What IS High-RP?

[jackfractal]

So I thought I'd contribute to the spate of essays tonight with a question. What is High-RP?

Specifically, how it's different then, say, Medium-RP.

It's been asked a few times today, and nobody's really answered it.

I thought about it some, but I don't have a good answer.

I can tell you about the other levels though.

No-RP

The player and the character have identical information and there is no attempt by the administration to prevent this. If someone says "Urist MacDeadSoon is a changeling! They killed me in telescience!" over OOC, well, Urist MacDeadSoon had better learn how to run.

Low-RP

This, like No-RP, has no differentiation between information known by the player and information known by the character, however, OOC information transfer about the current round is prohibited. Because of this, people will typically refer to other characters by name, and Urist MacDeadSoon just has to worry about regular surveillance, not vengeance from beyond the grave. It's considered bad form to mention that you're in a video-game, but you probably won't get in trouble for it. You are allowed to do anything within your capabilities. A bartender can do brain surgery provided that they have access to the tools.

Medium and/or High

This level assumes that the player and the character have different information. While the player may know how to set up a supermatter engine, their character will not, unless they're an Engineer. Knowledge of how antagonists work is often partitioned as well. You are supposed to act how your character would react.

The difference between Medium and Heavy eludes me though.

Sue suggested in her response to Skull's thread that the definition of 'heavy-rp' is an expectation of quality. In that case, Medium and Heavy RP are defined simply by who is more skilled, and can exist in parallel on the same server.

Tainavaa gave a good attempt to define it as "To play a role on the NSS Aurora in an immersive/realistic manner."

But if you've ever spent any time on tabletop rpg forums you'll know that no threads, not even edition wars, get as heated as threads about 'immersion'. It's a term that seems to have as many definitions as players most days, and 'realistic' is a slippery term at the best of times. Spacemans Atmospherics Simulator 13 isn't very good at 'realism' by even the most generous definition, and what makes perfect reasonable sense to one person is hilariously unrealistic to the next.

In addition, an invocation of realism is often used to bludgeon other people into playing how you want them to play.

Don't be too skilled. Don't be too unique. Don't be too aggressive. Don't be too inventive. Don't be too pushy. Stay in your departments. Always run from bad guys. You wouldn't have been hired by NT if you were so young/damaged/scary/strange/unhappy/rude. It's not realistic.

So I've had trouble with both proposed definitions I've heard today.

Anyone else got a different one?

[Tainavaa]

Immersion and realism have very little room to fudge in my definitions.

The nature of a human being will not change. The nature of a computer will not change. The nature of a government will never change, and neither will the nature of war. So how can it be 'immersive' or 'realistic'? You work around the obvious flaws in the game. Mechanics and current content of the game is not easy to just change to conform to a heavy RP standard. So you work around them through lore. Which we have, and are doing.

Will humans evolve to be nearly non-identifiable to a human today in the future, with a psychology that is damn-near unrelatable? Maybe. But not so soon. And as humans are designed in lore, they are not different.

Sorry I couldn't provide a more objective definition for heavy RP though, I really could not find or think of some strictly objective definition. I just defined it to my understanding of how it applies to this server.

[Cassie]

Firstly, I believe that heavy RP is an interactive story collaborated by dozens of players.

All players have the freedom to contribute to this story, like a big cooking pot with multiple chefs. Secondly, about this 'cooking' pot, some people are good chefs and can bring great ingredients to the concoction, some people are inexperienced chefs who have good intentions who might screw up here and there, some people are some jackasses who snuck into the kitchen who throw poop in the pot, and there's great experienced chefs who can save the food from the worst disasters.

I think the good chefs, the great chefs, and the inexperienced chefs need to be encouraged to work together and learn together, ayy? Just maybe develop a recipe together, be considerate and think of each other's enjoyment in-game, things won't be perfect all the time but the important aspect is to have fun. The shitters who snuck into the kitchen to throw shit into the pot need to be sussed out by the head chef (admins).

But! The most important question here, which needs to be defined by the head chef is, "What are we cooking?". Only then we can define standards of what is 'good' and 'bad' RP for the server. Otherwise you're going to have a bunch of chefs bickering on if we should make this undefined dish sweet, salty or spicy.

Coming off the terrible analogy. When it comes to any story, there are certain things that must be defined:

How close to realistic/far from realistic is this story? Or are there parts that are and aren't realistic?

What is the atmosphere of this story/How light-hearted is this story?

etc.

Edited May 8, 2015 by Guest

[Eliot Clef]

So, let me tell you a bit of a story to explain what Heavy RP means to me.

I started looking at Heavy RP Servers back when Apollo was still an active server. I was tired of getting murdered silently by antags in Goonstation, and I wanted someplace a little bit more slow paced to play SS13. I wasn't really used to the RP environment, and I had a pretty shitty initial experience that lead me to grief Apollo station with several other people who had an identical experience.

