What is "Good" Role Play?

[Jinx]

very often - convincing RP includes not saying much more than a simple "hello there, too".

now, if sirius was like a giant and very empty space where meeting others is something to tell your grandchildren. - then ... yes, one would stop, have a good and lengthy talk etc. ( sort of what people did in the middleages when they brought the corn to the miller and had all the recent gossip there ) - happened maybe 2 or 4 times a year... .

now, sirius is more like a giant highway. - you hardly ever have a moment that you do NOT see someone else around. actually, ( if you count NPCs as full members of sirius, too ) - you d have to travel very very far away into hidden systems ( like omicron lost ) in order to be really alone.

so... RP is what a character in such a busy enviroment does. - its good RP to stop every time to have a chat, but its also good RP to not reply at all to every "hello there" call.

there is a difference between encounters of course. - since none of the sectors in sirius is really a liberal and free sector, - militaries or the dominant factions rule as if they rule with an iron fist. - passers by are scanned and asked for their intentions. and of course, in that case, one either takes up the role of the intimidated victim of such a regime or someone that stands up against it in various forms and shapes - that is verbally or even physicly. nevertheless, we only have archetype roles. - even individual chars are archetypes, cause we have to play by the raw pattern we get from the NPC factions.

so, of course you can develope a personality and a unique role as a LPI officer, but in the end, you are still a LPI officer, no matter if you play the good cop or the slightly violent one.

but there is no one that can say whats good RP and whats bad RP. there is just something like a feeling if it is "right" or "wrong". a LPI in an outcast dreadnaught could be brilliant RP - still it would feel "wrong". but that doesn t mean the RP is bad or anything. Thats how much RP can justify the role.

comparing it to RL doesn t really work well, cause RL is much more complex than allmost every game. RL makes a single person take up countless roles depending on the situation. - a human in RL is not bound to a role at all... he can act this way when he s out with friends and completely different when he is out with other friends. - he can be a devout member of a church and still be the antichrist in persona. - such a complex webbing of personalities and roles would never work in a simple game like freelancer.
in freelancer we decide what role we take and are rather limited in what we can make out of it. - once the role hits a certain limit, - it starts to become "wrong".

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