[cerberus23]

Circular Roleplay, or Circular RP for short is something that can be a problem for people, some people might not see it as a problem, personally I do and I don't. But to begin with, let me 'define' Circular RP, as I see it, and indeed since many people may have other terms for it, or not even know or have thought about its existence.

Circular RP, is in essence, RP that starts somewhere, and ends up slap bang back at the same point, "going in circles", be this character development, some random event or the likes, there may be some small changes or shifts, but fundamentally things stay the same and end up being pretty much back where they started. Now when I talk about Circular RP, I'm usually referring to characters and their involvement in things.

This whole discussion isn't to point fingers or name names, it is to simply see what people thing about this whole 'thing'. Most people have partaken in circular RP at some point in their time as Roleplayers, some people still do even after years of roleplaying, it can be a habit or it can just be a natural occurrence, often though it comes through lack of experience and knowledge as a roleplayer, I can look back at my time in roleplaying, all...2 years and 3 months of it, and see plenty of times when I've done circular RP, drama and attention RP and so on, I cringe when I do look back, but I know that if I hadn't done that then, I wouldn't be quite where I am now. Where am I now? No idea, I've always been terrible with maps.

Now along with inexperience, there can be a few causes for Circular RP, speaking from my own experiences, I've had an OOC wish for a character to remain in a certain 'state' before, so have basically pursued Circular RP to maintain said state, another reason could be for drama or attention, if one becomes bored then often they could find a source of drama/attention by doing a certain thing, or things. It could be long lasting or just brief drama/attention, but going back and doing it again is always a tantalising possibility, and I know I've given into temptation to do so.

*Mentally apologises to Fae for all his terradeRP*

Thats about all I have to talk about right now, I have more to discuss of course, but I'd rather see the communities views before flabawhargling on and on about things. *Worgle*

[3llusive]

When I roleplayed on Garrysmod, this was a huge issue for me, mostly because it was (kind of) foisted upon me. The only roleplay server I really, really took a liking to, enough to stay, and enjoy myself for quite a long time, was this roleplay server about Half Life 2.

Now, this roleplay server was similar to Mesalia in that it was strict, and catered to a mature audience, but due to the lack of a white-list system it had he occassional "minge" problem. (random douchebags, and or newbies who either intentionally or unintentionally due to lack of experience or skill, ruin roleplay for others.)

Despite that problem, it was a pretty damn good server. After putting in a lot of work, I was accepted into the Civil Protection. The main character progression from that point on, mostly revolved around my character's journey through his career. But, luckily this wasn't really a problem. I went from being a recruit, then through some OOC drama somehow gained the rank of OfC (officer, two or three ranks below literally the highest rank in the Civil Protection), then when things cooled down, to an 05, or the rank directly above a recruit.

My character progression was very abnormal - because my character ran an abnormal life, and, coincidently, was given an abnormal ID number. CCA.APEX.05-999.

I was otherwise known as unit 999, for all intents and purposes. My character's progression first took a turn when, chasing a rebel through the tunnels system, the highest ranking unit blamed the rebel's escape upon him, and then he was punished in a sadistic and unusual way, even for Civil Protection. He was de-masked, and had his cheeks sliced from ear to ear. Yes, he was given an infamous Glasgow grin.

From that point on really, he ceased to care about much except for not failing his superiors. Even after he'd talked about it with an OfC, and a inter-unit violence complaint was lodged against the one who punished him, and they were assigned off-planet relocation (execution, in all reality.) that lesson stuck with him.

Due to me being one of the better roleplayers on the server, after reaching rank 04, ZEALOT, the 'special interests' division of the civil protection took an interest in my character, and even after being shot in the kidney with a pulse rival, surviving due to the aid of his best friend and partner in the ZEALOT division, he was formally inducted, and made a member of the so called 'Elite of the Elite'.

Even as he went through his career, being cold, and calculating, yet somehow remaining a bit more human than his colleagues, it was the exact same routine, day in, day out for me, OOCly. Morning Coffee. Physical Training / Hand to Hand combat practice, and a trip to the shooting range, Unit 999 was an expert in hand to hand, knife fighting and close quarters shooting, and was highly proficient, even as lower ranks.

Then, patrolling the main square. Questioning informants, and, the exciting part came when coordinating strike raids on rebels after days if not weeks of intelligence gathering. But most days?

It was patrol the square, talk to informants, decloth into civilian wear for undercover work, lead secondary life posing as a resistance member, talk to people who believed they were friends to a "John Maverick", and occassionally stab a rapist to death in the abandoned district.

Nothing ever changed.

Even when he became an 02, the first leadership rank, and was authorized early to use a shotgun, it wasn't really anything different. He'd effectively had these priveleges, other than the shotgun, by simply being a member of ZEALOT. Even if he was an 03, if he wanted the assistance from an 01 in something ZEALOT related, they would oblige, grudgingly, but they would oblige, all the while bitching about how insubordinate he was, and how he would receive an off-world relocation.

But nothing ever changed. He would help to put down one resistance, there would be another. He was a personal friend of one of the Civil Administrators - but that wasn't much. He was even tutored by a District Commander, the second highest rank in the entire civil protection, in combat. But that really just allowed him to do his job more efficiently - it was the same job.

After that daily routine for so long, it just didn't seem worth it anymore - waking up and roleplaying, or really, patrolling, until I fell asleep. The other Civil Protection even started jokes that they half believed about how I and Unit 999 never slept. About how that oddly friendly english accent of his was the voice of faceless evil itself.

One day, I just left the server. Without a word, or a goodbye. I was just burned out. Couldn't take it anymore.

Circular RP, in essence, can kill RP. Even the best RP. That really, is my extent of experience with circular RP.

[mcman]

Can you be more specific as to what you mean by circular RP? Is this the same problem as static characters, is it characters' development regressing, or is it just that people settle into a cyclic routine of the kinds of RP they engage in?

[cerberus23]

I've already outlined what I meant in the post, I have little more to say on what I mean by it. It can be any or all of those things, it depends on what context, situation, character and player the idea of Circular RP is used in. I gave my personal experiences with it.

[mcman]

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.