In want of Discussion, RP.

As my first "rant" post elsewhere on this board put me in a rather bad light, I've decided that I actually want to sit down and ask the community proper for a discussion based on "Roleplay" mainly with some things that bother me on Virtue. Now this post is not a rant, and I will endevour to keep it this way, I'm going to ask some questions and respond with what I think and look to you guys for your input.

A little about me before I start,

I do not consider myself a "Leet" player by any stretch of the imagination. I've been playing off and on since 2005 with one of two account. One of which is long gone and the current one only has one level 50. Along with a ton of 20 somethings, but hey that's what I get for playing to many games.

This want for discussion started due to me being really active in roleplaying again on Virtue, thankfully I've made friends, joined groups and had the privilege of roleplaying with some fantastic people. People that have forced me to step up and practice and really work on creating lasting and memorable characters. So shall we on with the actual discussion then?

First things First.

Pocket D
In the Lore for Pocket D, DJ Zero is a rather powerful mutant that can create tunnels and bends in space time. He uses his power to maintain pocket D and has gone to great lengths to keep it a neutral ground. Now here in lies the rub that irritates me so..

Fights in the D...

My opinion on this,

There is a power suppression field in affect here, and as this is DJ Zero's world/dimension/time-space it revolves around his rules, he is literally "God" here. You can do all the god modding you want, all the "I'm super powerful!" that you wish and it still falls flat on it's face. You are never going to out power the person who created the Dimension you are standing in, ever. "I'm an Incarante!" so what? DJ Zero is god here.

My question to you,

Is a rather simple one, what do you guys think? Do you think "So what, let them rp fighting, maybe Zero likes a laugh?" or "I agree with you on this one, this crap is annoying."

Number two.

The "I don't take level into account" Bio post..*grumbles* My first response to this is usually, "The I don't take your existence into account." Now I understand to most that this might seem a little harsh, but to me this paves the way to all manner of Power-posing and God-modding. When a lvl 1 brand new character can walk up to a fully IO'ed LvL 50 Incarnate and seriously say "I can kick your ***" it breaks things a bit for me.

I feel there has to be a foundation to work off of, I do not play my lvl 50 fire blaster the same at 50 as I did at lvl 1. At lvl 1 she was unsure of herself, new to the world, learning. At lvl 50 her powers and experience have grown leaps and bounds. She's no longer unsure of herself and takes part in situations that affect all of Paragon City. Should you solely take level into account? No, but it needs to be a foundation of some small sort in my opinion.

I know some people build the character before they place in the power sets, but I find it easier to relate to a character that has grown from the allowances of the game itself. A fire/fire blaster would grow differently for me at least, then a cold/cold one. So I'll leave this one here for more discussion as well.

Number 3.

The "I have powers that don't exist in the game" Bio quotes. Another source of frustration and grumbles for me, and yes I know by now you're probably saying "Stop being such a rules lawyering jackass and remove the stick from your rear." But seriously, does this bother no one? When someone you roleplay with says they have a power you can't visualize it breaks the immersion and understanding of the character, unless they are really really good at explaining it. This I pose an actual question for..

Do you, or do you not RP with people that have powers listed in their bio that do not exist in the game?

Number 4.

Last but not least in my wall-o-text post here is the one uppers. The "I'm immune to Psychics" types and the "I can see through your stealth" types. Those people that have to one up everything you can do and make you're character an ant in comparison to them..

This attitude annoys me to no end and I'd like to know how others deal with it. I've got more questions but I'll stop with this for now, and I hope we can actually have a conversation about these bullet points. I would honestly like to know others opinions and how they handle these situations.

-DR

Apologies...the title should read,

In want of Discussion, about RP.

-DR

Silver Gale is right; don't engage them. However, if they engage you, the answer to all of these points is always the same: "Ok, I look forward to seeing you demonstrate your superiority/other powers/ability to do whatever. Let's just step into the Arena so you can show me. It's right over here. Won't take but a second."

