Prince

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

#1. Is the death of this RPC justified in the plot?
#2. Would avoiding the death of this RPC hurt the plot?
#3. How much effort would go into avoiding this death?
#4. What are the OOC repercussions of killing this RPC?

Those are really the questioned asked when killing RPC's. I'm all for it; I greatly dislike plot armor. However, there are times when it can be avoided pretty easily and generally death is such a final option that it should be avoided. Of course, death is also wonderful for plot advancement, development, etc, so at times actually looking for someone to kill is viable, too. Knowing your character can die might also merit a change in roelplay behavior, which often is a good curb.

In terms of a roleplayer killing another roleplayer's character... I think the same questions should be asked. Even tho it shouldn't happen and most roleplayers have their own set morals against RPC-killing, I do believe that on some level they should actually have the choice. It would have to be a rare, rare occasion that I would somehow save a character from a death like this, and even though it is happened, I don't believe even GM interference is a necessity in such cases.

- Jesus Christ, your Lord and Sovereign Savior

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

Brovo, Brovo, where for art thou? I miss thine intelligent replies to mine.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

A whole lot of the information presented was irrelevant. As a matter of fact, there are a whole lot of contradictions found within those specific statements.

Regardless, you overlooked the aspect of a Checks and Balances system to be the counter-action for the Word is Law Regime.

I do digress from that even to point out that you have one very, very good point, and that is if the majority isn't always right, neither is a minority. A flaw has to be present and influential to matter, and at times a flaw is in fact existential then the point of responsibility comes into play. Apologizing and later editions to rules or guidelines are not a replacement nor are they always a sufficient answer. At times, even a GM must bend their will and admit that they and their actions were wrong, even if they were wrong solely because they did not foresee the need to, state the issue of or simply get around to curbing the possible complications. In such a case, compromise is needed and the actual lack thereof on a GM is something I feel they should be reprimanded for. I have spent hours working hand in hand with roleplayers to absolutely perfect the integration of a character into a setting, bent a few rules and creatively came up with methods to justify something. Was it always powerful? By far, no. A lot of the things that merit bending the rules are done so for unique dynamics and interactions, all of which - for the most part - strengthen a roleplay.

Something that does irk me is also when someone falls back on their initial 'this is closed' statement after even acknowledging different, or better yet when they warp their words or present public information that is not necessarily true. Acting innocent or acting like fruitful statements mean nothing in the scope of what one does isn't only rude, it's truly detrimental. More annoying to me is the ignorance someone can have in not believing that actions they made influenced another, or misconstruing statements. Sometimes, outright lies. I absolutely hate someone whom would publicly post or shame someone or something when they intentionally make sure the information that would make them just as guilty isn't there, or better yet the information that makes them the obvious instigators or individuals at fault.

In my case, if someone goes as far to say something and disregard their statements later as well as justify themselves with rules that didn't exist at the time, it literally disgusts me. That has nothing to do with governing style, that has nothing to do with GM'ing; that is an individual action and choice that is made in ignorance. Almost as bad as those whom literally put words in others mouths or act as if someone commit an action they never did, which might also just tie into the counter position of your argument.

Overall, there is a time and niche for everything, and most people often ignore that because they get their feelings hurt or refuse to acknowledge their own issues. That is why I believe GM's should not only be held to higher standards, but require being checked into place. We're all human, so it should be a collective effort to make things better, not just a singular person and I do passionately believe this goes as far as those who are in the highest positions of power at times being reminded that they aren't all powerful, and at times will have to answer to someone - if not everyone.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

Oddly, I find the former to be more polite. I'm not sure why. I think it might be because, in the second, the critic seems to be presuming that the writer is writing for the sole benefit of the critic and so should tailor their writing to the critic's benefit. The request, by concept, seems inappropriate to me.

The former is more obviously constructive criticism, and, when such constructive criticism is politely given to somebody receptive to it (and sure, there are people that can't take it) - well, surely they'd welcome the insight if it's explained to them, and be more likely to willingly implement it to improve their own writing, rather than to please a nit-picking critic.

I'm not denying that either could be effective. I am stating, however, that just PM'ing someone with some critiques or posting messages in a thread with a few criticisms of issues you believe are there is blatantly rude. There are alternatives and the difference between the two is that the former doesn't at all state that the error exists in both the writer and the reader. If you have issues reading or enjoying a specific style and wish for alterations and state immediately that you are having such problems, it gives a polite writer more reason to alter them. As a matter of fact, a critique and criticism are different. A critique is merely a detailed analysis while criticism is to judge something based on its merits and flaws. A critique itself is neutral; just an observation and that is what a lot of people believe constructive criticism is. It's not. In most constructive criticism, you are looking at 'flaws' and attempting to get a writer to improve them; that's if you're just plain not being a dick. Fact is, it is rude to just 'judge' someone - especially publicly - and begin pointing out flaws. If an individual has no desire to deal with that, improve or merely alter the aspect you have a problem with because you think it is a flaw, chances are you could have circumvented that if you explained that it was causing a personal issue.

