I'm a newbie as far as RP is concerned since Naifos is the first character I've ever created that didn't consist mainly of pixles. See: Runescape
Forgive me for my (im)mature* nature but I can't seem to get past the netiquette of it all.
How do you feel when:
-Someone Steals from you
-Someone Kills you (with acceptable cause or otherwise)
-A house, city member, or other org member leaves.
-A house, city member, or other org member betrays an organisation you're in
-You're enemied
-Told off by a divine for not addressing them properly (probably uncommon but it turned my blood cold for a second in real life)
-Any other interaction with divine (favour, disfavour, toads, and things)

How do you:
-Cope with the above so it doesn't get to you
-Set yourself apart from your character

*Depending on your views of the subject.


This thought came up when I realized my Achaean experience probably would have changed dramatically if I had been looking at the forums when I first started. Special thanks to the people who Role Play Mhaldorians (and others with radicalist ideals) because though my character hates your character, the conflicts wouldn't be half as interesting without you.

Dusty is a huge reflection of myself, but I have also learned to control and keep my emotions separate from Achaea. I try not to let Achaea get to me more than any other game would, as it is easy to let it really dig into your skin, and that ends up not being fun anymore.

Sorry if my meaning was mistaken, I meant it scared me... like how if you're suprised/feel like you're in trouble, you feel really cold. Thank-you for the tips. You really don't care if you get enemied? I've Role Played Naifos as a people pleaser which I think is an attribute of mine amplified so it kills me when I find out I'm an enemy. Plus the fact that I have to look out for a new set of totems when it happens.

In real life I'm hell bent on destroying creation...nah, I'm a shy teacher.

How do you feel when:
-Someone Steals from you

Meh. Wattsee knows and keeps what is valuable to him, a little gold here or there doesn't make a difference. I recall one interaction with Trance where he amused me so much he 'stole' a credit or two from me.

-Someone Kills you (with acceptable cause or otherwise)

Again, meh. Wattsee is used to hunting on suicide missions. His favourite prey, the Wyrm Lord, one shots him on a regular basis, death doesn't much matter to him. As a player, I rememeber getting utterly pissed the first time Wattsee was killed by an adventurer, blinked at myself while the praying sequence ran through, and never have again. I value the textXP, but not so much that I would get upset over it.

-A house, city member, or other org member leaves.

As a Houseleader, it's my job to watch, know and understand things about my House, especially people leaving. In most cases, I'm fine with them choosing other paths, but I have to make sure things are in place and available for them, like newcomer interviews and such. Small Houses and such are fine, but when someone has to wait a week to progress a small but meaningful bit in the game, that irks me as a player. So I do all that I can to make sure it doesn't drive people away.

-A house, city member, or other org member betrays an organisation you're in

In his history, Wattsee has been the traitor. As a character, Wattsee took it rough, but pulled through after about a decade of being cast out from his home. Hunted a lot, made new connections, and built himself anew making sure never to forget. I haven't had an instance where Wattsee was made aware of treachery IC though. I get piles of info OOCly, but nothing for Wattsee to act on.

-You're enemied

If I'm enemied I make sure it's for a reason, or try to get it resolved. In most cases Wattsee prefers to be desired as an ally, rather then kept away from as an enemy of such and such an org. The more people desire you to work with them, the more likely they are to try to include you in grander things. I recall a few times where I was asked by Magi to help defend cities or assist in a raid. I imbued cataclysms for both sides, and went on my way with both of them remembering me for the future, and both sides coming to me again and again. The one enemy status he keeps and holds with pride is being enemied to agatheis. Not many times a God irks me as a player and character, but he managed it.

-Told off by a divine for not addressing them properly (probably uncommon but it turned my blood cold for a second in real life)

Major interactions I've had with Gods have all been positive, excepting most contact with agatheis. Even a God like Lupus who I was enemied to for quite a while dealt with me cordially.

-Any other interaction with divine (favour, disfavour, toads, and things)

Interactions with the Divine are fun, simply because it brings new possibilities to the game. Beyond custom emotes or illusions, there's not much a Adventurer can do beyond goof around. Having items made, or denizens tweaked is awesome. And for the several day achaean month long disfavour I held, I was proud of the fact that I had advanced more with it, then without it over the past several years.