None of this crap ever comes up when I RP in missions.

If you happened to park your dude in Pocket D while you do the laundry or go poo and come back to find some weirdo rubbing up against you, I don't think ignoring is cool unless they're really obnoxious. They might just have a particular vision for their self-insertion fantasy escapism or maybe they just suck, so ignoring them outright won't help them. Indulge them a bit with some conversation and see if they're alright folk despite peeving your pets and if not, use social gathering conversation escape techniques. Something like, "oh my, is that (random name) over there? Please excuse me while I go say hello!" Or "afk house on fire". Depends on your immersion level I guess.

Personally, I don't really care what addendums people make to their characters as long as they put some thought into making it work for them. But I also don't hang out at Pocket D.

Hello!

First of all, i'm new on Virtue, i arrived two weeks ago from Vigilance.

I spent an awful amount of time haunting the Pocket D with my character, Vetal, trying to make contact with peoples, and maybe squeeze myself in a SG revelant to my interets. With not too much success overall (though i did make few friends at least! So it's not all in vain...)
At the very least i had lot of time to watch stuffs, and read many many many bios.


So, point by point...

1) Fights in Pocket D:

Personnaly i dont really care, peoples do, and will do, whatever they want. I cant imagine of any way to efficiently enforce the no fight/no power rule when it come to whatever peoples are typing. As far as my character is concerned i generaly stay away from text fights -ESPECIALY- with complete strangers (Too long, get confusing with more than two or three peoples involved, and with lots of peoples unless you agreed on the outcome beforehand, it's just godmodding duels) and since i dont really like the "new" pvp i apply the no fight rule and generaly keep a non antagonizing attitude, but that's just me.


2) Taking level in account in RP.

Oh dear where to begin...
First, you'll only very rarely see someone saying "i take level in account" who's not lvl 50 (preferably with lots of incarnate powers).

To me, level should be taken in account naturaly, it's simple, let's do a mission with a 50 and a lvl 5 together and see who's the strongest no matter who SK who. However it has its limits and cant be representative of everything. To me, level is only important when peoples hit the field, not in social occasions when peoples can say whatever they want, they have no mean to back their boasting anyway.

I take level in account because i consider the RP in the game as a whole. To me, the RP in Pocket D, outside of it or in a mission, is bound by the same "rules" My character is as strong outside the pocket D as she is inside of it or inside a mission, that's all. She dont suddenly become more or less badass, she's the same everywhere.

What make me a little worried though is why it's so much of a concern for some peoples? I mean... Is the power balance between you and the person you're talking to is that much important when you RP? For all out villains i can imagine it is but... Anyway, you cant really know until you see the person in front of you in action, no?

Then, there is peoples (of any level) who will put in their bio something like "My character is more or less invincible" and others like "My character can kick the butt of your invincible character.".
Now i avoid these like the plague. That's simple: first, they are godmoding their bio, which is... wow... Second, to me it's implying that your character wont be affected by anything or anyone, but will affect other peoples. It's so selfish that it make my eyes bleed... RP should be about exchanging, it's a two way thing, otherwise, could be just as good RPing in front of a mirror or something like that.


3) Powers that dont exist in the game.

Personnaly, it doesnt bother me as long as these power are entirely immaterial. I dont mind peoples making their power pass for something else vaguely similar, that's ok to me. (I do it myself, for Vetal, Ninjutsu is more like a "Psychicaly enhanced prowess" power, and soul mastery/void judgement is not outerworld darkness power but psychic manifestations)

Then again, to me RP in a social setting is not about what powers we have and how badly we can kick the butt of the person we're talking to, but sometime, it's an indication of the kind of player they are.


4) I'm immune to psychics!

Peoples dont want to lose control of their character, that's all. And some peoples may have a tendancy to abuse their psychic powers or use it as an excuse to metagame.
Even though, i find the quantity of peoples arbitrarily immune to psy borderline ridiculous. To me it's a mild form of godmodding, it wont stop from talking to peoples but i find it a little funny.

