What is your view on RP or ERP and why is it so taboo within the community?

[Jiao]

Where are you all finding these "ice mages" and whatnot? Since I started this game in 2012 ON the unofficial RP servers even, I've yet to see it. What I think you've found are trolls masquerading as RPers. There's a difference even if they might look the same.

They're.. slightly more rare than one would believe based on the stories, but they're real. Back when Sohm Al (Hard) was current my friend and i encountered one. He didn't say a thing, no emotes, nothing. He just cast ice spells the entire run. But we're getting close to duty finder tales territory, I don't mean to derail. Just wanted to answer you. To this day, that has been the only one.

[Hestzhyen]

Where are you all finding these "ice mages" and whatnot? Since I started this game in 2012 ON the unofficial RP servers even, I've yet to see it. What I think you've found are trolls masquerading as RPers. There's a difference even if they might look the same.

They're rare, but you never forget them when you encounter them. A friend of mine was stuck with an Ice Mage in duty (only a Guildhest thankfully, but still!), and I've asked RPers to turn off their multi-line macros of special text for abilities more than a few times. One of the worst was a SCH in World of Darkness who shouted everything to the alliance, even Eye for an Eye casts. I also met a WHM who used /emote to literally fill the chat log with "flavor text" about their imagined actions for basic skills like Presence of Mind, Divine Seal (RIP), and of course Raise... not even anything funny, just "beseeches the elementals of the Twelveswood for their blessings to hasten the granting of boons to the party blah blah blah" type stuff. It's irritating to say the least. Just keep it to yourself or in an LS/FC chat if you want to be a special person with super cool and witty text to go with your spells. Or even better... USE /echo PLEASE!

[bswpayton]

I legit don't get why ppl rate RP or ERP think its a crime. I try to understand here so I'm neutral on the matter and want your opinion about this subject.

I think most people rp to an extent, I mean Im a guy playing a female charcter think that would be rp in my book. So anyone who does that is rp as well, Erp on the other hand this is something Ive had zero experience with so I cant speak on that. But I rp just being a female warrior of light, I actually tried doing myself like some people do it just didnt feel right and I didnt enjoy it nearly as much.

[JumperX]

I think most people rp to an extent, I mean Im a guy playing a female charcter think that would be rp in my book. So anyone who does that is rp as well, Erp on the other hand this is something Ive had zero experience with so I cant speak on that. But I rp just being a female warrior of light, I actually tried doing myself like some people do it just didnt feel right and I didnt enjoy it nearly as much.

No necessarily. Some people play yhe opposite gender because theyr identify their gender identity to be that. Some people are in transition for many several reasons other people are not soing that cuz of several reason of because they consider themselves that that gender they are playing is part of their psychological imagine of themselves so not everybody do as you do. You play a female character (cuz?) and should be tagged as rp.

[bswpayton]

No necessarily. Some people play yhe opposite gender because theyr identify their gender identity to be that. Some people are in transition for many several reasons other people are not soing that cuz of several reason of because they consider themselves that that gender they are playing is part of their psychological imagine of themselves so not everybody do as you do. You play a female character (cuz?) and should be tagged as rp.

Well thats pretty obvious but a ton of heterosexual males play female characters its pretty common in mmo games. So I was very aware that some may identify as that sex but the majority just play female charterers because they like to, most characters you see in the game are mostly just straight males playing female characters. When I say this Im in no way demeaning those whom play that role because thats what they identify as.

[Naunet]

Where are you all finding these "ice mages" and whatnot? Since I started this game in 2012 ON the unofficial RP servers even, I've yet to see it. What I think you've found are trolls masquerading as RPers. There's a difference even if they might look the same.

Yeah, this is what I think every time I people use those go-to "rpers are ruining it for me!" stories. Not just because I've never encountered it myself (I haven't, ever, in all my years of MMOs), but knowing roleplay communities as long as I have... I've known people who macro stuff to their spells, but that's as "invasive" as I've ever seen.

[TouchandFeel]

I have no problem with RPing for the most part, it can be very fun and add to the immersion of this or other games.

ERP is not my thing but I don't really care if others do it.

However there are a few things that I have personally encountered multiple times that makes me not always look favorably on portions of the RP community.

First are the people that try to force or engage others in their RP or ERP wantonly , often to the detriment of others' experience. There are the people who randomly try to elicit "sexual" interactions between their character and yours. There are the people who join groups of random other players who did not consent to RPing and then hinder those people's experience, for example I had a person in a DF dungeon once that role-played an "explorer" so they would constantly stop and slowly walk around rooms doing inspect and lookout emotes because they were "looking for hidden treasure and secret passages" even though they knew there weren't any.
These people are very rare and a small part of the RP community, but they leave quite an impact when you run into them.

Second, there is a lot of bad and incredibly unimaginative rp out there, the kind that would make a tween fan-fic live journal seem like Shakespeare. These are the rp'ers that have created backgrounds and personas for their characters that are overt rip-offs of other pop culture IP's, like various Anime, and are utterly lore breaking. These are the Naruto Targaryens, the orphaned love-child of a fox spirit and a dragon born in the form of a cat-person. Okay, I may be over exaggerating a bit, but honestly not by much.

