Everyone loves a bit of IC drama. It creates stories, allows your character to grow and respond and can be fun to role play.
But there can be leakage of IC conflict into OOC if people are unable to seperate their IC experience from their OOC experience. This can be the start of OOC arguments between players and anyone who has played in an RP sim for any length of time will know what a volatile place it can be for drama.
I have a few simple strategies to deal with OOC drama or reduce the occurence.
1) Nip it in the bud.
Change the subject or end the RP if you get any negative vibes from your RP friend.
If you are uncomfortable with the RP, IM the person you are interacting with. It is likely that they are not aware or merely playing a role.
If you cannot handle someone's IC behaviour, it is always a good idea to end the RP and leave.
2) Avoid troublemakers
Word gets around and reputations often proceed players. I would strongly advise people to always see for themselves. Writing is very much a style and you will have people who like it and people who don't. But often, if all you get is a consistently negative description of a player, then proceed with caution!
3) Keep interactions polite and brief with someone who you suspect has OOC drama with you.
4) RP ban
This is not a physical ban. But rather a blanket ban of a certain player and their interactions with you and your story. If you RP ban someone, you are stating that they are invisible to you and none of their posts will affect your story. It's not a ban anyone can enforce entirely, however if a player repeatedly flouts this ban, it can be considered harrassment and grounds for a complaint. P.S: Muting helps
Playing a villian increases the risks of OOC drama. I've played antagonists before and really it is a thankless role. You need to be prepared for IC consequences for your actions. And some OOC ones too when people who want to be immune from negative interactions complain when you try to RP with them. But in an environment where everyone is on the same page, it is awesome good fun. Here's how to play a villain well:
1) Give the person you are RPing with, a way to get out of their situation
Some people don't like to be mugged or threatened or have their IC lives in peril. Give them a warning post so they can run away. Or stay and enjoy juicy juicy RP drama.
Example of warning post:
He eyed her with a lewd expression on his face, his intentions clear. He would take a step forwards to close the gap between them if allowed. Staying within arm's reach of him, was not a good idea at all.
2) Be wary of powergaming, be realistic with your strengths and weaknesses
Example of powergaming:
He roared with bestial rage, his muscles rippling under his clothing, showing off his immense strength. Even though he was a toilet cleaner by day, by night he was the super uber dooper gang leader who had his face hidden by this impenetrable hood and therefore was not recognisable to anyone during the day. Little did they know that he had a noble upbringing being the heir to the Roman empire and favourite son of Julius Caesar but chose to be a lowly plebian so he could slip in and out and be an AMAZING assassin of ninja caliber. He had killed many people. Mark Anthony, Cleopatra, even Darius, Xerxes and Hannibal. All of them succumbed to his deadly blade.
3) Be wary of godmodding, this is something that is often unintentional and related to sentence construction. Consider the following sentence:
He grabbed her hair and pulled it back, causing her to fall back against him.
vs.
He reached out to grab her hair and pull it back. If successful this would cause her to fall back against him.
The first sentence is an example of godmodding. As the writer has assumed that when he reached out to grab her hair, he managed to grab it and successfully pull her backwards.
The second sentence says the same thing but allows your RP friend to react and change the outcome if they wish.
METAGAMING
This is the cause of many explosions of OOC drama and the main cause of complaints to admins.
Essentially the definition is to exploit OOC knowledge in order to gain advantage in a situation or influence an outcome. Here are some examples:
1) Calling for help in an RP faction group chat when one's IC self is being threatened in an empty sim. And then have the whole group descend on the attacker forcing them to retreat. This was really annoying when playing as a vampire... seriously! The ultimate in this form of metagaming is IMing someone in a non SL messenger to log in and thwart a dastardly deed when there is no IC way of people knowing that there is a dastardly deed happening in the first place.
2) Seeing and/or hearing through walls.
Even though you are within chat distance, do not assume that you can hear someone's conversation unless they explicitly say that they are talking loudly or that there were loud noises suggesting a scuffle or someone was screaming or something to attract your attention so you would for e.g: enter the room or press your ear to the door.
To use information from this RP when you are outside the wall is considered metagaming.
3) Reading nametags
This is a double edged sword. Some people get mad when you read nametags, some people get mad when you don't. TLDR: Reading nametags is metagaming.