How do you:
-Cope with the above so it doesn't get to you

First thing, learn when to take breaks. If people are really pissing you off, there are a million ways to ignore them. Or if Achaea in general is, QQ takes what, ten seconds? Playing a character, even if it's similar to you, is stressful at times. Knowing coping methods for personal stress can really help cope with character-related stress too.

-Set yourself apart from your character

Know the differences between your character and yourself. If you can keep even one in mind, as you play, you'll start to play the character versus yourself. Remembering what is important to your character, and putting it over what is important to yourself will come shortly after you have made the distinction.

I recall asking Apollyon to stop killing people in Hashan. He could have disfavoured/killed/toaded/maggoted me or whatever, and it would have -sucked- as a player. But it was an important cause to Wattsee, so I followed through with it. Putting things into perspective that -you- as a player can't always have your way, but your character will be better for it, really helps your character come into their own.

I've started playing two characters quite frequently now, and they are both quite contrasting in nature. One is a Mhaldorian who values strength and honour, the other is a Druid who is slightly loopy. I try to put a bit of thought into each characters actions. I don't try to make them different, because of my ethics they both have a few similar traits, but I do try to aim for different things with each character,

The best organizational and personal roleplay model that I have ever seen is Twilight. Simply superb, when he was active he deliberately provoked conflict with organizations/groups such as the forestals/nature and Aurorans/Shallam. He was able to do it despite the aura of mistrust his order eventually gained - and while most of his machinations were ultimately foiled (Death's Heart, the Darkening of the Forests both failed for example) he was able to convey this perception of an incredibly resourceful Shadow God who was intelligent (perhaps crafty is a better word) and powerful while still being urbane and restrained.

The ultimate roleplaying lesson he taught me - and the hallmark of a true roleplayer - was that he would deliberately engage in actions that he as a player knew would not be in his best interests (harmful or detrimental in the long run) but furthered the interests of Twilight the character. If you can manage that WITHOUT looking artificial you're good to go.

edit: adjectives own me

-Someone Steals from you

I and my character will both be kicking ourselves for being stupid.

-Someone Kills you (with acceptable cause or otherwise)

I sigh and start calculating how long it'll take to get the XP back. My character swears revenge against the killer and all their family.

-A house, city member, or other org member leaves.

I just roll my eyes and move on. My character has no loyalty to his house whatsoever, and as a player I just don't care that much about the goings-on of a game world.

-A house, city member, or other org member betrays an organisation you're in

OOC I'm excited about how there's plot and stuff. IC I roll my eyes, smirk softly, and move on.

-You're enemied

This has happened to me only twice. The first time it was for a very good reason and I am still kicking myself for not following up on that character's RP. The second time it was just stupid. The pointlessness of the second enemying irritated me for RP reasons far more than for mechanical inconveniences. It's hard to play into the RP of being enemied to a major organization when the reason given is "because I don't like you." Oh, well.

-Told off by a divine for not addressing them properly (probably uncommon but it turned my blood cold for a second in real life)

The whole "capitalize Divine pronouns" thing has always irritated me, because I don't like capitalizing pronouns unless the entity in question is truly possessed of limitless power, which the Divine of Achaea are decidedly not, even in-game. Fortunately, that's something I can just project onto the character and take whatever flak comes for it.

-Any other interaction with divine (favour, disfavour, toads, and things)

I never have any. My characters never become important. Mostly for lack of trying.

Type suicide.
Hit enter.
Type agree.
Hit enter.
Click the little x in the top right hand corner.
Close your laptop or shut down your desktop.
Go outside and play some sports with a friend.
Just don't buy credits.
Once you buy them.
The game.
Will.
Own.
You.


all honesty, enjoy your noviceness while you can. I ignored forums when I was new to Achaea (mostly because, I was still running on dial-up at the time) I had a blast as a novice. You're learning all sorts of stuff. You do all sorts of stuff. You get to take part in a bunch of activities, you get to level yourself up, learn combat, learn how to bash, make new friends, and choose your destiny. When you become familiar with the game or start talking on OOC clans a lot (seriously, I wish I had never joined drd or the Cortens family clan) you really start to lose interest in anything RP, and you get bored with the game and start doing stupid stuff, to amuse yourself. Then when you're dormant a long time (or shrubbed XD) you come back, your RP-battery recharged.... and a bunch of people dislike you. Just flow with things that happen to you. Hell I remember when I was younger, I got in a fight with someone (my first time fighting, it was an actual fight, because we were about the same level. I was a full member of the House of Sentinels ) I got an adrenaline rush so strong irl that my hands started to shake and I was literally typing stuff at about 190+ gwam. I lost that fight, but man, it was intense to me. Cieran was with me at the time. Naturally, he didn't step in to help after I died. I would've jumped in the moment he started getting attacked though. Oh well. XP

(And honestly, I'd have suicided a long time ago were it not for buying credits. So, buy them. Now. idc if it's only like 20 or something. You'll hit a moment where you're down on your luck or having trouble, and want to suicide. You won't be able to. You'll be glad later that you couldn't. Trust me.)

