Passive-aggressive emotes and RP

[Hitman Hard]

To be specific... I mean emotive creativity. In dialogue it goes both ways.

[Wolfshear]

While I have a tendency to occasionally type large paragraphs I can usually type it rather fast most of the time at least. And I do try to leave long gaps in between to give others the chance to talk.

But as to the original topic of weird and pretty much ooc insults towards people, I've encountered it many many times over the years ive rped in many games. It honestly feels like a cheap way to have a dig at a person and get away with it.

It does not serve to enhance the atmosphere or the rp in any way. Typically it isn't even described as being a character's thoughts but rather a direct insult in the emote itself. "Such and such looks upon the irritating and foolish individual" type stuff. And that's just a pretty tame example..Usually the emotes are oodles more colourful.

The amount of times I have encountered this make it a pet peeve of mine. I tend to play particularly abrasive or rude characters..So it is natural that others will want to insult or that I might want to insult others icly. But it should always be done icly or not at all honestly.

Would asking for a k.o.s rule on people that do this be too much? No but seriously I want to set them on fire.

[arakes99]

Even the very high quality RP one might find on ALFA or the such is mostly conversational in nature. The length of your statements has nothing to do with the quality of your RP.

Good RP is RP that gets other people involved, and especially immersed. If you aren't having that experience with anyone then I think you likely need to make some adjustments as its really hard to Role Play meaningfully by yourself.

I agree Sel, if there is anything other then a physical description in the emote then its not an emote and its basically gone OOC. Including a contextual hint for the characters physical response is fine, but such hints should not be insulting in and of themselves and descriptive of another character. If you are doing that, you are insulting people OOCly which is against the spirit of the rules at the least.

[Hitman Hard]

I hope that wasn't directed at me Arakes. It was VAliant of Bane that educated the masses about unfair taxes in Beregost. It was Valiant of Bane who made Eldarians hero status possible. It was Valiant of Bane who ran a highly inclusive campaign against the RH leadership. It was Valiant of Bane who...

[arakes99]

The part about the length of paragraphs was in fact aimed at you

Or at least your point, but I think in your case you aimed at being disliked, if you want to talk over people to make them dislike your character that's just a tactful RP, not poor conversation. I often recall Valiant being intentionally gruff and aloof to people. I can only assume it was intentional.

[Grimcheese]

As other people have already mentioned, most RP is "conversational" RP, which doesn't lend well to huge paragraphs of text, both for the pacing (because who wants to wait five minutes between replies?) and that people can interrupt or alter a conversation going on and your text needs to be able to accommodate. I'm all for chunky paragraphs of text, but it's important to know when to best use it; an example would be performing/narrating on the stage of the White Mask, where the audience is specifically looking for something to engage their interest and won't interrupt you in doing so...most of the time.

This is what RP with one person who types large blocks of dialogue would probably sound like:

"Right. Sir Galuin, mind if I borrow your nobleman for a moment--"

"I am not a spare wheel to be loaned!" Torin sputtered.

"--I have an idea, and he might still be of use--"

"I will let my sister know of this!"

"--I really wish I knew of your lord's talents sooner; it would have made things easier--"

"You will not be paid a copper piece if you continue to act this way!"

"--provided he is willing to cooperate, if we plan to be away from here before night falls."

Torin was trying his best to get a word in, but the narrator already had the block of text out and nothing was going to interrupt that.


I'll probably give a thought of mine out for a trot while writing this...


Length and eloquence does not always mean quality. I often compare descriptive writing to seasoning: A modest amount will make otherwise bland food/writing immensely flavourful and engaging, but overdoing it will overpower the original taste/text that it was initially intended to enhance, and it requires some practice to know if the food/writing really needs the seasoning, or if it's just better to leave it as is. Writing that leans heavily towards excessive verbosity, with little chance for the other party to catch a breath, is as much a detriment as subject-verb(-object) IKEA text.

Of course, you can break whatever rules you like if the writing is IC/done by the character; just take a look at Sparrow's letters. As a player, though, keep in mind that most RP done is in conversation, and brevity of text is done to simulate the tendencies of conversations to change or be cut off as much as "lazy" RP.


EDIT: Characters being witty jerkwads is an old trope, but not really DM-attention worthy. Better to either RP them into making them less abrasive (either to you or your character), or look for other characters if the ones you are with are truly that intolerable, because I assure you, not everyone has sarcasm tucked up their sleeve.

[Hitman Hard]

...yes I just need my antiangst pills atm. Haha. Fighting the urge to vomit out profanity IRL.

[Deathgrowl]

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

Probably not. The OOC way I can understand you object to, but the "passive-aggressive" can be an IC thing. Would you ask them to make people stop playing "passive-aggressive" characters?

I would also like to address your two examples:

*She ignores the annoying, mouthy man*

If the man is annoying and mouthy, and the character emoting this would like to ignore said annoying and mouthy man, is this emote in any way problematic?

*He thinks XXXX is noisy, so ignores them*.

I can see why you'd object to this emote: It expresses thoughts, which some percieve as metainformation. In my opinion, it's fine. I don't RP reactions to people's thoughts, anyways. But it can be fun to see how the character thinks even if it's just an OOC fun.

Now, maybe I've misunderstood what you mean here. Because I'm quite guilty myself of making what you might call "snide" remarks like that in emotes. It's usually when I see something immersion breaking and I'd rather just make a short point than get into a tell discussion. For example when people stand outside the Friendly Arm Inn entrance with their bear/wolf/zombie regardless of what the most likely reaction from the guards in the tower would be.

