15-03-2013, 10:02 AM
Well, given that this remains somewhat vague, there are many possible reasons that things can seem to end up at the same place that they begin. Some but not all of these reasons may be bad, and others may be good reasons. So it's a bit difficult to make any further overarching statements about this matter other than that players must attempt to make their own agenda regarding a character (which could be what is driving circular RP in some cases) secondary to the character's agenda, however during character creation I suppose one can certainly attempt to model one's OOC agenda.
You refer to RPing characters in certain "mental states", which is always complicated. This doesn't directly parallel your point, but I've noticed quite the temptation for players to spend as much time RPing their character in an altered mental state (due to drugs or episodes of psychopathology) as they do RPing the character in their "native" mental state. In my experience, I can say that across the board people are actually pretty terrible at RPing someone who is under the influence of psychedelic substances, and also terrible at RPing sufferers of schizophrenia, for example. So it's not as if this brings out the best in their RP; rather it seems that people are inclined to take their opportunities to RP a different character from the one they applied for. I should hope that a skilled RPer would be able to enjoy RPing a character who is sober and sane. At any rate, I suppose this might be considered a form of "circular RP" in that it tends to be cyclical and impedes character development.
However, I do want to say something about the nature of character development, as with a recent influx of newer players, the staff's definition of it has been called into question (and not in an antagonistic way, but one that has challenged us to pinpoint exactly what we expect in that regard). For me, the ideal actually consists of three distinct stages.
The character creation stage is obviously very important, and the key issue there is /depth/, but there is such thing as too much depth. This is because in the next stage it's the player's job to /define/ the character within the setting.
After a character is introduced to the setting, instead of moving straight on to character development, it's generally a good idea to spend a decent amount of time gradually revealing the nature of the character to others. Ideally, the other players would begin to associate the character with stuff, and that's one way you know your character is sufficiently defined. I'll use the example of Scipio, who was my main character on the Auria map. All in all, he probably lacked depth if anything, but at the very least this made it so that he was very well-defined as far as other players were concerned.
However, his lack of depth impeded him when it came time for the last stage, which is character development. This is when a character gradually changes over time, and this ideally happens over time in an organic fashion.
This is entirely opinion and many people will disagree with me, but I believe some possible avenues of development should be considered as far back as the character creation process. Of course one cannot know what will happen in future RP, and thus one cannot outline a character's development in advance, but knowing a character has one or two directions they could go is a big help in establishing enough depth in a character so that they can develop successfully in practice.
A character with too much depth will probably lack definition and at any rate be quite difficult to RP, and a character with not enough depth won't have anywhere to go (at least convincingly) in terms of development down the road. Sometimes the character definition stage could almost seem like "circular RP" I suppose, as opposed to moving right to linear character development, however I believe that it's just as important in a well-RPed character.
I had hoped to touch on many of these issues in blog posts, but unfortunately we haven't gotten that working yet, so I'm sorry if this is terribly off-topic.
You refer to RPing characters in certain "mental states", which is always complicated. This doesn't directly parallel your point, but I've noticed quite the temptation for players to spend as much time RPing their character in an altered mental state (due to drugs or episodes of psychopathology) as they do RPing the character in their "native" mental state. In my experience, I can say that across the board people are actually pretty terrible at RPing someone who is under the influence of psychedelic substances, and also terrible at RPing sufferers of schizophrenia, for example. So it's not as if this brings out the best in their RP; rather it seems that people are inclined to take their opportunities to RP a different character from the one they applied for. I should hope that a skilled RPer would be able to enjoy RPing a character who is sober and sane. At any rate, I suppose this might be considered a form of "circular RP" in that it tends to be cyclical and impedes character development.
However, I do want to say something about the nature of character development, as with a recent influx of newer players, the staff's definition of it has been called into question (and not in an antagonistic way, but one that has challenged us to pinpoint exactly what we expect in that regard). For me, the ideal actually consists of three distinct stages.
The character creation stage is obviously very important, and the key issue there is /depth/, but there is such thing as too much depth. This is because in the next stage it's the player's job to /define/ the character within the setting.
After a character is introduced to the setting, instead of moving straight on to character development, it's generally a good idea to spend a decent amount of time gradually revealing the nature of the character to others. Ideally, the other players would begin to associate the character with stuff, and that's one way you know your character is sufficiently defined. I'll use the example of Scipio, who was my main character on the Auria map. All in all, he probably lacked depth if anything, but at the very least this made it so that he was very well-defined as far as other players were concerned.
However, his lack of depth impeded him when it came time for the last stage, which is character development. This is when a character gradually changes over time, and this ideally happens over time in an organic fashion.
This is entirely opinion and many people will disagree with me, but I believe some possible avenues of development should be considered as far back as the character creation process. Of course one cannot know what will happen in future RP, and thus one cannot outline a character's development in advance, but knowing a character has one or two directions they could go is a big help in establishing enough depth in a character so that they can develop successfully in practice.
A character with too much depth will probably lack definition and at any rate be quite difficult to RP, and a character with not enough depth won't have anywhere to go (at least convincingly) in terms of development down the road. Sometimes the character definition stage could almost seem like "circular RP" I suppose, as opposed to moving right to linear character development, however I believe that it's just as important in a well-RPed character.
I had hoped to touch on many of these issues in blog posts, but unfortunately we haven't gotten that working yet, so I'm sorry if this is terribly off-topic.