IC/OOC Separation
Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 9:31 am
This hasn't really affected me personally too much, but since I failed to follow my own advice written here a couple times in the past (and still feel kinda awful over it btw), and since I've been hearing that it's happening more frequently lately, I felt a need to comment.
The rules on separating IC and OOC for Geas are actually very important.
Geas is pretty hardcore. It's no permadeath game, but each death is meant to be significant, and some consequences can literally strip away a character's access to huge parts of the game. In short, PvP conflict can get really heavy really fast, and even if you try not to be a jerk, some of the results can still manage to feel very personal and very damaging.
Because of this, it's important, nay, vital to keep IC and OOC separated. I don't mean "never talk about IC stuff OOCly," actually my favorite conflict with another player was one where we were OOCly joking about stuff all along the way. In fact, that's the spirit of what I mean about keeping things separated.
You are not your character!
However, if you try and resolve a situation through OOC means, whatever they may be, other people are going to pick up on that, and it's going to seriously start to feel like you are your character.
If you're your character, then if other people do anything to your character, they're doing it to you. Likewise, if you're your character, then you're doing whatever your character's doing.
Suddenly, you're not roleplaying a jerk. You just are the jerk, and nobody wants to deal with jerks when they're trying to have fun.
(And trust me, if you're involved with any conflict at all, your character's probably being a jerk to someone.)
That's all I wanted to say. I hope this is actually a sparse thing, that most of the playerbase wholeheartedly agrees with me, and that my message almost has no point to exist. I don't really talk OOCly too much though, outside my little in-game quips, and my endless insane ramblings to the tiny few who can withstand it without going mad (they suffer so you don't have to).
The rules on separating IC and OOC for Geas are actually very important.
Geas is pretty hardcore. It's no permadeath game, but each death is meant to be significant, and some consequences can literally strip away a character's access to huge parts of the game. In short, PvP conflict can get really heavy really fast, and even if you try not to be a jerk, some of the results can still manage to feel very personal and very damaging.
Because of this, it's important, nay, vital to keep IC and OOC separated. I don't mean "never talk about IC stuff OOCly," actually my favorite conflict with another player was one where we were OOCly joking about stuff all along the way. In fact, that's the spirit of what I mean about keeping things separated.
You are not your character!
However, if you try and resolve a situation through OOC means, whatever they may be, other people are going to pick up on that, and it's going to seriously start to feel like you are your character.
If you're your character, then if other people do anything to your character, they're doing it to you. Likewise, if you're your character, then you're doing whatever your character's doing.
Suddenly, you're not roleplaying a jerk. You just are the jerk, and nobody wants to deal with jerks when they're trying to have fun.
(And trust me, if you're involved with any conflict at all, your character's probably being a jerk to someone.)
That's all I wanted to say. I hope this is actually a sparse thing, that most of the playerbase wholeheartedly agrees with me, and that my message almost has no point to exist. I don't really talk OOCly too much though, outside my little in-game quips, and my endless insane ramblings to the tiny few who can withstand it without going mad (they suffer so you don't have to).