One of those /1 /2 critique threads.

[nOmnomnOm]

3.6 Attacking without Roleplay

That is all we are left with in the rules. Any new player that would come into the server and see this would get only the tip of the iceberg of what this means.
To veterans or people that have played here for longer, you might have heard people say the following: "Give your 2 lines before engaging"

I myself have gave into this in game and many others have as well. This goes back also to how bounty hunters have been playing for longer than even I was here for. (Back in the day I made a thread on this topic as well which blew up a lot.) It's fair to say that I am familiar with this issue.... And I don't like it.

Since when does "a minimum of 2 lines of RP before engaging" turn to "a standard of 2 lines before engaging" which then turned into "give 2 lines before engaging."


If the rules say to not attack without ROLEPLAY and someone only writes 2 lines, how often do you think 2 lines are enough to count as sufficient roleplay? It's not.

When I was introduced to this game a long time ago, my friend told me something that I still remember. He said, "you need to explain why you will do your actions." Or something like that...

This doesn't mean you litterally need to explain to someone else why your character will do something, but you should be hitting some of the 5 Ws and H : How? When? What? Why? Who? Where?

How? How are you going to do your deed? etc
When? When have you decided? When have you been acting in this way? When are you going to act? etc etc.
What? What are you going to do?
Why? What is your reasoning? Why have you decided this?
Who? Who are you targeting and what do they mean to you?
Where? Does not only pertain to the place but can be territorial reasons or other.

Basically my theory is that the more points you hit off of this, the better your Roleplay would be to go into engagement mode after.

Example:

Wrong way:
>Oh look there he is.
>Some people dont like you. Prepare to die!

Right way:
>Well well well... Look who it is. Looks like I found my mark.
>I've been looking everywhere for you. Where have you been?
>Oh did you know there is a bounty on your head? I saw it listed and damn it, I'd love to drag you into Justice myself!
>Prepare your escape-pod, you dirty crook. I'm taking you in whether you like it or not.

Do you see how different this is? And yet we see the 1st example for often than the 2nd in today's interactions.

Wrong way:
>Oh look an Outcast!
>Prepare yourself to be slaughtered! Charging weapons!

Right way:
>Oh my... I'm getting signals on my radar of an approaching hostile! It's an Outcast reading!
>Hey buddy where do you think you are? This area here belongs to us miners! Scram and get out of here!
>Hey! You guys have been picking on us for far too long! I'd love to take it into my own hands to avenge all my fellow miners that you hurt!
>I got you targeted! Scram or be terminated, Outcast! I'll kill you if I have to!

When you wrote more, you get a sense of your character and the emotions and intentions that they character has that makes it personal for them to engage and attack. From a 2 line sentence you do not have this and in most cases you cannot differentiate between a miner and a military as you can say the same thing for both characters.

Roleplay is about telling a story through how your character makes decisions and acts. Sure, the act itself can be part of roleplay and PVP is RP becasue your character decides to shoot, but what came to that conclusion? Can you bring something out for your character to express?

From what I see, we have lost this sort of hold on roleplay.

/1 /2 is the minimum and should be treated as the minimum if you can jam everything in there. It should not be set as the standard and as an excuse to be allowed to write anything in 2 lines before shooting.

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