by Sanjin Koukyu on Sun Apr 10, 2022 4:59 pm
I've been sitting here thinking about this and want to add my two cents in, if only because I've had conversations with individuals who've expressed to me that very feeling of 'I'm only rp'd with because of my shops'.
I imagine it's a matter of perspective, or perhaps a matter of how it's handled. Opening a shop, or roleplaying any 'work' position within Belariath can bring untold amounts of roleplay potential as long as it's not being treated as 'ho-hum, this is just for the mhl anyways'. I'll use my character as an example; Sanjin currently works at the tavern as a bartender and for the noble House of Lone Destiny (they also worked at the REB, but due to an extended absence due to illness, was removed and rightly so).
Any job they do, whether it's monologuing (which isn't as entertaining, but can help flesh out a character), simply rping with people who want roleplay but not necessarily the service rendered (a few times people came into the REB but didn't actually buy anything due to money constraints, but still got good roleplay out of it), or offering the service as a whole (Bartending tends to lead to this. Last night (4/8/22), San played bartender as others played with each other, so I was acting as a third wheel and expanding on their roleplay and character development {Which was perfectly fine!})
But what about 'just roleplaying'?
Using myself as an example again, I see a few people who ask in OOC 'does anyone need <insert list of characters>' and when they don't get a response, don't do anything (most times). When I worked at the REB, before I did monologuing, I didn't ask 'does anyone...', i simply stated 'REB's gonna be open! If you want to buy property, etc etc etc'
On the commercial side of things, most people don't know what they want at any given point, and those that do, actively search and ask for said services well before another player does the 'does anyone need...' question. So stating something's open might spark an idea or some creativity (as it has with me regularly, especially with the Naked Bird).
There's also the idea of 'spontaneous' roleplay. With one person who mentioned the aforementioned 'no one wants me except for shops', I asked them 'Why don't you just go in and roleplay?' 'Oh, my character doesn't like crowds and wouldn't go into the tavern for X reasons'.
There's a particular point where the onus is on the person who's not getting roleplay to try and find roleplay by just... diving in. I've roleplayed with a plethora of people in the short time I've been here by doing that, as I imagine a lot of veterans to this site have too. We can't expect all roleplay come to us and can't readily expect to always find roleplay despite however many characters and positions we might own.
And to play something of a Devil's Advocate regarding a point Callie brought up: Exclusive Groups/Cliques.
As said, we're all people on the other side of the screen and most of us don't feel good when we feel like 'time is wasted'. People create 'exclusive' groups because they share timezones/roleplay times, because they trust the other people and don't want to spread themselves thin... there's a number of reasons behind it. Without getting into the meat and gristle of it, the concept itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, it depends on how it's acted upon.
Some people work long hours, or have intense schedules/responsibilities that don't allow them to do much roleplay (I imagine most of the ops/admin are in this unfortunate group), so they create those groups specifically so that when they have the opportunity to rp, they can without worry.
As far as 'inexplicably breaking...' there's always a reason. I've broken off long standing relationships in reality because of toxicity and negativity, i've accidentally broken relationships because of personal schedules and other such events suddenly taking up more time and different time than I had normally, leading to a breakdown in communication and unfortunately, the relationship. But there's always a reason, somewhere in there.
But fundamentally, in the end of it all, we are people on the other side of the screen, with our own lives, problems, excitements and the like. We should always strive to treat each other with at least basic respect and humanity, understanding that we may not understand everything that's going on, while trying to do our best, ourselves.
Thank you, this was my TED talk.