#1: Your statement was true, but has no real parallel to mine. I pointed out a mechanic involved in a system of people, and a roleplay is in fact still a system of people. Stating a roleplay is not an empire is completely irrelevant to that. The entire point was that a republic would give up its authority to a single person in times of civil unrest, and that is an apparent issue here.

#2. Diluting the purpose of a system like mine because 'the worst case scenario isn't that bad' isn't making its use any less meaningful. If each GM knew that they couldn't just kick out players because they 'wanted to', they would be forced to go through a more significant screening process, roleplays would most likely be smaller, there would most likely exist a) more close-knit inner communities and b) higher level of social stratification. I do firmly believe that making GM's accountable would weed out weaker ones as well.

#3. There is no real checks and balances if there is no way to usurp your decision. An example of what I mean is if a GM created a set pool of traits and a set of rules for creating a character. If a roleplayer creates a character using a small dysfunction in that system allowing for a slightly off-the-wall set of traits and/or abilities, but does so creating a character around that core, whose fault is it? If the GM later instates a rule or a set of guidelines forbidding it, but by far not before the completion of that character, who should have to give in here? In most cases, I say the GM should simply allow said character in, as long as it doesn't otherwise hurt the plot, interactions with other characters and is a quality creation. Yet, if a GM retains the ability to reject a character that cannot be edited without diluting its core concept when it was their lack of communication and foresight that made way for the character, then it is still unfair in that sense. It is a situation as simple as this that I do firmly believe a GM should be held accountable, or the countless similar scenarios when allowing one exception then enforcing the rules would be the 'fair' way to handle it. Yet, if that player is just jettisoned from the roleplay and it goes on, was there any real justice done there?

The type of system I would like could only ever be implemented on a site-wide range, so it would never come to fruition unless there was another incentives system. If everyone was 'cool like the Fonz', then you'd never need any real system. But, we all know, that's not the case.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

A common theme I see to support the ideology of "GM supremacy" is the fact that it shortens arguments or simply makes resolution conflict easier. This same idea applied to a Roman Emperor, did it not? During times of war or civil unrest, the Republic was turned into a totalitarian oligarchy with a single, central leader?

Each situation and scenario is going to be different. At times, the word of a GM being law not only opens up the system to abuse, but allows for toxic and detrimental decisions. If the system was so inherently perfect that every GM that abused their power would have unpopular roleplays, then you would never see them around - at least, not for very long. Yet, I'm almost sure that everyone here knows of at least one thriving or living roleplay with notably abusive GM's.

I believe, in essence, that there deserves to be a checks and balances system. Even if a GM creates every aspect of a roleplay, they did so to interact with others. The existential purpose of a roleplay is to have others in it, and with that said I believe that at some point a GM and a roleplayer should be considered equally important, just as that GM may be a roleplayer in a different roleplay. The idea that each GM is god within their domain is great for the sake of simplicity, but ideally a system to diminish that mentality so that a GM will always be given a sense of sympathy and incentive for a roleplayer would yield a far healthier community. If a GM makes a mistake or has a flaw and it interferes drastically with the work of a roleplayer, it is best to compromise instead of demand alteration.

If we lived in a world where most people weren't egocentric tits, not having a system of checks and balances wouldn't have a purpose, but it could really serve a good one and most likely help in a more advanced, healthy atmosphere. It would never hurt to have a set of 'basic human rights' for roleplayers to insure fair treatment, or a method of definitive compromise.

someone criticising your role-playing skills isn't like someone walking in on you during a single-player game and criticising your skills,

Opinions are not universal. Even if a majority shared an opinion, that does not mean they should get to dictate the literary art flow of another. In a situation where stylistic techniques conflict so greatly that one party does not wish to engage in roleplay if they cannot use at least a certain degree of their style and another one cannot tolerate that minimal degree, then one party should simply leave,.This is different in essentially every case. It could end up being a question of whom is the more healthy individual for the roleplay, whom is more skilled, whose style is better suited or just plain whom has more friends in that active community. However, most of the time, making polite requests instead of critique is a far better method of solving this error. Instead of saying, "to improve this aspect of your writing/roleplay/debate/painting/sketch, you should do X" simply saying "I have difficulties following your lengthy sentence structure, could you please avoid run on sentences?" or "I would be more comfortable if you had less detail in your posts for now" does a far better job. If they choose to ignore those requests, then you move to more drastic measures. Thus, even if roleplay involves interaction, I find unwanted critique or criticism without permission to still be quite rude and out of place in any setting. There is no point whatsoever in actual critique, constructive or not, if it is not communicated in a healthy way to promote said constructive habits. It is, for all intents and purposes, at that point nothing more than a rude annoyance and by far from a basic right one gains simply by 'interacting' with someone.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

Music. Many of my ideas sprout of concepts that a song, most specifically lyrics, bring to me.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

I'm going to sum this conversation up with, "I bet we're both Game of Thrones fans."

