Is This Roleplaying?

[Traab]

I got into an argument about my characters behavior in an MMO. Basically, the way I play him is, he is a massive flirt, has a big ego, and is constantly singing love ballads to pretty ladies. My friend is trying to claim that using rl songs is breaking the whole rp aspect since they dont have R and B bands in Norrath. I say it doesnt matter as long as im consistent with how my character behaves. Oh, I also tend to announce my theme song, that borrows heavily from this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jNwx3OPLOM&feature=related every time I enter a zone. :p Like I said, big ego. lol

[valadil]

It's anachronistic, but it's still roleplaying. Does he want you to write your own medieval ballads? Maybe you should criticize him for speaking English instead of common, elven, old english, or something else entirely.

[Cealocanth]

I think this belongs in either Roleplaying Games or Media Discussion. As for the OP, yes, it's RPing. It's RP to a level that many MMOers don't appreciate you doing, because the songs over the bandwidth steals the spotlight for their inferior text-based RP.

[AsteriskAmp]

Agreed with Cealocanth on all of his arguments.
Also, which MMO?
Finally. Crazy Awesome RPing in a MMO instead of mindless slashing and quest going, gotta try that sometime.

[Isak]

Agreed with Cealocanth on all of his arguments.
Also, which MMO?
Finally. Crazy Awesome RPing in a MMO instead of mindless slashing and quest going, gotta try that sometime.

Considering he mentioned Norrath, I'd bet it's Everquest or Everquest 2.

(Great games, both).


I'd say that's definitely RPing. Course, I'd always be the insane halfling who survived his run through Kithicor Forest and stumbled rambling into the Commonlands of Freeport... :smallbiggrin::smalltongue:

[DeadManSleeping]

I'd argue that R&B tends to be a bad idea, anachronism or not, but... :smalltongue:

In any case, it is not only RPing, but it is even proper RPing. However, it is not good RPing. RPing is a social endeavor, and if your social endeavors annoy those around you, then you're not doing them well. As fun as it is to have your own theme song, I'd suggest you cut back a little. People shouldn't have to mute their games to avoid hearing something that detracts from their gaming experience. While it may be "in-character", I believe Rich Burlew himself put it best: "Is this the ONLY way your character would act?" (Okay, that's paraphrasing a bit, but anyway). I'd recommend you find a way to express your character that doesn't make over half the people you run across cringe in disgust once they're made aware of your presence.

Of course, if there are more people supporting your antics than declaiming them, then I'd say you're providing more people with a good time than you're annoying, and you should keep at it. You can't please everybody, obviously.

[Mina Kobold]

I'd argue that R&B tends to be a bad idea, anachronism or not, but... :smalltongue:

In any case, it is not only RPing, but it is even proper RPing. However, it is not good RPing. RPing is a social endeavor, and if your social endeavors annoy those around you, then you're not doing them well. As fun as it is to have your own theme song, I'd suggest you cut back a little. People shouldn't have to mute their games to avoid hearing something that detracts from their gaming experience. While it may be "in-character", I believe Rich Burlew himself put it best: "Is this the ONLY way your character would act?" (Okay, that's paraphrasing a bit, but anyway). I'd recommend you find a way to express your character that doesn't make over half the people you run across cringe in disgust once they're made aware of your presence.

Of course, if there are more people supporting your antics than declaiming them, then I'd say you're providing more people with a good time than you're annoying, and you should keep at it. You can't please everybody, obviously.

But roleplaying is litterally just playing a role. You could be annoying as a flying glow-worm and still be roleplaying.

I think.

Anyway, I agree that it's probably a good idea to make sure you are not annoying too many people with it. Angering people is no fun. :smallsmile:

[DeadManSleeping]

But roleplaying is litterally just playing a role. You could be annoying as a flying glow-worm and still be roleplaying.

As I said, it is indeed proper roleplaying. Just not good roleplaying.

[Obrysii]

Finally. Crazy Awesome RPing in a MMO instead of mindless slashing and quest going, gotta try that sometime.

In World of Warcraft, my pink-bearded Gnome goes on and on about Gnomish culture, often making wild claims about Gnomish sayings (ones that are obviously from real life or even from other in-game cultures). He also refers to himself as "a Doctor" (he's an alchemist warlock...) and ...yeah. A lot of folks don't like him.

My Draenei girl, a shaman, constantly mentions how great the Naaru are.