Then there is stealth. The problem of stealth as much for the RP as for the game itself, is the thing is entirely binary. You see through it, or you dont, zee end. That make it a little delicate to RP, personnaly, i just dont use it with strangers around, and if i do and someone tell me "I see you!" I dont mind but i'll ask a little explanation.

Which bring me to the heart of the problem with psychics and also stealth: These kind of power should be "collaborative" between you and the person you're dealing with. It's probably a lot more productive to ask the person her stance on the thing and what would happen, taking it easy and discussing rather than "I TRY TO READ YOUR MIND!" out of nowhere. And it should be similar for stealth.

It's all wishful thinking though.


In conclusion, to me the core problem is that -a lot- of peoples see RP as a one way thing. Many peoples are very attached to their character, their creation, they put so much of themselve, and so much efforts (perhaps too much of either?) and they dont want other peoples to put their dirty hands on it and leave their mark, i can understand and respect that. But like any social interaction, RP should be about exchanging things, sharing and so on in a climate of mutual respect (at least OOC respect!). And that include sharing spotlights and taking interest in the character with who you interact, otherwise the person in front is going to lose interest.

Yeah... Narcissism is the plague of RP.

That's it, i hope it wasnt too confused and confusing!

The thing with roleplay that a lot of people don't seem to understand...is that it's completely built on mutual consent. (No-one has any actual authority.) What we roleplay in game doesn't ACTUALLY happen. Sure we play through missions, defeat certain villains, get badges, etc. But the emotes don't actually take place. The events aren't actually real. Our characters histories are not real. Any stories we right didn't actually take place.

What makes these unreal things workable is consent. You can't really engage in any social roleplaying without the consent of those around you.

Pocket D fights are a perfect example of this. If two people want to ignore the game lore, and mutually consent to fighting each other, then they should feel free to. It's all pretend. There are no rules. (Plus, you CAN kinda fight in Pocket D due to the PVP Cage map. )

Pocket D
In the Lore for Pocket D, DJ Zero is a rather powerful mutant that can create tunnels and bends in space time. He uses his power to maintain pocket D and has gone to great lengths to keep it a neutral ground. Now here in lies the rub that irritates me so..

• Fights in the D...
  I believe powers are suppressed and will not cooperate with someone who wishes to start a fight with me in the Pocket D, although I won't complain about people text fighting with each other in the D, so long as I'm not involved and it's not too obtrusive.
  
  
• "I don't take level into account"
  Again, I simply won't cooperate with this person if they wish to start a problem. Although financial power and connections might not be covered by the level system. I'd most likely take it on a case by case situation. It hasn't come up all that often.
  
  
• "I have powers that don't exist in the game"
  It'd have to be case by case. I haven't seen this much myself and if I did, it'd depend heavily on the person behind the other keyboard.
  It's possible that they could roleplay it quite well.
  
  And of course if they're the type to have overpowered, non-existent powers then they're probably also the type to not be able to roleplay it well.
  
  
• "I'm immune to all Psychics" and "I can see through stealth"
  This one I can sort of understand. Some psychic people out there might want to take over your character and completely mind-frog them. Putting in a blanket immunity to psychics is an effective, though extreme method of countering this and, if they can pull it off well, is fairly acceptable unless they wish to extend this into the arena.
  
  Seeing through stealth?
  It'd have to be case by case. If the other character has a super-strong sense of smell and my character's stealth wouldn't normally hide their scent then, sure, they can track my location just fine.
  
  On the other hand, if they've a good sense of smell but my character's stealth is simply being super-uninteresting or some sort of 'fades-into-the-background' psychic ability that the other character isn't immune to well...they could smell them but so what? There's a lot of people here and they all have their own scent. And this scent isn't really all that fascinating. I mean, there's a guy over there who smells like cinnamon.