That doesn't sound like much of a stretch at all!

If you want to destroy creation, you have to get over that damn shyness!

I try to distance myself from my character and really separate the two. While some things will be me (I'm not a perfect actor), I really desire to let the direction of the wind and my interests of the game direct my choices. I'd rather not mirror myself in my character. In my perfect vision of what I want to do with a RP game, I'd like my character to have a life of their own, like I was reading a book that I couldn't put down and couldn't wait to see what happens next.

Before that meant changing classes and checking out the greener grass on the other side of the fence all the time. Now I just want some permanence, sticking to one area, one class, one RP desire, etc and stick with it. I want to see where sticking with something instead of always glancing over the fence will lead me in this game.

I'm a programmer by day and coming home to write a healing system wasn't appealing to me, so honestly Vadi's system is one of the reasons I'm playing now. I can focus on coding utility and offensive functionality instead of healing mechanics (I don't use Windows). Right now I'm working on a generic Lua based TF system/API (based off the Lua call binding patch for TF) to use to write plugins and such (will work with any mud/mush tf works with) and it's actually enjoyable. I'm making great progress and really enjoying writing it (and learning more Lua as I go), if I could just stop being logged into the game long enough to get things done as I want.

A game is supposed to be fun, right? If the game stops being fun, I'd rather leave it. If it's just a mirror of me in the game, that is very boring and dull. I have enough introspection time, playing a game helps "escape" that... which is the purpose of entertainment, especially games.

I'm a devout Catholic programmer that hopes to enter seminary in a couple of years. I'm not like this in-game... but my Occultist does have a cassock on. Some things do happen to be shared though, as they are "mutual" interests, such as research and learning about the world around me... I do have a 'theology' clan that I've done nothing with yet, but am interested in Chaos theology -- Some things can't easily be separated... I'm still operating the strings.

-Someone Steals from you
Never happened. I guess I'd be like "oops, I bet I made a variable in front of trigger by mistake again."
-Someone Kills you (with acceptable cause or otherwise) (ok, I just got killed by Bleak while typing this post, yes, getting killed by him when I'm not paying attention/dc'ed is annoying)
I get killed way too often to care that much, although when I have to bash it back up, I might get a bit frustrated.
-A house, city member, or other org member leaves.
I most probably wouldn't even notice for a good while, but if it's a friend, I might get a bit sad
-A house, city member, or other org member betrays an organisation you're in
I find it interesting how someone's personality changes depending on side, so I'd be cool with it.
-Told off by a divine for not addressing them properly
Even if it's only a game, hell I'd feel so embarrassed, scared if this would happen with Shaitan/Apple.
-Any other interaction with divine (favour, disfavour, toads, and things)
Being favoured means more health, more fun. Disfavoured-hrm, I guess inactivity for a while.

I'm not playing enough to take anything too serious, when I do have time to log in, I'm usually exhausted, only sitting in front of the computer until I'm actually able to fall asleep, so yeah, I tend to have a "whatever" attitude.
At the beginning. I used to rp a completely different personality than mine, this is why Azuhi is an evil, unscrupulous person, who'd do anything to reach her goal:murder, grief, harass or seduce, but with time, people either whined or were just too nice:(, pushing a bit of me into Azuhi.
Well, I'm trying to separate the two, but you'll always find quite a few similarities.
Sometimes, I'm thinking about leaving Mhaldor and joining the other side so I wouldn't get too attached, but I'm too lazy and probably already "loyal" to my side

Are you Kuykendahl?

who?

Edit:
Squire Ariye Kuykendahl Zuiho_sho, Protege of Sir Zenui (female Mhun).
She is 27 years old, having been born on the 24th of Daedalan, 490 years after
the fall of the Seleucarian Empire.
She is ranked 1380th in Achaea.
She is an extremely credible character.
She is not known for acts of infamy.
She is a Citizen in Shallam.
She is a proud soldier of Shallam.
She is considered to be approximately 70% of your might.
She is a mentor and able to take on proteges.
She has been engaged to be married to Peknor, Faithful of Light for 67 months.

