If you haven't read the first part of the column, I advise you to do so first, but let's recap just in case. The goal here is to provide tips to help reduce real-world drama and minimize hurt feelings spilling into the real world. I don't claim that this will be in any way a cure-all, but these tips should at least help reduce the odds of screaming matches that scare you off roleplaying for good. Everyone on the same page? Then let's move on to the second half.
6. Be ready for challenges.I have a theory that goes something like this. Let's say your job is assembling doohickeys, and on a normal day you assemble about 80 of them. Your boss tells you one day that next Tuesday, you're going to need to assemble 120 of them and you're not leaving until that many are done. That's going to be a pretty bad day -- but it's not going to be nearly as bad as the day when you come in and get told that you need to assemble 100 doohickeys before you get to leave. Sure, the latter scenario is less overall work, but the big difference is that you weren't expecting it and hadn't steeled yourself for the jump.
Put more simply, our tolerance for challenges scales to our expectation of those challenges. If we know a bunch are around the corner, we get ourselves ready -- but when we get blindsided, we're angrier.
Roleplaying has its fair share of challenges, and as I've mentioned before, the only real reward is the experience. That means that if you start to get annoyed over the work involved in getting roleplaying to happen, you have by definition already lost out on the big reward. So you need to prepare yourself ahead of time for all of the things that could go wrong. That includes technical aspects (people don't show up on time, someone's computer crashes partway through, the event starts late, someone forgot the quest to get into the area) as well as the actual roleplaying aspects (someone in the group is new to roleplaying and acting disruptive, two players had a falling-out in real life and are sniping at each other in-character, the event turns out to be much slower than you'd expected).
That doesn't mean that the issues are going to become easier to deal with -- but when only two bad things happen out of the 20 you prepared for, you're going to feel like you really dodged a bullet. You'll be mentally ready if nothing else.
 "To be fair, sometimes that's going to ratchet things down a couple notches inadvertently... but hey, this is about avoiding RP drama. Sometimes, that means setting limits on the stakes of a given exchange."  |
It's good to know your characters, even if they will easily start to surprise you. (Something that happened to me this weekend, as a matter of fact.) But it's also good to know yourself. Because whether you like it or not, the person behind the character is still you, and the things you do and the ways you feel are going to come back to hit you later on.
There are obvious parts of this, naturally. If you're tired and cranky when you log on, odds are good that your characters are going to default to being a bit more edgy than normal. If you're feeling stressed, it's more likely that you'll take even minor incidents to heart. This is the sort of stuff that you don't want to be in charge of your roleplaying, but for better or worse it's there, and ignoring it is only going to make your life worse in the long run. Far better to recognize that yes, you're a bit tired and cranky, so you probably should avoid events that are going to make it worse.
Know the sort of events that interest you, the sort of roleplaying that interests you, the sort of group dynamics that interest you. Maybe you see the characters you roleplay with as akin to the cast of Lost, with shifting allegiances and romantic undertones and a lot of personal introspection. Or maybe you see the cast as closer to the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where everyone is more or less on a fixed side from beginning to end, with a much heavier emphasis on personalities working together than on conflicting goals and views. There's nothing wrong with either, but you should understand where you're coming from and what you're looking for.
Similarly, keep your environment and situation in mind. Maybe you're in a relationship in the real world where your partner is really jealous of anything that smells like infidelity. That puts the kibosh on roleplaying romance with anyone else. You might be in a place where your computer use is going to be in a public location, which means that you should keep it appropriate for your potential audience. Know yourself and your situation rather than getting shoehorned into situations where you aren't going to be comfortable.
8. Have a release valveI can't speak for everyone here, but I'm fairly method when I roleplay. If my character is tied up and helpless, I'm stuck in the mindset of helplessness and fear while I'm in that scene. The result is some great roleplaying, but it also means that there are times when I'm knee-deep in some very emotional waters. ANd as I've said several times before, the biggest thing that can lead to drama is real emotions mingling with character emotions and overriding any more sober impulses.
Thankfully, there's an easy answer. Specifically, a pair of parentheses to indicate OOC chatter.
