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Storyboard: Making character relationships work
Character interrelationships are the heart of roleplaying. The interesting part of your character isn't his background or his personality; it's what happens when you put him in a room with several other people and let the whole thing move from there. You're trying to create an entirely different person who will build an entirely different set of relationships in an entirely different world. Unfortunately, some of those relationships can feel a bit... forced -- as if you're trying to find a connection where none exists, or as if you've jumped past some important elements of characterization that would make everything seem clearer. In short, a lot of your relationships feel as if they were cut from the Star Wars prequels. I harp on verisimilitude a lot in this column, but that's precisely because roleplaying depends on the illusion of reality in each interaction. If your relationships in roleplaying feel real, it does wonders for grounding the characters and their interplay in reality and giving substance to everything else you do. So I think it's worth noting some obvious stumbling points and some ways to help relationships feel more organic.
Storyboard: RP 101 - What is roleplaying?
Two weeks back, I received a comment asking, in all seriousness, what was the deal with roleplaying. The author of said comment opined that as near as he or she could tell, it was mostly just talking like your character and developing a bunch of strange romances. If that comment had only listed vampires in there, really, I could have stopped writing this column altogether. All right, there's more to it than that. While I've spent the past 120 installments of the column dealing with creating characters, playing respectfully, and producing stories, I've never actually put down a definition of what roleplaying is. I've never liked opening off by defining roleplaying because it's an awkward beast, and the explanation is always shoehorned elsewhere. So today I'm going to kick off at least one and possibly more columns answering the very basics, starting with the obvious -- what the heck is roleplaying?
Storyboard: Private party
Ms. Lady and I were in the midst of roleplaying in Star Wars: The Old Republic, and it was going well. As it so happened, this particular bit of roleplaying involved her pureblood Sith lord doing the Sad Sith Dance and singing the accompanying song. Explaining why this was a logical step in the scene would require a whole lot of explanation of the characters involved, and I don't think you really want to read me waxing poetic about my characters for a thousand words. (If I'm wrong, please, do tell. It'd certainly make for several weeks of easy-to-write columns for me.) It's enough to know that there is a Sad Sith Dance and accompanying song. The important point is that just like the song says, voices carry. When said Sith was exiting the cantina, he found that there was a small crowd of people on the upper floor, people who hadn't said anything but could have very well been listening in. And that brings to mind the issue of privacy in roleplaying, something that you both strive for and try to avoid at once because of the nature of the interactions.
Storyboard: Only good once
Truce Sokolov is a character I like to hold up as an example of how characters can take on lives of their own. She was created as more of a throwaway than anything, a Draenei Shaman whose main character trait was being kind of shy. Flash-forward a year, and she was my main character on the Alliance side of the fence, fleshed out into a strong and capable woman hamstrung by her lack of faith in herself and a resentment of her militaristic environment. She defined a large chunk of my roleplaying in World of Warcraft. So I've tried to port her over to other games. And it has never worked. To date, I've created about a dozen different Truces in different games, and absolutely every one of them has tripped at the starting gate. Or imploded on the launch pad. So as I sift through the wreckage of yet another incarnation of the character, it seems apropos to discuss characters that only work in a single incarnation no matter how hard you try.
Storyboard: Guild Wars 2 roleplaying thoughts
Somehow I managed to completely miss the fact that this was the Guild Wars 2 launch week when doing my planning, which means that I'm going to bump things around slightly. After all, this is launch week, and whether or not you've been looking forward to Guild Wars 2, you can't deny that it's the biggest thing to happen to MMOs since the last one. But at Storyboard it's not just about the MMO impact; it's also about the roleplaying impact. And I'm happy to say that while I haven't had a chance to roleplay in GW2 just yet, the game is significantly more friendly in its mechanics. You can walk, you can emote, and you can even make use of a fair number of roleplaying outfits. All fine additions. Can I talk about the GW2 roleplaying culture? Not yet, sadly, because I haven't gotten a chance to explore it myself yet. But I can talk about some of the peripheral elements and how they might both help and hinder roleplaying within the game. Some stuff is obviously meant for roleplayers, but there are other mechanics that can certainly be adapted.