??
Edit2:ahah! I think I know who she is, I remembered when I had to copy/paste the name, cuz I had to do the same when I dueled her for my house reqs.

My very first day as a novice, there was a discussion on Cyrene CT involving favorite pie (classic Cyrenian RP), and my character decided to try and play too. Unfortunately, by the time I figured out how to use CT, got my claim for blueberry pie in and hit enter, Lord Neraeos had already stated that he would hear no more pie or any other idiotic food discussions over the city channel. I got the big blue zap for my comment (warning shot, not insta-death) and it scared me personally so bad I almost QQd. I had no idea until that point that the gods actually played in there with us and you could be zapped for making an innocent remark. Between that and getting handed a corset in CC by a troll and told to follow him to the Inn, I had almost decided that Achaea was not for me. As it was, a lot of people filled my tells with reassurance before I could react in any way, and I ended up staying. Did not take long to seperate IC from me, but I would not give up the rush of mixed emotions in that first few days for anything.

I think it's ridiculous how you guys act like getting robbed or getting PK'd for no -ing reason at all doesnt mean anything to you. You've invested your time and effort into gaining something, and when some douchebag comes along and robs you or PK's you claiming it's RP, I think that's bull-. Achaea is a game, and losing in a game, does suck.

And yea, I'm angry.

Well guess what there are thieves and murderes irl so it can very well be rp and my main dont care becuase she sees it as her fualt for not paying attention. Whereas my alt gets upset she was robbed. My main sees death as an inconvience becuase hey guess what shes a freaking forestal.. she stays dead all of what a few seconds? She rarly notices it. My alt cares it makes her feel weak and she still wants to one day kill Arelas. ((doubt that will ever happen))

Edit : Also about yer comment on it being a game. Yeah losing sucks however being a poor sport about it makes it worse. Try to look at it as just a game and maybe youll have more fun

Some excellent advice in this thread. I just wanted to add I thought it was funny the way you phrased your questions, as if your character was taking over your life.

I've found the best way to RP and keep myself separate in Achaea and not get emotionally involved is when I log in:

-Prepare to roleplay and don't let people get to you, they're mostly retarded anyways
-Expect people to try and piss you off, the advantage of doing ti here is you don't have to fire back insults right way, breathe, collect your thoughts then type your message.
-When you log in have a specific thing you want to do, then try to further those goals through everything you do.


I've tried a lot of RP tricks and treats for Luciano, but it just so happens I'm really bad at it. Unless I knowingly sit down and put the effort in. It's not worth giving the game an emotional uproar and effecting your real life health over stress.


But those who have known me for awhile ... Boy did I used to get into Achaea 100% emotionally and make bad, rash, uncalled for decisions for my character over who had upset me, the person. I realized though what it comes down too, is I have remember:

They're attacking or confronting my character, not me. THAT'S ROLEPLAY!

It's a little hard for me to stay entirely separate from Soludra. I started playing maybe three years ago, and I'm only 17 now... so I don't think I was really able to keep myself at a distance. I give Soludra a couple quirks (as has been suggested earlier in this thread), like tabac smoking, but I'm usually doing decidedly OOC things with my time in-game (i.e. leadership positions), so I don't really proactively RP. It's a lot easier for me to RP from a clean alt, but then I hit the problem of not losing interest.

Because of my trouble keeping Soludra and myself acceptable separate, it's pretty inevitable that things that affect Soludra will affect me more than I might want. Orophin stole a House key of Soludra's recently, netting Soludra a housedisfavour... that wasn't fun for either me nor Soludra. Although I did basically keep things separate outwardly, it bothered me more than I'd have liked. (However, the small bit of RP Orophin initiated later on was quite enjoyable, and a highlight of my recent playtime)

The way I see it, the more things you do to separate your characters (the aforementioned quirks), the more likely it is that you'll succeed in crafting your own IC/OOC barrier.