Lastly, there are those that RP that equate playing a role as being extremely theatrical and overly dramatic in their rendition. They lack subtly and artistry to their implementation and instead strut about as if on a stage overacting even the simplest of things as if they need to make sure that everyone knows they are RPing. If you are constantly announcing yourself and your actions in overly flowery prose of questionable quality, you don't come off as an integrated and believable part of the world, you come off as a loud fool that actually is breaking the serenity and immersion of those around you.

While these critiques are undeniably harsh, we all must keep in mind that those that perpetrate such things are a very, very small part of the RP community. However they are by far the most visible and memorable members because well done RP flies under the radar, making it seem like more of the community is like this than is actually the case.

In a ways, this is very much the same as the negative outlooks on other groups within the community, such as the "hardcore" players, the "speedruners", the "casual" players, etc. People let the few bad apples determine their perception of the group as a whole and then they let this ill-conceived perception paint their interactions with anyone they determine to be of that group.

In the end I just compartmentalize the groups into RPers (the quiet majority), which I have no problem with, and bad RPers (the loud minority), which I prefer to avoid as much as possible.

[Avatre]

Snip

Well thats pretty obvious but a ton of heterosexual males play female characters its pretty common in mmo games. So I was very aware that some may identify as that sex but the majority just play female charterers because they like to, most characters you see in the game are mostly just straight males playing female characters. When I say this Im in no way demeaning those whom play that role because thats what they identify as.

As bswpayton said. There are lots of heterosexual males I know(myself included) that play a female character because it's a lot easier to make them look good(at least that's what I find). And you have more options for glamour. Some of it could possibly also stem from other games where the gender you chose determined which class you could play(Ragnarok Online with Archers being able to be Bard/Dancer depending on gender for example). Though that doesn't seem like it would ever be a concern in FF.

As for the RP/ERP discussion, ERP to me is the same as full on public sex irl. It's not something that (most) people do, as they tend to keep that type of stuff in the privacy of their own homes. I know there are people that are doing it, and as long as I don't need to see/hear it, have at it(as long as you are all consenting adults). For regular RP, I see no real harm the majority of the time as long as those that are RPing know when to stop, and when others are being serious about something.

[JumperX]

snip

I was just adding more content to his post like saying about gender identity. Another thing I will add is that there are a lot of girls playing male characters. The only difference is that guys don't notice it cuz girls are not going out there and flirting with another person like guys tend to do when they are playing a female character. I talked to even guys and funny enough they said that they get annoyed and are tired on how many guys hit on them, but they still love playing their female character.

One thing that I noticed is that guys tend to make a good looking female character while girls tend to make a good looking male character. About the RP thing. I don't really care much till those people try to RP with me directly without taking the time to ask me if I RP (which I don't). I remember how unlucky one day I got that random two people approached me IC and started to have a ERP conversation. They just assumed I did RP and ERP because I was talking to a friend who was very active in the "RP community?". My friends don't RP with me even if they are RPers. They tell me their experience and what they work on, but I never participated so I would say people should invest a bit of time before just assuming (of course it is not all RPers doing that but the first impression impacts very strongly and stay with one the longest.)

Another bad experience with RPers. I queued for DF to do my dailies. They were all happy and greet so did I, but they were all friends and from the same server (which I didn't know till way later). They started to have a lot of text and emotes with every skills they did and even talked how they were feeling as we were going in. we didn't even get to the first boss and they killed us 5 times because the healer was very scared and was telling to their group to get out of the dungeon (roleplaying of course) and one of the DPS was "always ready" to go forward and be the brave one aka meaning going ahead of me - the tank- and pulling everything (this was my first time in the dungeon....) and the other DPS was "new" to this new job so he was "still learning his new skills" again RPing all this. I got super annoyed, and I am sorry to say that I got to type in caps and tell them how frustrating I was. My first experience in the dungeon was irritating thanks to their damn idea of making a party of three people and queue together. I told them that I would leave at least they stopped the roleplaying. I didn't sign for their amusement. After that they went quiet and stopped their little game and we finished the dungeon really fast.

As I said, I don't care much, but when they make the others game experience annoying is when they need to stop what they are doing and think on what they are doing wrong and avoid doing it because as much as they paid to play this game, I paid this game to enjoy it in a different aspect as they do.

[Elladie]

I've encountered RP-ers in dungeons only once or twice; luckily for me they could spell, clearly had great imaginations, and were hilarious. I remember those few runs very fondly. They inspired the rest of us to join in, and we all had a blast, so there was no griefing about the duty taking too long. I can sympathise though if the RP element interferes with gameplay; dungeons aren't the place to take your Sylvie WHM (though that's a whole other can of worms)

RP done well is very entertaining. I don't RP myself - I don't have the self confidence - or not in FFXIV though I do play DnD in a game that's pretty RP based and it is huge fun. I'm a writer so my character does have a vast and intricate backstory that goes all the way back to pre-Calamity days but I wouldn't feel comfortable expressing any of that in an IC way. But if I encounter RP in /say and it's well done, I'll hang around to enjoy it. Bad RP I walk away, I wouldn't dream of reporting anyone for being bad at typing/writing in cliches/having a mediocre imagination

ERP though? Ewwww no thanks. Keep it to yourselves please. And if you don't, yeah I'll report you