Roleplaying Ironically

[Omi]

In-game RP has always been better. Forums are a place for writing stories on, not for the kind of back-and-forth exchanges that actual, live roleplay demands to make a conversation even halfway realistic. That said, even half the conversations you'd see in game are horrifically unrealistic, but I'd argue that's a consequence of general roleplay attitude deteriorating in more ways than one.

Actually, if you asked me, there are very few genuinely good roleplayers left - most of what we have left are literate people playing self-inserts. You all know the type - the wise-cracking, savvy, extensions of oneself who generally take a protagonist role. Half the "RP oriented" gatherings I see these days are just a whole clump of protagonist-type wordy people melding together into a single indistinguishable blob, all the while trying to coax each other into being allowed to reveal their deep, complex, and troubled pasts. I have always been a fan of "less is more" when it comes to 'character complexity', and for me there is both much more enjoyment in playing and in interacting with realistically bounded characters like police officers, navy officers, and the simpler form of unlawful wherein they're either just in it for the money or are passionately driven without crossing over into "antihero" type territory. Characters like @Haste's Martin 'Cerulean' Reynolds, @Jack_Henderson's various IMG| characters like Julia Morrow, @Thunderer's Admiral Hall, @LunaticOnTheGrass's Erich Klugmann, or @Karst's Lena Atzenbruck are all, to some extent, the kind of characters I can really get behind - simple, effective packages of personality that are easy to understand and aren't complete Mary Sues.

This is the kind of roleplay I despair in being unable to find these days - it's all too easy to run into a whole gaggle of thoroughly uninteresting self-inserts, but much much rarer to meet characters that actually engage my interest beyond making me roll my eyes and sigh.

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