Drama Free Roleplay
Jun 24th, 2008 by Eve
Sympathizing with my current annoyance over RDI drama, a SWG roleplayer saw some similarities to another situation and pointed me to Elijas’ Guide to “Drama” Free Roleplay over on Starsider Galaxy. Elijas distills the requirements for avoiding OOC drama into four points:
IC Actions = IC consequences: “If you kidnap the leader of a roleplay guild you cannot possibly even hope to think that somehow you will be able to convince said guild not to pursue you in some way or another in character. Because you have in essence put the ball in their court to react to your roleplay story and the usual and most reasonable answer will be to pursue you in someway, shape , or form in an attempt to recover their leader.”
God Moding: “This is a major No No! Every player has the right to react and/or decide the fate of their own character how they wish!”
Meta Gaming: “Meta gaming is the practice of taking information a player knows out of character and applying that information as if a character had access to this information when they have no way of knowing it.”
Communication and Consent: “Say for example you want to roleplay kidnapping someone, the easiest way to do this is obviously OOC’ly finding someone willing to be kidnapped by you IC. During said kidnapping RP OOC’ly relaying to any would be “hero’s” that the kidnapping is consented to by the victim. Consent is absolutely needed in most cases like this. Most people don’t want to be randomly kidnapped or somehow forced into some RP you have dreamed up. Ask them to become part of your story before you just throw them into a situation that they have no idea or clue what is happening or why it is happening.”
There was also this telling statement Elijas made: “My characters aren’t here to act as NPC’s for yours or vice versa.”
Unfortunately, Elijas doesn’t offer much advice for getting out of dramabomb situations — just staying out of them in the first place. And I have seen these situations come up time and time again, at every online venue I’ve ever roleplayed in, to every person playing there.
Do you think it’s possible to avoid OOC drama in online roleplaying? Or is this just the nature of the beast?
I think it’s certainly possible to minimize OOC drama, but to get rid of it entirely? Eh. It’s gonna happen…
A little semi-related tangent of my own here…
In RP, I find I become more stressed, involved in more drama, and generally stretched thin when I make an effort to play with everyone. Now I know many people say “But playing with everyone is good!” and that’s fine and all, and I’m more than willing to interact with anyone in a room willing to interact with me- but I don’t want to play with everyone when it comes to certain SLs. I don’t want to run around like a decapitated chicken in an effort to be everyonesfriendzomg~ ^o^.
I find the more people I let in, the more drama seems to rear its ugly head. So I’m actually happy keeping most of my OOC and intricate SLs to a small group- while branching out *slow*.
A friend of mine likened it to high school. You don’t run in and know EVERYONE IMMEDIATELY. You take your time in getting to know someone. You branch out slow. I find in RP, doing that? Helps with many RP related problems, IC and OOC.
Your mileage may vary.
I do not think it is 100% possible to avoid online drama.
I do not mean starting it yourself, becoming part of it knowingly, or purposefully doing something you know will start drama–I mean accidentally stumbling over a dramatic situation, other players accidentally or on purpose lumping you in with whomever instigated the drama, so on and so forth.
Some times when we role play with someone, we do not even realize that there IS drama until another player points it out/we stumble over something (a post, an e-mail, an IM log, whichever.) and by proxy, voila–drama.
It IS, however, completely possible to extricate yourself, arise above and beyond that drama and make sure you are untangled from the person who started it/group/situation/whichever. With a little common sense, a touch of hard-headedness, a dash of honesty and putting your foot down.
I don’t think it’s possible to avoid drama. The ONLY way to avoid drama is to stop role playing with fellow human being. It is however, 100% possible to make sure you don’t get caught up in it and make sure your “name,” as it were, isn’t associated with it.
That’s my two shiny pennies for ya.
“It is however, 100% possible to make sure you don’t get caught up in it and make sure your “name,” as it were, isn’t associated with it.”
I’ve found that to not be.. 100% possible. Again, you can lessen the chances of it, but you can’t make it a certainty. If someone decides they want to run their mouth about you, come up with all manner of lie, and effectively try to crush you beneath their foot - well. You can’t stop them. You can’t stop people from believing it either, true or not.
Whether you care or let it affect you, is another story entirely.
No, you can’t stop them. But those who are important and those whom are sensible will be the type who won’t listen. Thus, 100% possible. Anyone willing to listen to what so-and-so-mc-blabbity-mouth has to say about you, whom they’ve just met last week compared to you, whom they’ve role played with for six years? Isn’t worth even counting in the percentage.
Or at the very least, they don’t even count in my book and never have.
I agree that you can’t stop people from running their mouths off and trying to drag your name into the dirt, and you can’t stop people from believing them.
I also agree that those people aren’t worth counting.
But sometimes it’s hard to let it affect you.
“In RP, I find I become more stressed, involved in more drama, and generally stretched thin when I make an effort to play with everyone.”
I’ve found this, too, although for me it might be that in trying to reach out to everyone, I run into more people who have different expectations of my character and roleplay, and that is the source of the drama.
Or maybe it’s because I’m feeling stretched thin that I’m more inclined to dig my heels in and not just go along with everything that causes the drama. >.>
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