It is a generally a bad idea to roleplay online when your judgment is impaired from intoxication, exhaustion, illness, and/ or emotional upset. The problem is not only the sluggish and stunted creativity that accompanies mental fog; roleplaying with impaired judgment has put me in some situations that have been bizarre at best and utterly implausible at worst.
For example:
- fighting “no-rezz” death matches
- forming inappropriate alliances
- abruptly and unpredictably leaving guilds
- antagonizing someone generally feared/respected server-wide
- agreeing to set aside some personal/ethical RP rule
- telling someone to incapacitate my character to end a 1+ hour free form fight, then not challenging my character being abducted instead of incapped.
These What The Heck Was I Thinking moments are often shadowed by the specter of working out a retcon. I’ve only gone through with that once. And there are exceptions. Roleplaying in a wacky state of mind might not be all that wretched (and might even be fun) if you are:
- bored with your character or storyline and looking to stir up some change;
- roleplaying with close friends who will slap you upside the head (or tell you to log the f… off) when you’re being stupid;
- roleplaying with people who will make allowances for you being stupid;
- not bothered by struggles to extricate your character from an implausible situation; or
- used to functioning with impaired judgment.
What are your rules for avoiding “bad ideas” when roleplaying online?
What situations have you gotten your characters into or seen others get their characters into when roleplaying in an altered state of mind?
My rules for avoiding bad ideas when roleplaying online are to mostly not RP drunk, and if a fight scene is going on for more than an hour, to tell the other people OOC that I have to crash, and that’s not an invitation to take IC liberties with my characters.
Most of the retarded situations I’ve seen others get into stemmed from roleplaying drunk, and revolved around killing their characters off. /sigh
Do not role play when drinking. Even a glass. Do not role play with OTHER people who have been drinking, ever. Generally avoid even talking to them OOCly when drunk.
Some of the sweetest, nicest, most awesome people I know/knew when drinking, turned into some very scary people online. If I find out they’ve been drinking I just politely excuse myself and find something else to do.
One time, in Role Play camp, (STORY TIME!) I think about three years ago, a partner I played with semi-often kept pressuring me to try modern or sci-fi. (Back when I refused/couldn’t.) I told them I really can’t do it, it’s just not my thing. They kept pestering me until for some reason (WHAT WAS I THINKING) I said okay, and decided to try it.
Omg. Twenty minutes in, and I had identified the plots of at least three different movies, including the Fifth Element, and while I don’t mind BORROWING this person had just mooshed a bunch of movies together and left it. Not to mention in the middle of it they started sending me “futuristic” clothing shots telling me how good my character would look in trhjsdhjadssdksdsfsdsd I said “Wow, you know, so sorry, but I can’t play futuristic. I tried. And I’m not really comfortable with your OOC behavior.”
Anyway, tl;dr: No role play while drinking and/or with people drinking.
Suspicion when role player begins hounding me to play a certain thing even after politely saying no
…God, I didn’t realize how many What the hell was I thinking? Moments I had :B
The most I do while drinking is write the posts of my characters having conversations amongst themselves. Nobody is affected there beyond my own characters… and if I wake up the next day and go “Oh what the hell?” I can edit the post.
I usually go to bed before exhaustion gets too bad. “Riding the Nexus” sometimes just has to be done.
And although it’s technically not an illness, I can say I’m definitely going through some emotional and just all around squicky feelings presently.. hence the abrupt disappearance of my RP presence.
I figure if anyone can’t understand why I’m not there or wish to be jerkweeds about it, they can bite my irritable preggo butt. Thankfully everyone so far seems to be really cool about it. Yay!