I'm not great at keeping myself and my character separate. For instance, my goal with Awan was to make her really tough and tomboyish and aloof. But I can't keep it up all that well. When I'm not paying attention I end up responding more as I would IRL - all understanding and nice and crap, with social skills - especially with newbies. Also, I'm not that brave at all even about rushing into text combat, so I have trouble making Awan be brave either - I do try if I remember in time to make her run in if it's the sort of thing she'd do even when I personally think it's a dumb idea, but a lot of times I respond on my own gut instincts and don't think of that until too late.

So to some extent, this has just resulted in me watering down the RP - I decided Awan has mellowed out as she got older that's why she's nicer and less aloof. And there's no point in pretending she's that brash when I've never managed to roleplay her as such - so I just decided she was full of herself when she was younger and *thought* she was real brave until she learned better.

But, because I started out meaning to roleplay her *quite* differently from my own personality, I've at least succeeded in roleplaying her *somewhat* differently from myself even though I've fallen short. And, I hope to get a little better as I play more, so I'll develop more back in the direction I meant to take her originally.

So I guess my advice is: be realistic when you decide how you want to roleplay - there are probably gonna be some personality traits you're just never going to succeed at roleplaying. But on the other hand, figure out some things you think you *can* do that are significantly different from yourself, as soon as possible, and stick to them as best you can.

That's pretty good advice, yep. I try to make a point of having Nulaye do things that I personally think are a bad idea but suit who she is, or not what I would do in the same situation, as a matter of practice. It helps me stay a bit more down to earth as a player. If you argue against what you actually believe in, or fall for a trick you can see coming a mile away once in a while it makes it a lot easier to step back when you lose text-things/fights.

It's pretty fun to occasionally do something bull-headed or dumb, especially when your god is watching you do what's become a predictable character flaw and facepalming over it. :X

I'll echo Nulaye and add my own tidbit.

I create a mindset for my character(s) and try to view them through an objective lens. When something happens on-screen, I decide how my character would view it, how he would feel about it, and how he would react to it. It takes me only a split second to do so, but any reaction that comes from my characters will run through those filters. In this way, your character can still resemble your real-life persona, but can be free of rash emotional outbursts or bad judgment. (Unless those are characteristics you want your character to have.)

In addition, I value interactions and story-telling much more than experience or items. I don't want to get robbed, die, or lose my positions within the House or City, but I would rather take risks and further the story of my character than sit safe and sound in my everyday routine. You can regain experience and replace items, but you can't re-live lose opportunities to roleplay your character.

I also have a tendency to picture things much 'cooler' in my head than they appear on-screen. When I was young, a bashing partner of mine was jumped by a midbie Serpent. I leaped to his aid, but the Serpent paralyzed me and killed us both. On screen, two newbies with no combat knowledge were killed by a midbie Serpent who took advantage of the PK-insult clause. That's lame. In my head, however, two young knights were jumped by an honor-less assassin with ninja-like combat prowess. The latter makes for a much better story than the former, and makes up for the fact that I was lol-ganked as a newbie.

Yeah but not all of us have things that are sentimental/irreplaceablein our inventories when we get robbed. I do occasionally get mad if I get griefed but I'm the kind of person that will figure out how to stop it.

I budget some "angel" money IG. It goes to giving away to newbies, donating for worthy causes, and if a thief gets it, good job.

Thieves are more an annoyance than anything, like a fly buzzing around your face, in my opinion.

haha I remember when you were like that, I'm glad you decided to do something less stressful like triathalons

Hmm... when I began playing, I had no clue what I was doing, just went through Loom Island with my friend, doing what he told me to do. I don't imagine I've got any 'good RP' points to this day, but my most recent alt (and I've been told I have more alts than anyone else, but I'm not sure that's true because most don't last long) sure is reaching for some.

Theft. Only one time have I been upset OOC at a successful theft of one of my characters, and never at an unsuccessful attempt. Apparently the thief in question is one of Achaea's well-known jerks; one of his fellow citizens came along shortly to cheer me up OOC (by ICly pretending to try and steal from me.) I wanted to hug that person, but I had to settle for telling him thank you for cheering me up.

Organisational problems. Only one of my characters ever really identified with her House. Unfortunately, I really can't seem to get the hang of combat, and this deficiency marks every single alt I have. This particular character has been the most affected by this; she is frustrated at her lack of combat skill to the point where she considers herself 'failed' at said House; she is no longer a part of it. Currently she's really having an identity crisis, and I'm not playing her, because I can't decide where she's really going to go with it. (Plus there's this project I'm working on, and I decided not to play her or some of my other characters til I make decent progress on it, but I actually think I've been doing pretty well on it.)

