with all the winter hate going on here? :P

[*Mr_Otyugh]

Pardon me for using that term, I didn't really mean to emphasize in them. The point I was trying to make, that none of us should get too comfortable to decline the chance of character growth, by denying existence of any weakness. Weaknesses are great, lets celebrate them more!

[*WhenWizardsWar]

What do we get if we accomplish that challenge? You must have been reading up on miranda because with out even trying shes nailed every bullet on that list lol. As chars go ive played her as realistically as i humanly can haha. I can haz rp challenge cookie?

[*Springer79]

Bless you Mr. O for working to stimulate conflict. *Salutes*

Hello, I play Xander Tyberus Grail and I approve of this message.

EDIT: To elaborate a little bit, I at least think that might be what you are suggesting. I myself love conflict rp. Each of those bullets you listed are sure to generate it somewhere down the line. Part of the thing with conflict rp is that some folks may not welcome it as well as others. They pour a lot of themselves into their character or they spend a lot of time developing them or both and they don't want to see bad things happen to them. Or face an outcome or "weakness" as you say for fear it would ruin the pleasure that they have playing them.

Not in all cases but in some. So, I think this challenge is a great idea. But I also think some people have to be able to handle or even enjoy that sort of rp. Little bit of hardship never really hurt anyone. In fact, it helps them grow. Hope that is sorta the message you are trying to pass on.

Further more, too much of anything can be bad for anyone. So extremes on either side of the scale isn't recommended.

Of course, what you see isn't always what is. There are plenty of characters out there that mine absolutely can not stand and they don't even know it. Why? Because he doesn't want them to. Because though it may seem like everything is all warm and fuzzy on the inside, there really is something more deep seeded that just doesn't go wanting to be known. And that's how a lot of people are. That is real. Though it can appear as being very tolerant. There could, not always, but could be a reason for it.

[*Sinlinara]

My philosophy is that anything is okay as long as everyone is having fun.

This is a two-way street: some people enjoy silly snowflaky characters and nonsense, some people enjoy the sort of thing Mr O is talking about. Some people do not like silly snowflaky characters and nonsense, and some people do not find what Mr O is talking about to be fun.


This isn't to say that anything here is wrong or invalid. I welcome anyone who is at all interested to take Mr O up on this challenge. And obviously there's no pleasing everyone... I'm kind of ranting now, I think. Am I? I am. Hi. Hello. I think the point I am making is that we shouldn't try to pressure others into things they aren't comfortable with or something like that. Okay goodbye now. o/

[*Tomekk]

No one is pressuring anyone, could we stop feeling like that from every second post we don't agree with?

This is merely a reminder that characters should have some sort of flaw(s) that define them, that makes them react differently in the most unexpected of situations, that not only outlines their humanity, but makes their positive traits seem all the better in comparison. In essence, they feel a bit more like regular, flawed human beings like you or me; rather than a Mary Sue which has absolutely nothing going badly for them. However, if you don't feel comfortable playing flaws such as this, that's also perfectly fine; its your character, not anyone else's.

What MrO tried to say is that flawed characters often (but not always) make a roleplaying experience more interesting overall, since flaws can lead to empathy from new friends and major disagreements with new enemies, both of which create character growth and thus more RP.

[*Sinlinara]

Yeah, I was pretty much brainvomiting a bunch of stuff.

I'm not trying to find flaws with anything, just saying: let's all have fun.


Editing to avoid double post and to brainvomit some more stuff out of the garbage can I call a home:

I come from an RP background that was very elitist and who, more than anything else, talked about how other characters were mary sues and how good their characters were because they were real and had flaws. That was not a fun environment to be in.

I can appreciate the sentiment of this thread. I generally tend to prefer interacting with realistic-ish character. I like what Mr. O is saying.

But anything in overdose is a poison, and I don't want this community to be poisoned like the one I came from. Okay? No arguments here. So please do not assume that I am trying to take a stance and wage war with Mr. O for having the temerity, NAY, the AUDACITY to post an IDEA that I disagree with.

Because I don't disagree with him. I'm just here to have fun.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

What do we get if we accomplish that challenge?

Hopefully good roleplaying experiences! Something other than waiting for others to make things to happen and maybe be a magnet for attention a while.

EDIT: To elaborate a little bit, I at least think that might be what you are suggesting. I myself love conflict rp. Each of those bullets you listed are sure to generate it somewhere down the line.

You got it, that was the goal for both of my threads yesterday. To try to encourage more conflict without explicitly calling it as such. Conflict has been quite lacking in many regards, and I feel like opening valves for possibilities is the way to go. And let me say that IC disrespect is very much alive, but that's not active opposition, it's more along lines "Yeah I don't agree, but I'm also not going to do much about it, <namecalling>."

And because I got an angry note in the other thread, I guess I'll have to make a disclaimer: Yes there exists some whom are in active opposition of which I am not talking about, and no I don't care about the "well just don't be a dummy" opinion, it's not productive as it does nothing to help the situation.

I come from an RP background that was very elitist and who, more than anything else, talked about how other characters were mary sues and how good their characters were because they were real and had flaws.  That was not a fun environment to be in. 

Definitely, I can understand this as well. It's also why I chose to make a voluntary challenge instead of a long rant about pros and cons, then argue about preferences and semantics. ;) I'm also not making a call for polar shift in characters, or such, but a bit here, a bit there and see if it works out.

Comfort zone is a great place, but it has a bad tendency to lead to stagnation in roleplaying. It avoids doing the irrational often, which is giving bullets to opposition, an invitation "that I'm fine with this sort of RP". Which in turn might easily lead to not be involved so much, as the opposition doesn't like to take chances that might screw their character over far worse, either. Exception of DM/EM controlled NPCs, because they seldom care about success odds.