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A matter of perspective?


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I suck at words right now but, here we go. Trying to enforce something like that and make it so that players don't get forced into specific... ... jka bsbhjdf things, angles?, ends up causing everyone else to be forced into a specific thingangle, because essentially you can't force one group to do something. Or not do something as the case may be, so essentially this is a giant can of worms, and really is best left to member-level. And if one or the other is going to throw a giant tizz about it, then it's not worth fretting over. Because sooner or later, there'll be that other player that doesn't want to change their character's narrative because it suits them and what they think they should be writing based around what the character knows and understands, or whatever their rationale is. Doesn't really matter because you can't make them change their mind.

 

Even messier of a problem when it becomes a giant epidemic, but that's really just follow the leader behaviour, and might be easy enough to fix if someone else did something different. If not, well, still can't force people to do anything. -shrug- On either side. And trying is just a really, really bad idea. Tbh, ya dodge a bullet by the first other player, being the one that refuses.

 

... I hope that made some semblance of sense to someone. God. xD

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14 hours ago, Uaithne said:

The first is narrative styles. I always use a very third person limited, which means that my narration directly reflects my characters' thoughts and perspectives. Nothing is objective. But not everyone does this. Moreover, not everyone writes using a consistent narrative style, sometimes accidentally shifting within individual posts without realizing it. Sometimes they access information that the character wouldn't normally know, such as who is popular and the like. It could be that Jamie didn't realize that some people don't include this outside knowledge because, in my experience at least, most people don't stick to a consistent, limited narrative.

 

Third person limited! That’s what I was trying to describe. And yeah, I am especially chronic for shifting between omniscient/limited, but it’s not something that has ever caused an issue before. 

 

I wasn’t about to change the posting allowances for the whole board because one member insisted on strict third omniscient. 

 

What actually hurt the most is that Jamie went from being someone I talked to for hours each day, to... nothing. At all. Just because my preferred narrative style (and my relaxed approach) was not good enough.

 

I get that if it’s not your style, then this board isn’t for you. But... did they have to abandon me as well?

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This topic seems to be showing those moments when a little metagaming might actually be necessary to keep a character's personal narrative on track. You can't control how they think their character(s) perceives yours, but you can inform them of the important factoids that might inform that perception. If you're playing a character who is famous, should be known or should have a certain reputation etc. you should probably make sure that your writing partners know this beforehand. So, like most everything else in RP, it seems it all comes down to OOC communication. 

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I disagree with a majority of the responses here. Everyone is acting like they're being unreasonable, but I don't think that's the case. I can understand the frustration of the player when the character is meant to be popular then you have these people saying they're the opposite. Yes, your character was giving positive statements, but your character was also following the narrative that she'd established of her character being popular(ie. hero worship) where the other was not. That can be, when you put that work into a character for them to be one way, quite frustrating. There's a difference between character perception and just plain ignoring someone else's narrative. This can easily be resolved with OoC communication from Player A with the popular character and Player B who is perceiving this character wrong. Now, if there's some good reason Player B's character might've had this perception, then the issue is moot and you can't do much, but there are issues where this should be handled — just not by staff unless it hits a point where that may be necessary.

 

In an RP I used to play in and co-adminned, we had a player who played a Queen from of a country and she was well-known for her beauty, but then we had a player who didn't have his character think her beautiful. Now, in this case when she complained I pointed out that just cause she was well-known to the majority for her beauty, that didn't mean everyone had to find her beautiful and/or be brought to their knees by it. Individual character perception was allowed, but the player still acknowledged that she was known for her beauty just that their character didn't understand how others found the Queen character to be beautiful. This is a good example of both a.) still allowing character perception while b.) acknowledging the narrative of the person writing with you.

