Scalability of Worlds

Roleplay by its very nature can be done in a variety of sizes. Whether it’s two people isolated as they roleplay in the big-wide world or whether it’s a thousand people on the same forum in the same universe, you can make roleplay either way. Typically speaking you’ll probably roleplay with a group of two to four people, but the background is important. It makes a difference whether or not you’re sharing a universe with one other person or a hundred other people. Sure you can fill in enough non-player-characters so that technically the place is “full” like a city full of people would be, but it’s a different experience entirely when there are hundreds of other humans in the same vicinity.

Most people don't pay attention to this factor. They assume that roleplay is, as a hobby, identical in every circumstance. They get used to an environment to the point where they’re very comfortable there and assume themselves masters of roleplay, and when they go someplace else and see things different, they instantly assume it’s bad. While I think there are actually a lot of constants in roleplay as far as quality goes, that it’s not simply a bunch relative-truths, one of the things that certainly does change is the size. I’ve begun to call this scalability in roleplay, and it’s important.

My Plans!

So much to write, so little time! This is actually a bit of an interesting place for me to be, because usually I try and keep myself quite un-busy. Free time is fun, and I like being able to relax to that, but as of late things have actually been fairly hustled. Roleplays are moving for once, my school schedule is incredibly wonky, and I have hobbies like writing this blog and working on my cars that dip in to consume time as well. Perhaps further cementing this notion that I’m perpetually out of time, the things I want to do I have all these grandiose plans for. Right now there are three different topics that I want to write about, and there are all these things I want to do on my cars too! Given the opportunity, all these things I’ve planned to do might heap up and go from plans to requirements.

My only hope to battle such things is to take them on one at a time, of course.

Discipline

For a few months I’ve really wanted to write about this, but I’m glad I waited until now to do so. While I’ve aimed to do about one post per month, November was sidetracked until now because of competing in the NaNoWriMo event! After several long weeks, I was able to push out a very, very rough draft of a novel, just breaking the 50,000 word mark on the last day. It was quite the ride, and I’ve learned a lot, especially related to this topic of discipline.

Like almost everything I’ve brought up on this blog, to say that writers (and consequently roleplayers) require discipline seems like an obvious claim to make, but it wasn’t until a few months ago that the pieces really came together for me. I found myself looking at people I’d gotten the opportunity to roleplay with over the years, and I realized some of them were seemingly immune to the roleplaying cycle of disparity I described a while back—at the beginning of this year actually.

As I’ve said before, my goal in looking closely at roleplay isn’t, in fact, to simply be a heady elitist who think he knows best. My goal has really been to just solve that question that’s been bothering me most: why do people always seem to fluctuate in and out of roleplay, never able to maintain consistency and consequently never really get anywhere? For a good majority of this blog my key argument for striving for quality in roleplay has been because I believe that it facilitates roleplay that lasts longer. But I was looking at some of the people who I regard most highly in roleplay, and I noticed a connection between a number of them.

In a Perfect World

In a perfect world, I never step on the back of your shoes. When it’s been a long day and you sigh with exasperation over one of my quirks, I catch your drift and apologize. I laugh when it’s appropriate, and I give silence when the situation requests it. I’m understanding, caring, and patient as you lay all your worries at my feet. I’m a man that’s perfectly satisfied with his calves, my shoulders, my arms, and my weight. I’m a woman, my hair is straight without a being straightened, it’s conditioned without showering that morning, and my face is always unblemished, regardless of what happened yesterday.

When you try and tell me something, I always understand, unless you don’t want me to, in which case I ask a caring, prompting question. I don’t do anything embarrassing, unless it’s on purpose, and when I do it, it can only improve other people’s opinion about me. I know when to make jokes and when to take jokes, and I’m always at a happy median for volume. I talk just enough, but if I’m on the quiet end, well, that’s of course just because I’m a reserved person; I’m confident enough in my own thoughts to not need the approval of you!

When danger arises, I have a heart of courage. I don’t hesitate to protect the weak, and I don’t boast in my own strength; I don’t have to. No obstacle stands too high for me, no enemy too strong for me, and any confrontation I avoid is simply because it’s ridiculous. Or perhaps it’s just a waste of my time, you know? If all current events were going through the Normandy’s computer, I would be the Commander Shepard of the world. I have no formal weapon training, but my natural talent renders me on par with an expert.