Storyboard: Lessons from what roleplaying resembles most
When you get right down to it, roleplaying isn't really like a movie or a novel in which you determine the story. It's not even all that much like a video game in which you write the story; those tend to be structured better. No, roleplaying is most like making your own serial comic book. Think about it. You have a number of charcters with superhuman abilities getting into conflicts on a regular basis. Sometimes those characters pan out into a satisfying story arc, but other times characters show up and then vanish, either because they were awful or because the author didn't know what to do with them. There's a real risk of running on into boredom, and there are a lot of times when characters get kludged into other storylines for cross-promotional purposes. Regular readers will probably guess that I don't think of this as a bad thing. I like comics a lot, after all. And it means that we can take some interesting lessons from the long lifespan of comics because when you realize you're making a big collaborative comic, you earn the right to use some tricks of the trade.
Storyboard: Breaking into roleplaying for the first time
Roleplaying is probably harder to do than any other game activity. The first time you run a dungeon or take part in PvP, you might fail horribly, but that's a matter of practice and statistics. But the first time you get up in front of a group of other people to roleplay, you're essentially acting on a virtual stage on which anyone can see you, with no lines, no stage direction, and no indication whether you're doing it right or not. And if you screw up, your indication that something went wrong will just be a wall of stony silence. So it's intimidating. It's all the anxiety of jumping into a new social group with added anxiety over whether your character is interesting enough for anyone to care. I'm not going to pretend it's not, but I can offer some advice to make your first attempt as smooth as possible. And hopefully provide some useful tips to recover even if everything goes horribly wrong.
Storyboard: The RIFT project - conclusion
The RIFT project was a complete and utter failure. I'd like to say that this was something that I came to conclude very late in the project, but honestly it happened early on. Both Ms. Lady and I knew that the project had failed irrevocably, and while I'd like to think we tried gamely to keep running it as if the project were ongoing, I think we failed even at that. So, yes -- this is a project that ended in failure. But it ended in failure in the best way possible. Even with that having been said, the project didn't take off in the direction I had hoped and certainly didn't have the results I'd conceived of when I first came up with the project. So it's worth examining what worked, what didn't, and what advice I can give anyone else attempting a similar project in the future. I think it's a worthy idea, but I think that ultimately it just doesn't quite work.
SOEmote facial recognition tech live in EverQuest II today
Earlier this summer, we told you about Sony Online Entertainment's new SOEmote facial recognition technology. Today you can try it out for yourself in the company's flagship EverQuest II MMORPG. SOE has partnered with ImageMetrics to bring the new tech to end-users and their in-game avatars. It's not limited to facial expressions, though. New voice fonts allow players to sound like their characters, too. "For gamers, and especially roleplayers, the more immersive the experience, the better the game. SOE is using Live Driver in SOEmote to unlock levels of expression and interaction between EQII players that simply haven't been possible until now," said Robert Gehorsam, CEO of Image Metrics. SOE is also sponsoring a competition for the most creative SOEmote videos. Submit your 30-second clip for a chance to win a trip for two to SOE Live (formerly known as Fan Faire) in Las Vegas. [Source: SOE press release]
Storyboard: The RIFT project - week 3
I can't believe that this has almost been going on for a month. Well, all right, I can believe it but still find it somewhat baffling. Yes, it's the penultimate installment of RIFT project recaps, and it's been an interesting week. This one has been mostly focused around broadening the scope, adding in some new characters to the mix and seeing how they've played off the quartet already in play. In short, it's been good... but it highlighted a weakness that neither Ms. Lady nor I was really conscious of until we sat down and articulated it. Of course, if you've been reading steadily, you may have already guessed at the problem, but that's all the more reason to catch up on the events. There's a higher than usual dose of unmitigated crazy this week, too. So what happened on a week when we should really have been bringing things toward a conclusion? Anything but.
