>Or, wherein I try to get a roleplaying discussion going.
>
>Obviously, not everyone who plays CF could give a rat's ass
>what I think of their roleplaying. Hey, it's your birthday,
>and you're welcome to your opinion regardless of whether it
>agrees with mine. However, being as it is that I'm in
>a position to hand out goodies or not depending on my opinion
>of a character's RP, I thought it might be
>informative/interesting to share some of the things that rub
>me the wrong way.
>
>1) "-est ever" type declarations in player descriptions. CF
>is going on nine years old, and over that span of time I
>shudder to think how many times I've witnessed the the
>strongest or biggest giant that I've ever seen, ugliest orc
>that I've ever seen, or most beautiful elf with the largest
>breasts that I've ever seen.
>

Personally, I don't mind this one. Why? Because it is possible to look at 10 giants and think that they are each the biggest you've ever seen (unless they are next to each other at the time). Similiarly with ugly orcs and elves that have a good pair of lungs.

>2) Characters that exhibit great RP among their friends, but
>won't offer word one or any semblance of interaction to their
>enemies.
>
>This is arguable, because enemies are often just that,
>enemies. I don't disagree that it would be silly for
>Battleragers and mages to routinely sit down for tea and
>discuss current events. At the same time, when I look back on
>playing the game and the characters that were fun to fight, I
>never remember the "I don't actually have quiet mode on, but I
>might as well" type characters. A year passes and damned if I
>can remember their names. It's the interactors that stick out
>in my mind, the kind of enemies with style that I loved to
>hate, the kind that made CF a blast even when they were
>mercilessly whipping my ass.
>

I tend to agree with this one. The reason is, your beliefs are often challenged by your enemies, whereas your allies won't bother. Not talking to enemies can easily fall within acceptable rp, but it can also be a cop-out.

>3) Characters that can quote their cabal/religion's helpfile
>very nicely, but falter quickly when a discussion/argument
>meanders away from it.
>
>Maybe that's a player limitation, I don't know. Honestly, if
>I wanted to read help Sylvan/Battle/Maran/Scarab/etc., I would
>just read it. (If I didn't like what it said, I might just
>change it. I'm crazy like that.) Obviously, the basic
>philosophy of a cabal/religion is going to place certain
>restrictions on you, but there is always a lot of room to play
>with, too. Let me feel your character's role come out even in
>discussing that philosophy. The Tribunal laws, to take one
>example, are about as cut and dried as any of this gets, but
>there are a thousand different reasons why your
>character could believe laws are a good idea, and every one
>will color how s/he sees the laws differently.
>
>Help file quotation syndrome is frustrating in roleplaying
>with enemies, but it's a hundred times more frustrating if
>you're a cabal leader or empowering immortal.
>

yep. I'll definitely agree this. The other thing that I don't like is when a cabal's position changes but the applicant quotes the old view line and verse, but still claims to have talked to the current members of the cabal. Then you can see that they are actually someone who had a character in the cabal under the old system and hasn't bothered making this character try to learn anything.

>4) Cabal leaders or other authority figure characters who are
>afraid to reject applicants, toss out existing cabal members,
>or otherwise be harsh even when it's called for.
>
>I don't know that this is so much a roleplaying concern in all
>cases, but the previous point reminded me of it.
>

I agree this too. However, you have to bear in mind that people will often screw up by accident. I found a once-more-and-you-are-out approach worked in those cases.

>5) Players who try to bring the concept of game balance into
>the game.
>
>Yes, you as a player know the game is supposed to balance out
>in some way, shape, or form. For the most part, your
>character probably doesn't have that mentality. I have a very
>hard time even imagining how a statement of the form "X
>skill/spell/power is too overpowered, that's why you killed
>me" could be considered in-character.
>

This is the worst problem imho. If I kill someone in a group of three they complain that I had levels on them, or that I took down the weakest member of theh group before running away, instead of attacking the strongest member. If I kill a solo person when they have levels on me, they complain that I attacked them knowing they had bad gear. If I attack the strongest member of a group they complain that I must be ooc friends with the weakest members because I didn't attack them instead (never mind the fact that often the weak already submitted in IC fashion).