(Have you ever watched a movie called Mouse Hunt?)

Eventually I got bored of griefing Apollo and wandered off. Then I came to Aurora station around November of last year and gave it a real try. I do much more heavy roleplaying on MUDs and the like, so to me this place is pretty "RP-Light", despite being Heavy RP for SS13 standards. And what do you know, I enjoyed it when Albert Wesker wasn't anally violating somebody in the dorms!

To me, Heavy RP is a slower-paced SS13 environment that provides what I would regard as entry-level roleplay (I don't, mind you, mean this in a condescending way) with some very dedicated "career" RPers, where I can go and play the game mostly without worries and maybe build up a collaborative story with cool people.

I don't think Heavy RP should mean that gameplay should be heavily inhibited on the basis of petty annoyance.

It's OK to expect an Engineer to only do Engineer things, or for people to be expected to have proper backgrounds*, but it's not OK for Genetics to be half-crippled because Command Staff has carte blanche to deny them a large chunk of their role's functionality based entirely on personal preference.

It's OK to need permission to install turrets, but it's not OK to hound the QM for modifying his console a little.

* Proper backgrounds will include extraordinary stories and highly talented people, in addition to average people, and underachievers. The polyglot HoP who could actually do significant chunks of Med-Sci work is just as valid as the semi-obstructionist HoP with no skills that don't involve middle management work.

I guess I'm probably bordering on rambling off-topic here, so I'll stop there.

[Jakers457]

To me, 'high rp' is whenever I play Revvy off duty.

[Tainavaa]

And when she's off duty, it's No-RP.

[Jakers457]

Depends on the party

[Tainavaa]

I meant on-duty. Fuck.

[Guest]

-snip-

This.

The stories. Heavy RP is about living as your characters, creating stories. The more intresting, engaging and realistic the story is, the better RP it is.

Heavy RP is NOT about the minimal amount of RP you have to show before you can kill someone. It's not about screwing with other people's characters, either, as this is usually not funny at all. Bad antag is not one who doesn't show any RP, but whose interests don't lie in RP, but robusting and winning. Same goes for any player that does this.

Obessing over protocol, character records and general behavior of characters is detremental to this as well. How do we create anything when the slightest deviation from the general protcol is a cause for immadiate IC or OOC repercussions.

Just stop with this, my job is blend enough. I don't want my escapist game to turn into a second, even more dreadful job, with even worse people. I mean, fuck, when I ask for a piece of paper at work, responses are either, "I don't have one." or "I need this one, sorry.", here, it's "This is my goddamn paper, get the fuck out of my department you fucking shit!".

I mean, when the fuck has the server fallen to this and why? We're more concerned with petty arguments and throwing blame over interdepartmental crap than we are on actually playing. Like, come on.

[Skull132]

It's kind of silly, some of it.

Okay, I have been told by certain staff and players alike, that you can't gank someone. Alrighty! Fair enough! I need a reason to kill someone! And I need preceeding RP, depending on circumstance! Superb, I can do that. But those same people also hold the standard of, "Well, if you capture someone, and you intend to kill them, roleplay it out a little. Give a monologue or something."

That last argument has always confused me. If the line of a valid kill is drawn with the simple requirement of having a dialogue with the person you kill, is that roleplay? I'd argue that more roleplay, a greater story, can come from a quick, quiet murder, rather than from some devilish scheme being drawn out before the knife is stuck in. It's silly. If the killer is intent on killing my character regardless of the dialogue he is required to establish by that standard, then he might as well just kill me. If it drives towards a greater story, a greater purpose, then why should he be required to say some asinine few words to me, in order to "validate" the kill? It's silly. A kill's "validity" should be based on the reasoning behind it, first and foremost, then on the execution.

We've given way, partially, to a culture which rewards bringing up an argument the moment something you don't agree with happens to your character. And it's silly, and annoying. So great.

[Tainavaa]

I don't much care for talking before most murders. I don't know why people want to talk so much. The way I always thought of it is that in most murders, there isn't much - if any - talking. I think it's heavy roleplay no matter what if I could legitimately think, "Just like in real life! after it happened. Or while it's happening. That isn't the only qualifier. But it's one of them.

That includes silent and quick murders. And a lot of wordless, aggressive actions that a lot of people look down upon.

[Erik Tiber]

It's kind of silly, some of it.

Okay, I have been told by certain staff and players alike, that you can't gank someone. Alrighty! Fair enough! I need a reason to kill someone! And I need preceeding RP, depending on circumstance! Superb, I can do that. But those same people also hold the standard of, "Well, if you capture someone, and you intend to kill them, roleplay it out a little. Give a monologue or something."

