Well, this sums up why I RP

[Pandora]

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

So, I didn't read the last four pages, and while I adore you all, I don't think it'd be a good use of my time.

ANYWAY, I wasn't trying to equate authors = RPing, though I get totally why it was read that way and feel it's a valid conversation (again?) for other to take on.

I was focusing on how it's fun to do terrible things to characters.

Excuse me as I go over here thanks.

My bad for the derail( @Ghost made me do it). I agree, doing terrible things to other peoples' characters is awesome when there's a good vibe & I wish more people were open to letting their train going off the rails for a while.

[Groth]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

am I the only person who was already mad at JK Rowling for being a shitty writer?

I really enjoyed the first 5 or so books.

[mietze]

I think a lot of people love doing horrible things to their PCs so that others will pay attention to them. Sometimes it's not entirely clear where the line of compelling/annoying is.

Like I think almost everyone but the person who generates it eventually grows tired of the PC that is constantly needing to be rescued from kidnappers/rapists/assassins every week. And a lot of people get tired of the being a total unrelenting jerk ic for Reasons You Should Unravel (but forget about reciprocal play)?

But when you are talking about stuff like trauma, ect, you do run into people's leeriness about whether you are a sane person to play or with or running into RL discomfort/distaste. And if you are not very attuned to reading the room you can get in real trouble real quick.

I have to have trauma or some kind of major flaw in all my PCs to find then interesting. I dont think everyone has to be this way but it's just who I am as a storyteller/RPer. How much I play it depends on whether or not I am able to tell if the other person will enjoy it, or at least be open to it. It might be that some who have RPed with me on some PCs have the impression that I don't have interest in those things because I have not gotten a read to find out if it would be welcome or not.

There are very few off topic RP subjects for me; I admit that I do not do age play or pedophilia ever. (Though I have had PCs that were involved in child marriage or who were abused as kids that is background only and never explicitly talked about). Literally nothing else bothers me. I may not alwats choose to engage in onscreen acting out of other stuff depending on the PC, player, or game rules, but I have no problems with people who do and arent forcing it on others.

And I've met a ton of people who do the same, they just arent infamous because they dont need to shove people's faces in it indiscriminately. I am always grateful when I find those folks and they often fuel my creativity and have sustained my interest in mushing this whole time. I suspect there are more people out there that I sadly miss because i am reserved about expressing RP prefs in an audience I dont know yet, but that's no one's fault but mine for taking a safer route maybe.

[Rinel]

@Kanye-Qwest

I don't have enough energy to be mad at mediocre fantasy writers. I'd be perpetually screaming.

[mietze]

Unfortunately I find that the tools that could in theory help identify people who are open to whatever particular kind of horrible my PCs have in them/about them have often backfired when I have tried to use them. Maybe I should give them a try again but I'm leery.

Because I-player have no difficulty in engaging I scenes that involve certain subjects doesnt mean that I want every PC who has that in their background or who is open to incorporating that into their play to feel entitled to my time or to approach me because they are super excited about getting their <subject> on; and sometimes people assume because you are open it means you expect THEM to be open to that subject to play with you or they assume you are a <subject> fiend that is only into that kind of play.

This is compounded when you are in mixed company as far as people wanting to ask oocly if something would be welcome, or touching base oocly.

When you can find people who are willing to push ic boundaries while respecting ooc ones, and who are trustworthy to handle experimentation with difficult subjects but dont then weaponize it oocly later though, that really can be amazing. They're definitely out there.

[silverfox]

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

I have to have trauma or some kind of major flaw in all my PCs to find then interesting.

This. Also, I just enjoy them just being... BAD at stuff. I really enjoy games with dice so that my 'fail' is less of an 'omg she wants attention' and more a 'no, legit, my character succksss at this and thus gets consequences' (thank you @scar for saving Kenna's ass... repeatedly lately.) It's more fun. I hate winning all the time, that gets boring.

[mietze]

@silverfox I enjoy my PCs failures too even if nobody notices, except my husband who asks why I am snort-laughing. It happens quite often on my knight.

