Respect

So this evening, I figured I could go over respect. It’s a word we use a lot; we say things like “I respect that” or “I can respect his opinion” or “Show your respects” or whatever else you can think of. We talk about earning respect or feeling respected, and in general we consider it a pretty positive thing. Whenever you’re talking about it, though, you’re always referring to this sense that you feel the respect is either deserved or it isn’t. Okay, so where am I going with this.

We all want to be respected; that pretty much goes without saying. The question is whether we deserve to be respected, most of the time. A lot of times we feel like we don’t get the respect we deserve because we put in effort, time, or whatever to serve someone, and they don’t acknowledge us with the proper level of homage as is befitting to our station. Sometimes we might even feel like we’re respected when we don’t deserve to be, like someone’s making a bigger deal out of something we did than should be made. Usually we warm up to the second one a lot quicker than the first.

Often, respect is treated as a commodity and little else. It’s expected you’ll respect someone’s opinion, you’re assuming people will respect the law, and our entire society is built around this idea of simply “respecting each other.” Only, when we use the term respect for that, what we’re really saying is that you’ll keep your hands to yourself, as if we’re still in kindergarten and have to be told not to touch each other else we’ll break out into a fight. Well, that’s probably not terribly far from the truth, in a lot of ways.

But the reason I bring this up isn’t to complain about the culture but to simply make a distinction and ultimately a conclusion. When I talk about respect in the context of roleplaying, I don’t mean in it the sense of “Oh well they have these basic human rights that I should respect—of course I’ll show them respect.” No, I mean it in other sense of holding someone in preference or esteem over you. That is the kind you do not see often—it’s the kind of respect that is not a commodity but is rather a rarity, as it should be. Coupled with that, though, is a conclusion that people expect to be respected but are not.

Well, we get some, just not as much as we’d like. It’s kind of this constant game of receiving less than expected and giving less than demanded, for the most part. Most disrespect is shown unintentionally, where a person didn’t get as much as they thought they should’ve and they get upset, but the other person (who may be sorry and may not be) simply felt like they were giving what was owed. Anyway, I could talk about the semantics of this for a long while, so let’s get down to the real point.

In roleplay people feel like they deserve a lot of respect. They go out of their way and devise an entire, intricate storyline for their characters. They put time and passion into a character, and after many hours and drafts they emerge with something to show for it. Because of this, when someone enters a roleplay they become disturbingly brazen over their status in it. Perhaps they don’t deserve to be revered or venerated or anything in the roleplay, but certainly they’ve done enough to achieve the base line of respect. They’re using proper grammar and everything!

Only, the guy on the other end is thinking the same thing. One guy is thinking, “Hey, I’m roleplaying a Mage from the Seventh Circuit. By all accounts, this man is an elite of the people, bested by none save the Archmage himself!” But the other guy is thinking, “I’m roleplaying a warrior from the far east. These people are basically legendary for their skills, and my guy is humble about it to boot! Surely that must earn me some favors.” Well, you can probably imagine what happens from there. Both roleplayers feel entitled to a certain amount of respect, and consequently each receives less than they feel owed.

Of course, no one says anything because that would seem petty or trite. Instead, the horrifying solution that most people reach is, “Well, if I’m not going to be respected by them, then I’m not going to respect them either.” Both people come to this conclusion, and we slip down another notch.  (Of course, this is all subconscious—no one will admit to it, but it certainly happens all the same.) This process repeats itself multiple times until we find some sort of floor to it that generally sucks and the people get very unrewarding roleplay.

If you wanted to, you could think of it almost like an economic exchange. In a perfect world, the supply equals the demand. That is to say, the amount of respect you give them is exactly what they feel they deserve. But what actually happens is the supply ends up being lower. In a simple microeconomic exchange, a lower supply caused by external forces (basically in this case: pride) causes the supply to shift to the left—that is, lower. As supply (respect given) drops lower and lower, it becomes given in only small amounts that hardly meets the demand (respect owed).

It also becomes more expensive.

The real problem with respect, or the lack of it that comes with pride, is that the price changes. If you are used to not giving very much respect out to people, especially your fellow roleplayer, suddenly the prospect of doing so seems very costly to you. Most people subtly realize this, and to find a solution they simply only roleplay with people who they’re friends with. That’s not really a wrong thing to do—it’s certainly more effective than RPing with a stranger you don’t respect at all—but if that’s all you ever do then of course you miss out on some of the fun! If we assume that’s true and we’re not merely satisfied with our tight little clique of roleplayers, then let me get into the real meat of this.

There’s basically one real solution, which is to overcompensate and give more respect to the person than you think they deserve. Treat them as a deity above you, in some senses, and watch them scale up to meet you. Maybe they take total advantage of you and still treat you like crap. Well, that’s always a risk when you’re talking about deferring to people, but people seem to act like it’s important all the same, eh? You’re basically applying a double standard, only the other way around.

After all, the opposite of hypocrisy is humility.

Keeping this standard close by can offer you a lot of benefits. Certainly, it’s incredibly useful when you’re just dealing with your friends or people you know and respect fairly well anyway, but the real potential is with total strangers. Give them respect before you even think they’ve earned it, and it can go a long way. This sounds really, really banal, but allow me to illustrate.

When there’s a consistent level of respect going on between characters, a lot of things happen (or don’t happen) that are normally otherwise difficult to achieve. People who respect each other are willing to respect their characters and their stories, so when someone writes about something and labels it important, the other person might actually act like it is. When a character is upset, rather than the other person being cool and focused because they don’t want to become emotionally attached to this petty RP, they can put that away and actually get engaged.

It makes the interactions between characters so much more meaningful when you respect the author and what they have to say! You’re not giving that person respect because they “deserve” it, but because the RP will be much the better for it. Hopefully both of you can do it at the same time, and maybe that respect becomes truly deserved, but for now simply putting it on will suffice. When you respect someone’s ideas in a roleplay and treat them with the credibility that they’d realistically have, the whole thing gets so much deeper. The examples are limitless, really.

The whole respect thing also makes other things like say, conflict, a real possibility. Rather than just being aloof and reserved like some badass when someone points a weapon at your face, maybe your character becomes nervous or irritated. When a person’s character is actually important, maybe your character actually pays them heed, for once? We treat being under someone as a universally bad thing, but there are just as many literary opportunities from being the top dog to being the peasant, in any given situation. Just because in the video games you’re always trying to be the best guy around, doesn’t mean that you need to translate that to roleplay.

As I said before, the real issue is that people feel giving this kind of respect is simply too expensive for them. You’re going to make yourself vulnerable by deferring to a person’s character, or taking a punch in a roleplay, or acting afraid of their character. That’s perfectly okay. Being able to step out of your own pride for roleplay is essential to achieve true character interaction. It’s going to feel uncomfortable, but it’s worth it. I cannot even count how many potentially good RP ideas were immediately killed simply because both people thought they were too good for each other.

So go out and show your fellow RPer some respect—not because they deserve it, but because it will improve the roleplay as a whole.