Too many people cannot face that they died because they were out-manouvered, and try to explain it in terms of game mechanics. (OK, eyes of flame not working because of a bug is something that I don't mind expressed in IC fashion, and that is a reasonable reason for dying.) Generally though, even if you keep it IC you are often referring to game mechanics.

>6) Players who are only capable of playing one type of
>character.
>
>I have to admit that since we're not yet to a point where
>every player who logs onto CF is capable of a
>superbly-roleplayed character, I can really only be so
>bothered by this. Still, I'm not a huge fan of the players
>who come up with virtually the same roleplay every time. That
>lack of versatility makes it hard, from an immortal standpoint
>especially, to figure out if you're really roleplaying or just
>playing yourself. If every character you make is subservient
>and attaches themselves to a more prominent character, how am
>I to know if that's roleplaying or if the player is just like
>that? If every character you play is a murderous evil
>bastard, how am I to know you're not just a sick person who
>punts puppies through goal posts? If all of your characters
>go on Tribunal killing sprees, how am I to know you as the
>player don't just hate law that much? When I can look at a
>list of characters and see saintly and diabolical, peaceful
>and violent, dominant and supportive, etc. characters all
>played with equal facility, it really impresses me.
>

The way I like to look at it is, can you link a character to past characters through their roleplay. If you can (and I often can), it is a sign that your roleplay could probably use some variation. I try to change my characters in little ways specifically to make them difficult to link with previous ones. Any speech idiosyncracies could be different to those of previous characters, perhaps.

>7) The amazing halting role.
>
>Sometimes I spot a level 1 character with just the most
>amazing role, with unique RP hooks or an enthralling
>backstory. Five hundred hours and fifty levels later, I look
>at the role again and nothing has changed. Granted, I'm
>thrilled that you wrote such a cool thing to begin with, but
>would it kill you to add on to it or update it periodically?
>It's tough for me to know how I should deal with a character
>with this elaborate role about abuse at the hand of mages, who
>I then see raiding the village and butchering Battle. Did he
>abandon his role entirely? Have a series of events gradually
>changed the character's viewpoint? I have no idea.
>

I update my role for some characters but not others. If the character has a life-changing event or is trying to move a specific plot forward then I'll update it. If the character just doesn't like Joe Bloggs because Joe fled against the trolloc and got him killed, I won't update it. Ideally it should be updated but at the same time you (I presume) need to keep it from becoming overly cumbersome.

>8) Players who are only "on" in terms of roleplay for
>interviews, or when they have reason to believe they're being
>watched. That one's self-explanitory.
>

There is quite a lot of this about too. However, I think the general trend in cf is that this is improving.

>9) Players who don't think very hard about the implications
>of their character's beliefs/roleplay, especially when it
>comes to choices in who to kill or what gear to wear.
>
>There sure are a lot of paladins running around murdering
>sentient neutral mobs for gear without a second thought.
>Think about that for a minute.
>
>If you're a Sylvan, and your character believes that
>conjurers/necromancers/etc. are bad mojo, what are you doing
>conjuring elementals with certain objects, or wearing the
>gauntlets of living flesh? How is conjuring demons bad, but
>wearing artifacts obviously containing entrapped demons all
>right? I don't care how many hit points or damroll
>they give you, that's weak.
>

Yeah. I can remember a scion giving gear from my paladin and one other paladin to a couple of neutral mobs, and the other paladin had absolutely no qualms in retrieving his gear from this mob for the "greater good". Now if I was a scion, I'd be patting myself on the back for having corrupted him at this stage.

>10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that
>attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different
>language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or
>there for flavor? That I have no problem with, especially if
>it's for a concept that doesn't really exist in
>English/common. To try to explain what I mean poorly with
>real-world examples, words like 'karma', 'machismo', or
>'bushido' might succinctly refer to non-Anglo-Saxon-ish
>background concepts.
>

I think this one has been covered. However, the odd word tends to be picked up pretty quickly and if it is, probably adds to the flavor of the mud.

>That's enough for a start. Chime in and/or nitpick away!
>