Interactions with the Divine. Early on, I carried a personal habit of never using my shift key while typing into my characters, and was often corrected ICly for lack of capitalisation for Divine pronouns when all else went ignored. (Not by Divine.) I honestly didn't see the point. I never capitalised 'I' or even names of my characters or others'; why go out of my way?

Now my typing isn't so lazy, though sometimes I SWEAR I was holding down that shift key and yet when I've hit enter, I find the computer claims I was not either. Twice this has happened while one of my characters requested to inquire of Divines regarding specific things relating to said Divines' claims. Neither time did the Divine in question give any indication that He or She was offended by this, as far as I was able to determine. (Thank You, Lady Mithraea and Lord Babel.) With all my interactions with the Divine I have been very careful to be respectful, though, not just on principle but because of IC considerations. None of my characters has ever sought to offend a Divine in any way form or manner, because most of them are cowards survivors.

I have never been zapped, maggoted or toaded by the Divine. I don't expect this statement will hold true forever, especially the zap bit.

Early on, when I made a character, she was an idealisation of myself in many ways (only once did I try making a male alt. He didn't last long), and/or an exercise in being more of the sort of person IRL that I want to be. You know the sort of thing: like me, but braver, more thoughtful, more ruthless, kinder, stronger, harder, better, faster, more!

Now I take my time with each alt, let the in-game experiences of each lead me to discover who she is, what her goals are, how to play her. Like others in this thread have mentioned, it's like reading a book.

The IC/OOC boundary. At first, I honestly didn't care. I WAS my character, when I was playing Achaea. I was still learning to do things like time my bathroom breaks to my character's sleep cycle. This changed when something my first character did because I didn't see why not, got my friend who introduced me to Achaea to quit. (Goodbye, player of Luca.) It was a mistake IC, but OOC it was the best thing to happen to me. I hadn't realised how much of the game I was restricting myself from in order to play the game specifically with him. I began making alts to express the different facets of my personality. It wasn't proper RP, but it was a beginning. I'm still learning, still evolving my RP skills. The more I learn, the easier it is to separate IC and OOC. It's to the point recently where, for a certain project, I wanted to look around in-game at the descriptions of everything in an area, double-check that I was doing things if not consistent to Achaea's lore, at least not conflicting in too large a way. (Yes, I'm working on fanart. Yes, I'm willing to share when I've got something to share. No, it's not ready now. Ask again in 2013 unless I find someone to help with it. Yes, credit where credit is due.) I couldn't see any of my characters doing that IC so I made a new alt just for it. And I made a huge mistake. I forgot that some people REALLY don't want to hear about such things in-game, and was really excited about what I was doing, and angered someone OOC who as far as I know isn't quick to anger by eagerly telling her all about it at the first sign of willingness to hear. I apologised. Then she chewed me out. I didn't apologise after that, because I thought that even that much further communication would be unwelcome, and that the best way I could demonstrate that I was sorry was to cease direct communication entirely. (My OOC social skills are poor at best. This is not an excuse, but an explanation.) I'm still wondering what, if anything, I can really do to fix the situation. Somehow, making another alt for the same purpose and pretending it never happened feels wrong to me. I wouldn't be mentioning this at all, but it's one of the biggest things ever to impact me when it comes to IC/OOC boundaries (and the consequences of crossing them.) Whoever reads this, I hope you don't make my mistake. (If you recognise yourself as the angry person, and are willing to discuss this, thank you. Are either private forum messages or instant messenger an acceptable venue? And yes, there is at least one important thing I left out of this account. It's very relevant to the issue, but I didn't think it added anything to the actual topic of this thread that hasn't already been somehow addressed. I apologise again if you disagree with that opinion/statement, and advise the public that I am either a stupid person who does what are apparently brilliant things from time to time, or an intelligent person who is prone to stupid behaviour, to the point where even I wonder which best describes me sometimes, but I keep trying.)

