Passive-aggressive emotes and RP

[Rakosi]

Can DMs start taking action against people using emotes in an OOC/passive-aggressive way?

For example; *She ignores the annoying, mouthy man* and *He thinks XXXX is noisy, so ignores them*.

It's obviously bad RP but more than that it pushes an individuals OOC perception of events onto the current RP, and rather obtusely reveals a players dislike of the RP/Character, which shouldn't be allowed.

In general, I've (and a couple friends) been playing less and less on this server because when I log in a larger and larger amount of players, rather than interacting with other characters or the current situation on it's own merit, just revert to snide or sarcastic RP, or worse, the above types of snide or sarcastic emotes. It's getting to be a really lazy character trope that everyone on the Sword Coast is an aggressive smart ass, and makes it a really toxic environment to roleplay in. Now, a character being a constant jerk isn't bad RP, nor should it be banned of course, but wow it really seems the majority are doing it. Am I the only one finding this kind of RP, when it's incessant, tiresome?

A month or two ago I did an experiment where I played, for one week each, three differently named toons of exactly the same character template (a very socially agreeable class/race combination).

The difference was that the first week, the character spoke only one sentence at a time, and emoted only simply or briefly. They were the most well received.

Second week, I typed using a couple of sentences together and mixed in some emotes, and this character was sometimes accused of being preachy or rude, but was mostly well interacted with.

Finally, the third character spoke only in big paragraphs and was universally hated and mocked, and lampooned.

The point here is that all three were saying the same stuff, with the same characterization, around the same other toons, and it wasn't like the 2nd and 3rd Toon were spamming chat; I made sure to slow down the amount of talking they did to make up for the larger content in each message. Really my conclusion is that a lot of players just get fed-up when a larger paragraph appears on screen, and really just don't want to read through it all why they're having their own RP. There's a lot of "TL;DR" tainted attitude that seems to be bleeding into the game and roleplay, I feel.




TL;DR- BGTSCC is becoming a haven of lazy RP?

[JCVD1]

I am often guilty of making OOC emote. It's to wink at a friend, or someone I RPed with for a long time. Unless addressed to you, you shouldn't be bothered by this.

Some people obviously do what you stated. Their aim is to let you know how they feel about your character. And I agree it's wrong.

The rules of the server says that RP is encouraged but not enforced, so bad RP isn't likely to be . Though if you feel harassed by OOC emotes and statement, then I suggest you report the faulty ones and they should be dealt with accordingly.

[Dagesh]

Long paragraphs, in their own right, tend to overwhelm and in some ways, overrule. What does this mean? A giant block of text demands more time to process AND assumes that nothing happened in between each sentence as it was being spoken. It can be (not necessarily) the difference between tapas and the steak that John Candy ate in "The Great Outdoors". People tend to have better conversations eating one over the other. It's not a matter of superior or inferior RP. It's a matter of allowing reactions between breaths.

As per the initial grievance of TMI in emotes, that's debatable and I lean toward the "emote mostly what others can see" stance. Others feel it's a story being told and emotes are part of that. Granted I do agree there might be some passive aggressiveness to them (ie "I don't like your RP so I want you to go away") but maybe it could be an opportunity to win someone over. Continuing devil's advocate (as if he needs one) if you think someone has gone too far OOC but using IC means, try and work it out. Some might see a forum post as passive-aggresive as well.

Disclaimer: I don't know the RP referenced in the OP so the above is unattached two pence.

[Kasso]

I mix my RP with longer paragraphs when explaining something, to short sentences when holding conversation. Honestly, that's just a matter of preference, I see nothing wrong with either since we're limited by what we can place on the screen anyways, there are differences in the typing speed of individuals themselves as well that might make is hard for someone to 'interject'. I think everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt, everyone should accept that others have different lengths that they enjoy roleplaying with, and they should be allowed to play what's fun for them.

As for the OOC emotes, I've always viewed them as being rather petty. When a player emotes an insult against another character, that character can't react to it at all, it's pretty much metagaming, baiting a reaction from the player of said character, rather then the character themselves. To this end, I've always personally frowned upon *Thinks Tari is fat poo-poo head* sorts of RP, as in my eyes it adds little substance to the story, and really comes off as a personal attack rather then something that contributes to a story.

[Synde]

I'm trying to understand what you want to say exactly. Do you mean that speaking in short sentences or breaking up a statement into multiple messages is lazy RP?