[surreality]

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

I think a lot of people love doing horrible things to their PCs so that others will pay attention to them. Sometimes it's not entirely clear where the line of compelling/annoying is.
Like I think almost everyone but the person who generates it eventually grows tired of the PC that is constantly needing to be rescued from kidnappers/rapists/assassins every week. And a lot of people get tired of the being a total unrelenting jerk ic for Reasons You Should Unravel (but forget about reciprocal play)?
But when you are talking about stuff like trauma, ect, you do run into people's leeriness about whether you are a sane person to play or with or running into RL discomfort/distaste. And if you are not very attuned to reading the room you can get in real trouble real quick.

Every character I've ever made has built in traumas, emotional scars, etc. 90% of the time, they don't come up other than the way they shape their reactions to IC events, because they're not front and center on display at all times to seemingly or actually wholly define them. I consider this fairly realistic, in that... well, I have plenty of traumas and they certainly impact my reaction to things, but not everybody walking past me on the street is going to look at me and go 'there goes a survivor of <thing>!' as that's not the way it works.

The way some folks behave -- excessive over the top hand-wringing or an endless melodrama over the top setting as their default -- on a MU, this would be the reaction they get, and they'd expect everyone to Immediately and Vocally Notice and React.

Like many others on the forum, I've been through some shit. People on the forums over the years have heard enough of it to know about it, as it comes up from time to time when discussing certain subjects. The people I run into in the course of daily life are often wholly unaware.

Barring exceptional circumstances, people shouldn't be able to point at (generic) character-you and say, "That person was almost murdered once!" (or whatever your inner trauma) on first (or even second or third) meeting. If they can? (Generic) player-you're doing it wrong, and (generic) player-you should probably fucking stop.

[Testament]

I don't have any kind of pseudo-intellectual reasoning for why I RP. Or some super deeply meaningful philosophical outlook on it.

I do it because I enjoy it.

And because I'm currently between DnD campaigns.

[mietze]

@surreality see I do not even have a problem with that per se. I love playing a quiet game of Guess That Trauma to see if I can figure out tells, ect, and can feel disappointed if there arent any that I have picked up on. I'm not always in the mood to deal with certain ic behaviors or the same sort of conversation so if someone seems like they dont do much variety I might seek out others until I'm in the mood for it. It is rarely a dealbreaker for me, unless I see someone getting oocly pushy or mean about it, but most people don't.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Kestrel One point on Lovecraft and other long dead writers: They're dead. With a living author -- like Rowlings -- you can ask yourself, do I want to give money to this asshole? With an author who's long dead, though, the point is moot. The only person who suffers from 'canceling' them is, well, anyone with an interest.

As a hobby historian I'm very wary of attempts to clean up history. Kipling wrote beautiful India stories -- doesn't change the fact he was an imperialistic git. Lovecraft was a horrible racist but his universe is still fascinating. The writings of long dead writers tell two stories -- that which they intended to tell, and on the meta level, the story of the writer and the ethics of the period they lived in.

For modern writers it's a little different. I'm inclined to say that Rowlings being a horrible person doesn't make her books horrible (though I'll admit they never appealed to me much, but they didn't before she was outed either). It's okay to love them. The question to ask oneself is whether one wants to financially support this person -- and for some the answer will be, yes, because I love the books more than I care about the author's views. I'm inclined to say that either take is alright because where one draws the line is always a very personal thing, and mob mentality rarely leads to good places. Personally I'd never buy a thing she wrote, but I'm not going to condemn others for doing so.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

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

Having my character turned into something they're not -- something that I have no interest in playing, and that I am not portraying IC -- by others? Nope.

The only person who should decide what role you play is you. I am happy to take on the villain mantle at times but I decide when I do so. If someone tries to cast you as something you never intended to play, screw that.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

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

Like I think almost everyone but the person who generates it eventually grows tired of the PC that is constantly needing to be rescued from kidnappers/rapists/assassins every week. And a lot of people get tired of the being a total unrelenting jerk ic for Reasons You Should Unravel (but forget about reciprocal play)?