• Fights in the D

• I dont take level into account

• I have powers that don't exist in the game

• Immunity to Psionics/Stealth Detection

• People complaining about Pocket D

OK, my two cents on the topic...

• Fights in the D...
  While lore says it is suppressed, it is pretty vague and the arena is in there with a map that encompasses the whole section of the D... so, I take it as more of a consent thing. As long as it isn't foisted upon me or isn't too obtrusive/ridiculous, I tend to look the other way.
• "I don't take level into account"
  To me level has no bearing what so ever to RP interaction. Until a conflict arises. Characters don't have an actual sign over their heads with name, level, AT, SG, etc, so it should not have any place on how two people talk to one another. However, should someone decide to push things into the realm of direct conflict, then yes Level needs to be considered.
• "I have powers that don't exist in the game"
  Totally case by case. If the powers are simply things that add depth or cover aspects of the game not covered or limited by practical game mechanics(such as speed caps on travel powers), then I have no problem with it. Or if players have or describe their powers in different ways to add flavor or concept, again, that's fine as those are not things that tend to lend to godmoding/metagaming.
  
  Now, when people start having a host of powers above and beyond their AT/level to the point of being ridiculous or start getting in to the "I am a god and can alter the very fabric of reality on a whim!", I just walk away as that person is probably less interested in being part of a scene, than in dictating one.
• "I'm immune to all Psychics" and "I can see through stealth"
  This one is always hazy as there are game mechanics that can answer some of these questions/scenarios. Generally I look at it situationaly, taking environment, nature, actual game abilities, concept and the like into account. Especially in terms of stealth and the like.
  
  As for the immunity to "All Psychics", I just say a resounding "whatever". I understand the rationale behind that, but I also find it ridiculous when the character in question actually has absolutely no such defenses/resistances, because it cheapens someone else's abilities in favor of yours. I actually apply that to anyone who says they are "immune" to anything because no one is... highly resistant, sure, immune? No. People just need to exercise a little common sense, and common courtesy in cases like this.

• Fights in the D...
  Technically speaking, they shouldn't be happening. I mean, that's why DJ Zero has it as a neutral zone. But I take this as the sort of thing that's going to happen no matter what. The D is an odd little look at a quasi-society, and fights are bound to break out. "Hey, Futa X is macking on the angel vampire I wanted to get with; time to start a brawl." I tend to ignore them. In the case that they involve my characters without solicitation, I ignore them even harder. Fights are one of the reasons I usually RP on a tab that only has team chat, even in the D.
• "I don't take level into account"
  I handle this on a case by case basis. With friends and RPers I know aren't godmodders, then I don't mind at all playing out that my level 50s could consider their level 5s a legitimate threat. But if it's someone that has a reputation for starting stuff with low levels, then I just ignore them. I don't settle ingame disputes via PvP, so RP fights are the only way to do so, and I think a little flexibility in this department is warranted. Especially in a game that's so alt-focused as CoH.
• "I have powers that don't exist in the game"
  Case by case, but I'm usually okay with it. Especially if their special power "replaces" one of their character's power selections. I have a cowgirl that RPs her Rad defense power as tumbleweed control.
• "I'm immune to all Psychics" and "I can see through stealth"
  I haven't really run into many psychics, oddly enough. And the ones I've run into haven't been the sort that are like "Taking control of your character, kthx." I think saying immune to all psychics is basically the same as saying you don't want to RP psychic story situations.
  
  As for seeing through stealth, it'd have to have a good reason, I think. Sense of smell or tremorsense, or something similar.

((Fights in the D
Nope, I watch as all the attacks have no effect

Level
I like Eric....mm Ascendant's answer we really should do that the next time we have month. Or maybe Crom, that might be a good fight

Powers
Depends but yes. I play out vision power for an example of powers not in game, but the are passive. Retasking of in game powers for sure. Jack's powers are based on a singularity and gravity manipulation, that makes things like sands of mu and void judgement aspects of the black hole not darky dark force

Psi and Stealth
The psi thing, though not stated, is creepo defense and not a soils rule for me. Stealth if I see ya I see ya))

Fights in the D. Only of they are not using Powers. Of Course the fact that people use their powers and spam their powers in the D sort of make this rule a bit hard to swallow.

