Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Thank you so much for reading this, first and foremost a disclaimer: Whenever I speak about other players, DM, staff, etc. I try to not paint them all with the same brush but I would rather avoid calling out someone specifically. This applies to ALL my posts here on this forum past and future. With that being said, let's begin.

TLDR at the bottom.

Expectations during roleplay

Let's start with an example, let's say Jane plays a paladin and her paladin met a knight played by John. Jane assumes that John is good aligned because of the RP they have, Jane sets up a few expectations from the other player, perhaps they have roleplayed together a few months, Jane has expectations from John RP that she may or may not disclose OOC. But then John gets bored and wants his knight to fall. John starts to make his knight slowly question dogmas and beliefs, Jane paladin tries to keep his knight straight but fails for whatever reason and the knight falls and becomes evil. This may make Jane the player upset, maybe her expctations were to start a guild with the other player, a relationship, who knows, this is why setting them is important.

For myself personally, and for you also dear reader, I'd imagine, good RP contains a lot of unexpected twists and turns and forces me to react spontaneously to something I may not have expected.

But what I'm starting to learn is that there are some players who don't feel this way and who don't appreciate unexpected twists and turns being thrown into their roleplay. There's not much you can do about this except try to remember who they are and try to get a feel for whether or not this kind of RP is going to be considered okay. For me, I don't enjoy RPing something where the outcome is expected at the outset, because that's kind of like spoiling the surprise of the story. But I think there are some people who are genuinely upset when their RP takes an unexpected twist, maybe because they feel like it causes them to lose control over what's happening.

We all have different tastes and different reasons why we roleplay but we got to keep in mind that we are doing it together.


Solutions

Set expectations to others, there are many ways to do this, the worst one would be broadcasting OOC what to expect from RP.
E.g. "my lathanderite character is actually a sharran in disguise." I personally dislike this method but it MAY work for certain situations.

Another way is to give IC hints, for example

"Timmy knells to the altar after a moment, although, there's doubt in his face for a moment, before he starts to pray"
This is a bit more subtle but it signals that there's something wlse hidden behind this emote.

I cannot make everyone happy can I?

The harsh reality is that not every roleplaying style fits with each other, and I been thinking about it because my stance first was "Everyone rp with everyone" and obviously that doesn't work, so I invite all players and staff on the server to try and do our best to play this game in harmony, do your best with who you can and always try to make the game fun for yourself and others.

I would like to see what others think about setting expectations during roleplay and my dearest thanks to everyone who made it here through all this wall of text.


TLDR: Make sure to set expectations to other players when engaging in roleplay.

Good thinking, yyj. We don't talk about expectations often enough.

My solution to this lies in the way I portray my characters and what I always try to make known OOC. A simple message. Conflict makes for story. I am not interested in a story without conflict. I know some are. I'm not.

Keeping this in mind, everyone who spends time with any of my PCs (I know I usually have more than one and this may be confusing to some) will notice that each character I play has some kind of internal conflict that could take them anywhere. At least I hope I'm able to portray it!

An interesting PC, in my opinion, is one that evolves. Things happening around them should change them, even if slightly. That's why I make it a point to allow my PCs to be influenced by other PCs. I think it's important to have an open mind about your toy (that's what your PC is, a toy in shared playground) and let others play with it, too. More importantly, make it known throughout your roleplay that others are welcomed to invest in never-ending evolution that is your PC.

That's how I communicate. I'm interested in learning how others do it. I'm sure we can learn from each other.

yyj wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 3:33 am
For myself personally, and for you also dear reader, I'd imagine, good RP contains a lot of unexpected twists and turns and forces me to react spontaneously to something I may not have expected.

But what I'm starting to learn is that there are some players who don't feel this way and who don't appreciate unexpected twists and turns being thrown into their roleplay. There's not much you can do about this except try to remember who they are and try to get a feel for whether or not this kind of RP is going to be considered okay. For me, I don't enjoy RPing something where the outcome is expected at the outset, because that's kind of like spoiling the surprise of the story. But I think there are some people who are genuinely upset when their RP takes an unexpected twist, maybe because they feel like it causes them to lose control over what's happening.

We all have different tastes and different reasons why we roleplay but we got to keep in mind that we are doing it together.

Indeed this is true, however, remember, all players and by extension, all characters, are their own unique identities, you cannot control them. If you set expectations and then something interests the player to push a character down a certain route, and that might take them off the rails of what was expected of them. These things happen. They happen with evil turning to good, they happen with good turning to evil. The problem with expectation is that you set up a railroad effect, and if something deviates you can feel betrayed.

