there is an on-going trend of people making their own corners on this forum. corners, as in, places where they spill their "wisdom", and share their "thoughts", and generally write whatever comes to their mind. as I am one of the cool kids, and as I, as it stands, cannot post my thoughts in the main Discord of our lovely lovely server (unrelated to racial tensions between polish and the rest of the world), i have decided to make this very thread, this very chain of messages my very own mean of telling people all around my unwanted opinions, thoughts, and observations that i formed, acquired, and made during my time spent roleplaying. and i did it for a long time. so, obviously, i must be an authority in this subject. rp, that is. i'll give some advice here, some potential, interesting questions there, and probably some of the worst takes formed over the time of my GC, WoWRP, and MCRP "career". this, by no means, is a guide, and you shouldn't follow my words 1:1, as i am probably the least reasonable person currently online. anyhow.
- The Ottoman Sofa -..or the story of one of my all-time favorite disputes, in any community, ever. you might ask me how does a piece of furniture relate to roleplaying scene as a whole, but fret not. i'll get to it in approximately two more paragraphs. or more, i never passed elementary-grade math classes. in 2021, when i was still banished from GC, i had already made myself quite the personality in the world of the ever-gracious warcraft roleplaying. it's like starbound rp, but instead it was conducted in wow. so, technically, it should be classified as "wowrp", not "sbrp", as the name of the game implies. in that wonderful community, one of my characters was your regular knight. you know. human, male, white, knight, bread and butter of all fantasy rpg settings. now- those who know me, are fully aware of the fact that im a massive nerd when it comes to military of the past. armors, weapons, architecture, you know the drill. and as such, i made this knight into a plate-wearing warrior, who constantly walked in a full suit of armor; no matter the weather, time, or location. your standard "crusader holier than thou" fellow. there was nothing wrong with that- a lot of members of the communities, guilds rather, also played metal shells without any personalities, such as myself. the difference between me and them, though, was that i always described my characters armor as decorated with a Turkish Pattern. the entire chestplate, from the front, was engraved with one of those; ..which, as you might've guessed, is called a turkish pattern. it's a geometric set of repeating shapes, blocks, and decorations of all types. now, the reason why i described it per it's usual name is, rather obvious- it's much, MUCH easier just to drop the real-life term for it than to go into a lengthy, exhausting description of what it actually is. same with how we call, for example, doors like that- it's the correct term to use when talking about it. now, the majority of the people i interacted with accepted it. they read it, they nodded, and went wow! cool! lore! engravings! etcetera. majority. except one. who, dare i say, had the biggest meltdowns of all time, or at least ones that i had the pleasure to witness. now you might ask me- what did he boil over so much that his spit turned into sea foam and his eyes popped out like he was a stress-reducing squeeze toy? why, my friends. he lost his fucking mind over the word "turkish". no, he wasn't armenian. he wasn't greek. he just was so. incredibly. stuck up his lorebeardy, all-knowing ass that he went on a lengthy rant as to how.. turkey doesn't exist in world of warcraft. literally. he called me, and i quote, a "miserable sack of shit", because i dared to describe something using a proper, real-life term. i didn't use it as a character sentence. my character didn't say turkey IC. i always used the term as a description, something that WASN'T spoken, or understood by people around him. but, apparently, that didn't stop him from blasting me from all sides. obviously, people called him a fucking dumbass for it, and most of the people quickly wrote off, forgot, and moved on from this convo. i mean- it's just the mention of the real-life place in a fictional place, it's not like turkey ACTUALLY existed in world of warcraft, on azeroth. well, most people moved on. except me. oh, no, i didn't move on, because i started dwelling- not on the presence of THE GLORIOUS TURKIYE EMPIRE in media, but on the use of such terms when it comes to rp. i thought, and i thought, and i thought. and then i remembered something- champagne. you know, the overpriced, fizzy drink for rich snobs. so, that champagne. did you know that only one brand of sparkling wine can be called that? i do. and so you know, too, i'll use our lovely wikipedia: so, champagne is a type of sparkling wine- alright, plausible, that comes from the region.. of France. it was called like that because of the region it was produced in. now this is strange. so does that mean that- as per the "turkish pattern" scenario, when any of my characters, or someone elses characters mentions it as their favorite drink, does that imply the existence of France, the entire country, in that setting? say, you are reading Game of Thrones, song of Ice and Fire, and one of the characters says they'll "drink champagne when they achieve victory". would that not, by proxy, imply that france- or at least the region of Champagne exists in that world? would that imply that there is a very specific valley, in which said wine is produced? does that mean that in the world of magic, dragons, undead, the most unrealistic thing is.. this valley? why, the name is a real-life term. so it must specifically refer to that place, and it MUST exist in one way