Level Differences All depends on my trust level of the other RPer. I have seen some really cool 50's who basically played it as if their characters were idiots, and the only way they would not be beat by a smarter opponent would be to get lucky.

Non-Existant Powers Well, this is one that if the powers are well thought, and not god-modding situations, I have no problem with. Heck look at how many Khelds are played as other types of aliens.

Psi and Steal While I can understand people using this sort of god-mod on Psi, I don't like it, cause you can always just ignore the person trying to use Psi to god-mod. Stealth on the other hand, should not be ignored. Not without consent of the stealthed player.

1. Yea fights happen a lot. As long as they are not overly drawn out and SUPER God modding, i'm ok with them. Or killing the bartenders, cause thats annoying. Had a fight just last night. My guy is ina way a god, course splash him with water on my firey character and poof, he can't even rival with super. Though the guy I fought with could easily see the weakness to my character (Thus to prevent God-modding) he had no clear answer at all to him, and decided to God mod just because he couldn't hurt me. Ok getting into a rant here so basically, as long as someone dosn't God-mod with no obvious weaknesses at all, I'm ok.

2. I do take level in account, but not extreme. If a lvl 50 is bearing down on me a lvl 46, I'll tough it out. If a lvl 20 goes against the lvl 46 me, I won't take it as seriously, but still serious enough. Anything below 12 I see as a joke for challenging me. Thats why we have security levels!

3. Powers. Never really interacted with them, but really I like to follow concept. If they RP Kinetic melee as wind, I see that as creative. I see a necromancer MM able to talk to a ghost's mind, I'm ok with it. I see a big super strength brute using mind control or a blaster summoning demons, yea, that annoys me.

4. Stealth and the immune to mind powers. Never made a mind immune character. Nuff said. Stealth is a bigger debate. I've tried the whole, let stealthy people be invisible, and they abuse it by getting some item I don't want them to have, without a fight or arguement. Makes my powers feel useless a bit.

Good questions though. These are the rules of RP we may never solve.

Frankly, I don't take level into account at all. I take character into account. Same with psychic powers.

My main, for instance, goes primarily with what the lore says- which means he's an ice-powered glass cannon who lacks defense.

He also has no protection from psychic abilities whatsoever, with the net result being that his constant (If questionable) friend, despite being much lower-level than him, can (And frequently does) pull all sorts of psychic shennanigans with him, including at one point possessing him to stare off a necromancer who was threatening him.

Note, my main is a level 50 (+1) and his friend is level 27.

On the other hand, he also can (And has) RP'd freezing people in ice. Even people who have "status protection" powers.

So yeah.

ETA: I've also got my own non-official powers set up to follow game mechanics whereever possible, and that includes with stealth.

He has the "Second Sight," and can't turn it off. It's a major feature of his personality and his character. It also enables him to see invisible things.

Except, for some reason, when those invisible things are his enemies- in other words, villains in a PvP zone, which are also the ones I can't see. In battles, his Second Sight is far too overwhelmed for him to pick out details like that, he's lucky to be able to keep track of his surroundings at all.

ETA ETA: Also, he can't See Natural or Tech powers, since they have little to no magical signature, and he can't See the power of the Well of the Furies, meaning any other Incarnates who use stealth are much more likely to escape his notice.

Someone tried to disintegrate me in Pocket D once, I politely informed him that I pay my tab regularly.

I pretty much try and figure things out with a case-by-case approach.

Any rule I could come up with... I may find I'd prefer to ditch, based on the person/people I may be experiencing things with.

• Fights in the D

• I dont take level into account

• I have powers that don't exist in the game

• Immunity to Psionics/Stealth Detection

I like how most of the complaints about the only non-combat zone are centered around people trying to fight.