I kind of feel that message length is just a preference really. Personally, I prefer to use short messages, because, as I think someone mentioned above, it allows people to interject into the middle of conversations. I feel this more closely mimics how actual conversation works, but that is merely my preference.

Also respectfully, I would disagree with your assessment that all three of your characters were saying things in the same way. The amount of words we use inherently change the way a statement is perceived, because all words carry nuance and meaning. Of course it may be possible to relay the same basic information in 10 words or in 50, but those extra 40 words are going to change the listener's perception of tone, attitude, eloquence, and so on. Perhaps the extra words you were using made people perceive your character negatively. Conversely, not using enough words can also run a similar risk as you could be perceived as being blunt or rude for example.

In regards to emotes, I'll admit that I've probably been guilty of the type of emote you're talking about a few times, however usually it is only in response to situations that are so completely off-the-wall ridiculous or unbelievable that it has actually taken me out of immersion.

For example in a recent event, a DM made a portal to a market in Athkatla for RP and there was a character casting arcane spells in the middle of the street, but there was no reaction from any other players or the DM. I emoted something about being surprised there was no reaction from the guards or citizens. I didn't really intend for this to be passive aggressive so much as I wanted people to RP react to that player's actions. Maybe this was wrong, I don't know, but my intention was to create more RP. I hope the person didn't get offended.

One other thing I'd like to add about emotes is that, while I agree in the two examples you gave, the person is likely just being a bit of a tool, I think sometimes people describe non-viewable information in emotes as a way to summarize body language, expressions, and gestures that might have given you that information but would have been too cumbersome to describe in full. While you may prefer for them to type out all those actions, I think that brevity can be beneficial as it allows the flow of the interaction to continue, where as the long description can risk bringing the interaction to a halt.

In regards to everyone playing a sassy-mouth jerk character....yeah, there are definitely some tropes (Looking at you arrogant sassy sorceress). But we can't really dictate the characters other people play. It would be terrible if people could call dibs on a character concept and lock everyone else out of playing it. You want to play a swashbuckling pirate, because you just couldn't get enough of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean? Sorry, we already have one of those. While I agree it can be a bit annoying to feel like half the people you interact with are unoriginal characters with the same personality, we can really only grit our teeth and bare it out. I possibly have the the biggest rip-off Gandalf wannabe wizard on the server, but that makes me happy. I enjoy playing him. Everyone should have the right to roll what makes them happy.

My point is that I think we should all hesitate in using the terms Good RP and Bad RP. People have different preferences and use the tools available to them in game differently. One of those tools are emotes. Some people like to write out long intricate emotes about how every hair on their head falls and moves with each facial expression. Is that my preference? Not particularly. It doesn't add anything to the experience for me. But I imagine that, for that person, it adds a lot to their experience and is part of the reason they enjoy playing.

I hope you don't take these comments as being aggressive towards you. I merely wanted to give you another viewpoint and reasoning that you may not have considered before.

..OK, if someone emotes activating a lightsaber and using Jedi mind tricks on you, you can call it Bad RP.

[Dreme]

I've never seen this.. I am not saying it doesn't exist I just wonder if you aren't over playing it a bit. You even said you were "around the same other toons", which tells me that you are speaking of a select group on the server. That sounds like it should be something sent to the DMs, not general discussion. I agree though that this type of RP isn't good.

As for the long emotes and text blocks, I tend to type in text blocks.. I go into way too deep description on what my character is doing, not that my character "walks into the inn, shouts to the bar keep, takes a seat at the table, tosses the bar wench a silver piece, accepting the ale offered and downs it in a single long gulp". Obviously, other things would happen while I was doing all of that and I wouldn't give anyone a chance to respond. My character might "*she quirks a brow, forcing a smile as she shifts uncomfortably. A bit of sweat forms on her brow though the room doesn't feel hot. She runs her fingers trhough her hair and lets out a deep sigh before replying* Bla bla bla bla bla...." It's several actions, but all filled into a short 2 or 3 second window and telling that my character has become visibly uncomfortable due to something and the extent of her discomfort. This is a common thing for me to do, and I've never had any response that seem to me like someone was saying "tl;dr"

