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Conflict: The Lifeblood of RP


Unwillingly
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Disclaimer: A lot of this is just my personal advice and experience. None of this is necessarily objective, nor do you need to follow all of these guidelines if you want to engage in conflict RP. They’re just simple recommendations and tips from a player of (almost) 5 years, because conflict RP is probably one of my favorite genres of RP that I feel most passionate about, and I feel that it’s important that players get a sense of why it’s necessary we have conflict RP on LOTC.

 


An Overview of Conflict RP

Conflict RP is often the focal point of every story arc or RP development on the server. It’s what marks the start of every small scuffle, or even a catastrophic war. It’s practically the lifeblood of RP, whether it be a small, petty thief or a giant olog trying to murder your king. Like in many books, TV shows, or movies, conflict on LOTC is necessary to create some of the most detailed and complex storylines we know of. 

 

However, this isn’t something we see on LOTC that often. At least, not casually. We see wars and ET events, but what about the individually player-driven conflicts? What about the everyday bandit on the roads, or a cruel dark mage who wants to sacrifice you? What about the month-long player-driven storyline you could have with a mutual group of friends? Chances are, the average player might not encounter these things in person very often, if not ever. Many players often badger LOTC staff regarding the topic, but in the end, there’s only so much the staff can do to encourage this type of RP. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. The responsibility of creating conflict RP falls on the creative ability of players alone. 

 


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My Experience

A few months ago, I decided to run a sort of social experiment by myself. I made a lone-wolf bandit character named Lorsan: a scraggly and scarred elf who was nothing else but a greedy bandit. He didn’t have much of a background or personality because I didn’t intend on getting too attached to him. I didn’t frequent the roads, but instead, I went into some of the more active cities like Helena, Sutica, and Haelun’or and did my villainous deeds there. 

 

I did my best to create flavorful and interesting emotes while still fulfilling the ultimate goal of robbery from one player at a time. Most of the time, players responded well to this. They often cooperated IRP and provided equally flavorful and good-willed emotes. I warned them beforehand that I would only RPly (not MCly) take their items and I thanked them for the RP afterward, and they sometimes thanked me too. Of course, over the course of a few weeks, I did encounter a few powergamers who didn’t want to lose, but I’m not pressed over it because it’s to be expected. 

 

More recently, I created a wood elven clan in Siramenor called the Ilathdyns (who are getting a re-name with the addition of more in-depth lore and backstory on 8.0, so stay tuned ;)) with the sole purpose of acting as a foil for the village. My goal OOCly was to use them as a plot device to create more unique and contrasting RP with what I usually saw there. My main character right now encompasses many flaws and nasty traits that most people wouldn’t enjoy, so I decided to expand these traits into values of an entire clan. Additionally, I’ve spoken with a few faction / group leaders regarding friendly conflicts between our respective groups that we could start when 8.0 rolls around. They were all on board!

 


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The Rules of Conflict

To get the most out of conflict RP for both you and the other party, you need to conduct yourself in a mature and respectful manner. You need to exchange good-will with your counterpart, as they should to you, even if you aren’t necessarily the instigator in the conflict. This is often the key to creating healthy storylines. Simple OOC communication with your counterpart can make the difference between a toxic screechfest and greatly enjoyable RP.


          — Rule #1: Do not expect Conflict to come to You

Although this rule applies to any RP, I feel it is most important to remember for conflict RP. Never expect conflict to always come to you. You need to actively engage yourself in these scenarios if you want to truly feel immersed, instead of just some third wheel who was the last resort. No, I don’t mean you should go and try to stick your nose into other peoples’ business, but the duty falls on you as a player to help these storylines form on your terms. And really, all you can do is involve yourself in RP where you see fit. You won’t get involved in any storylines by sitting at the tavern bar for 3 hours straight waiting for someone to emote at you.


          — Rule #2: Do not expect to always win

Neither the defender nor instigator should always expect to win simply because of the events leading up to the situation at hand. It is mutual respect and understanding each party must have for each other if you want to get the most out of the RP. By accepting that you will not win every single fight or conflict you engage in, it will not only be much easier to lose to your enemy in RP but also makes the ending much more satisfactory for both parties. 

          — Rule #3: Give your character Flaws & Goals

Just like how conflict is the staple of creating storylines, character flaws are the staple of creating conflict. Flaws and goals are equally important, and they both play a role in creating conflict. Maybe your character is a vengeful knight who wants justice for his murdered wife, or maybe they’re a greedy, cunning mage who wants to unlock the secret to ultimate power. You do not always need to be the instigator, but don’t hesitate to act on a “call to action” that would require your character to act on his goals and desires. 