[Traab]

It is Everquest. And the theme song to the zone is a sort of gag I do once upon entering, then never again. I dont get complaints about the action itself, just one or two people who try to claim that I cant use contemporary music and call that roleplaying since it doesnt exist in that world. I didnt go into depth about how I behave as it wasnt really relevant, but there is a lot more to how I act thats all together consistent. For example, aside from flirting with any women he comes across, he also tends to fly into a rage whenever a lady in his group gets hit by a mob. Ill go in full out attack mode, wether I pull aggro or not until the mob dies. Its ok because I play a human monk and can take the hits reasonably well in a regular exp grind group. Theres more but its not just a group of macros I randomly press whenever I feel like it.

Heh, I also have a halfling druid that i roleplay as being a warrior who had a "calling" and became a druid. He is decked out in melee gear, has haste items and all sorts of interesting things, and tends to bash things to death with his mace instead of nuking or dotting. Has an almost unholy love of killing giants. About the only spells he casts are buffs and heals. He mostly solos anyways so its not a big impact ong roups, but my guild never really cared.

[Obrysii]

It is Everquest.

Ah how I miss that game.

I loved sitting out in the East Commonlands listening to the auctions in the OOC channel.

Or my Iksar Warrior (or whatever that class was called), who could comfortably wander both the Wood Elf and the High Elf home cities.

And how could I forget my agnostic Gnome Shadow Knight? He could travel anywhere without fear.

[Traab]

Ah how I miss that game.

I loved sitting out in the East Commonlands listening to the auctions in the OOC channel.

Or my Iksar Warrior (or whatever that class was called), who could comfortably wander both the Wood Elf and the High Elf home cities.

And how could I forget my agnostic Gnome Shadow Knight? He could travel anywhere without fear.

Yeah a lot of the love for the game went bye for me after that infamous monk mitigation nerf, and then adding in the bazaar. I LOVED selling in the ec tunnels! I had suppliers giving me bulk jewelry for a discount that id sell for a profit, id buy high end gear off sleepy people who just wanted to go to bed for a great price then flip them for a profit. It made playing the market a sort of mini game where it took time to master and a bit of luck. Way more fun then the auction house or bazaar.

[Innis Cabal]

As I said, it is indeed proper roleplaying. Just not good roleplaying.

I would disagree with that on the premise of your argument on what makes "Good" role playing. I have been playing MMO's since UO and I can honestly say some of the most memorable RPers were the one's who annoyed me beyond all rational thought. The difference was they were creative and interesting characters despite being annoying. Good Roleplaying is a matter of opinion really so claiming his RP as "Bad" is of course your opinion, which you are fully welcome to, but it's not really fair to tell him it's bad just because you would find it annoying.

Saying that, ripping R&B songs and spamming them in /shout is annoying if you spam it. You aren't spamming it OP...so that mitigates that issue. Is it RP? Absolutely. Is it good RP? Well...we really can't judge that, the people you RP with are the only ones who can. But it's also not creative. Anyone can rip a song from Songmeanings or any other various website and type them in a /shout and be done for the day. Does it make your character intersting? Sure I suppose. If people know your name on your server because you do it and because of your character in general...then way to go. But I would still say that you could make a bigger impact if you wrote the songs yourself, or just changed words and things in the song to fit better into the world you are playing in. Norrath has plenty of Lore in EQ...the game has been going on for years and despite it's marked decline ever since Scars of Velious there's plenty of things you can warp a normal R&B song into something far more impacting if you use a little creative juice.

The real question isn't if this is RP or not. We RP every day out in the real world, as Keveak said Role Playing is just playing a Role. You have to do that every day when you wake up. The real question OP is if what you are doing fulfills the reason you RP. If it does, if you gain satisfaction in the knowledge that you are RPing and gaining some meaningful benefit from it...then ya. Go right on ahead and do what ever it is you are doing. If the answer comes up as no, your RP is not fulfilling the reason you started RP in the first place then maybe it's time to take a step back and regroup so you can hit it fresh. But RPing to make your friend happy isn't the way to go. Do what makes you happy.

[DeadManSleeping]

Good Roleplaying is a matter of opinion really so claiming his RP as "Bad" is of course your opinion, which you are fully welcome to, but it's not really fair to tell him it's bad just because you would find it annoying.

I didn't say I would find it annoying. I said that it was bad if it annoyed the majority of the other players. That is bad for any activity.