or another. else the term for that drink wouldn't exist. ..and here comes the ottoman sofa. our beautiful, beautiful ottoman sofa. Tolkien, well-known for his series about midgets trying to destroy an engagement ring as not to enter marriage (idk i never read it), mentioned in the Hobbit book that, the titular character John Hobbit has an Ottoman Sofa in his household. Yes. an ottoman sofa. that name clearly implies that the ottoman empire, and by proxy, byzantium, roman empire, and italy as a whole, is a thing in the world of middle-earth. ..except not. because ottoman sofas weren't produced in the ottoman empire. their name derived from the fact that they simply were popular in that region; they didn't originate from there, they simply were so prevalent that people started affiliating them solely with that place. and it worked. it was easier to call it an ottoman sofa than "a rectangular sofa with quilter pattern on the top and low legs, used as a footrest". Tolkien seemed to make use of that fact, as this is exactly what it was used for- resting, well, feet. did Tolkien catch flak for it? nope. did people complain that it implied the existence of turks in the world of LoTR? no. and why's that? well, two reasons: 1. they weren't as dumb as the asshole who lashed out on me in WoW and 2. Tolkiens message at the beginning of the book. Why, books have words, unfathomable, unbelievable, uncanny! and what did that message say? That the entire world of Middle-Earth is not like our culture, society, planet and place.. And that he's merely adapting the message for us. He's not telling us EXACTLY what is everything, in each meticulous detail- he knows it would get tiring, it would get convoluted. so instead of being a sperg, he uses real-life terms for us to see the picture more clearly, without him going at length. that's why the big birds are called eagles- they aren't our earthly eagles, they merely look like them. that's why the humans of LoTR are called, well, humans. they didn't evolve from primates, they aren't "homo sapiens", they simply.. resemble us, to an extent, no matter of their origins. he just uses those terms to make it as simple to understand as possible. unless you read silmarillion. fuck that books confusing and now you might ask- why did i go on this rant in the first place? well, here come my thoughts, beware- a lot (and i mean a lot) of people seem to be scared of using real-life terms for objects, places, things, and actions because they are afraid that.. its not a thing in the setting. they go on the convoluted path to make it the most meticulous description that is just.. often much more confusing than the two words. "a geometric pattern of repeating squares interlocking each other, each turned right by 45 degrees, resembling how a chainmail links connect". that sounds powerful.. and tiring to write each time. so why do that, when you can simply say "its a turkish pattern"? it does the same job.. faster. we're not some stuck up writers, some massive assholes who are going to eat people alive for just saying "rose red" to describe a color, when roses don't exist in that setting for one reason or another. we just say that because it makes sense.
- The Egg Method - you read the title correctly. this will be a short, easy story as to how i, the person writing this post, managed to get better at RP with a cooking utensil related to eggs. as you all know, or maybe will learn in the next sentence, i used to be banned from gc. exiled. for crimes i didn't commit and things i have not said. do not look up my logs, they are fake, made up stories created to make me look bad. don't trust anyone on this matter. during that time of being away, i did wowrp. yes. shocker. it's not like i mentioned it a dozen of times already . besides the point. it was alright at first. i made a character, i wrote up a basic backstory, some personality bits, so on so forth. within four minutes of naming my character proper, i was in the game. wowee! warcraft rp! so interesting! so cool! so many people! it took me twenty-seven minutes to be dragged into a guild. like, a guild of roleplayers. think of it as a corporation discord on GC where people know each other, make their own thing, but still within a bigger canon. so, you might ask, what is so special about said guild. well- it was a military-themed law enforcement group that mostly played as guards and grunts out to do tasks around the capital. pretty cool, pretty cool. that guild was a part of a bigger group of people. there was around 890+ active players in said group. all of them were divided into smaller guilds. man. that was fucking insane. but, besides the point. seeing how the place was massive, you get nervous. especially when you're new. so, what do you do when you're new and nervous? you fuck up. a lot. often. in many places. like me! i cannot count the amount of fuckups i had in the first week; enough to make some people dislike me already. which wasn't a good look for a newbie, like myself. it was bad enough that the guild master of the guardsfolk stepped in, in my dms on discord, and started talking to me. now this fellow, call him grugs, wasn't your usual college kid wasting afternoons. nor a young adult. nor nothing like that. grugs, today, is probably 43. an absolute beast when it comes to age, and more importantly, experience. and some experience he shared. so, he goes into my dms. classic. he asks me how my day was, yadda yadda. i know the drill, probably will get removed, classic, will move on in a week. but, no. grugs asks me, with a straight face, without hesitation, if i own any egg timers. egg. timers. these fucking things. i am confused to shit and back. maybe even more. in my panic, i ask him what the hell does he mean. and grugs simply answers that i