The IG/OOG boundary. The only experience I've ever had that I recognise as impacting me here has been that same issue, with fanart. Because my fanart medium is technically a non-Iron Realms game, I wasn't sure where, if anywhere on these forums, to request help. I took a guess, and Meletus rather quickly corrected my error. I know very few players out-of-game, and those only online. I did go through a phase where I did my best to increase my number of game-related Instant Messenger contacts, but I don't feel my attempt succeeded well. Certainly not well enough to use any instant messenger as a viable alternative for fanart help requests and such things. The only other comments I can add are that I have that different people have different levels of comfort when it comes to IG/OOG boundaries. Some people, for example, have their forum names match those of their mains. Others, like me, use a different forum name but post the name of their main in the About Me section of their profiles. Some people post one or more messengers publically on their profiles. I'm one of them. Others do not. Some consider a visible instant messenger contact an invitation. I mean it as such. Others find random-seeming instant messages from fellow forum-users intrusive.

Personally, I find a third area in between 'in-game' and 'out of game' which I call, 'about game' and includes such things as discussion of potential RP, avoidance of plot collision (or multiplot integration, depending on how it's used), fanart, and fanart issues (including mine,) but I seem to be a minority when it comes to seeing 'about game' as more than just a subcategory of 'out of game.' I don't feel I have enough information to draw further conclusions, but I have so far found this thread informative.

Can I get a cliffnotes version?

How do you feel when:
-Someone Steals from you
Hasn't happened in ages. Madelyne reflexively goes selfish and shinkicks the person. I usually review the situation and if the thief is successful, try to figure out what to do to prevent it from happening again.

-Someone Kills you (with acceptable cause or otherwise)
Madelyne gets sulky either way, and tends to whine and pout a lot. Without cause, it's frustrating for me because if you try to work it out ICly you negate the chance to issue, and if you issue you're told, "Sorry, you didn't try to work it out ICly!" which (from my limited knowledge of how PK works) seems like a huge catch-22. With cause, I just shrug because knowing that was the risk all along, if it happens it happens.

-A house, city member, or other org member leaves.
Madelyne thinks, "If they left, they don't deserve to be here anyway." She's pretty harsh. I don't much care. Everyone has to do what's right for themselves.

-A house, city member, or other org member betrays an organisation you're in
Depends on the situation. I might be a little annoyed if whatever team (org) Madelyne's involved with isn't "winning" but meh, two sides to every coin.

-You're enemied
Not being enemied to anywhere save for a few lulzzy clans, no opinion.

-Told off by a divine for not addressing them properly (probably uncommon but it turned my blood cold for a second in real life)
Madelyne would be apologetic and maybe write them a nice apology in limerick form. For me, it would depend on the Divine in question. Either way, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

-Any other interaction with divine (favour, disfavour, toads, and things)
Again, it depends on the situation. The one time Madelyne did get toaded was by Clementius for a bad pun re: toads. It was on a private channel and the people in the room with Madelyne, not being part of that channel, were clueles about what'd just happened. I had a good laugh about it, as it was well deserved.

How do you:
-Cope with the above so it doesn't get to youDon't spend 24/7 in Achaea. Go outside. Take a walk. Play frisbee with the dog. Breaks are good. If you disappear from Achaea for 24 hours, life will go on.

-Set yourself apart from your character
See the above? It also helps to have "real life" friends who've never heard of Achaea before. It just helps to keep things in perspective, I think.

This part isn't true.

Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe. I've personally never had a good experience with PK. Therefore, I try to avoid it at most costs.

Goryllin is not bothered by being stolen from, except to go what a punk. It only happens in times of great mental laxity or getting dc'd so not really something I could do anything about.

Dieing? Ahaha. I have thousands of deaths on Goryllin, both he and I sorta shrugged. Its getting teamed with instakills that start to sizzle my bacon but I am pretty mellow and by the end of the day dont give a damn. I learned a long time ago the value of a qq and walk around my apartment playing or doing something else.

The lifestyle choices I have made for my characters over the years means that Goryllin is not even lvl 79. But I no longer let experience, its gain or loss, affect me at all.

I have plenty of wonderful and amazing interactions with Divine. After playing achaea since '99 the hard part is actually making sure my characters realize that they are Gods and to treat them as such. Some times situations come up that really do affect me. And Neraeos makes me cry just about every time he says something to me (normally it cuts Goryllin down or seems to him). But even Goryllin is getting weathered, when he speaks to Gods so often, he does not shiver so much. Of course the fact that he dies all of the time helps wit that, no really afraid of them killing him.

Any more, I log in, play as Goryllin, log out and resume being richard. I might think about things, puzzle over the wording of posts while I am away from the game, but not fret about things any more. Life goes on, if Goryllin is not there, oh well.