Here's the thing. Many gamers in here wear nametags which display names, social status and perhaps the RP group they belong to. If you are meeting someone for the first time, reading their nametag is a nono in RP ettiquette. For e.g: "Salve, Constantina Periwinkle Titaina, noble daughter of Titanus Magnificus Maximus. I am meeting you for the first time and my name is Dimmus Dummus." You can already see that post makes little sense. How do you know someone's name and other details if you have not been introduced.
SL has an added dimension to what is essentially text RP which is the visual side of things - the props, the costumes etc. So, if someone RPs that they have assumed you are so and so by the way you are dressed, and they are wrong, then you should respond IC. For e.g: You are a some highborn senator guy and you wear an outfit that looks like conan the barbarian. Some person who doesn't know you then RPs that they assume from your clothing that you are a barbaric slave. In this case, getting huffy about it OOC is ridiculous. Assuming someone should have read your nametag and therefore known this wasn't the case is unreasonable. Do this instead: Correct them IC either politely or witheringly. It's all good.
4) Using information obtained OOC to use in IC situations
This includes reading the transcripts on our website or being told information OOC by someone else.
5) Reading thought emotes.
Here is one of the biggest reasons for OOC drama. I am going to go into this in detail so you understand the thought processes when ultimately an admin is called into mediate.
Firstly let's talk about thought emotes. We all do them, they can be positive or negative. Sometimes they set the tone for your character, your responses, your perceived relationship with the other character and the scene. However, sometimes there is a fine line between using them for all of the above reasons and using them as a passive aggressive tool to insult someone without giving them the opportunity to respond.
Let's analyse the following scenario. Sextina thinks that Livia is a cow. Livia isn't supposed to know because Sextina is being hypocritical. Here are two examples of posts - one petty and the other, full of juicy IC drama.
Example 1: Sextina smiled sweetly at the big fat cow. "Of course I will help you my dear." And she made a big show of being kind and helpful in a way that was faultless.
In this example, Sextina has given Livia a direct insult but gave her no way to respond in any way apart from gratitude.
Example 2: Sextina smiled sweetly at the woman. She disliked her immensely and thought she was a big fat cow. "Of course I will help you my dear." Her smile froze on her face to some degree as she set upon the task of assisting her.
In this example, Livia has an opportunity to pickup that her smile was somewhat contrive and would therefore be justified IC in suspecting that this person might not be all she seems. And this will lead to more RP.
Now let us look at some responses to the above examples.
Example 1: Sextina smiled sweetly at the big fat cow. "Of course I will help you my dear." And she made a big show of being kind and helpful in a way that was faultless.
Response 1: Livia smiled back at the rude bitch. "Thank you very much." She replied. She received her help and even exploited it because Sextina was so rude and stuff.
This is metagaming. Livia was reading the thought emote and responding accordingly. While it was understandable that she did so, being passive aggressive is not explicitly against the rules, whereas metagaming is.
Response 2: Livia smiled back unaware of the simmering hostility. "Gratitude," She replied with sincere thanks.
Less gratifying I'll admit for Livia's typist. But this response acknowledges the passive aggression without actually responding IC to it. Also the best way to halt behaviour like this is... to nip it in the bud (see the top of this article) with a short emote that gives the other person nothing to respond to. The RP interaction will be over very quickly. If Sextina's typist continues with the passive aggressive thought emotes, then it will become very evident very quickly that she is just being a troll.
Example 2: Sextina smiled sweetly at the woman. She disliked her immensely and thought she was a big fat cow. "Of course I will help you my dear." Her smile froze on her face to some degree as she set upon the task of assisting her.
Response 1: Livia saw the frozen smile and frowned. "You don't have to help if you dislike me so much and think I am a big fat cow..."
This is metagaming for reasons I've already mentioned in the previous example.
Response 2: Livia saw the frozen smile and said, "Gratitude..." but a little uncertainly. She sensed a little hostility under the smile but dismissed the thought as being ridiculous. Surely Sextina was being a sincere friend to her. "Something on your mind?" She asked, innocently.
Livia here is picking on the visual cues that Sextina's typist has given her. She acknowledges the thought emote by writing out her thought processes, clarifying her character's position as being unsuspecting and curious. Then she gives the storyline a chance to continue by asking a question.
Roleplaying can be a really fun and rewarding past time but I hope I've been able to illustrate the most common pitfalls that can trip up even the most skillful of players. And remember, just because someone is a bad player, doesn't mean you have to be worse.
Have fun!
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