 

In another situation(on a forum I was on once long ago) there was a Were-clan. Players A & B wrote up the information on this clan, establishing them in the area(when RP was still in soft open, so were there early on) as having a good reputation compared to the clan they split off from in the first place(the old pack). Known for protecting the area and all the individuals of that community. It was approved by the staff, put into the lore officially as it was one of a few available canon clans for someone to take and given it had no info really Player A & B got to establish them. However, insert Player C who has a history with old pack and starts all this stuff where initially it's just lack of trust, but then starts with them posting untrue things. Stuff that contradicts what you can find in the write-up on the pack. Then they start up a watch group to counter this Were-clan and keep an eye on people and protect them". Player A & B brought up the issue and the player kept insisting it was just their character's perception until it got worse, and then the watch group's lore got posted which trampled all over the lore of the already established Were-clan. And then it came out that Player C had never even read the information. . . So Player A & B finally brought it to staff, got told that it was just character perception and that's allowed, and so they left. So while Player C was using character perception, they were not acknowledging the narrative of Player A & B at all since they'd never even bothered to read the information(though Player A & B had plotted with them, and another Were-clan player had an on-going thread with them) which undermined the narrative of a whole group of players and their characters.

 

I gave you both incidences as examples cause the first is what should happen in RP. Yes, character's can have their own perceptions, but it should not trample on the narrative of the other player. If in situation one Player B had said that 'he just like a large majority of the country did not find her beautiful' then that would need to be addressed cause while Player B is allowed their own character perception, they are not allowed to control the narrative of another player especially if they are working to establish that narrative. The second incident I gave you to show how this looks when someone tramples all over the narrative of someone else, and that communication should be encouraged, but at some point if staff have to handle the issue they should not just dismiss the situation out of hand. It'd have been different if Player C had established the watch group as wanting to keep an eye on things/the Were-clan in case they should become like the old pack which would be fueled by their character's perception of mistrust. However, this was not the case. They used the excuse of character perception to trample on the narrative of Player A & B, and the entire Were-clan(meaning anyone else in it), just 'cause they didn't really bother reading what they were being told by these players in plotting, their characters in threads, or the established lore write-up. Doing so would've inevitably altered the narrative Player A & B had established especially as more people came in unless it was handled.

 

I feel that your player who left was more in the situation of the second example, honestly. Just cause the other player's character had never met the person before didn't negate the narrative of the other player's character. There's a difference between "so-and-so had never met this person before, they must not run in similar circles"  (or something to that extent) and saying that someone's character was "the type to fly under the radar" — the first is a character perception thing, the other goes beyond perception and can alter the narrative of another character from what was established. No, you shouldn't have to go through and change every inaccurate statement or make new rules, but if someone comes to you with the issue cause they had already tried to resolve it themselves then that's a different story. In this situation the player that refused to rephrase when asked by the other player was being unreasonable.

 

I've dealt with plenty of people trying to trample on character narrative where mine were concerned, and it had little to do with character perception and everything to do with them either not reading my character, my plot posts when we plotted, or my posts in the thread we were writing and I don't let it fly when it happens. Had I been treated like I was being unreasonable, I'd likely leave too — and have before.

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On 2/20/2018 at 9:59 PM, Anonymous said:

I had one of those dilemmas where something small turned out to be something huge.

 

A member on my board messages me in a state of upset. We'll call this member Jamie. Jamie was angry at a post that someone (who we'll call Leslie) had put up for them, as it made claims in the narration of her post about Jamie's character that were not accurate (according to the Jamie). When Jamie talked to Leslie about it, Leslie explained that it was a difference of "character perception" and refused to make the change.

 

And this was all over a three-word reference to how present Jamie's character was in the social sphere of the IC community. Jamie believed their character to be very visible and popular, while Leslie's character had never met Jamie's character, and used that as a reason. When I read the offending post, I assumed that Leslie's post was a reflection on their character's perception of the social scene.

 

However, because it wasn't clearly stated as character perception, this was a big no-no to Jamie.

 

 

One would assume (because it's roleplay) that ALL perceptions, thoughts, etc. are In-Character.   But some people obviously can't tell the difference between fiction and reality.  And of course, they assume no one else can tell the difference, either. 

 

Sorry to all the "Jamie's" out there... but you're the only one(s)!

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