Edit: Actually strike that part about bringing this to the DMs.. I don't think it's even worth that much trouble. To begin with, I don't see the DMs as our baby sitters, that every time someone does something that upsets us, we should be bringing it to their attention like there should be a ruling against every minor offence. Secondly, I tend to just avoid people I don't want to RP with. It's easier to do that than to change how people RP. Lastly, it is possible that these people are just "bad RPers". Well, obviously we have already asserted that, but I don't mean it in the same negative way. I mean that, perhaps they ust don't know how to properly emote what their character is doing. Such as, instead of "*She ignores annoying, bad mouthed man*" a "better" RPer might say something like "*Her attention is drawn towards XXXX, after listening for a moment a smirk forms on the corner of her lips, she turns her attention back to YYYY, seeming to ignore anything else XXXX says*"

In this case, I am emoting my character's display of dislike towards said person. While I still mention that my character ignores him, it is to show that future words from him do not provoke a response, not to be OOCly rude.

[Dreme]

there are differences in the typing speed of individuals themselves as well that might make is hard for someone to 'interject'. I think everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt, everyone should accept that others have different lengths that they enjoy roleplaying with, and they should be allowed to play what's fun for them.

As for the OOC emotes, I've always viewed them as being rather petty. When a player emotes an insult against another character, that character can't react to it at all, it's pretty much metagaming, baiting a reaction from the player of said character, rather then the character themselves.

This is me, I am.. not a slow typer, but I am not a fast typer either and that combined with the fact that I enjoy writing long paragraphs means some times I will be typing a response to someone and look up to see by the time I hit enter, they had completely changed subjects.

Also, this whole thread made me notice something. I don't do OOC insults, but I play a lot of elves, and say a grey orc approaches me, in my emotes I call them "the orc", where as when I am emoting to humans, dwarves or such I often include their name in the emote. I think it is subconsciously intentional in that I am saying a lot about how my character feels about X person by simply emoting "the orc".

[stevebarracuda]

It's getting to be a really lazy character trope that everyone on the Sword Coast is an aggressive smart ass, and makes it a really toxic environment to roleplay in.

This happens when Characters live forever in a small sandbox environment. Players want "stuff" to happen to their heavily-invested Character, "stuff" doesn't, so the Character, the RP...the Player, becomes jaded, and the "aggressive smart ass" comes out...wait for it...to play.

However, I think you are talking about 2 different things—aggressive smart ass behavior and passive-aggressive behavior—and the later is not actually what you mean, in your first example.

Passive-aggressive is: "indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation, as in procrastinating, pouting, or misplacing important materials." Snide and sarcastic emotes that are OOC descriptive of an inner-character dialogue, meant to impose a label or type-of-being upon another Character through a particularly subjective and, I might add, altogether untrue emote, is different that being passive-aggressive.

Really my conclusion is that a lot of players just get fed-up when a larger paragraph appears on screen, and really just don't want to read through it all why they're having their own RP.

You probably just stumbled into far too much clique-y RP group(s), while doing your experiment. That has always been BGTSCC's problem, really. For years. But it is also understandable, considering Players tend to gravitate toward RP that supports their own Characters' motivations and the Player's desires to showboat or fulfill whatever fantasy desire to inhabit some constant fantasy personae.

We all want to have "our own RP." Who really wants to have "other's" RP?!? But I'm pretty sure that between the sarcastic, aggressive smart ass Characters and the passive-aggressive behavior you may see being perpetrated by a Player or group, you can find some exciting, group oriented and inclusive RP on BGTSCC.

Or, simply and kindly ask for what you want/are looking for with role-play, and see if some Players unbeknownst to you come forward to meet you half-way.

[NegInfinity]

For example; *She ignores the annoying, mouthy man* and *He thinks XXXX is noisy, so ignores them*.

Well, it gives you insight in someone else's (character's) opinion, BUT because your char can't read minds he/she could just continue whatever they were doing. Just ignore if you believe that information you see in the emote cannot be known to your character.

Finally, the third character spoke only in big paragraphs and was universally hated and mocked, and lampooned.

It can be hard to interact with people that type whole paragraphs, especially when they overestimate their typing speeds. Sometimes you need to wait 5 whole minutes (or more) for someone to finish typing a reply and all that time you'll be wondering if they're actually typing something or fell asleep on keyboard.

You can't interrupt someone mid-paragraph. So the best idea would probably be to give out one sentence at a time, which would resemble real life conversation.

Regarding your experiment:

Try playing antisocial, "loner" type character. The one that doesn't talk much and is not a "social butterfly". Fun times, because you'll most likely have one meaningful rp interaction per week.

