Simulation vs Showmanship

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I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts about one aspect of roleplaying which does not get talk about that much, but I think is kind of important.

There is a trade-off in all forms of storytelling between simulation and showmanship. Simulation, the ability represent reality, matters because we want our stories to ring true, to make sense and be believable.

But we also need the story to be entertaining and to do so we often have to chip away at the strict sense of realism. So you introduce the odd coincidence in the plot, you give the heroes a lucky break that allows them to beat the odds or even, what the hell, throw in some really fun stuff like fast cars, fast women and giant, rampaging robots.

This applies to roleplaying too. And I would like to use an event recently run by the Nanomage Liberation Front to illustrate this point.

A few months ago, The Nanomage Liberation Front ran a little story involving about an appeal for blood donations for a sick little boy called Timmy. Here is the >> link << if you missed this story. It was a very successful roleplaying story in my opinion, one which got people talking.

Now, of course, this was all a scam. There was no Timmy, the NLF needed solitus blood develop an anti-toxic, or something to that effect. But more to the point, everyone knew it was an obvious scam. And it is precisely because it was so transparently a scam that people got curious, took notice and ultimately got involved.

My contention is that had the NLF taken a more subtle, a more realistic, approach to collecting samples of solitus blood, the story would not have generation a fraction of the interest and player interaction it did. This was a case where showmanship took precedence over simulation to good effect.

The same applies to players. When confronted with something like the NLF backing a blood drive for little Timmy, you have to ask yourself, do you do what makes most sense and keep well clear, or do you do what is most fun, volunteer to give blood and see what happens? These are deeply personal choices, decision, but it's worth considering that stories would be very dull if the protagonists always acted wisely.

I'm not really sure, it seems that many of the plots we see -are- overly dramatic in the way they are put on, while the timmy event was a more normal cover for the operation.

I mean come on, how many brainwashed omni-tek super-soldiers can you have running around going 'zeig heil!' before you just groan? How many kidnappings or ransom notes do you have to see before you roll your eyes.

The end of the NLF was slightly different in that is was dramatic and ironic, providing a very memorable and funny ending to a memorable org. I suppose thats what you get for not having gorgefodder around to set up the bomb ;)

thing is too though that players alone can't do everything without ARK events help, and well... most of the time they just decline to help us, aka, you are about allowed to do nothing when it comes to rping, cause the (boring if i might say so) storyline can't be shifted 1 inch

Well actually Playboyfixer, the Little Timmy story demonstrates another thing : if you choose your subject matter carefully you can run a fun event without Arks and having to change the course of Rubi-Kan history. If you only want to run stories that are so important that require offical support, you are setting yourself up for a lot frustration. Even with the best will in the world it is simply not feasible.

I get fed up when I go to meetings of roleplayers and the subject almost always dirfts to how FC and the Arks should do this or that to help roleplaying. Frankly if it ain't happened in six years, it ain't gonna happen now. Let's focus on what we can do ourselves and be grateful that we actually get more in game support through the Ark Event team for roleplaying than any other mmorpg out there. But that is a rant for another day :-)

Berael - I take your point. It was a very down to earth story compared to many others.

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Originally Posted by Berael

I'm not really sure, it seems that many of the plots we see -are- overly dramatic in the way they are put on, while the timmy event was a more normal cover for the operation.

I mean come on, how many brainwashed omni-tek super-soldiers can you have running around going 'zeig heil!' before you just groan? How many kidnappings or ransom notes do you have to see before you roll your eyes.

The end of the NLF was slightly different in that is was dramatic and ironic, providing a very memorable and funny ending to a memorable org. I suppose thats what you get for not having gorgefodder around to set up the bomb ;)

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as usual, you made a great point. You're still neutral though... ( ;) haha, kidding)

I guess thats what I like about the stories of Meanwhile on Rubi-Ka. A lot of them are... Life. (forgive me, I just really like that thread.) They aren't epic stories about the meta-physicist whose manifestations were so evil that they needed to be destroyed or they would take over the world. They're mundane, filled with personality flaws and quirks.

The NLF thing was beautiful because it was almost an anti-climax. How refreshing was that?

I can't help but to agree with Astera and Berael.

The Timmy storyline was very well done. and even though it was along the lines of "haha! fooled joo!" it still didn't seem as over the top dramatic as a lot of plots I've heard or seen over the past few months.

As boring as it may sound just the every day chit-chat, gossiping over tells/coms ands alot of realism, and support not only to the character you play but to the others you interact with. It also means that a large plot like an assassination comes along it'll have a fresh feel to it; even if this is the 100 millionth time you've heard about someone wanting to kill Zora if no one hasn't brought it up in several months it'll hold more value.

There have been so many times I've seen perma-kill this, blow up that city, infiltrate this Org, Arrest that leader, thrown around, I can't help but roll my eyes and go "oh gawd again!?" I'll admit I'm guilty of taking part of it as well, for all I know I may have accedently set up the example for others, that saw me do so.

My two cents: Leave the arrests, occupations, assassinations, perma-deaths, blown up cities and all the grand-scale-sixth-sense-twist-ending stuff to the Events people, and FC (to patch the changes in).