Yes on both of these. I love having the trauma conga steamroll my character when it makes sense. Consequences are good. Bad choices leading to bad results is good. Being a dick for the sake of being a dick, or coming up with contrived reason after another to need rescued/talked out of suicide/whatever is not good. It's a fine line, but there's being a person who stands where the manure hits the fan, and there's being a drama queen slash attention whore.

As you point out too, reading the room is good. I generally don't introduce my characters in a dramatic fashion; I don't run up to strangers in real life and start ranting about my shitty life, why would they? Drama happens along the way -- and it should indeed be distributed, I prefer to run plots where everyone takes turns being the victim. Currently running a plot based on my character's complex background -- and in the next I will be focusing hard on someone else's because hello, my character is not the only person in the world who's got problems.

[Kestrel]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

@Kestrel One point on Lovecraft and other long dead writers: They're dead. With a living author -- like Rowlings -- you can ask yourself, do I want to give money to this asshole? With an author who's long dead, though, the point is moot. The only person who suffers from 'canceling' them is, well, anyone with an interest.

As a hobby historian I'm very wary of attempts to clean up history. Kipling wrote beautiful India stories -- doesn't change the fact he was an imperialistic git. Lovecraft was a horrible racist but his universe is still fascinating. The writings of long dead writers tell two stories -- that which they intended to tell, and on the meta level, the story of the writer and the ethics of the period they lived in.

For modern writers it's a little different. I'm inclined to say that Rowlings being a horrible person doesn't make her books horrible (though I'll admit they never appealed to me much, but they didn't before she was outed either). It's okay to love them. The question to ask oneself is whether one wants to financially support this person -- and for some the answer will be, yes, because I love the books more than I care about the author's views. I'm inclined to say that either take is alright because where one draws the line is always a very personal thing, and mob mentality rarely leads to good places. Personally I'd never buy a thing she wrote, but I'm not going to condemn others for doing so.

Lovecraft is a whole bucket of crazy I would love to dissect but I'm not too keen to rederail this thread.

I'll reiterate I don't think anyone who likes, enjoys, reads, purchases Lovecraft novels, is a bad person for doing so.

Honestly, I don't even judge people who continue to enjoy Rowling's universe. I wouldn't even call her a horrible person; I find that to be hyperbole. I find her to be a mediocre person — at best, and at worst. As mediocre as just about anyone, morally speaking, and my cynicism inclines me to believe that's even better than average. She's just a privileged person who doesn't care about, accept, nor understand the existence of underprivileged people who exist beyond her notice; what else is new in the world? I don't feel any rage towards her, but as a cis person I also know it's not my place to exonerate her. I just nothing her. I avoid things to do with her now because I can no longer consume Rowling-adjacent products in any capacity without being reminded of the harm her bigotry inflicts on the transpeople in my life I love and care about who deserve better heroes in the public eye. I wouldn't even say I'm boycotting her, I just think I've outgrown her.

As for Lovecraft, I think evidence of his abominable racism and xenophobia isn't just present in his works; it's the entire foundation his works were built on. I don't avoid his works because I'm making it a conscious point to boycott them; I avoid them because they disgust me. I'm just not interested in reading the sad, pathetic ravings of a depraved and lonely lunatic writing about how scary foreigners are through the thinly veiled metaphor of incomprehensible alien creatures replacing and overtaking humanity or whatever.

I know sweet, kind, intensely good, non-racist people who enjoy his works. I do not judge them for being able to find their own interpretations and charitable meanings in his work. I understand that many of the themes of alienation and nihilism resonate with people, and think that everyone is entitled to, even owed, the right to find art that resonates with them on some level and brings them comfort. I'm not interested in robbing people of the connection they feel with these works. Art, music and beauty are the most human things we have. It's tangible empathy.

I just don't personally connect with these particular works. It's not for me. I'm not his target audience, I'm the horror that kept him up at night while he was writing them. As long as you don't view me that way, we're kosher. I'm OK with you finding your own interpretation in his works, not that you should need my permission to like the things you like.

[surreality]

On Lovecraft: his views make me flinch, and his writing is purple enough I just can't even.

