Light-Medium-Heavy RP

What exactly is the difference between the three? I assume Light is little more than IC conversation between players. I also assume Heavy is big storyline, engrossing RP. So just how "Medium" is Medium?

If I were to assume, I'd say that Light means you actually act out your characters. All local chat is IC unless denoted by parenthesis/what-have-you, but Supergroups, Broadcast, PMs, et cetera are assumed OOC, and you aren't required to RP out your use of powers and such.

Heavy means that all chat everywhere is IC unless denoted by parenthesis, and even that should be minimal to avoid disrupting the game flow. Any temporaries, inspirations, and power-pools should be justified in-character, as should character interactions and one's choice of missions.

Medium RP, as I see it, is just Heavy RP that's lenient about it. The rules are the same, but people don't get as upset if you don't follow them, and they're likely only expected under circumstances.

But again, this is just me, so the responses of others may vary.

I think people tend to use them less to commit their style to a certain level than to indicate what they're not looking for.

"Light" I tend to regard as just casual IC banter while missioning. Not in it for storycrafting or character development, just livening up the game a little with some personality and primarily here to play.

"Heavy" would be your in-depth types who have a better idea of the history, personality, and motivations of their character. Extended storylines, developments that may have nothing to do with playable content and are created and resolved entirely through RP, etc.

Medium I don't really see used other than in the sense of "light to medium RP" or "medium to heavy RP", like a way of indicating "I mostly just do a little light RP but I'm open to more involved stories" or "I prefer heavy RP but I'm also fine just IC missioning".

Haven't actually had anyone define their style either of these ways in conversation with me, so I'm pretty much just throwing out my thoughts on how I'd use them. It's also possible some people use light/heavy to refer to the themes they prefer to deal with in their RP: light being more comedic/silly, heavy being darker/realistic.

I agree with AlwaysAPrice. I don't think "Medium" gets much use except to indicate willingness to vary between "lighter" and "heavier" RP. I tend to think of Light as having a very thin or nonexistent IC/OOC barrier and little need to differentiate or establish channels for both, though. Maybe that's something like "Ultra-Light" and "Light" is closer to pickup RP.

Thanks for the responses guy. I was looking through the SG thread and various groups list their RP level as Medium or Medium to Heavy etc. So I was just curious as to what can truly be expected from such groups.

Light allows for OOC and the occasional break in character on or off of Local. Probably some development and background worked out for the character, but maybe no writing or extra. Most newer RPers are light, simply because it takes time and effort to become a heavy player.

In a SG light usually means a tolerance for the above. No one is gonna smack you if you break character or accidently meta game.

The Heavy RPer tries to never break character, they react to everything as the character would given the character's history and background, everytime. Players like "Killer Whale" or "Gibraltar" (who was a stone golum who could only speak latin) were acceptionaly good at this. As was/is Karnal Sin and most of players around her. I also have to admit, though I've only observed a few cat/fairy/innocent type charcter in the long term, an awful lot of them appear spectacular at heavy RP. It takes a ton of effort, and I've seen players slip from heavy to light as it got later in the night and they got tired or as missions got frustrating.

In a SG/VG this ussually means Local, SG, and private are always IC, there may be a dedicated OOC channel, but if OOC is used more then IC other SG members get pouty. Dedicated story lines are usually run in the game and out. It can be great fun in the right hands, with the combination of actors, writers and directors...it can also be predictable, boring, and a rightious pain in the ***.

I thought Heavy RP only involved gravity controllers.

Silly me.