[Traab]

I didn't say I would find it annoying. I said that it was bad if it annoyed the majority of the other players. That is bad for any activity.

The whole joxxur the mighty variation I /shouted to the zone upon entry? It actually got me rather well known, it was always interesting to see who responded with a "TRAAB!" Much faster to press the hotkey macros than to scan the /who dreadlands list for familiar faces. lol Since I never spammed it, it was just a one and done thing it never annoyed anyone and it basically acted as a calling card.

Honestly, thats one of the things I liked most about everquest. It had a tight knit community, everyone knew everyone else. We even had a server message board where we could chat, and had an item called the Sh*tlist where if you got scammed, ninja looted, or anything else bad, you could inform the server, an unoffical investigation took place, and in the end if the person was found to be guilty, they got blacklisted and generally couldnt find a group with that guy again. And not even rerolling helped much as certain personality traits always bleed through in the end. It really helped me out once when I lagged out while showing a guy all the items I had for sale and hit trade instead of cancel. He got 6 backpacks full of mid to high end items and took off. When I reported him onto the list, he gave them back to me, plus the cash equivalent of whatever he had already sold.

[Samurai Jill]

It's anachronistic, but it's still roleplaying. Does he want you to write your own medieval ballads? Maybe you should criticize him for speaking English instead of common, elven, old english, or something else entirely.
Speaking english is an unavoidable necessity, but I'm going to have to say that breaking into R&B in the middle of a medieval-themed fantasy setting is not what I would call good RP. I might go so far as to call it painful.

I say it doesnt matter as long as im consistent with how my character behaves.
Everything your character does is by definition consistent with everything your character does- i.e, their behaviour. But if you want to get nitpicky about it, your character was supposedly a person born, bred and raised in Norrath, and therefore unlikely to be naturally familiar with the dulcet crooning of Marvin Gaye. So no, this is not really playing your 'role' however you cut or slice it.

I appreciate that not everyone wants to read dense tomes of background information on the setting before playing a character, but that much should be obvious.

If you want to try your hand at some actual medieval ballads, look, here (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/boeb/). (It's still technically out-of-character, but at least the tone's more consistent, and fewer folks'll notice the discrepancy.)

[Sipex]

I've always found restricting myself to 'what should be there according to medievil lore' is very dull. (Also, ballads and such tend to be very bland and boring compared to what we're used to these days).

If you can explain some of it away with 'magic instruments' (thank you Terry Pratchett) I think you're fine. I don't see people expecting you to compose your own songs unless that's really your sort of thing.

Spamming the song whenever you enter an area (or simply always playing it when entering) would be interesting at first then get old quick.

[Mina Kobold]

I've always found restricting myself to 'what should be there according to medievil lore' is very dull. (Also, ballads and such tend to be very bland and boring compared to what we're used to these days).

If you can explain some of it away with 'magic instruments' (thank you Terry Pratchett) I think you're fine. I don't see people expecting you to compose your own songs unless that's really your sort of thing.

This reminds me.

Why are we talking about a modern song being anachronistic in a setting that isn't even trying to pretend it shares the real world's history?

A ballad from the real world would be out of place as well, Everquest is not England 1230 so using a song by an English writer made in 1216 does not make it authentic unless it's in the game that an identical song exist there.

So just say that your character dislike what in the game's world is modern music and makes his own style and songs which happen to be identical to R&B.

It makes sense to me. :smallsmile:

[TDB Lady]

The bard I play uses re-worded modern songs. I love music, but am in no way capable of composing my own music. I take a modern song and change the words to fit the setting a little better.

For example: From The Beatles - Fixing a Hole:
He's picking a lock that holds the door,
and keeps his friends from wandering,
where they will go...

or

Strangers in the Night:
Hydras in the night, it's seven headed
Hydras in the night, we all dread it
Hydras in the night, someone light a torch..

My husband does this all the time with songs, and we have a lot fun. The other players in our campaign think it's cool to figure out what the modern song is.

TDB Lady

[Traab]

Speaking english is an unavoidable necessity, but I'm going to have to say that breaking into R&B in the middle of a medieval-themed fantasy setting is not what I would call good RP. I might go so far as to call it painful.

Everything your character does is by definition consistent with everything your character does- i.e, their behaviour. But if you want to get nitpicky about it, your character was supposedly a person born, bred and raised in Norrath, and therefore unlikely to be naturally familiar with the dulcet crooning of Marvin Gaye. So no, this is not really playing your 'role' however you cut or slice it.