I'm a newbie as far as RP is concerned since Naifos is the first character I've ever created that didn't consist mainly of pixles. See: Runescape
Forgive me for my (im)mature* nature but I can't seem to get past the netiquette of it all.
How do you feel when:
-Someone Steals from you
RAGE. Actually, I've only been stolen from with a monolith sigil (because you can drop that through selfishness, I didn't care) and Rameus/Proficy lusting/empressing me into a house with totems once and fashioning/puppet shaking me until everything that didn't have a fist was gone. I was pretty annoyed then, but the whole thing was random, so I managed to get my items back. To be fair, I was pretty darn annoyed at that, but this was a while ago and I was Serpent, so the most that I lost were just my vials of venoms.

-Someone Kills you (with acceptable cause or otherwise)
RAGE. Depends how, I suppose, and on the attitude of the person. If it's in a duel, fine. If it's not, well, again, lots of situations.

-A house, city member, or other org member leaves.
RAGE. Depends how much I like that person, or whether they seemed to have good potential. If they take all the House credits with them...

-A house, city member, or other org member betrays an organisation you're in
RAGE. Oh, that's supposedly me, but I don't take it personally. Just roll my eyes, I guess.

-You're enemied
RAGE. I can't speak on this one, I'm enemied to a lot of places...and not for bad reason. Sometimes, if it seems random, it probably means you don't understand the current political climate. If you deserved it, then you deserved it.

-Told off by a divine for not addressing them properly (probably uncommon but it turned my blood cold for a second in real life)
RAGE (and curse at them). I don't think I've ever gotten this beyond forgetting to put Lord or Lady in front of a name, which is just an "oops" sort of thing.

-Any other interaction with divine (favour, disfavour, toads, and things)
RAGE (especially if you get a favour). Well, again, things are usually earned in some way. I've had my fair share of random-ish interaction with Gods, and I guess I just enjoy most of it, especially getting kicked out and enemied to the organizations I was the head of without being allowed to say anything in my own defence. Depending on the situation, again, my reaction to interaction with Divine will change.

How do you:
-Cope with the above so it doesn't get to you
It doesn't get to me, it gets to others, in the form of a Remington 700 chambered in 30-06 and a good belltower. I guess things that happen in games don't affect me very much in real life, though. There's usually an opportunity to do something else entirely. Your permanent record only lasts as long as people's memories, and most people are goldfish.

-Set yourself apart from your character
LOL RP

I actually see two axis to this, the separation between your personality and the personality of your character and the separation between your emotional state and your character's emotional state (for lack of better wording).

I basically play one of my characters as my own personality but without inhibitions or censoring. If I think it (as a player) and it fits the situation, my character will probably react that way.

As far as separating emotional states, I find it much like a good movie or book, in the moment, I enjoy feeling the emotion of what my characters going through, but after it happens, it's just entertainment and life goes on.

Some people are probably gonna take this the wrong way but here goes. I believe to roleplay a character wello you have to be able to leak at least a little of your emotion into. Not a whole lot but just enough so that when you do something you would actually be thinking of the effect on your characters and other characters when you do. For example: What if my character Damen berayed Cyrene to Mhaldor in some way that caused substanial damage to Cyrene and it's citezens such Damen's parents, siblings, fiancee and friends. If I blatantly didn' care yes I might do this. But I have a certain degree of care for those in Cyrene. While we may not be rl friends hey make my roleplaying experience enjoyable. If Damen was banned from Cyrene my roleplay experience might change a become something I no longer enjoyed and I'd leave. Does anyon understand what I'm getting at here?

Yup, agreed.

Heh. I get bored when I win all the time in any game. I see losing as a learning experience, and usually I'm amused at the stupid mistakes I make. Achaea is no exception.


Caring for other players, and caring for their characters, is natural. I respect a lot of players I know, and I enjoy playing my char with their char. Some emotion is natural, and would be required for any game to be enjoyable. It's taking that emotion to an extreme that causes problems.

edit: For a roleplay game, though, there is a difference between experiencing emotions as a player, and making your character express his own. When there is no difference, usually either your character will either be bland or you will go through emotional upheavals. At least, imho.

Revolg hates living in Hashan, because I can't force myself to RP that it is not full of semi-autistic 5 year olds. As for actually caring about the people in your city, it's good to remember most of them are millions of miles away and so -ed up you probably wouldn't want to hang out with them IRL anyways.