That last argument has always confused me. If the line of a valid kill is drawn with the simple requirement of having a dialogue with the person you kill, is that roleplay? I'd argue that more roleplay, a greater story, can come from a quick, quiet murder, rather than from some devilish scheme being drawn out before the knife is stuck in. It's silly. If the killer is intent on killing my character regardless of the dialogue he is required to establish by that standard, then he might as well just kill me. If it drives towards a greater story, a greater purpose, then why should he be required to say some asinine few words to me, in order to "validate" the kill? It's silly. A kill's "validity" should be based on the reasoning behind it, first and foremost, then on the execution.

We've given way, partially, to a culture which rewards bringing up an argument the moment something you don't agree with happens to your character. And it's silly, and annoying. So great.

You can totally have action with a heavy RP server.

Take, for example, that one event where cats put everyone into a prison for some reason. This will be the example of what not to do.

That could have had action and been heavy RP if it were set up well. But instead you had a stupidly large number of guards, way way way too many, thus preventing the prisoners from actually doing anything. The prisoners did not have excercise times. They did not have lunch times. They were largely restricted to their corner, and they were completely helpless before the horde of cat commando's outside.

And then when the whole thing had not even gotten off the ground, for some reason the whole thing is interrupted with a Deus Ex Machina and a bunch of people are bombed to bits and just the ERT and the cat commando's get to fight out a gun battle, while the prisoners do nothing.

If that were a heavy RP event:

You would have had less guards. Far far less. Enough that, were the prisoners to actually band together to try to do something, they might be able to, I dunno, accomplish something of note. Rather than all get shot. Instead a bunch of people wanted to play a commando with guns for some reason, even though that completely defeats the point and just makes everything boring.

You would not have ended the whole thing with a deus ex machina. There was potential, all the potential was avoided, the round was ended extremely early. Nothing was allowed to happen.

The prisoners would have likely been moved between more areas. Maybe a designated recreation time. A designated working time. A lunch time. Something for them to do. Places for them to go. And by keeping them moving, you'll need to be more creative when coordinating, and you'll also have more opportunities to actually stay outside of the sight of the guards.

That's heavy RP. You can make a story. It's not all about pew pew guns. You make a story with pew pew guns in it. That's just not the entire point of the whole thing, though.

[jackfractal]

Immersion and realism have very little room to fudge in my definitions.

 

And yet people will. Go to rpg.net and search for 'immersion'. You'll find quite a number of threads on the topic filled with considerable disagreement.

As to 'realistic', I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. What is 'realistic' to one person is seldom 'realistic' to another person. In both cases, they're probably wrong. Reality is both stranger, and filled with more coincidences then

any 'realistic' narrative.

I like all the definitions in this thread. They're very interesting in terms of what you think would make a good role-playing game, but nobody has a clear definition for the delineation between what is 'medium-rp' and what is 'high-rp'.

I'm starting to think that there really isn't any. The second you try to maintain a player/character separation of knowledge, you become 'high-rp'.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

What is realistic is defined by the setting it's based in. Star wars tie fighters are realistic in star wars. The Death Star is realistic in Star Wars. Magic is realistic in harry potter.

It's 2457 in a fictional universe where we are friends with alien trees and bird raptors attack a space station that specializes in breeding slimes that explode, complete with a bar to get everyone shitfaced, all with the worst safety systems in the history of the universe, and financed by a resource that doesn't even exist and defies conventional laws of physics. If you want realism, you're going to be disappointed.

High-RP is having the characters we make act in a reasonable way, and follow the guidelines set forth for what we agree mostly reasonable people would act like in 2457. It's having a sense of investment, and following an overarching narrative for characters/conflicts. Purple prose and paperwork are not necessary components, but we utilize them regardless.

[Filthyfrankster]

How I see is, High-RP follows in a more human like way. Sure, you still got action, people being bombed, gibbed, shot, injured, shocked, mauled to death by a group of humanoid cat creatures and them wearing school uniforms on an expensive, futuristic space station.

But you have to add some realism, When it comes to security vs nuke cops, you can expect citizens and other non-security crew to stay out of the crossfire, not have a scientist pick up a gun and go on a killing spree, or a tajara assistant preforming surgery.

It's all about your characters doing what their job is. Not to mention being shot four times in the chest isn't an excuse to pick up a gun and go back into a fire fight while you're bleeding out you have a sense of fear and pain, everyone does.

The fact with high RP is, You're character has limits, accept it and live with it. They're not a super hero Joe Irondick who wants to solo an entire nuke ops squad.

[Tainavaa]

ur rong

 

What Jackboot said.

[jackfractal]

I was going to disagree with you, but then I realized that I'd be disagreeing with you about whether we would disagree, and that's too circular even for me.

[Guest]

I don't even know what Heavy RP is.

Can I just play and pretend like I'm good at it?

[Jamini]

I don't even know what Heavy RP is.

Can I just play and pretend like I'm good at it?

 

This is what I do. People say I'm good at it, so I must be doing something right!