Well, this sums up why I RP

GreenFlashlight

@Caggles said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

Do you think this separation is more difficult with writing than eg. with music?

For me, it's not about the medium, it's about how likely someone is to say "Okay, but" when you point out this or that artist was kind of an asshole.

If I enjoy a Wagner symphony, am I tacitly expressing a fondness for fascism?

I don't understand music well enough to say whether fascism is ingrained in the text of his music (or if music can even be said to have text), but I don't believe enjoying any artist's art is inherently a sign of support for the artist's worst values. I believe in death of the author, as art is just a series of symbols; so the meaning you assign to them will necessarily be idiosyncratic.

I get the feeling people think I said "If you like Lovecraft, then you hate black people and Jewish people," so I just want to reiterate my original point was only I think it's disingenuous to insist we treat Cthulhu as an immaculate creation which exists separate from the context in which it was dreamt up.

As music is a more abstract form, does it become easier to split artist from art, whereas with writing there are assumptions from the artist which form a baseline for everything written?

Not with me personally. Like, Bryan Adams is kind of an asshole, so I got rid of his music because that knowledge soured my enjoyment of his music. And let's be honest, he only had like six good songs anyway, so no great loss there.

To further muddy it, is this different for fiction vs non-fiction? Does a paper on covalent bonds lose validity if written by a TERF? How about different disciplines? Social sciences vs physics?

Assuming we're still talking about dead people, I'd say nonfiction makes it both easier and more dangerous to compartmentalize, because facts are objective and exist apart from the biases of the scientist (insert caveats here about proper methodology); but more dangerous because the validity of their work can be stolen to grant validity to their shitty ideas. Since we've pretty much stopped publishing studies that repeat experiments to verify their results, it's probably pretty hard to find a different, less shitty source for the same ideas, which is a shame.

surreality

@GreenFlashlight said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

I don't believe enjoying any artist's art is inherently a sign of support for the artist's worst values.

A lot of the issue with the general trend these days is that an increasing number of people do insist that this is the case, and that that art and those creations should be destroyed or excised from culture and society because of it.

You can probably see why many people deeply invested in the arts on the whole take major issue with that, even if they're 100% on board with treating all people like people.

Ghost

And why do YOU guys RP?

L. B. Heuschkel

@Ghost said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

And why do YOU guys RP?

Because roleplaying helps me practise my writing -- but also because when I roleplay I get to be somebody who isn't stuck to a bed or sofa 24/7, someone who isn't in constant pain. I had to retire in my mid-30s and now I'm approaching 50 and all but invalid. I can't walk, I can't leave the house unassisted, I can't even shower without help.

But my characters can.

Ganymede

@Ghost said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

And why do YOU guys RP?

I need a distraction.

I have too many goals and ambitions. Getting online to play a little bit settles my nerves and reminds me that I don't have to be beautiful or productive or powerful or successful to be happy.

surreality

@Ghost said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

And why do YOU guys RP?

I liked playing make-believe when I was a kid.

I still like playing make-believe as an adult.

I have a list of more intellectual reasons than that, but it really comes down to the above in the end.

Things I consider positives:

helps me see perspectives other than my own; increases empathy
is an exercise in problem-solving
is a vacation from the real-world problems I have to solve, and sometimes the game generates ideas for this as a bonus
is good exercise in cooperative creative efforts; I typically work entirely on my own and this can get stagnant from time to time
people come up with some cool, nifty stuff sometimes, which is neat to see
sometimes I come up with something cool or nifty, and if other people enjoy that, yay!
no 'I have to make money off of this somehow' pressures at all (which is a common problem with any other creative thing I do, considering how my family gets; I have lost many creative hobbies to their pressures to monetize them over the years, at which point I stop doing that thing because it's no longer fun or relaxing)

Ganymede

@surreality said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

no 'I have to make money off of this somehow' pressures at all (which is a common problem with any other creative thing I do, considering how my family gets; I have lost many creative hobbies to their pressures to monetize them over the years, at which point I stop doing that thing because it's no longer fun or relaxing)

Riding on this point: MUSHing, for the most part, is free. That means that it is a hobby that everyone can enjoy without having to invest a whole lot of resources. So you get a wide smattering of people who play, which is always nice to engage in.

Arkandel

@Ghost said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

And why do YOU guys RP?

Because I like it. It's creative, social (well, in a way) and a habit.

As hobbies go, no other reasons are really needed but also how can you truly explain why you like a thing? It resonates somehow.

I wouldn't underestimate the 'habit' part of it, either. A lot of people are engaged in whatever they're doing simply because it was a part of their life before so it's important to them, and thus they keep doing it long after the original reasons are no longer valid.

For example MU* (and MUDs, specifically) used to be basically the only ways to play online with other people in fantasy or sci-fi environments. That's no longer the case, but some of us got a taste of it and we don't want to let go.

mietze

I have no interest in writing longer original works but I do enjoy writing and love the joint storytelling. Best part of mushing for me. In fact sometimes I wish I could JUST storytell on a game without needing to make a PC because I love spoilers and variety and having a PC provides a lot of encumbrances/COI concerns and other stressors that I do not always want.

In addition, it is a hobby where I have developed lasting friendships with people all over the world. I adored pen pal through postal mail but when that really died out/waned I am glad I had this hobby. There are people in my life that I have now talked with almost daily to near weekly for the last 25+ years. That's really awesome and a comforting sort of stability that I did not grow up with. I have gotten to tell stories about subjects that I do not broach in RL with people who have been by and large safe to do that with.

And I keep meeting new people who are interesting and wonderful.

