Roleplay versus...Roleplay? [Guest Writer]

Day 896, 14:21 • Published in USA USA • by Chocolate McSkittles

Hi guys,

Onishi approached me about guest writing in my article, which was fine since I have let friends use my paper as a platform before. So yeah, everything below the underscores was written by Onishi, are his opinions, arguments, etc. That said, I agree with many of his points and think he brings great perspective to the table.

Enjoy!
Choc

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What role-playing was:

eRepublik is a grand example of what happens when you give a group of people free license to create. Some people create GLORIOUS religions, others create hilarious jokes and great culture. The basic element of all of this is the character. It's your extension into the game. It represents you, allows you anonymity and freedom to create. In the real world, you're limited to society's whims. In eRepublik, society is limited to you. Be you a "betafag" who was a part of /v/akistan, or a newfag who was born yesterday, society is irrelevant. You do as you please and there is a place for you.

Character:

eRepublik used to have an assortment of colorful characters and culture. It used to have players like Alucard Bloodlust, who would defeat his enemies and humiliate them with mocking PM's. It used to have /v/akistan, a place that literally manufactured culture. It had players that understood that this was a GAME and wasn't subject to the real worlds demands. That you could be who you wanted to be. That you could role-play as anyone you wanted. That it's ok to laugh about pig genocide, because that's what the character would do.


Glorious

What role-playing has become:

Now, however, we see a style that is just as old, but much more prevalent. I call them Mary Sue's. A Mary Sue is a literary term for a character that takes the authors opinions and beliefs and exemplifies them into a more-or-less perfect character. They take their real life political opinions and transmogrify themselves not into an interesting character or idea, but rather a boring and dry paragon of what they hope to be. It's given rise to petty politics, backroom deals, and all the other little things that the real world has. It's become less about having fun by discovering and role-playing someone new, but more about how can you change this world to suit how you think the real world should be. It's no longer eRepublik, but rather, just more real world. You don't have culture, you don't have excitement. Instead you have 500 people all trying to enforce their paragon's hyper-idealized views on others. That's not fun, that's frustrating.

What's next:

There are two roads we can now go down. We can change ourselves and move towards the old model of role-playing. The one where we could be creators and do things for our amusement or, we can do things because someone else is wrong and you are right. We can go back to the days of the Dioists and their culture, or we can keep going forward and end up rage quitting because there are constant political arguments because the tax model is wrong or "so and so said this". We can create a game that is fun to be a part of, or we can tell everyone that we are right and they are wrong and do whatever it takes to destroy them.

Role-playing is very fun and rewarding for everyone, but take inventory of where you go with it, because it could easily corrupt the game and make it an addiction to be shrugged off

-Onishi

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