So I was RPing with my guildies and some other friends last night. During our interaction, there were a couple times where I found myself improvising character details. (EDIT: We all discussed this stuff OOCly in Discord and everyone agreed to it.) One was to ICly justify the guild leader’s temporary OOC absence, while another time had me joking about a guildie and saying “Yeah, sometimes she gets so outrageously drunk that we all have to carry her to the inn.” Heck, I even manufactured a reason for Arthryn to be in the Cathedral District at the time (something something Silver Hand pension, it’s not important).
By now, I’ve lost count of how many times I just invented in-character events that I as the player never actually experienced. And it just occurred to me today that there may be other players who loathe this style of RP.
So now to the question of the night: Does your character interact with others while you’re not playing them? If so, what kind of adventures do your characters get up to when you’re not watching them?
And, since I’m curious: how did you decide on this playstyle? Was it a conscious decision or did it just naturally happen?
Mario here is obsessed with his work. If he’s not actively being played by me and on the field, he’s training raw recruits, going over scouting reports, or spending an unhealthy amount of time behind his anvil within his forge. I have a few in-jokes between some friends of mine, but that’s his usual routine!
Ah, gotcha. That’s much better. Sorry, I’ve had issues with people that would actually try to pilot other people’s characters without consent before.
To actually answer your question… Seems to me they kinda have to, yeah? I mean, IC’ly, they don’t just disappear into a void every time you log off. Especially if they have connections to other characters, you have to assume there’s off-camera interaction. Even if it’s just bland day-to-day stuff.
yup, about all the chariters I make have some sort of off-screen life, case and point is this boy-o im on here just being a farmer and occatinal rune stone/scroll and music performer when it suits him/just not the right season to grow the right crops. And last but not least, his most favorite hobby ‘Harassing the good and bad guys by just being a nucience and playing dumb’. He dosent do it all the time but god if it isnt funny as hell playing dumb to a group of bad guys to the point the badguys just… get up an out. Good times.
No. My character remains in place until I log in again… Calixa has been frozen in terror somewhere in Pandaria for over a month now; I can only hope the locals are kind enough to dust her off occasionally.
My character has always had some level of off-screen life. Not enough hours in the day to be in game and have a real life to do everyone on-screen. Generally, these have always been things that only affect her or the management of the guild as well as order she runs. More recently she ended up having a family. While cute from time to time to RP, that isn’t going to consume my on-screen RP, so she is with the kids when she is offline since that is kind of a ‘side story’. That sort of thing. I have also been playing her since 2005 so just how I handled it long before the days of Discord.
Sure does. It used to be he’d be out in the world, alone, with a crappy campsite and spend 18 hours a day fighting cultists, faceless and other old god minions.
Now he meanders around drinking and feasting.
But I wouldn’t say he interacts with other player characters. I usually save that for when I’m actually on.
I always assume my characters are doing stuff when they aren’t off killing monsters and whatnot.
They have homes, families, they hang out with friends, mourn losses, get drunk. Grow crops or whatnot.
A good question though, what about Druids (not necessarily Nelf) like cat or bear form ones… do you rp them as living in caves or out in the wilds, or do they have homes and families somewhere? That is something I never actually thought about.
I feel like it’d be kind of weird if your character didn’t have an off-screen life. I’ve been RPing on WoW for years, every RP guild, every RP partner I’ve ever had… we’ve always RPed in some way off the game. Either through just straight up text RP or through OOCly discussing things and going “Yeah, that’d be cool.”
You can always RP through the stories you OOCly brew up if you choose to. There are means within the game to relive memories. It’s all over the place.
Sybara tends to the other NPC members of the Starbound Vestige, holds regular counseling sessions, makes house calls to tend to people who need healing. She’s also an avid reader, and as an inscriptionist curates a steadily growing font collection that no one else even remotely cares about.