Darren

Honestly, I haven't RPed anywhere in quite a while now.

When I first got into MUSHing, it was an attempt to replicate the tabletop gaming experience I lost when I went away to college and was separated from my gaming group.

I quickly figured out that that RPing online was a totally different thing from the tabletop games I was used to. Some of the familiar elements were there but not in easily recognizable forms. It was still fun, but I stayed mainly because this was the early days of the Internet and MUs were the first place where I actually felt a sense of community, like I "belonged" somewhere, you know? I met a lot of nice people and made lasting friendships that persist to this day. Over time, MUing became a low-bandwidth, easy-to-disguise social activity that I could engage in from work to ease the tedium of my boring desk job. This worked for me for years and years.

But then the modern Web, along with social media, came along and siphoned off many of the people who were in to MUing mainly for the social aspects, the same way that MMORPGs had siphoned off the gamers years before. This killed much of the community. Suddenly, no one wants to talk anymore. "New" people are met with suspicion and distrust and activity levels are dropping across the board. You have to watch everything that you say now because there are so many people looking for the opportunity to be outraged. This has all but killed the hobby for me, but I still engage, mainly out of habit, and because I enjoy coding.

faraday

@Darren said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

When I first got into MUSHing, it was an attempt to replicate the tabletop gaming experience I lost when I went away to college and was separated from my gaming group. I quickly figured out that that RPing online was a totally different thing from the tabletop games I was used to.

That's pretty much how I started as well. I do like TTRPG, but it's a wildly different experience.

But from there, my early games were mostly lightly or no-coded, cooperative/consent story-focused games. We just hung out and told stories. Sometimes we'd use dice or skills to figure things out, but often not. As @L-B-Heuschkel alluded to earlier - it's a creative writing outlet that's more social, more chill, and more immediately gratifying than writing alone (which I also do).

That's not to say that these places were grand utopias - people are people, and petty drama can happen anywhere. Every few years I get burned out by something and take a little break, but I keep coming back. Because on the whole? I've met lots of good people and written (yeah I'm still sticking with that one) lots of cool stories with them.

Kestrel

I RP as an exercise in creative writing and self-improvement.

I explore characters I'm interested in exploring largely because they represent something about myself or about the world that I want to spend some time critically examining. People who've RPed with me in the past can probably attest that my characters are all very, very different; they're not self-inserts, so this might not seem obvious. But they each either have a different slice of me, or a slice of something about the world that I want to lampoon or am currently trying to come to grips with. If I make a wealthy magpie of a woman obsessed with shoes and handbags, it's because consumerism is on my mind; I did this shortly after the most recent UK general election because I had a critical axe to grind and I wanted to make fun of this type of careless human being. Sometimes my characters are more personal and contain facets of trauma I want to process.

I'll make no bones about the fact that I made my current anarcho-communist Savage Skies character because I just want to let off some smash-the-fash steam. It's cathartic.

I take many of the lessons I learn this way IRL, and feel that RP has genuinely helped me become a better, smarter human. I've been in tense job interviews or nerve-wracking first dates where to fight off anxiety, I asked myself, 'What would character name do?' And then I just turn up the confidence or sex-appeal and cruise right through.

It improves my writing, and contrary to the "RP isn't writing" logic, RP has absolutely given me the tools to better myself as a writer. I lived abroad for a good few years during my childhood in a non-English speaking country, but discovering Achaea in my adolescence gave me the tools to significantly improve my English to the point where when I moved back, although my pronunciation was rubbish and my conversational style awkward, I was writing at a much higher level than the average, native English student. (When you learn English from books and medieval fantasy RP, and your favourite book is The Hobbit, you end up speaking really weird.)

Oh. And it helps that I enjoy it.

For the people interested in the derail topic on Lovecraft and cancel culture etc., here's a new thread.

L. B. Heuschkel

@Darren The experience you describe is pretty much mine as well. Got into the hobby in the 90s, watched the MMOs kill half the playerbase and MySpace and later on, other social media, kill the other half. Tried MMOs for some years, ended up quitting those horrified with the outrage culture and the alt-right recruiters.

Ended up dragged back in this autumn and have found a small community that's talkative, enjoys RP, and has a laid back chat culture. It's like coming home. If you're bored sometime, feel very free to visit and see if we're the kind of chatty community you're aching for.

JinShei

I started when I was really quite unwell, and needed something that I could focus on, have people around but be able to just not when I couldn't.

Now I just enjoy the writing as it is very different to my work and uses a part of my brain that needs exercise. It gets my daydreaming out of my head. Also I like a lot of you people. Not, you know, all of you but.

Groth

The most fun I've ever had with a character was when I had an explicit OOC goal of getting them killed and I eventually succeeded over a period of about 3-4 months.

Pandora

@Groth said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

The most fun I've ever had with a character was when I had an explicit OOC goal of getting them killed and I eventually succeeded over a period of about 3-4 months.

Did they die doing something daring or heroic or exciting, or did they annoy someone into beheading them?

Groth

@Pandora said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

Did they die doing something daring or heroic or exciting, or did they annoy someone into beheading them?

Actually they ended up beheading someone else in the Elysium and got executed for it.

Ghost

@Groth Died doing it, but met that goal. In my manager's book that's "Meets Expectations". I'd call it a win.

ETA. My phone auto corrected manager to master. Fuck you, phone.

Kestrel

@Ghost said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

My phone auto corrected manager to master. Fuck you, phone.

BITCH WELCOME TO CAPITALISM.

Ghost

@Kestrel hahahaha yeaaaaah pretty much what I thought, too