Roleplaying, Heroes, and Spirit

[Nhin Impious]

So you're saying you're a wood elf that was left in the oven too long?

I'm a Grandmistress Baker who keeps trying for a trophy and has failed four times now.

I'd definitely say I've stuck my head in the oven one too many times, yes.

Nhinx Aphsion
no halflings were actually harmed in the making of this post.

[Lilosh]

Originally posted by kiztent
But isn't roleplaying supposed to interfere with being the most efficient group imaginable?

Shrug, I'm not sure people really understand what roleplaying is anyway. Or agree.

You misquotedme, sir. I never aimed for the most efficient group possible.

I said it interfered with normal play.


-Lilosh

[Moraganth]

just sing it when it comes around again..... with feelin'.......

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant...

Anyway.. back when i first started in rpg games (d&d, the year after it was originally released), we had an interesting debate about what a PC was. PC's were capable of things which normal people simply weren't. Each PC was a "hero" of the times, bigger, better, stronger... you know the drill.

In a game as large as EQ, with the number of players normal found in it's bounds at any time, what we see is the division of those heros... there are the ones that ledgends are made from.. wether they are good or bad; more precisely, wether they are decent people, or not.

History in real life makes legends of those who overcome life's obsticals in a fantastic way.. Ghengis Khan for example, lives on through his "legend," but i'd hardly doubt there would be many that would claim that he was a nice guy. History is repleat with despicable people who rise to the legendary status level.

The question for the game is, how do you want your legend to read.

Roleplaying.. i'm a horrible roleplayer anymore. My main is a dark elf, yet i have probably the best faction overall of anyone within my guild. palidans come to me to figure out how to get faction to do their epics... a sad statement on my ability to rp an inkie. I find helping people is much more satisfying than most of the other activities in the game..

I've said before, and i stand firm on the opinion... EQ, as it is, allows for people to be bigger than their real life. We become the heros, we become those whom the legends are written about. At the same time, it allows others to become more despicable than they can be in real life. It's all a matter of the real persons natural tendencies as to wether they become a hero or villan in the game... I personally prefer to hang out with the heros, and am saddened that it seems to require the worst of human traits to excell for most of the game.

[kiztent]

Originally posted by Lilosh
You misquotedme, sir. I never aimed for the most efficient group possible.

I said it interfered with normal play.


-Lilosh

A mere digression, sir. Your comment brought things to mind.

[Draggar]

Re: Perfect Example of Roleplaying

Originally posted by Greymist
Was in Gunthark the other day - picture tiny and sweet halfling seated on ground tailoring.

Ogre walks up and ems a "thunk" on my head - hands me 200pp and proceeds to say

"Port. Nexus. Now."

Now I call THAT roleplaying.


Greymist

I get that all the time.

I don't mind, except one little teenie tiny issue people neglet to relize, I'm a Rogue.

(I even get it when my Iksar Hide Mask is on!)

Speaking of the mask, my Rogue has an identiy crisis. He has split personalities.

Wood Elf most of the time, DE and Iksar sometimes, and rarely an Erudite or Gnome.

If the barbarian mask wasn't 100,000 I might get it. I'd also love to see a Vah Shir mask.

[cattywumpus]

I agree that the game has become too much of a "mine is bigger than yours" festival. SOE seems to support that attitude with so much "bigger and better" stuff every expansion and very few new quests that are fun or opportunities for roleplaying.

SOEs attitude toward the non-powergamer was a big part of the reason I quit playing. The rest of it was the Nameless server's very unfriendly attitude toward unguilded players. There are some nice people there but too many are guild snobs.

I agree that the heros are the people who make playing the game fun for everyone they meet. That ranger deserves a few kudos from all of us.

I always tried to be that kind of player. I would spend hours in Shar Vahl giving newbies directions and helping them with those annoying quests. If my bank account was flush I would make them some banded armor or a forged weapon to help them out too. If someone sent a tell for help I would usually drop what I was doing and see what I could do as well. Never charged for a heal or a buff either.

[Teedyo]

Hmmphh! Silly young Ranger. It's been my experience that inkie floaters are best left floating. Being disposed of by an ally guard would have backed my assessment.