Usually I just ignore it, though, and just walk on. I'd simply rather not get into RP that is so far out of immersion.

And you can call me elitist for that.

[Young Werther]

A few instances of meta-gamey thoughts leaking out into emotes comes to my mind. I'll summarize them and draw a brief conclusion. All occurred while I was playing my main.

I was trying to hock wares to a single person by the auction block in BG. The character's response was: *ignores the brazen hussy*. Personally I found this to be funny and a good description of the event and went my separate way.

Another time I was by the FAI and a DM was doing something with a dwarf merchant. Naturally my character was drawn to the merchant to see if she could spend any of her recently aquired wealth. A bystander and possibly attendant of the event had this to say: *watches Awnrette attempt to steal the center of attention*. I also found this slightly funny since I had no intent of stealing the show. I just wanted to buy some wares. I would guess the player was defending his access to DM attention which I suppose is understandable given how limited it is at times.

Lastly there was an occasion where I met two players outside the elfsong tavern randomly. I knew one player and the other was a fresh acquaintance. Myself and the newly met player were doing our thing and the third player left saying something akin to: *leaves the two weirdos to do whatever weirdos do*. While is has the veneer of a philosophical statement it was also the character's emote so I assumed it fell into the way in which the person left the pair. At best it seems like a lazy way of emoting and at worst it is meta-gaming the scenario to inject opinion and possibly to create a bias. It didn't leave any of us with a closer bond to be certain.

To conclude I'd say none of these were worthy of DM intervention as they all were relatively minor occurrences and only slightly detracted from the RP on what is a medium RP server. When it happened to me in these instances I was able to shrug and move on to other aspects of the game that kept me entertained. It does serve to help people to reflect on what works RP wise and maybe this discussion can improve people's play.

[DM Pun Pun]

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

It might be worth discussing. Sending insults as adjectives through emotes or broadcasting provocative thoughts can really anger people in RP situations, especially since you are not supposed to act on or against colorful emotes that are not tangible.

[NegInfinity]

Sending insults as adjectives through emotes or broadcasting provocative thoughts can really anger people in RP situations, especially since you are not supposed to act on or against colorful emotes that are not tangible.

Said adjectives/thoughts can also indicate perceivable information that is transmitted via body language.

For example "ignores annoying man" can be used indicate that character's face/figure show annoyance and that annoyance is obviously caused by specific person in vicinity. IMO, that's better way to treat emotes of this kind instead of demanding literal explanation. Literal explanation of this short phrase will probably take paragraph of text.

Broadcasting thoughts provides narrative when you're playing in 3rd person and distance yourself from character. I.e. you don't treat character as yourself but instead watch the story unfold.

Generally, I'd advise to relax a bit and filter unwanted information in your head, as long as it isn't wall of green ooc text. Humans aren't robots, so no point in being incredibly specific.

[thids]

How about people learn how to emote properly instead of expecting everyone else to accept their bs? And if you are doing it because someone is breaking immersion, telling them that they are breaking immersion through a friendly ooc tell is more effective than passive aggressive emote, all you do with it is break the immersion further. And I know explaining some things would take too long and would be too bothersome, but still a friendly tell at least has a chance of teaching the person something while a passive aggressive emote will just make them feel either bad or spiteful. In which case they will do it even more.


As for "TL;DR" emotes, if they bother someone that someone is free to move away. No one is forcing them to RP with anyone. This game can be a simple chatroom if you want it to be, but then at least allow other people who are actually trying to RP do so instead of getting all offended and outraged because someone actually put effort into their RP. Conversation in this game is done in turns, especially when you encounter someone new. When you RP with someone for a long time that turn based feeling fades away and the conversations start looking like they are taking place in real time but they are still turn based. When someone takes way too long to type up their RP it can be a problem, but if the RP that comes out is enjoyable that's a problem I'm personally willing to deal with.

[arakes99]

*Turns away, their face pinched with annoyance*

All good.

*Ignores the annoying man*

Insulting to the player in an OOC fashion as it describes a thought.

Is there really that big of a difference in how long it takes to keep emotes IC and uninsulting?

[grymhild]

* Shaytessa remains silent, her expression a mask of neutral indifference as she considers the possible reasons why so many elves, orcs, harpers, red wizards, paladins and zhentarim are standing around outside of FAI without killing each other, before concluding that one explanation might be the presence of Inn's fearsome guards who while most likely aren't paid more than a few gold coins each day, are the most dangerous warriors in the land and capable of quickly subduing those who have fought and defeated dragons. *

[Dreme]

* Shaytessa remains silent, her expression a mask of neutral indifference as she considers the possible reasons why so many elves, orcs, harpers, red wizards, paladins and zhentarim are standing around outside of FAI without killing each other, before concluding that one explanation might be the presence of Inn's fearsome guards who while most likely aren't paid more than a few gold coins each day, are the most dangerous warriors in the land and capable of quickly subduing those who have fought and defeated dragons. *

*Talindra rolls lore (2+-1=1)* .....Zenariuam who?.. *looks around* Why would I kill them? Are they bad people?.... Red Wizards? They cast a lot of fire balls, that's where they get their name from, right? Hmmm.. *nods* Well, you're right, I don't want all the nasty Zenai..uamians picking on the Red Wizards and making them start casting fire balls.. It might scare those dumb orcs into a frenzy, then they might break all the harper's harps!