Just control and worry about your character, and react how your character would in any given circumstance is my recommendation, don't worry about expectations, or any sort of preconceived notions of what to expect from any character. let things play out how they will and react ICly. This is a game, we do get attached to our characters, and we do care for them in the long run, however, we shouldn't set any expectations for anyone else's characters, just our own as that is the only thing we can control.

Set expectations to others, there are many ways to do this, the worst one would be broadcasting OOC what to expect from RP.
E.g. "my lathanderite character is actually a sharran in disguise." I personally dislike this method but it MAY work for certain situations.

No, dear god no, this should never be done. Once OOC information is given about the background of a certain character, it influences how your characters interact with them. Not to mention, then that OOC information begins to spread, and spread far and wide and starts to influence how others percieve your character. This ends up to lots of finger pointing "your meta-ing this info! who told you this!" and then DMs have to read through complaints and try to figure out how to fix any of it. But it never gets fixed because the information is out there, you can't make people forget IRL what they know and it will forever tarnish the RP.

People who think they can keep OOC and IC info separate kid themselves tbh. Which is why when I RP, I react to the character before me, not the player pulling the strings.

Another way is to give IC hints, for example

"Timmy knells to the altar after a moment, although, there's doubt in his face for a moment, before he starts to pray"
This is a bit more subtle but it signals that there's something wlse hidden behind this emote.

This is a far better way of doing such things, however, another way to see if you would see these brief moments if a character was having those 'doubts' etc, is to ask the characters around them for Sense Motive rolls. But again, this falls upon Timmy's player, and him asking those around him to make such rolls, rather then the players and characters around him already having the expectation that he is a doubtful character in his beliefs and them already knowing that OOCly.

If you want to be obvious about it, by all means you can emote in such a fasion, if you want to keep it hidden and only for certain people that would be able to read such emotions (Empaths) then you can ask for the rolls, and send the tells of whom passed the roll and what they would get a sense of.

I cannot make everyone happy can I?

The harsh reality is that not every roleplaying style fits with each other, and I been thinking about it because my stance first was "Everyone rp with everyone" and obviously that doesn't work, so I invite all players and staff on the server to try and do our best to play this game in harmony, do your best with who you can and always try to make the game fun for yourself and others.

This is true, some people enjoy the MMO aspect of the game, and simply RP as a secondary thing to the grind and the monster slaying, and those people tend not to jive all that well with the people who's primary focus is to RP, and then slay the monsters as they pop up in story.

How I look at this community is a community that is writing a story together, one that is not fully written or complete in any fashion. The DMs are here to help craft the story, and we react to the story and help write it though our own actions and reactions with our characters that weave together a complicated and hopefully thrilling story.

This story however, is multi-faceted, with conflict between groups of characters, factions, etc. The conflict between characters should remain just that, and ooc grief should never be spread, nor jealousy, nor hatred because your IC reactions start to influence your OOC reactions. This is how the current culture of the server is so fractured with many Player factions hating on each other. People have put up tribal walls, and are attacking the other tribes when we are all trying to share the world together. We need to stop reacting OOCly to IC actions.

There is also an ego issue with EVERYONE wanting to be the big god damn hero that saves the day, but, when you have 100s of characters vying for that position, people are going to rub each other the wrong way, and when someone is chosen by the DMs, that's when fingers start getting pointed around of 'favoritism' when it happens more then once with limiting factors on whom all can participate then 'Exclusionary Favoritism" gets pointed and yelled about.

I would like to see what others think about setting expectations during roleplay and my dearest thanks to everyone who made it here through all this wall of text.


TLDR: Make sure to set expectations to other players when engaging in roleplay.

TLDR: Don't set expectations for other characters, you cannot control them, set expectations for your characters and react to the world how they would. Don't pay attention to the log in name behind the character name.

Lastly, my expectation for the community is to cooperatively write a story together, where I get to have a small bit of participation with it with the ~100 other people/characters that are on the server. I don't need to be the big hero that saves the world, but just have a small part in influencing characters and events in the world with others.

Anrilor wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:56 pm No, dear god no, this should never be done. Once OOC information is given about the background of a certain character, it influences how your characters interact with them. Not to mention, then that OOC information begins to spread, and spread far and wide and starts to influence how others percieve your character. This ends up to lots of finger pointing "your meta-ing this info! who told you this!" and then DMs have to read through complaints and try to figure out how to fix any of it. But it never gets fixed because the information is out there, you can't make people forget IRL what they know and it will forever tarnish the RP.