I appreciate that not everyone wants to read dense tomes of background information on the setting before playing a character, but that much should be obvious.

If you want to try your hand at some actual medieval ballads, look, here (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/boeb/). (It's still technically out-of-character, but at least the tone's more consistent, and fewer folks'll notice the discrepancy.)

By staying in character, I mean I have a long list of behaviors, personality quirks, mannerisms, etc that my character sticks to and thats all a part of it. And if you really want to get nitpicky, NONE of the songs that exist on earth fit into norrath, so using medival ballads, or even just rewording the various songs to have a norrath theme wouldnt change that fact. I also tend to stick to songs that dont blatently reference things that cant exist on norrath. For example, Must Be Doing Something Right. There arent any words that dont also exist in norrath. On the other hand, if I sang I Can Love You Like That, there would be talk of cinderella, cassanova, etc, and that doesnt fit. So really, the songs I pick are no more or less appropriate than your medival ballads.

[Sipex]

Sounds reasonable to me.

[Whammydill]

You may be playing a role, but that doesn't mean it's roleplaying to me. If you are not playing a role in context with the world you are roleplaying in, then it's just anachronistic or down right OOC. Some may find it funny, some may find it clever, others may find it annoying, YMMV.

In my experience, I haven't seen actual roleplaying, even on RP servers in any MMO since I played Gemstone3 way back in the day, so I don't see why anyone thinks they have a reasonable expectation to have anyone roleplay correctly anyway.

[Supagoof]

I don't play MMO, but none the less here's my opinion.

You can't use Orange's to make Applesauce. You have to use Apples.

Let me explain....

Keep going at it. Because the question of "Is this music appropriate for the time perod?" is a question that will never be defined. Who's to say that a person walking around in that time frame didn't sing like James Brown when they came across a lady? You can't prove it didn't happen. Would Mozart be as popular today as he was in his time? Genius at music, perhaps yes, but for what style? Since styles of things, including music, come and go - who's to say that a style now popularized by the web culture wasn't existing back then? It may not have been well received because it wasn't the style back then, but that don't mean it didn't exist.

And to valadil's point above - maybe you should criticize him for not being proper as well. If there's a problem with using references of today to bring about the feelings your character is trying to relay, then the system your playing in is faulted from the ground up. You can't be "pure" roleplaying over the web. It's impossible.

I'll use the movie "A knight's tale" as an example. The producers of the movie used popular songs to get the audience into the feelings that would have been held, like "We Will Rock You" by Queen. It was used to bring the audience into the feelings that a crowd in that time would have in cheering and huzzahing. Similar feelings at a popular sporting event - in the movie's case a jousting tournament, just a different way to get the audience of today to wrap their head around it.

What you're doing is no different - you are using music to evoke a feeling. You have to use today's music to evoke those feelings, because using that period's music to evoke feelings created in today's culture is ridiculous.

Simply put:
Today's Music = Apples
That period's music = Orange
Today's feelings = Applesauce
You can't use Orange's to make Applesauce. You have to use Apples.

[grimbold]

I think this belongs in either Roleplaying Games or Media Discussion. As for the OP, yes, it's RPing. It's RP to a level that many MMOers don't appreciate you doing, because the songs over the bandwidth steals the spotlight for their inferior text-based RP.

agreed
MMO lost the RPG bit at the end because a lot of people do not really roleplay on them
while i think that it is rather funny others might not get it
RPing is dead in MMOs except on special servers

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

Barry White transcends time and reality. It's a well known fact that Drizzt Do'Urden played Barry White the first time he got with a lady. Also every other time after that. Similarly, it was through closing her eyes and imaging Barry White, as she listened to his songs, that Cersei Lannister was able to sleep her way around Westeros so successfully. Elric of Melnibone always heard "My first, my last, my everything," playing when he thought of his lost loves. Conan the Barbarian hummed "Love's theme," under his breath each time he hacked his way towards saving a maiden and/or getting drunk and/or conquering a nation. It was when Gollum could no longer affect the low, soulful voice of Barry White that the One Ring left him.

Other than that, though, I could see R&B being somewhat anachronistic, but it's not as though there is setting-specific music for you to play, necessarily, so I would just explain that it's a placeholder for the relevant music, just as English/whatever is for "Common" or "Orcish."