[MopKnight]

It becomes much easier when you imagine that every character you associate with is having their own little scene with you. You aren't interrupting their roleplay. You are engaging in it.

So, do something stupid. Mouth off to a character about something you don't know, if that's what your character would do. Fall asleep during a meeting. Sit and watch something happening and let people notice you are doing it. Don't glare. Just sit and observe. Do things that are natural to your character.

Further, you can make it out that your character thinks someone is rude, but they have to appear to think they are rude. You can't pretend that someone is a mindreader. The only time I throw in a remark like that into an emote is when it is actually ME doing it, and its usually at my own expense, something like:

"Reine wakes up with a start because her player is an idiot and didn't get enough sleep last night."

Further, I might think something is dull if I am involved in it, but I will still make the roleplay interesting because if my character IS bored, her boredom will generate roleplay.

[Hitman Hard]

If I am ascertaining this right... long descriptive paragraphs represents a superior intellectual capacity. While I am all for long paragraphs because it illustrates RP fiery integrity and generally read such mental excellence on other RP servers... I think the topic question would be better reconfigured as does deep intelligent RP deter others from joining.... to the extent of being haughty and passsive aggressive?

[Kasso]

Also, this whole thread made me notice something. I don't do OOC insults, but I play a lot of elves, and say a grey orc approaches me, in my emotes I call them "the orc", where as when I am emoting to humans, dwarves or such I often include their name in the emote. I think it is subconsciously intentional in that I am saying a lot about how my character feels about X person by simply emoting "the orc".

I wouldn't be offended by this at all, it's abrasive, and sets a tone/mood that your character is projecting rather then direct insults. Your character looks at humans/elves/dwarves, etc as people, while the orc is... well, an orc. I would say there is definately a line somewhere, and it's far along, abrasive roleplay I'm fine with. Someone getting in Tari's face, being aggressive, referring to her as 'elf' etc...

Like I said, the line is crossed when people are using emotes for the soul reason of say, getting a last word, that you can't respond to in character, you can't react to it or your character wouldn't know it. Direct insults through emotes are where someone crosses that line. Not that I'm advocating that it should be against the rules or anything, but rather that I have limited respect for this manner of roleplay, and will avoid it when it presents itself.

[Empoweredfan]

If people are unpleasant to play with, they will find themselves alone. That I how things work. If you are not enjoying someones company, you avoid them, simple as. It is not the DM's job to tell people how to treat other people IC'ly, unless there are rule violations or metagaming. They won't do that.

If there is a problem, send a tell, and resolve any OOC issues before they become a real problem. If you get a snappish reply, then you can judge how you stand with that player through that interaction.

We are all more or less adults, despite the continual evidence we provide to disprove this fact, and so, unless there are real underlaying problems, we can resolve things peacefully.

[arakes99]

Speaking in paragraphs is okay in some situations, like when you are telling a story to an attentive audience but its very difficult to deal with on a conversational level. It takes you longer to get to your point, you are more than likely making multiple points, all which have to be contested individually by other people involved.

This is a mechanical issue that directly effects RP. In real life conversations there is auditory and visual cues we use to decide when to start or stop talking. Since that is completely absent from chat based RP, we must try and allow for the same sort of fluid communication to happen and the easiest way to do this is with quickly typed, relatively short sentences that convey a single idea.

Because if you are making someone wait 60 seconds to type a paragraph, that they then need to contest on multiple points in a flurry of responses, only to be met with another lengthy multilined response they have to contest on multiple points...... its really bad for fluidity.

You are in a way being preachy because mechanically it makes other players feel like they are being talked over. If you broke that paragraph up into 5 individual lines of test then someone could intercede in the middle and change the flow of the conversation but that is not allowed for. Honestly it's a fair response if that's the only way your character talks, imagine dealing with a person who would not stop talking until they had finished making complex paragraph like statements to you even when you tried to interject they just kept talking until they were entirely done.

It's a bad style of conversation given the correct context it should be clear why it would bother people. Now once you have developed a relationship with a person they will be more inclined to simply sit and listen while you make more detailed comments, but this should not be expected of strangers at all.

I think you pointed out a situation that can be learned from rather than a problem that needs to be dealt with. Emotes should be IC only and as no one can read your mind emoting a direct thought is not IC. Saying *SuchandSuch seems very annoyed by the endless prattle* However is a perfectly valid emote contextually.

[LISA100595]

Agreed with Arakes on that, no one likes to be RP'ed At.