Just like Anrilor, I don't think sharing secrets OOC is a good idea. It spoils potential surprise and ruin player's fun.

But what you describe here, Anrilor, is metagaming. Don't let that OOC information spread. Your PC doesn't know it, so it shouldn't spread. It's not fair having OOC secrets forced on you, I admit, but stopping it lies with you. After all, you can only control what you do.

I often try to visualise simplest form of metagaming by emoting while invisible or sneaking. Some players change behaviour of their PCs instantly, regardless of what they're role-playing. Sometimes going as far as to whisper or cutting their conversation short. If you ask me, it goes to show that we, as community, have problem with separating IC and OOC info. And you address it in your post, so let me ask about your thoughts on the matter.

Anrilor wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:56 pmPeople who think they can keep OOC and IC info separate kid themselves tbh.

Why do you think that is? Maybe I'm prejudged, but it sounds to me like there's something keeping those people unable to separate OOC and IC from separating themselves from their characters. It's a pretend game. Why can't someone pretend not to know something in a game based on pretending? I'm not trying to attack you, Anrilor, you never struck me as metagamer. I'm just trying to understand where it's coming from in your post.

Tying back to the topic. Talking about expectations is very important. I admit that after spending just these few months on BGTSCC I don't expect not to be metagamed anymore. And I don't mind. I just hope that my role-player partners have fun whether they metagame or not. Because that's all we expect, right? To have fun. Everything here, including this forum, this post, is a tool we use to try to have fun together.

Louvaine wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 4:54 pm

Anrilor wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:56 pmPeople who think they can keep OOC and IC info separate kid themselves tbh.

Why do you think that is? Maybe I'm prejudged, but it sounds to me like there's something keeping those people unable to separate OOC and IC from separating themselves from their characters. It's a pretend game. Why can't someone pretend not to know something in a game based on pretending? I'm not trying to attack you, Anrilor, you never struck me as metagamer. I'm just trying to understand where it's coming from in your post.

I think, at least in my opinion, there are people who want to control what happen and direct the narrative, usually to create more conflict then normal. So when they gain OOC information, they then use it to manipulate events in their favor or at least in the direction they want it to go. They have information, and are using it to direct and manipulate events in a way they want it to go OOCly. Its more of an Ego/control thing that some people have. they don't necessarily want a cooperative story to tell, but one that they control and influence like a puppet master. The only people that should have the right to be the puppet masters, imo, are the DMs, and only to a limited scope to tell the stories they want to tell, yet allow characters to respond and react how their own natures would dictate.

I think you are right, Anrilor. I also think those hypothetical people want to win (in some way) as result of that controlled scenario. Maybe that's their expectation. Anyway, that's me done leaving food for thought. Thanks for your insight, Anrilor, I hope to see you more IC soon! <3

Anrilor wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 5:05 pm

Louvaine wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 4:54 pm

Anrilor wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 1:56 pmPeople who think they can keep OOC and IC info separate kid themselves tbh.

Why do you think that is? Maybe I'm prejudged, but it sounds to me like there's something keeping those people unable to separate OOC and IC from separating themselves from their characters. It's a pretend game. Why can't someone pretend not to know something in a game based on pretending? I'm not trying to attack you, Anrilor, you never struck me as metagamer. I'm just trying to understand where it's coming from in your post.

I think, at least in my opinion, there are people who want to control what happen and direct the narrative, usually to create more conflict then normal. So when they gain OOC information, they then use it to manipulate events in their favor or at least in the direction they want it to go. They have information, and are using it to direct and manipulate events in a way they want it to go OOCly. Its more of an Ego/control thing that some people have. they don't necessarily want a cooperative story to tell, but one that they control and influence like a puppet master. The only people that should have the right to be the puppet masters, imo, are the DMs, and only to a limited scope to tell the stories they want to tell, yet allow characters to respond and react how their own natures would dictate.

I have not seen things like these happen, do you perhaps have examples of these situations? I think while it's true that someone may want to control rp to this point, it's impossible to do in practice.

I’ve seen it both in attempt and in motion many times and very recently. Sadly, it’s made me even stop playing around someone I really cared for, and still do. Sometimes people do forget that it is as Louvaine stated “ a pretend game” the goal is to have fun, not win.

