Roleplaying Etiquette - Waitress on the First Day at the Quicksand.

Hi guys,

Has anyone made a roleplay etiquette guide for Balmung yet? I visited The Quicksand today and was struck by how rude and antagonistic some people were towards my new-waitress-at-the-Quicksand character even though she was melding into the walls and staying out of everyone's way. Some of the rudeness wasn't even IC either.

In one of the instance, my waitress gets told by Momodi to go clean the tables and approaches an empty table where a couple has decided to stand on top of a plate of food. My character expresses frustration with the characters standing on the tables wondering if they'd had too much to drink. The response from these characters is: ((We're not IC here)). Fair enough, even though everyone else was IC there and it IS the central hub of a roleplay server. My character stays IC, and goes over to the Quicksand's counter and blames the patrons' behavior on alcohol.

This guy then decides that the proper response to the event is to "unintentionally" misdirect a tell about a 'slutty-lookin blonde' which I did not feel alluded to at all until he sends me ANOTHER tell saying: ((Sorry to insult you.)) What? How can I feel OCC insulted by a guy who is humping a female character on top of a table at the Quicksand but is somehow 'not IC here'?

The other piece of rudeness pertains to a patron who I had taken an order of drinks from and served. Now this guy just wanted to know what was I getting from playing the waitress at the Quicksand, interacting with non-playing characters and just adding to the fantasy of the place. Well, to answer him here, I do not get anything other than feeling like I'm making the piece of fantasy more believable to others. So when this "patron" calls my waitress over to the table to place a food order and adds, in character, "I'm just trying to find out what your angle is here and why you are speaking to the gentleman with the turban over there." (Why are you adding to the fantasy of my game, godsdammit?),

Well, my character was reporting to the man on the turban (an NPC) about the comings and goings of this patron at the Quicksand to further the fantasy that this waitress was an undercover member of some secret organization somewhat associated with the Scions and/or their enemies. She seems shocked when confronted (shouldn't have happened as she had been WHISPERING to the man in the turban out of earshot), but blames it on the power of The Echo which the annoyed patron seems to possess granting him the ability to learn secrets. At this point, the patron behaves as though my waitress character is crazy and that he doesn't know what 'The Echo' is.

Just seems like calling people 'crazy' in roleplay is one of the cheapest, laziest ways to roleplay. Why, I could have called the patron 'crazy' for thinking I spoke with the man with the turban (eventhough I plainly did). We can all call each other 'crazy' for roleplaying in the first place, right? But just because you don't understand that there are selfless people out there who will roleplay a lowly character doing menial things such as wiping tables just to add fantasy to your world doesn't mean you should go there and call them 'crazy' because you simply can't wrap your head around such selflessness...

It's like fantasy inception, a fantasy within a fantasy, within a fantasy. It's pretty meta.

Hello! I do not Roleplay here, but eventually plan to as an Au Ra! Maybe...and I am terribly sorry you had a bad experience.
But let's talk about it. I apologize if I get this wrong.

- Balmung is the undesignated RP server and you're correct, Ul'dah IS the hub of RP chatters BUT not everyone RP's.
But here's a tip! Check the character status....thing...you know when you right-click and see their info? Tons of people will say:
"RP. Walk-ups are welcomed!" or you could /tell them to see if they RP. I enjoy reading other RP's and all but I since I don't really RP here and if I see
another waitress or so, [I've went to a little cafe to read, I didn't intend to RP BUT I did interact a bit and gave gil tips at the end, I enjoyed it! It was small RP anyway]
some RP just so they don't feel ignored.


Let's talk about the problems.

1. Guys seems like a jerk. Nothing else to say here. :/ Unless he meant not IC to you per say...but maybe to the other female? I dunno; he's a butt.
He could of avoided it better by saying "MT" or something?

2. I'm not sure what happened on that other part. So the guy who was asking you about the Turban NPC? I think he wasn't trying to be rude, but felt like you were a bit suspicious...
I don't think he did it right though. Asking up-front without trying to play along and get more info out of you wasn't the step in the right direction
because how did he hear that well if you weren't in earshot? Perhaps he did posses the echo or just had really good hearing, or maybe he was a NIN?
The 'crazy' remark was either him trying to shoo away so you don't think he has the ability of the Echo or really didn't have it...