Storyboard: The RIFT project - week 2
This week, the RIFT project slowed down a little bit. Oh, we didn't stop playing by any stretch of the imagination, but when you're also playing (and roleplaying) in two other games, you're going to find some time crunches, especially when the novelty of a game starts to wear off and gets replaced with the more mundane tasks of playing the game into the doldrum levels. And the middle levels are always the doldrum levels, no matter how elegantly they might be handled on a whole. New characters were made and played, but as of yet, they haven't really interacted with the main group, so the focus remains on the same quartet as the first installment. As such, I'll be jumping right into a recounting of the week's events and an examination of where the project is going. And the splinter I mentioned in passing is still there, but I don't think that needs to be discussed this week, does it?
Storyboard: The RIFT project - week 1
While I had expected this project to get shoehorned into a footnote over the next few weeks, the majority vote was in favor of seeing this recapped every week. So it's time for the first recap of the RIFT project, which will cover just about a week of time spent in the game as of Wednesday. That means recapping characters, giving a brief summary of events, and giving everyone an idea of how well the project is working out thus far. I'm going to go on the record stating two things, just in case they weren't clear from the first column. The first thing is that this project is not an official Massively thing by nature, just something that I had dreamed up and figured would be interesting to read about. Second, I'm well aware that I'm probably going to have one or two enormous lore holes in my recaps or character summaries. Those of you who read regularly probably already know that I lose precisely no sleep over this fact, and you should not either. It's just a game; we should all really just relax. With the preamble out of the way, let's get into the story so far.
Hyperspace Beacon: Tips for roleplaying in The Old Republic
I had a game developer tell me recently that he wished more players were like roleplayers because roleplayers are easier to cater to. Having been in MMO roleplay communities for the last nine years, I have to both disagree and agree with him. Roleplayers need special tools and good quality-of-life mechanics (like sitting in chairs!) in order to find a game extremely enjoyable. However, he was correct when talking about content. When the content runs out -- when every raid is on farm, when PvP is no longer a challenge, or when all that's left is dailies to grind -- the majority of players start to slip out of the game. But when developer content runs out for a roleplayer, she begins to make her own content, if she hasn't already been doing just that. And the game is still fun! When I started roleplaying in an MMO for the first time, a friend of mine who started with me summarized my feelings about roleplaying that game: "This is the reason I started playing in the first place." What he meant was that when he started playing Star Wars Galaxies, he wanted to live in the Star Wars universe, and roleplaying actually allowed him to do that. Star Wars: The Old Republic offers its own opportunities for immersion. It's not the same as SWG, but it does share the same universe. So how do you get involved in the fun that roleplayers have in SWTOR? I'm glad you asked. I have some quick and dirty tips for you on how to get started in your epic Star Wars MMO adventure!
Storyboard: The RIFT project
The biggest problem with roleplaying in an MMO is that there's a certain amount of enforced stasis. No matter how determined you are to bring about long-term change in your group, there's the simple fact that you generally need to have characters working together and staying alive. Game considerations force you to refrain from anything that would rock the boat too severely. So most main characters have plot armor, most relationships need to stay at a functional professional level, and most villains have to be guest stars. It's a compromise we make so that the game itself remains playable. But what if you didn't have to make that compromise? This isn't a story about RIFT, and it isn't a story about PAX East, but both of those elements come into play because that's how the idea came to me. What would it look like if you had a month during which there were no restrictions on roleplaying? How would things play out if you could feel confident about a month of play that's completely self-contained, with no need to preserve characters any longer than the story required? Would it make roleplaying more interesting, or would nothing change?
The Daily Grind: Do you play on a roleplay server as a non-roleplayer?