On a more broad level, I do like the approach Louvaine and Anrilor are taking here to discuss the topic. Courteous and with an open mind.

Other than that. I agree with Anrilor’d TLDR:

TLDR: Don't set expectations for other characters, you cannot control them, set expectations for your characters and react to the world how they would. Don't pay attention to the log in name behind the character name.

Lastly, my expectation for the community is to cooperatively write a story together, where I get to have a small bit of participation with it with the ~100 other people/characters that are on the server. I don't need to be the big hero that saves the world, but just have a small part in influencing characters and events in the world with others.

Sorry for grammar errors or typos - on my Nokia flip phone

I myself set expectation on everything and everyone, but... i like to see how life is not what i expect it to be, so, if that's not critical thing to me (and even though i invested tons of my time to Nwn2 through recents 3 years), it's still not critical compared my RL expectations about RL.

Seeing how my IG theories get confirmed is fun. It's even funnier when people surprise me and ruin my expectation in a good RP way. So, to me, what YYJ said is mostly correct, just a bit different attitude towards it.
Rp is about process, it's not about result. You always have your second chances in most case. Failed a pvp? Use your PC brain to think on strategy that they could have invented. Traps, booms, hire thugs!
This is not limited to pvp scenarios. If both parties are adequate, failing your objective once doesn't kill other ways and attempts to achieve it. Rp road is way more fun when it's not arrow-straight smooth sailing, but a hilly ground you go.

As much as I would like to let everything go naturally and IC, I do have expectation for situations I would rather avoid. I also understand that how I meet this expectation is mostly on me and I therefore choose a type of RP that hardly causes said situations.
The attitude to win at all costs is a thing and is certainly one of the reasons why I avoid conflict RP and PvP. These two situations can be stressful and are even more so if the other party shows this attitude, as it becomes clear there will be no receding, even small, on their part.

Unfortunately, as explained by those who posted here already metagaming is a thing, but it is also true the opposite. People might become very suspicious of information obtained in a legit way if they don't expect that. I often quote or link my sources (which are mostly IC books or reports) to avoid this (and also because it's nice to give the author of the book some recognition).

I played an Enchanter for some years and tried to manipulate all PCs to do my bidding and succumb to my (PC’s) will. But those damn DCs just ruined it!!

J/k, please carry on in the worthwhile, serious mode.

There's probably only one player here to whom I'd possibly owe an explanation, or outline expectations, of IC actions and beliefs. The element of surprise is part of RP, I think. I do set firm boundaries when I need to, however.

To share things I do... and have done in the past, pros and cons even shall be listed...



I have the tactic of letting others know on the side some days if for some reason I suspect some doubt I will have the short, but attempted good talk to ensure no bad blood is present on my end after getting some unusual vibe from another.

Pros are: People will thank you for the explanation and be able to move forward after expressing OOC there is no hard feelings in any IC that may be unpleasant at a time or two.

Cons are: Some take it personally as if an attack if you mention a name on the side, then defensive and bad behaviors may be presented by the other party as they take it for something entirely different than it was intended.

Cons solution: Just ignore these players and take the high road away from it rather than get suckled into others unnessicary OOC drama kick.


Things that I noticed with most players is they crave reliability, if your RP is all over the place, jumping up and down some, it may be hard to RP around. Plans may change at times rapidly to better fit a situation that came up, yes. But other RP that just makes an out-of-the-blue action that came out from left field can be hard for some.

Cons: No one may want to be around you IC or at the very least said character.

Pros: If speaking just on the plans alone it helps show you can adapt some on the fly.

Cons solution: Have at the very least some outline as to who you want to play and what goals they may have, and feel free to let the land around them shape that a little as you go.


1. No one really likes to RP around characters that are supper edge just to be uncompromisable in the end at all times for the sake of their own story. These characters often don't last long as no one IC wants to talk to them over time.

2. If you end up noninclusive at times for the small things that fit a very small picture, then it can and will just repel others as time goes on.

3. People often don't like others to try and kill their PC's over very small and petty things, such as not saying anything nice, it was over a woman, a lot of these things players just say 'no' to often, more so when there's a lack of OOC discussion ahead of time. There is an RP etiquette, if you fail to follow this etiquette , players just don't want to be around you.



In general speaking, ooc if done right, will in fact help others RP according due to a situation, rather than allow it to manifest into something worse. All in all, be respectful, mindful of others, and try and maintain healthy ooc relations with some.