I never lose my wits in a fight, but I do level into an intense focus that I just can’t explain. I’m mortal, I’m human, I’m old, I’m young, I’m inexperienced, I’m not good with people, I’m a real lone wolf, I’m a man with plenty of things to hide—but nothing I do would ever suggest this. My actions and emotions are two separate entities; letting them mix is a dangerous recipe for failure. When I get tired, I don’t let it touch my body, and I certainly don’t make mistakes. I’m not lethargic, exhausted, lazy, or apathetic. Everything I do I do with passion.

Roleplay as a New Genre

So I typically reserve the first paragraph of my articles to talk about myself or the blog while introducing the new topic. I’ve felt for a while like black on black was kind of depressing for the blog, so now I’ve finally transferred it over to something a little brighter. Hopefully it represents the mood I have while writing this! Roleplay should be fun, exciting, and not dismal and tedious. But how? Sometimes it certainly doesn’t feel like it, as I’ve been so consistent on bringing up. Today I want to talk about an important element of this: roleplay should be new.

As I’ve pointed out in the past, roleplay offers a number of unique opportunities in and of itself; these things make roleplay a truly unique form of literary and narrative style. I’ve brought up in the past few articles that roleplay is unique because of its innate inclusion of other writers into what I would call a Shared Universe, where your literary additions to the story (hopefully) affect more characters than just your own.

I’ve talked too about how roleplay is unique because of where drama comes from—in the moment—a significant divide from the typical standard for fiction. Perhaps the closest comparison to another form of narrative is that done in theater or film, but ultimately the two are still different by a single notion: an entire roleplay thread or scene can be incredibly interesting and engaging while simultaneously having no climax. It’s not to say that climaxes have no place within roleplay, but in a sense this idea is immensely freeing for the roleplay style. Because drama (and the enjoyment from it) springs largely from in-the-moment actions, a climax is not required for a roleplay to be effective. For once, the writer actually has a choice.

Roleplaying Partners

Article number seventeen for me, but it will be the sixteenth that talks specifically about quality, since you can exclude my first post. I’ve talked a lot about that, really, and I’ll probably talk a lot more about it. There arises the question though, why should we care? I mean after all, isn’t this just my own little fantasy of elitism and personal tastes, so why should I be so audacious as to tell people how to roleplay? Shouldn’t roleplay just be from a fount of creativity? How dare you suggest something may be better!

Some people seem to think this argument is satisfactory, but I no longer think so. Our society has absolutely latched onto this notion that “What’s true for you may not be true for me” as if it were so simple. I personally find it quite lacking and more than a bit of a cop-out, especially for roleplay. Roleplay is, after all, a hobby that involves more than just you, so indulge me for a minute and understand it’s not just about your own little sphere of creativity where you can just act however you please.

Many are convinced there are not objective reasons for demanding quality (or a desire to reach quality) in roleplay, as many communities simply go, “This is what we want to see. This is our taste, respect it or leave.” That’s totally fine, but I think it can go further than that. In a lot of my articles in the past I’ve referenced one of these objective reasons I would argue matter: the enjoyment of your own roleplay. It’s a tricky one, but really, if you have more fun roleplaying, because you’re improving in quality, it becomes significantly more enjoyable. When the roleplay is more enjoyable, you tend to stick with it longer, hopefully not falling into that cycle of dipping in and out of activity.

This extends into a lot of areas, many of them relating to motivations to roleplay. For example, if you’re roleplaying simply to live out another fantasy and escape your own miserable dimensions, then your desire to roleplay will fluctuate alongside your own personal satisfaction with your life. If you haven’t figured that out, it changes a lot, so it’s kind of not the greatest thing to rely on.

But that’s just the recap of what I’ve talked about already. Maybe another time I’ll go into that stuff again more directly, but today I’m here to talk about something else.

Why should you seek to improve your roleplay?

Who is it for?

Today is a day for something a little bit different. I want to take a break from talking specifically about roleplay, and spend a little bit on the idea of a roleplaying community, specifically the point of administration inside of it. While I’m not going to bother going into specific roles and titles and such, I will likely reference them simply as “moderators” or “staff” or some spin-off of that. I’d like to be clear up front though, that a mod in a roleplaying community can mean many different things, and what ultimately matters is whether or not you have power in this forum that was granted to you by someone else.

So my question I raise to you is this: who is a mod’s power for?