Having read his role, and the timing of subsequent rewards on the Imm comments and nothing writen by an Imm to say they generally disagree with his style of writing a role I just gotta say... I'm throught writing extensive roles.

Reading that role actually made me wish that player was banned from this game. I can't stand the power gamey types and seeing one that is so blatently over the top and out of the closet about it getting rewards I can't get for role playing in a suposed role playing mud irks me.

And to be clear, I'm not saying I raise the bar, what I am saying is that there no longer seems to be a need to even try to pick it up.

For what it's worth - there were comments about this character's role (I believe they were not published via PFB) and this character was given a discussion (by yours truly) regarding how his role was not "in character."

If I recall, the xp given to this character was quite minimal for the role because quite frankly it could use a bit of improvement.

Try to understand - some people that play this game are not strong in al areas of it. You have some that are great PK'ers with weaknesses in RP and vice versa.

This merely indicates that they need to work on strengthening other areas to become a little more well-rounded. Try not to discourage that.

Man, you gotta leave in those comments. I want my $5 worth.

We don't edit them, but I think when you give someone 0 XP for a role update they don't go someplace that goes to the PDF, whereas giving someone more XP automagically does.

That's correct. Otherwise PBFs would be littered with an extra 10 updates saying things like "An Immortal added 0 exp for: Role update - We still can't find our wands. Not sure why we needed to write another entry about this."

Right, or my ever-snarky "added 0 exp for: This is a lot of words that don't tell me anything useful about this character or their RP."

nt

You should add 1 xp then. Does the character even get an echo when you do 0xp? Probably not. So you lose the benefit of communicating to the player "Your last few role entries were ass."

Plus...hey...we enjoy reading pithy comments in PBFs.

You probably enjoy it but the player in question is just going to get discouraged if they get 20 comments about how their role sucks. And then the forum drama begins!

nt

The role command isn't exclusively for the Carrion Fields staff. There is nothing in the role helpfile that says a role has to be "in character." As such, no character should be reprimanded for it, nor any character talked at via a "discussion." The only thing the role helpfile explicitly states is not using the role command as a journal for kills and deaths. And clearly the character in question did not violate this rule.

It just looks like he was keeping a recollection of his thoughts and ideas about HIS character.

I see nothing wrong with any of the role chapters in his PBF... except maybe the one about the XP bragging. But even that doesn't break any role rules.

Help role doesn't at all mention anything like that. I read it as stating that the role command offers the means to keep personal character records and/or provide background information to let the IMMs know what you're doing/want to be doing with the character. By whatever means (provided it's suitable in general).

Role is NOT a place to keep track of your characters kills or deaths (though a
victory or defeat could conceivably be a RP turning point for a character).
Using it for this or otherwise abusing role will be punished harshly.

dsvv

The role command seems most useful as a way to explain a character to the staff.

Strictly IC roles are fine for two-dimensional archetypes, but portraying any kind of subtle emotional life, ignorance of self, or forecasting are beyond the composition skills of most CFers. I'm decent, as far as amateurs go at writing up little stories, but I would never try to pull something off like this in a completely IC role, because I know I don't have the chops for it, and I'd just be embarassed by the result.

Strong characterization without painfully clumsy exposition takes real skill, and there's no shortage of fantasy novels chock full of god-awful exposition.

Here's what I mean. First, the issue of succinctness:

Take something ooc like:

Bob the drow transmuter's version of orderly evil means being superficially nice to other people but ruthlessly undermining them for his own advantage.

In an IC role entry you can only illustrate that fact indirectly, but most of us will struggle to establish it as a defining character trait, rather than an anecdotal vignette.

Even more problematic is revealing information the character doesn't know or won't admit about himself.

For example, OOC you might say:

Jeff was raised to hate magic and to fear it's power, but he subconsciously is awed by it, and without realizing it, part of the thrill of battle is that mix of fear and attraction..

Portraying that in an IC role is going to be very challenging for most of us.

Finally, describing how the character will respond to future events is very hard, IC.

Example:
Susan the chaotic good warrior will live on her own and avoid the city out of preference, but will decide to join the outlanders when she meets one who explains why Thar-Eris wants the cities brought down.

That kind of thing is nearly impossible to do IC at all, and it's useful in a role entry because it tells the staff that the player plans to be an Outlander all along. If a character like this reaches hero without having the crossroads moment, then someone might look at her and think the player was just avoiding the drawbacks of joining the cabal, or that joining the cabal "just because" and not for any real reason.

So yeah, I will pretty much never write a role that is *all* IC. I will usualyl write a story in the third person, either from the character's perspective of via omniscient narrator. And to that I'll add OOC descriptions of things, because I know that my limited writing ability means that I might not have effectively communicated everything I hoped to in the story.

Goddammit you, you made me read his whole role.

First off, he got the IMM xp for the first five chapters of his role. They aren't really that bad (other than the stream of concious style) and I have no problem with the IMM xp he was given.

Second of all, he doesn't get IMM xp AGAIN FOR THE REST OF HIS CHAR'S LIFE FOR ANY ROLE RELATED THINGS!

And honestly, he threw in two or three decent chapters in the midst of all that OOC weirdness.

So if that's going to make you question why you play CF and write long roles, then you probably shouldn't be playing this game. You are making a complete mountain out of a tiny molehill.

Also, Roocka could have had the worst role ever, but if the RP was good (and I never saw his RP so I have no idea) than it doesn't even really matter. ROLES ARE OPTIONAL. You will never be punished for your role unless it's a diatribe against the IMMs or filled with racist nonsense.

Ugh, why did I waste my time responding to you.

No one's forcing you to read his role. The game is here for fun, and if this player's idea of fun is to write a role like that, then that's ok. There are much bigger sins that our players commit that are way more offensive than this guy's role. Try and remember this is a game.

gr

>First off, he got the IMM xp for the first five chapters of
>his role. They aren't really that bad (other than the stream
>of concious style) and I have no problem with the IMM xp he
>was given.
>
>Second of all, he doesn't get IMM xp AGAIN FOR THE REST OF HIS
>CHAR'S LIFE FOR ANY ROLE RELATED THINGS!

This.