Just know, not everyone is [not to be rude] incredibly good at RPing...like me! I suck at it! So it doesn't hurt to /tell somethings about your character
or ask them questions or even go (( )) in mid-rp. I can't help too much because I've never RP'd in a MMO before.
Only pen/paper and websites. I hope this helps come and I hope you have much better RP's ahead of you! I hope
someone can help with etiquette though because I dunno the rule of thumb about any of it.
-Hugs!-

Just want you to know, you came up to me (or rather, I took it upon myself to sit at your table!), and I thoroughly enjoyed your IC waitress! Keep up the fun RP and don't worry about any rude RPers in there, they're quite common to be honest.

Don't forget that the quick sand is also a quest hub. if someone says they are ooc to you, probably best to move on. Sometimes I'll sit around there on an alt and watch the train wrecks come and go. (Don't get me wrong, there are good stories that unfold there as well, but... It's bar RP, and can get goldshire esque.)
Personally I wouldn't be insulted by two random dudes ooc trollin on a table. the lady above me enjoyed your rp :3 so keep on rping that waitress!!

Also: a good chunk of people RP that they don't have the echo as it's pretty OP and is the warrior of light's deal. (then again we ALL are the warrior of light so whatever floats your boat.) And really if you said you had some supernatural ability to read my thoughts or see my past I'd call you crazy too. Calling that a lazy way to interact with someone is somewhat inappropriate. And I'm not sure that's the best way to use the echo if you had it hahaha but I might be misunderstanding if your character is a spy or just a magical barmaid ~!

Might be some RP FCs out there that offer a tavern atmosphere, as well, and they may just offer a more enjoyable environment. If slightly less busy.

Mugiawara already pretty much said everything I was thinking, so I'll just add some extra advice:

1. Not everyone is IC at the Quicksand. Please understand that. Just because it's a RP hub and everyone else there is IC at the time doesn't not mean that everyone is there to RP at that moment. Some people are only there for a quest, some just happened to bump into a friend they're goofing off with OOC, some are there to troll RPers because they have sad empty lives, and other people (I do this one a lot) went to the Quicksand to RP but ended up doing something else while they were idling and got sidetracked and are now too distracted to RP. It could've been the first fellow was provoked to be so rude because, even after telling you he was OOC, your character referred to their characters as still being there dancing on the table. That doesn't justify his reaction, but I can say it's terribly annoying when you tell someone you're not IC and they just disregard it.

2. Some people will just be butts and metagame. They'll know things they shouldn't know, hear things that were whispered out of earshot, see things outside the building, read the thoughts on your character's mind, etc. Sometimes people do it on purpose, sometimes it's an accident because they misread or didn't stop to think things through from their character's perspective. I would recommend that when you RP with someone, only emote what their character actually can see/hear unless you know the person well or don't care if they potentially metagame. Sometimes people will ask OOC questions like, "What's your character doing?" or "What is she whispering?" My response is always "It's a secret!" or "You'll have to find out IC!" Encourage people to seek answers IC, not seek OOC answers they may use to metagame.

Oh wow, also just realized the guy you mentioned in the second encounter is a member of my FC! I recommend checking out this post for some clarity. Also, the RPC has a lot of great resources for RP. I recommend checking it out. You'll likely get more feedback on RP related issues there than you will here.

Here I was going to offer HoC's tavern Night Thursdays and here is Faye already on top of things.

Keep in mind, RP is a diverse crowd, as diverse as people are in the game that don't RP. So you're going to get your casuals, hardcores, and trolls of all styles.

Everyone's going to play by a different set of internal rules with different expectations. The best thing to do is to just go in with an open mind and a casual approach. Save the in-depth RPing to groups you feel most comfortable with, and don't feel too discouraged if you have a bad encounter. The ratio of bad to good changes dramatically once you find an RP FC that matches your style.

Good luck and I hope your experiences in Balmung improve!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sydelle

...when confronted (shouldn't have happened as she had been WHISPERING to the man in the turban out of earshot

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This part bothers me. Unless you were out of sight as well, I fail to see how you can sit there and accuse this patron of meta gaming.

Your character physically walked over to the NPC, leaned in and whispered in his ear, correct? So why wouldn't said patron not be allowed (as you lead us to believe) to use that to further roleplay?

And then to put them on blast publicly here? That's just beyond rude.

I'm not sure what 'etiquette' was broken here. From where I sit and reading both sides of the story, you come off as extremely unreasonable.