I think the most forward-thinking and inventive thing he did -- and I do see this specifically as a positive -- is that he seems to be the first or one of the first who opened up the world he created to allow others to write fiction or create other works within it. Plenty have without his specific gross baggage and intentions and 'dude totally should have been a MUer' thesaurus abuse, which is pretty cool. This was a better idea than anything in the actual world-building is, and I'm glad it laid a foundation for other shared worlds to follow along after -- especially ones that don't have all the garbage attached.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

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

As for Lovecraft, I think evidence of his abominable racism and xenophobia isn't just present in his works; it's the entire foundation his works were built on. I don't avoid his works because I'm making it a conscious point to boycott them; I avoid them because they disgust me. I'm just not interested in reading the sad, pathetic ravings of a depraved and lonely lunatic writing about how scary foreigners are through the thinly veiled metaphor of incomprehensible alien creatures replacing and overtaking humanity or whatever.

And that's another kettle of fish right there, indeed. Just because something is considered a 'classic' doesn't mean you have to enjoy it. I find Lovecraft profoundly boring; he doesn't speak to me at all. Many so-called greats of the past don't. And that's fine.

On a note to fiction and Lovecraft in general: The first science fiction novels, in any recognisable meanings of the term, hail all the way back to the 1600s, Ludvig Holberg's hollow world story among them. We may credit Lovecraft, perhaps, for helping -- along with many others -- to introduce speculative fiction to the mainstream.

[GreenFlashlight]

I am generally cold enough not to care if a dead person was racist or whatever, but my hackles go up a little bit when people try to separate art from artist. Every painting is a self-portrait, and I don't think it's appropriate to compartmentalize the neat space squid stuff from the name he gave his cat. Trying to do so feels to me like an admission of the problem: otherwise, you wouldn't need to try to divorce them.

[Caggles]

@GreenFlashlight

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

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

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?

Am interested in the debate - not sure which side I fall on the argument. Keep talking, this interests me.

[surreality]

@GreenFlashlight When talking about people from the past? Bluntly, it's sometimes necessary, particularly in light of the trend of damning absolutely everyone and their cousin Frank from 1700 for not having had the levels of social enlightenment we have today. There are reasons this behavior is completely ridiculous and they should be profoundly obvious.

It's important to recognize these things, and be aware of them. It is absurd to claim that no one accomplished anything of value before today (or even today) if they are not espousing the most socially enlightened view of the world and those inhabiting it as we know it today.

I am not interested enough in Lovecraft to know what his cat's name was, and no one reading his works should be obligated to know that before they decide if they like the writing or not. (I don't like it; that's all I needed to know.) This is not 'divorcing the artist from their work'.

This notion that someone should perform a modern sensibilities background check on any creator, regardless of when they came from, before even looking at the creation is utter nonsense -- and it's profoundly destructive nonsense. There's 'understanding the context', and it's important. It is not the end-all, be-all. It is not the only thing that exists. This 'if the creator's life didn't conform to modern sensibilities, their work should be disparaged and excised' mentality would burn the MET to the fucking ground, and as someone who has spent a shit-ton of time there over the course of my life? No.

ETA: This rant may have come from having to take art history every fucking time I transferred to a new college for more swiss army knife costume/art skills, which I'm super bitter and baffled about to this day. Still, dang. I may never ever ever want to see the dang Venus of Willendorf again, but jesus, this trend galls the shit out of me as someone who has had the foundational values of art in history drilled into her skull five bloody times. (More if you consider some places splitting it into multiple courses... )

[L. B. Heuschkel]

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

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?

It may. Depends a lot on what the paper is about. If it's a study of iron age weaponry, probably not. Modern gender politics -- probably quite a bit.

I'm going to reiterate my stand from earlier; if a contemporary writer turns out to be a person you profoundly disagree with, you have to ask yourself if you want to give them your money. In cases where they are a shitty person but their novels are not, I can see myself continuing to buy their books; not everyone in the world agrees with me on everything, and that's just how it is.

If the shitty view is expressed in a way that may have very profound effects, though -- such as, hypothetically, modern gender studies and someone who's an express homophobe, TERF, what have you -- then I do think the talk about whether they should be doing this needs to happen, and whether one is willing to support it.