Case in point:

I was travelling through WC one Spring afternoon when a shouted plea for SOW reached my ear. Running towards the sound, I found myself face to face with a DE warrior maiden. Dispelling my misgivings that I was about make a grievious error; I called upon the Spirit of the Wolf and Lord Riftwind to embrace her. Knowing that warriors are not trained in magicks(whether due to the misconceptions of others or an actual inability) and seeing that no ill had befallen me as yet; I decided that perhaps I had other spells that would be of benefit.
As I was studying my book; I received a stunning blow from behind. I turned to find a very angered halfling following his belief that a friend of his enemy is also his enemy. Now, I am by no means an ally of the little fuzzy-footed folk, but I have worked very hard to convey my trustworthiness and have quite the friendly relationship with them. Perhaps this young man wasn't aware of this as he didn't appear to live in the Vale. Since he was young and seemed to pose no real physical threat; I decided my best course of action was to just walk away and hope that his anger subsided. I removed the spells which cause damage to those who would strike me and turned to go. As I did so; this dark warrior quickly slew and left his lifeless body in a heap upon the plain. She even had such audacity to say 'You're Welcome'.
Tears streaming down my face, I knelt beside his lifeless form; bidding his soul godspeed and searching for some form of identity that I might bring word and some sort of closure to his family.
Had the gods allowed, indigo blood would have been spilt that day even though this evil warrior was much more proficient(18 lvls) with her weapons than I.

Does this support the thought that R.P. interferes with 'normal' gameplay, or adds to it? I mean; it's normal to buff other players regardless of class/deity/race, right? It's also normal in RP to pay the consequences for one's actions. In this case, I stepped out of RP for a moment and paid the RP consequences. Normally, of course, an opportunity to zone and clear agro is expected/allowed.

As far as the subject heros....what does bigger, faster, stronger have to do with it? In my mind's eye, a hero is anyone who always tries to do the Right Thing(tm) regardless.....
So is this young ranger a hero in the realm of EQ? probably not. How about him being a hero to the RL puppeteer who manipulates Nhinx? probably so. After a 5.5 hr CR in Kael, I know first-hand how frustrating it is to be alone in a 'hostile' environment.

Edit: sub 'realm of EQ' to read 'realm of Norrath' as EQ actually spans RL and Norrath.

[Iumiena]

To me hero in EQ is someone who brings more benefit before the world of norrath than destruction and stupidity.

This includes

-Class knowledge. Example: countless groups wipe because the druid didn't snare and the mob brought with him his 100 closest friends. If you kill your group or are a hindrance you are no hero. Same goes for raids, friendly get togethers, etc

-Helping others when you yourself get back no benefit. Example a nice little ranger dragging a corpse, or someone seeing a low level character and giving him gear that no longer brings you joy but makes their day, or helping some guy get yael in the Hole even though you're sick and tired of that zone.

-Being polite and meeting expections of EQ society. This would include being polite when asking for buffs, and tipping people nicely (I'm tired of people making me go cross zones to KEI them just to have the guy run away without so much as a thank you). No KSing, stealing camps, no cursing, stealing, cheating and such as this is considered bad behavior by most everyone in EQ

-When you are a tradeskiller don't take outrageous advantage of those close to you. I do free combines for my friends and guildies, sometimes taking stuff out of my own bank account for it. However I am always repaid in kind by people giving me stuff to get my tradeskills even higher and thanking me in guild channel or in /ooc

all in all, I'd say the greatest hero is someone you put on your friends list after meeting them for the first time.

[thrashette]

We are all roleplayers.

Everquest is the only place on Earth where you can lead your very own personal army up against the army of the God of War, for the express purpose of taking the God of War's sword.

That's roleplaying, any way you look at it. Nothing like that can happen in the real world.

Nobody calls it that, because roleplaying a soldier would be too weird for us.

[Quesci]

It all depends on the kind of hero that you want to be. My favorite heroes were of the type: Ordinary person who does extraordinary things

The best heroes (to me) were the normal guys who just worked hard and did good deeds. Batman was SO much cooler than Superman. The creators of Superman had to go to exceptional lengths to find credible opponents for him because he was so powerful, and the Kryptonite thing was so overdone.

Frodo was the perfect hero--a normal guy who saves the world. When I ran a D&D campaign, my players used straight 3d6 rolls. Their stats were decidedly "average" and they lived with it. My campaigns were more story-like and less action. My players avoided combat, because they knew that those bandits/guards/orcs in that camp down there don't want to die and there are as many of them as there are of you. I rarely had to roll dice when I DMed.

I have no problem with that other kind of hero: Powers far beyond that of normal man. I understand the desire to be above average. I understand that some people like the idea of wading into combat and hewing your opponents down like wheat before a thresher.

The problem is, in a world of 10,000 PCs, it is impossible for the heroes in EQ to be above average. This is why the designers constrained race/class choices. If any Dark Elf can become a ranger, than there is nothing special about a Dark Elf ranger. No one is allowed to be extraordinary, because then the extraordinary becomes ordinary.

Therefore, being a hero has nothing to do with what you CAN do. Being a hero is all about what you DO.

