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Everything you ever wanted to know about roleplaying, and then some! That's waht it says. Wow.
I can't believe this is the first post on this topic, therefore I choose to think that I don't see all the previous posts for some reason and go about posting as if what I am about to say has not been discussed before.
What I have to say is simple; I want to say what roleplay is all about (and in the process spark a little debate on the subjet).
Ok, so what is roleplay all about?
I don't want to sound stupid, but roleplaying is playing a role; that is; roleplaying is acting - but it is acting out a previously thought out role; it is not running around pretending to be Conan the Barbarian on steroids (Conan the Barbarian on steroids is fun too, but that's what all the other MUDs and MMOGs are all about, it's not roleplaying).
Now, playing a role is an active thing; it's somethig you *do* - it's not something you think about or pretend, or write about. It's something you DO (yeah, it's not something you pretend, in the meaning it's neither about emotes nor about telling people stories).
Roleplaying is something you do. Did you get that? -- It is active. It is something you DO.
So roleplaying then requires:
- You must think out a role; what do you want to be and what do you want to do?
- You must act out that role; become your character and do your grim (or noble or whatever) deeds.
Now, all this makes sense and sounds easy enough (to my simple mind anyway - but remember I am Nobody).
The big question is where? Where do you act it out? What is your arena?
Obviously in a MUD. That's what this site is all about, but the question is valid - lots of people (well a few weirdos anyway) play roleplays in real life (in the sense that they dress up and go out, gang up, and roleplay in a forest or whatever) - and more moderate people roleplay through complex board games.
We, however, are the extremists. We don't do anything together with anybody else (in real life); we just sit in our rooms with our curtains pulled shut and the light dim so we can see our monitors better, frenetically typing and insanely giggelig, glaring into those monitors.
The giggeling is the clue. When you giggle, something has happened.
Not something like the 50th monster you killed, or the unexpected amount of money that fell out of the dog you just killed. Those are examples of roleplayings enemies and they are called grind and sillyness.
- Grind means that you do the same thing over and over to gain experience.
-Sillyness is just silly (dogs don't carry cash).
I won't say more about sillyness because it is just silly and everybody understands it, and I won't say much about grind either, because it's pretty close to silly and you know all about it anyway - but I will say one thing; grind is something you do to gain experience.
Now, what is experience?
Tell me, in real life, like right where you are sitting now, what is your experience? Stand up a bit, stretch and turn around two times and get out of this silly text and think - what is your experience?
100? 200? Experience is sillyness too!
The things that make you giggle is when something happens that is cool, or amazing - somethings thet you will remember. It's like life; those small thing - like when you smiled at that baby and it smiled back and the mother goes wow, look she smiled! Or when you see your first drunk person and he stumbles and ters down the stand of sunglasses. Don't laugh - these are the things you will remember when you're 90 or whatever and wait for the priest to come. It is things that are important, that shape you and make you whom you are. That's when you giggle; when it is right. And important. In a cool way. That's the kick. That's why you sit inside with the curtains pulled, that is roleplaying. Not reading somebodys boring biography.
Now, the last thing I will say is the most important thing. Then you guys can talk.
Some people think that roleplaying is about writing biograpies and stories and explain this or that or say what your hair colour is or your weight and to mix and match armour to that and your height and whatever.
Those people are wrong. They run great MUDs, like Armageddon or Threshold (and they are great MUDs), but they are wrong.
Roleplaying is about acting, not writing or telling. But through writing biographies you are forced to think out who you want to be and what you want to do, and therefore the biographies makes a little bit of sense, because they force you tho think about your character - but that is making you prepare for roleplaying, it's not part of the roleplaying.
Good MUDs provide an environment for roleplaying. Without a good environment you simply won't make it - you can run around talking strange, but as long as everybody else is Conan the Barbarian nobody will care.
You need:
- Playerkilling (if you met your arch-enemy on the street and he pokes his tongue at you, you should be able to at least give him a good headbash, or sneak after him and stab him in the back).
- A legal system (or a reputation system at least), so that if you do kill somebody you will see consequences - it is by this mechanism you tame the wily 14-year olds that know how to telnet, and it makes sense anyway - if you get over-eager fighting elves because they raped your mother (you being a half-elf or something obviously) then maybe you shoukd be locked up a little to cool down a bit. When you think about it it's quite similar to real life actually.
- Not knowing things that you obviously don't know. Or doing things that can't be done. The command "tell" is a good example - if I'm a stupid stupid orc with no knowledge of magic, then how the hell am I supposed to be able to talk to somebody on the other side of the freaking planet just by thinking about it (it mightbe feasible, but it is powerful, powerful magic or something).
- No differentiation between NPCs and PCs (machine and human players). If you see somebody you don't know (have met or seen before), and being an over-eager thief you steal from them and botch it, and then you get attacked, and then you kill them - then, if its a machine player it's ok and if its a human player its not ok. How out of character can you get? That is plainly wrong!
Hm. I think that pretty much covers it.
I said this was the last thing I was gonna say, didn't I? Well then I will stop. Even if I didn't mention magic at all.
Your turn.
-Nobody
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