Player based events need to be focused more on their toons, Orgs, affiliations, connections, Progress, and purpose of all of tha above, and not so focused on seeing how many times one can get their name, or Org's name on the news. Follow through with the realism, take a page from the NLF's handbook, and find a purpose, and then stick to it. The drama *will* follow, and won't end after a specific event has passed, or ended. *coughNEAMOcough*

((Agreed.

As a side note, I think I've never had as much fun in this game as when we did those very mundane things that Kotts has mentioned. You don't know what a character is really made of until you've witnessed him shoot his fridge because it contained a weird, unknown substance *coughs* milk. ;)))

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Originally Posted by Dabblez

the Little Timmy story demonstrates another thing : if you choose your subject matter carefully you can run a fun event without Arks and having to change the course of Rubi-Kan history.

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I've been saying this for years... ok well maybe not -years-, but certainly a while. You can also have 'epic' plots that do not change the whole world, only your part of it.

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Originally Posted by Kotts

My two cents: Leave the arrests, occupations, assassinations, perma-deaths, blown up cities and all the grand-scale-sixth-sense-twist-ending stuff to the Events people, and FC (to patch the changes in).

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I totally disagree. We have the power to do many plots like this, and about as much mew power as ARK events.

Shameless plug for my essay: A Different View of Large Player Plots.


I think there are a couple things that the RP community needs to stress in their interaction with new RPers and in their own role-play to help keep it -good-.

1. Keep the people real - If the characters you are interacting with do not seem human than you will inevitably reject them. Cookie cutter character and stereo types are -old- and 2 dimensional character bent on revenge/greed/evil are grating and irritating. People are complex, if character show complex motivations they will be more accepted and more well liked because they can be related too. An old OP officer who wants to shoot the Clanner who killed his partner is more believable if he searches for them in his off time, the world does not stop for revenge.

2. Keep events real - Real is a bit subjective with nanobots but its still a point to keep in mind. One character cannot take on the whole world and expect much more than good press, just as much as a frothing mob doesn't appear on command. With the amount of super nanotech around, being able to plant a bomb -anywhere- and have it not be detected is a big accomplishment that probably took a team of people who know their mark very well. Its hard for snipers to get on roofs and not be noticed. If your event demonstrates how event B came from event A it will be more accepted than if you need to make a leap of logic to see it.

3. What you see if what you get - This is actually a great social principle: if people don't perceive something, they wont go digging for it and they will assume that what they see is all that exists. If you have a plot that relies on secrecy, people wont go looking for the plot; you will need to bring it to them. Also if your character has a huge backstory and its not obvious in how that character acts, people will not appreciate the work you did. Sometimes you need to spoon feed people so they get it, and people will thank you because you made them see what was there.

4. Abandon the spot light - Lots of people want attention, but if you want to run plots or events, people will get really fed up if you keep placing yourself in center stage.


I'm sure there are more, but these I think are essential.

Honestly Berael, you've swayed me, I guess what I was aiming for was to encourage more mundane everyday stuff. When every bit of RP you come across is high stakes epic battles, to me it just slowly sucks the realism out of it. But if the right balance is met with the mundane, and epic it could very well spark some fires. The mundane stuff, for me anyways, keeps me immersed and interested even more receptive to the epic things that do happen, so long as it's not blatant spotlighting.
a little empathy and creativity go a long way.

I've seen so much garbage it's made me bitter. I don't want that, I want the community to come back to what it was, and me being like this does not help. However, I'm seeing changes, they are slow but they are there. I really appreciate threads, and post like this that are constructive, step in the right direction. :)

edit: speel+tipe+drugs=gud

what i meant to say was that yes, everyone says "omg not this again" when someone rp events killing another player, or setting a bomb off somewhere, but there isn't too much different stuff we can do without official ark help for events. after a while ppl will have done the timmy lookalike events more than enough too & u'll say omg not this again, but there is not much different to do as a player with limited resources.

i'm trying to launch off a huge rp event that will end DeM (not enough time / intrest of ppl in it anymore to keep it rolling) and i wanna involve as much RPers / rp orgs as i can in it, as this event will roll over many months, and is already busy as it is.

only prob with that part is that omni rp orgs are more defined than clan/neut ones... you got omni mining: for mining, omni pol: for police, omni trans: for transport, rur: for robotics, even harkonnen exports: for importing & exporting, but for me i got no idea where i could say put whisper's edge or assembly in this rp event for now, without IC revealing i'm part of DeM, cause i dunno what assembly or another rp org can actually do in this rp event.

ofc all rp orgs, clan / neut / omni can send me ooc tells to see what we can work out on the hand of what i already got. (i'd even enjoy seeing that the rpers wanna try & contribute to what i want to be a big "blast" for the end of DeM)

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Originally Posted by Dabblez

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The same applies to players. When confronted with something like the NLF backing a blood drive for little Timmy, you have to ask yourself, do you do what makes most sense and keep well clear, or do you do what is most fun, volunteer to give blood and see what happens? These are deeply personal choices, decision, but it's worth considering that stories would be very dull if the protagonists always acted wisely.

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Good discussion! And this is well worth bringing up. There is huge value in playing the part of the 'participant' with enthusiasm, and urge on the plot, where ever it might take you.

Simulation, I would rather abandon it altogether. :) The story is more valuable than keeping strictly to the 'realism'.