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

As soon as I become a GM, I dislike having my 'main' or 'favorite' character. Each character I touch should be able to advance equally, in theory, regardless of how quick I am to make an NPC.

I have this firm believe that roleplayers, be them 1x1 or in large roleplay, do deserve universal rights. Rarely ever do I turn down a person out of distaste, although there are at least two people from these last few threads that I wouldn't allow in a roleplay of mine. That's important because again, I do believe power should be taken from GM's at times. But, simultaneously, I don't at all think characters for a roleplay deserve this same rights. If you make a character for a roleplay, you should be integrating it into the plot and setting. Some people like to do the opposite and prefer to build everything around a character or a set of them, which is fine for supporting interaction, but interaction only goes so far in terms of keeping a story and roleplay alive. Sometimes, sheer quality of plot or the versatility of setting are what keep a roleplay alive. In that sense, I do believe that characters don't deserve even the 'right to live' inside a setting. I believe that just like every living being on Earth is alive because it decided not to fucking walk off a cliff, that characters shouldn't be given plot-immunity.

In short, player characters should never feel entitled to being powerful, entitled to living after doing something stupid, entitled to 'survive after doing something fatal that adheres to their character' or even to be on par with the villains. Now, roleplayers would hate this in theory, but if you put it into practice with a good GM, it's soooooo much more healthy than everyone roleplaying and focusing only on themselves and their characters.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

Although most people find the idea ludicrous, I'll give some insight to my background in roleplay. I started out with tabletops, but my first online roleplaying was Vuen's DnD on the Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne battle.net, and I loved it. After a while, I went from roleplayer to DM and even further was recruited into clans and people were always spamming me to DM or for help or for ideas, and for a while I was actually part of Clan Vuen and was part of some of the original beta and production teams for the map. That is mostly just backstory, but it did open me up to the roleplaying community, and what I found was that there were a plethora of maps and roleplayers ranging from the casual semi-gamers to the horny teenagers to the diehard Warcraft fans, and of course a few hidden gems here and there.

Before the battle.net updates that killed a bunch of maps and when the servers were still so full that you had actual wait times to log on, there was a point when roleplaying clans would literally compete. They would teach different methods, have different leaders, different views. I recall it literally being an amalgamation of political parties and pokemon gyms, at least in terms of the atmosphere, and some clans couldn't be more different. Some literally roleplayed out meeting each other, entire scenes, created what they called a "shared world" where everyone had to abide by a set of rules; others thought that was silly and merely gamed. There was quite a bit of social stratification, too; the more serious a clan was, often times the better roleplayers that were in it, which is why they ultimately competed.

This is where this story gets relevant. With competitions and actual contests of objectified skill came a need for teaching. One of the most common methods was apprenticeship, but from apprenticeship came dual-mod roleplays. A roleplay would be at the entire control of a DM, but it had a higher one (the teacher of an apprentice) and often they would set forth challenges or training exercises to increase the rate of or strengthen qualities that they individually felt were important to good DM'ing.

This entire anecdote is a setup for a specific 'training style' in which my teacher (and a few others) would begin making things harder for the DM's by limiting what they could do (at one point, my Mentor refused to let me ever use a Dues Ex Machina, and another time he refused to let me 'create villains' without them first being either neutral or protagonists) and would ultimately challenge the ingenuity and creativity of a DM. Roleplayers that were often also trained would be part of these roleplays and often intentionally be toxic, and generally instead of just removing them, you were taught to deal with them. The ideal was 'a disease can be cured, not just surgically removed', and often times a toxic player would prove to be substantially valuable to a roleplay. The other factor was that I distinctively recall training where I wasn't allowed to make antagonists significantly stronger than protagonists and several roleplayers made it their personal mission to kill antagonists that were hugely important to the plot. The results were huge rewrites, often adding in entire plot elements that didn't even exist before and completely abusing the gray area of unknown character histories to continuously revamp the plot. This was huge and the goal was to teach us as writers and DM's that you can adjust effectively and that even if an entire plot falls apart, you can salvage it.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

I believe you're on track, Vance. In essence, my belief is that if the fundamental difference between roleplay and writing is interaction, then no single individual should determine the fate of all characters. This is why I believe Moderators or GM's that believe their word is law or their final decisions are 'best' are often terrible. People are people, they make mistakes and everyone should have to throw in a little penance for it. If there is a loophole in some rules and it causes an issue, a one-time exception isn't going to kill a healthy roleplay. Plot-based stupidity is something I genuinely hate. Plot-invulnerability even more. Nothing should be set in stone. I believe this down to the point that I would, under the right circumstances, kill of a central antagonists if the situation called for it, despite it being far too early.