type out my responses too fast. i write too fast, i click enter without thinking, and i literally dont double-check what i just wrote. so, he asked me to get myself an egg timer. and each time my character does an action- i finish writing it out, but before i hit enter- i grab the egg timer. i crank it to two minutes. one, if it's a super short response. four when it's a lengthy one. and i read. and read. and read. and read over what i typed out. looking for typos. asking myself if all of it makes sense. if not, i correct it. reset the timer. go at it again. i check if all the things i wrote are in character. i do that again. and again. and again. and god damn shit worked by just spending ((((2)))) minutes proofreading my messages, i saved myself hours of embarassment, failrp, and fucked up shit that would stem from me speedruning roleplay. once i heard that ding, and once i was sure there was nothing to change, i hit enter. and the amount of positive responses i received skyrocketed. at once, my writing wasn't shit. and was actually passable. i used this method for good six-seven months, few times a week, until i got to the point where i timed myself, without need of any accessories. therefore, grugs, you are a real G
hehehe hahaha i did not forget about this. i am getting drunk tonight therefore i won't put much effort into it - The W(in), the L(oss), and the C(ringe) - good morning chums this is your captain speaking with yet another useless fucking spergout on this shitty internet turn-based erotic-novella writing simulator. today i will talk about winning, losing, and cringing in rp. i am most familiar with the last one. i won't even try to give you any cool and epic openings and introductions to this one, so i'll get straight to the point. everyone loves to win. everyone loves to be the victor. to be the cool guy on the block. to be the guy who absolutely curbstomps a new player in crp because of your 8 paragraphs of your character doing frontflips and anime bs so the poor guys brain gets fried and thinks "wow this server fucking sucks", everyone just loves being THAT guy. anyway, yeah, whatever, being right about everything, being the best, your characters just being walking encyclopedias of knowledge and in-universe lore that can be opened and closed each time any question is presented, with them jumping out of the line and reciting a word for word response from wikipedia is badass, but you know what else is fucking badass? being wrong about things. that's right. my rp advice is to deliberately make your character take an L every now and then. like, you, ooc, the player, knows the most correct answer to the situation, but your character, ic wise, doesnt, so you make them say the most outlandish and incoherent mess of words imaginable, just so that they would get pointed out and corrected by other people. now you might ask me "panky wanky where is the fun in not being the smartest man alive? dumb guys get no bitches ! ! !" and all that but allow me to say this. it's more fun to be wrong. it gives you so much more depth, because think to yourself; how many times did you, irl, embarass yourself because you said something you were so sure of, but got owned repeatedly afterwards? i'm not talking about your character not knowing who the current grand protector of haven is, or who the general of atlas is, or who was syed al quiche von hohenstein bin kebabi etc; i'm talking about shit like not knowing the chronology of particular events. not knowing how big black empire truly is. not knowing guns. not knowing armor. being super wrong about alcohols. about tech. about sciences. it creates some more depth to your chars, and proves that even the smartest people are often also dumbasses in some fields, and it gives other people a chance to correct them ic. create some interactions. create some drama. create some tensions, some bitter hate because how dare they be right and i'm not. all that shabazz that would stem from the fact of being corrected in something so mundane and insignificant. that was the W, that was the L, and nows the C DONT BE AFRAID OF YOUR CHARACTERS SAYING CRINGY SHIT!! if you, irl, would groan audibly at a response that someone gave to your prompt, you should think whether or not it was deliberate. most of the time, people say dumb stuff because they dont even think about it. idiotic sentences, moronic responses, general things that make you wince as soon as you process what was said. its, and let me make it perfectly clear based to be cringe your characters dont have to be perfect people who never slip up. your characters dont have to be constant pro comedians who never ever miss a joke or whiff a punchline. your characters arent perfect, shouldnt be perfect, they should say, do, think of dumb shit, because thats how they would react to it if they were real. its epic and badass to be right, but its badass to be able, with full confidence, to let your chars be idiots every now and then, as we all sometimes allow ourselves to be irl. more thoughts next week remember to send me hatemail on my discord else it clogs up my forum mailbox.
addendum to the previous post because i'm mentally incapable of writing everything at once if you win, don't rub it into someones face. dont post it everywhere, dont talk about it constantly ooc, dont treat it like its the biggest achievement of your life. this is a mass-writing collaboration project of fanfics related to the story of the downfall of the yugoslavian empire in space, not some oxford university where every tiny bit is something to celebrate. taunting and mocking the enemy you felled ic? that badass. constantly talking about owning another character ooc or shitting on another player for losing or otherwise being unable to win ever? youre a shithead. fuck you