Obviously, every guild and group has its own views on what sort of OOC is appropriate in a given situation, but the core of this isn't specifically that you talk out of character so much as the fact that you have some way of stepping back. Maybe you find it easier to never step in in the first place, and that's fine. Maybe rather than OOC it helps you to talk with someone else in person at your house, or turn the television on, or even just pet your cat. (I've met far more roleplayers with cats than with dogs. I couldn't tell you why that is.) Whatever the case, it's important for you to have that valve, not to take you out of the scene, but to allow you a release of some of the building pressure.
To be fair, sometimes that's going to ratchet things down a couple notches inadvertently... but hey, this is about avoiding RP drama. Sometimes, that means setting limits on the stakes of a given exchange.
9. Don't dictate, demonstrate.
If you have a roleplaying group, in real life or in an MMO, your group will eventually acquire the Kid. And the Kid is often the source of roleplaying drama and will be used for this example, because I've seen it happen before.
See, the Kid is enthusiastic. He understands what roleplaying is, and understands it beyond the element of talking in character. He's friendly behind the scenes and really excited about having his first character involved with a larger group of people. The problem is that when you actually look at his character... it's bad. It's a pop-culture pastiche of cliches or a transparent copy of an existing popular character, with the names changed and a few irrelevant details added.
It's not that the Kid is a disruptive roleplayer overtly, it's that he just has a subtle influence where he robs any event of its full impact. He doesn't quite get what he's supposed to be doing, he's a bit too fond of OOC chatter at all times, he wants to take events in totally different directions than intended... he's not bad, he's just clearly new at this. The urge is to take him to one side and explain to him how he's being disruptive, because he's making things less fun for everyone else.
The problem is that no one ever likes unsolicited advice. No matter how well-meaning or right it may be, you will never get far by telling someone what they're doing wrong unless they've come to you asking first.
In the best-case scenario, the Kid will likely throw a minor fit at you and leave, causing some bad blood to stir and starting a minor incident of drama. In the worst case, he'll start talking to other people behind your back about how you were mean, which will in turn start more backroom conversation, which will in turn snowball until all of the cloak and dagger is happening in the actual guild rather than via storyline events. That's the sort of drama that you want to avoid in the first place.
No matter how much you might want to, do not start giving advice about the correct way to roleplay. (In specific terms, that is; I recognize the implied hypocrisy in that statement.) Show, rather than telling. If the person in question wants to be better at roleplaying, then he or she will come to you with questions. I try to discuss my own technique and see whether or not I'm being disruptive myself on a regular basis, and I've been roleplaying for years.
Of course, you could have someone in the group who is just a genuinely disruptive influence. There are other people coming around to his way of roleplaying, and you really dislike it. Which brings me to my last point.
10. Take breaks when you need them.Sometimes, you need a break. Maybe you need a break from your group, maybe you need a break from the game -- maybe both of the above. At that point, you owe it to yourself to take that break.
Maybe it'll be for a week. Maybe it'll be for a month. Maybe it's forever. But if you know you need to stop playing, then for the love of all that's good, why are you still in the thick of things?
You can say that other characters would be affected by your sudden departure. You could claim that it would be unfair to your friends. You could claim that maybe you're just tired with one aspect of the game or your current group of roleplayers. But despite all of that, no matter what justification you use, the fact of the matter is that when your brain is telling you to take a break, it's because you aren't having fun and you're feeling more miserable.
Logging in and feeling miserable is not the sort of thing that leads to good roleplaying, if you'd somehow missed it.
Roleplaying is not theatre. There is no rule that the show must go on, and if you're tired, you should take a break. The game will continue and odds are good your group will continue just fine when you're not there... perhaps forever. It might very well be that you no longer wish to be a part of the same group as before, that you don't have the same goals any longer, or that you just don't find yourself interested in the same plotlines that the majority of the guild or group is intrigued by. That's fine. Let yourself leave, because sticking around when you aren't having fun is -- well, you read the article.
As always, comments, opinions, and shouts of dissent are welcome in the comments below or via mail to eliot@massively.com. Next week, in light of three days of absolutely savage trauma being witnessed on one of my characters, I'm going to write about how roleplaying completely breaks the mold of what MMOs are usually about... in the most awesome way possible.
Every Friday, Eliot Lefebvre fills a column up with excellent advice on investing money, writing award-winning novels, and being elected to public office. Then he removes all of that, and you're left with Storyboard, which focuses on roleplaying in MMOs. It won't help you get elected, but it will help you pretend you did.
