Elite roleplay: Q&A and OOC
06 May 2021, 10:19am
06 May 2021, 10:25am
I'm assuming others here have roleplayed on other sites, which cater for other genres of storytelling. I would also assume that the communities using those sites have developed their own sets of rules and expectations to govern how RP is done. Recent discussions and opinions here on Inara make me wonder how the regulars on a (for example) Pokemon RP site would react to a newcomer arriving with a time-travelling dropship full of Space Marines hell bent on mass destruction. Or how a Sesame Street RP site would respond to a San Andreas gun runner turning up and wreaking their own brand of havoc.
However, I freely admit that I haven't investigated those sites for myself, so I don't know for certain. To save time, could anyone who is or has been a regular RPer on sites such as those I describe please share their experiences of them? I'm genuinely curious to know whether the Inara community is totally alone in expecting participants to roleplay within the bounds of the game's lore.
06 May 2021, 10:35am
So the question is: are androids lore-friendly or not, at the present (game) time? If yes, everything is alright. If not, such characters should be avoided.
Last edit: 06 May 2021, 10:40am
06 May 2021, 11:30am
On the matter of spoiling other people's fun, I disagree. Whos' fun is more important? The person staying well within their interpretation of Elites Lore, or the person using a little creative license to stretch the bounds of Elites Lore? Again, an application of commonsense should let us see if someone is just unaware, or taking the piss.
I see no problem with people having an AI or an android that's a lil sassy, its a played-out sci-fi standard, but still fun. Especially when both have, or still exist within Elites lore. Can I not have that in my RP because it may spoil someone else's emersion and fun? Whos fun is more important?
Last year, two people started a little lore-friendly story on Citi. After that, all the RP boards became alive with new contributors starting lots of stories that were lore-friendly and a bloody good read. I'd never had so many characters to get invested in on INARA and plenty of inspiration to improve my own writing.
None of that revitalisation came about from lore-hounds or creativity-limiters telling people what was and wasn't acceptable. For the most part, Citi policed its self because everyone writing good stuff within the lore. The few people that did step outside of that, or try to spoil the flow didn't last long because they simply didn't fit in and very few writes responded to them.
That is by far the best guide any new contributor could have, and the RP pages are still full of those new people and I hope they continue to lead each other by example.
It's mostly carrot and very little stick.
06 May 2021, 12:03pm
I like that idea, that somehow the skeletons of the Ai are still there, still able to function but are shackled somehow.
Sort of like a nuclear reactor that works perfectly well on routine settings but could just as easily explode if someone pushes the big red button that says "Do not push".
06 May 2021, 12:12pm
Isaiah EvansonDo you have to write a book or can you just give a straight yes-or-no answer?
Sorry.. had to catch up on the convo... Im kinda new here but from the jist of it the Game Canon cops are trying to keep this particular site STRICT in order to conform to the game. Which I can respect. And not coming in and just writing your own conflicting script into the public "story book" can certainly be problematic. Theres one thing you no one has considered. This is a family friendly game right? do you expect a 12 year old to understand and conform to these guidelines/rules? and so it means one needs to be "read in" to the entire canon of the ED universe and agree to conform before actually "role-playing".. Ummm i think that is simply un-realistic. Wheres the fun in that?
"Role-play" needs to allow for creativity and so needs to be more open ended. IMHO
06 May 2021, 12:24pm
Stillgar drinks alot, but is immune to alcohol, and actually has enhanced reflexes, having had enhanced ( irish + french
) genetic manipulation. This is built into his back story.. if this is a conflict with "canon" I can just bail out now.. and go back to playing the game..Anyone bother to go to my profile and READ my back story you may get a glimpse of what i'm up to here...
06 May 2021, 12:26pm
Does the lore matter or not? If it does, considerable effort should be made to conform to it. If it doesn't matter, then characters from supernatural beings to 21st century time travelers are permissible.
Where is the line?
06 May 2021, 12:29pm
Lambast Mercy
On the matter of spoiling other people's fun, I disagree. Whos' fun is more important? The person staying well within their interpretation of Elites Lore, or the person using a little creative license to stretch the bounds of Elites Lore? Again, an application of commonsense should let us see if someone is just unaware, or taking the piss.
Both equally. There is no problem to take some creative license and use it, but not at the expense of ruining fun and experience of the other participants or breaking the lore significantly. Then it's a problem. As I said, the RP in the threads here is a COOPERATIVE fun, not a solo experience, so in the best case all participants should have fun.
I am all for the creativity, but all the creativity still should stick within some boundaries and respect the universe. So, for example Xihe Biomorphic companions and Master chefs may be a line that can be used (or something similar). But full androids (in a meaning human-like, sentient)? I don't think that belongs entirely to the Elite universe at the current timeline. So if the roleplay can be adjusted more into the existing stuff in that regard, everybody can be happy - it's something in between. Let's try that.
Edit: Or it can be adjusted to be a non-sentient android and that can be quite interesting, too (for example a rogue/faulty product of Achilles).
Last edit: 06 May 2021, 12:37pm
06 May 2021, 12:30pm
Lambast MercyDo Not Push is a really hard button not to press.
Talk is cheap. Do it or don't, makes no difference to me.
06 May 2021, 12:32pm
Stillgar777
Sorry.. had to catch up on the convo... Im kinda new here but from the jist of it the Game Canon cops are trying to keep this particular site STRICT in order to conform to the game. Which I can respect. And not coming in and just writing your own conflicting script into the public "story book" can certainly be problematic. Theres one thing you no one has considered. This is a family friendly game right? do you expect a 12 year old to understand and conform to these guidelines/rules? and so it means one needs to be "read in" to the entire canon of the ED universe and agree to conform before actually "role-playing".. Ummm i think that is simply un-realistic. Wheres the fun in that?
"Role-play" needs to allow for creativity and so needs to be more open ended. IMHO
That's pretty much the thinking I tried to get across in my last post. You got people of all ages and languages writing in one place. For the most part, no one is a professional writer or digs heavily into Elits background, so that's going to lead to A LOT of interpretations of The Lore.
Trying to enforcing boundaries on creativity is counterproductive, whereas guiding people along the way the RP pages did had a far more positive result on the quality (and lore-friendliness) of the writing that came out.
There has to be room for artistic license; after all, there is plenty in-game that makes no sense.
06 May 2021, 12:33pm