(OOC: on the topic of heroes - Heroic Stories is a free e-mail newsletter that comes out weekly. It is all about ordinary people who are heroes to someone. "They're not just about people who save lives or stop a crime. Our stories describe both large and small gestures, they're from all over the world, they're true and, most of all, they're interesting. (They're also short! No story is over 500 words.)" If you need a weekly e-mail that reinforces your belief that most people are good at heart, you should check it out. It's free!)

[Pojodan]

I've sought high and low for someone to roleplay some sort of odd relationships and while I've had a few good friends that I played with so far I've had zero luck finding any sort of roleplay.. at least on Rodcet Nife.
Numerous times I've sat in PoK, Kitty beside me, set atop my drogmore so that I'm the largest thing around and only had the occational newbie ask me questions about soloing and the epic and many 'woah kewl clawz!!!!11'

I'd do anything to find a roleplay partner anymore

[Reflan]

Roleplaying can be freeing, just like any interaction on the net can be, but part of the reason it's not very popular, besides the sort of half-baked, annoying refugees from Shakespeare festivals pounding their Harks! and Forsooth, verily I shall! type of thing into your brain(they're about as fun as mimes), is that a role doesn't just free you from your ordinary life and take you to a new imaginative place; it also crams you into a pigeonhole once you get there.

And life does that plenty already. Who needs more of it?

My ogre is a pretty nice fellow. He buffs strangers all the time, doesn't KS anyone or try to steal camps, blow spawns, train people, or do any of the things or behave any of the ways that I don't like to in real life. He's my freedom to be me, but in ogre form. Is he a "realistic" ogre? Roleplayed at all well? Actually he's probably a terribly played ogre.

But who cares? Games are about having fun. Roleplaying imposes a big burden, and the last thing most people want to bother with is more burdens in their life. And they sure don't want to come to a game, of all things, to find themselves even more burdened. If they wanted to be forced into behaving a certain way and doing certain things, all they have to do is just live their lives and not even log on in the first place; they'll find plenty of that out in society or even in their own homes.

[Nhin Impious]

If they wanted to be forced into behaving a certain way and doing certain things, all they have to do is just live their lives and not even log on in the first place; they'll find plenty of that out in society or even in their own homes.

Sure, but in society...some roles are chosen FOR you. Think about it, the "equal start" we all get in EQ at level 1 is, for some of us, the best deal we've ever gotten in that kind of setup.

And if even ONE of those young men playing a female character in EQ gets any extra realization of what it's like to be female...

*sigh* Forget it. I'm a stinkin' optimist. I'm just afraid that this IS the best of all possible worlds...

Nhinx Aphsion
...sure, they disease you, curse you, poison you, slow you, root you, and fear you, but other than that and the way they melee like mad they're actually kinda easy... try sun revenants! you'll like them!

[Axterix EnObelix]

And if even ONE of those young men playing a female character in EQ gets any extra realization of what it's like to be female...

You get treated based upon how you act more than the gender of your character. Quit acting so female when playing and you'll have no problems Those young men who can realize what it is like to be female don't need to...they already know. Either they can place themselves in the proper mindset or they are deliberately exploiting the advantages of being female, laughing off any downsides. One side already knows, the other will learn nothing.

Seriously though, the whole MMOG environment kills roleplaying. RP'ing works best when all involved have a similiar level and definition of RP, when the focus is on the character and not the stats. The very nature of MMOGs, the multiplayer aspect and the game mechanics limits this. Too many non-RPs. Too channelled in what you can and cannot do and how effective it is. So you wind up with RP-lite. A bit of ogre speak, a bit of high elf or erudite haughtiness, and a general all around jealousy of gnomes from the waste of space races. And, of course, gnomes stopping to chat with gnomes just because they are gnomes. But then, gnomes are cool like that.

End result: one server dedicated as the RP server, with special rules to discourage the common man from visiting.

By the way, ever considered renewing your vows and getting a new wedding ring? Say a nice velium fire opal wedding ring? *ducks for cover*

Sentimental items are fun though. Got a few of my own hanging around in my bank.

But for serious RP, I'll stick with a medium that's better suited for it, where my imigation has greater reign, my character has greater freedom, where the pace is slow enough to shift focus away from advancement, and where the people I play with share this attitude. Pen and paper

[Moraganth]

As far as the subject heros....what does bigger, faster, stronger have to do with it? In my mind's eye, a hero is anyone who always tries to do the Right Thing(tm) regardless.....

/sigh we can rebuild your vision of heros.... (/hopes someone eventually gets it..)

EQ grandizes being a hero. The people (pc's) in EQ aren't normal people, they're above the normal... they are the adventurers of pulp fiction, Conan, Jandar, Sherlock Holmes.. they are the few mighty people that stand out in the novel. All EQ lacks if the poor, tired, huddled masses.

What a hero is in reallife is far from what EQ designs it's toons to be.