Most every new MMO has a roleplay server set up specifically for roleplayers to do their thing. Presumably, this RP server would be kinder and gentler than your average PvP or PvE server. This is the reason many players -- including myself -- seek out these RP servers on day one, even if we're not roleplayers ourselves. I tend to not interrupt in-character chat and generally respect the atmosphere of roleplaying while not actually participating. So for you non-roleplayers out there, we're curious to know if this is something you've done. For roleplayers, does it irritate you to see non-roleplayers using your server? We want to know! [Image: Lotrogeek] Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Storyboard: Ten questions to answer about your character
If you have anything in common with me RP-wise, then you want your characters to seem more or less like real people. Sure, there are going to be blank spots compared to someone who's lived for the past 20-odd years, but you want to create the illusion that there's no real difference. And one of the best tools in that area is to answer questions that real people have an answer for in a few minutes at most. Usually, if someone mentions a mundane aspect of a character's background, it's meant to play into something further on down the line. But my experience is that giving those questions mundane answers helps ground the character in a much more solid foundation. So I've put together a list of seemingly innocuous questions that can help you construct a more fully formed character, someone who at least creates the illusion of a real life to recall. That illusion can make all the difference.
Storyboard: The social contract
Have you ever thought about the fact that every single one of your characters is a murdering thief? Picture the scene for a moment: You have a group of people living in an isolated and rural community. Without warning, a man with heavy weaponry bursts in and starts hacking his way through every inhabitant of the community, smashing his way into locked houses. But he also stops at the body of each victim to gather any money or important belongings, slowly working his way through the community until there's nothing left but carrion and a few trinkets he didn't deem valuable enough to steal. On the news, this would be up there as a pretty shocking tragedy. In an MMO, this is a good chunk of the gameplay. And that brings to mind one of the major issues that faced by roleplayers hoping for verisimilitude: the horrible discrepancies between the social contract as we understand it and the one employed by the characters in the game. They're divergent sometimes, identical at other times, and universally ambiguous.
Storyboard: Dark past of infinite darkness
There's no reason in the world that the idea of a dark past needed to become a cliché. I mean, it has; there's no denying that. Do a shot every time you find a character with a dark past and you'll have alcohol poisoning inside of half an hour. (Do two for every character whose past is dark and mysterious and you can just call an ambulance before you start.) But it's one of those things that's been cast into the realm of the cliché before its time -- it's a legitimate element to constructing a character that's become overused. Of course, it's been sent to the horrid land of the cliché by people using it poorly and overzealously. You can still make an interesting and nuanced character with a dark past, but you have to do so with a gentle hand. You need just enough dark past that it's interesting but not so much dark past that it gets obnoxious or silly.
Hyperspace Beacon: The truth behind the transfers
If you don't know by now that Star Wars: The Old Republic has been struggling with server population issues, then you must have been on a deserted island for the last couple of months. When the game was released, far too many servers were introduced, so the population thinned out quite a bit. The only solution was to allow some of these communities to merge. Hopefully, by now you have logged into SWTOR and transferred your characters to your new higher-population server if you were offered that chance. Although I've leaked out bits and pieces of thoughts about the whole transfer process, I figure it's probably best to give my impressions all in one spot. Welcome to this week's Hyperspace Beacon.
Storyboard: When I was the problem
I do not claim to have any sort of superhuman intellect. If I understand how people are likely to make mistakes in roleplaying and how to fix those mistakes, it's a product of having made a lot of mistakes of my own. Sometimes it's a result of failing to fix them and realizing what would have worked after the fact. And while I'll write advice on how to fix the things that you're doing wrong, I never want to give the impression that I'm preaching rather than practicing. Last week's column was all about what happens when it turns out you're the problem, and there's a J'accuse-style rant if there ever was one. In light of that, I wanted to make it very clear that there have been situations in which my character was the problem rather than some hypothetical example. And so I pulled out three of the most notable examples of places where it turns out I was causing a world of disruption within the group.