          — Rule #4: You are neither the Protagonist nor Antagonist

Of course, there is always the villain and the hero, but in LOTC, there is no hero and villain, no protagonist or antagonist. Simply, your character and the world around you. Just like how you should never expect to win, you should never expect people to cater to your RP so you can live out your fantasies of being the hero of x, y, or z place. Of course, it’s all right to act on these ideas in RP, as long as there’s a simple acknowledgment of it. When I RP flaws like that, I tend to make subtle references to it in narrative emotes. For example,

 

Of course I’m the greatest fighter Arcas has ever seen. I killed two ologs with my hands tied behind my back the other day! says John, apparently unaware of his own pompousness as he spoke with a chin held high and a wide grin.

 


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Separating IC from OOC

Although this one is probably a given, it’s, unfortunately, a problem many players still act upon: the idea that your IC actions = your OOC intentions. Of course, this is objectively untrue. You should never use your character as a crutch to act upon OOC intentions or malice. While it’s fun to feel immersed in the world your in, there’s always a line to be drawn. You should never get too attached to your characters (even though I’ve been a victim of this in the past) because it can sometimes hinder your full potential and ability to get involved in conflict. My general rule of thumb is: if you don’t want to emote it, you’re probably doing it the right way. So the conclusion is, if you feel bad OOCly for making a kid cry IRP, you’re doing it right.

This idea also ties into RPing flaws in rule #3 and #4. While OOCly most of us agree that IC =/= OOC, it can be easy to interpret small, irritating RP flaws as OOC ideas. It never hurts to make passive, narrative emotes noting that your character is being a loudmouth, obnoxious, or anything like that.

 



Conclusion
I know I didn’t exactly cover everything there is to conflict RP, but I hope this at least helped someone out there who is interested in this type of RP. Even if you’re a new player, you can still do this if you want to make a new character! If you’re a vet player who has anything you’d like to add or suggest, please let me know and I’ll be sure to take it into mind and add it into the post. Thanks for reading if you made it this far 🙂


 

Spoiler

Here are some other helpful links if you’re interested in getting the most out of RP, both conflict and non-conflict alike:

 

Edited by Unwillingly
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1 hour ago, Unwillingly said:

conflict on LOTC is necessary to create some of the most detailed and complex storylines we know of.

You can create very detailed and complex storylines without conflict. As long as there is immersion and some sense of direction, conflict is not necessary to create an interesting experience. There is much more to do besides fight things on this server, after all.

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1 hour ago, Unwillingly said:

Separating IC from OOC

Although this one is probably a given, it’s, unfortunately, a problem many players still act upon: the idea that your IC actions = your OOC intentions. Of course, this is objectively untrue. You should never use your character as a crutch to act upon OOC intentions or malice

Couldn’t have guessed this one

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23 minutes ago, NotEvilAtAll said:

You can create very detailed and complex storylines without conflict. As long as there is immersion and some sense of direction, conflict is not necessary to create an interesting experience. There is much more to do besides fight things on this server, after all.

Conflict isn’t always going out and physically fighting things either, that’s not what I’m getting at. More so that it’s something needed in order to help develop plots and storylines, because w/o conflict, there’s nothing to necessarily base your RP experience off of. If there is a situation where there hasn’t been a case of conflict that has created a legitimate plot or storyline on LOTC, could you describe one?

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20 minutes ago, NotEvilAtAll said:

You can create very detailed and complex storylines without conflict. As long as there is immersion and some sense of direction, conflict is not necessary to create an interesting experience. There is much more to do besides fight things on this server, after all.

Depends on your interpretation of conflict, because by and large every story ever *does* contain conflict of some sort, (at least every interesting story) though it is of course, Not always physical conflict. Be a conflict of philosophy, or ideology, a conflict of intentions, a conflict within a singular person, or a political conflict, the core theme of /conflict/ does remain in each of theoretical tale, albeit in (often greatly) differing ways.

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1 hour ago, Sorcerio said:

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((nice!))

 

My thoughts when reading through the post. However, it’s nice to see that the guide-writing community agrees when it comes to this sorta thing. Very good guide, only criticism is the size of the text.

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14 minutes ago, Unwillingly said:

Conflict isn’t always going out and physically fighting things either, that’s not what I’m getting at. More so that it’s something needed in order to help develop plots and storylines, because w/o conflict, there’s nothing to necessarily base your RP experience off of. If there is a situation where there hasn’t been a case of conflict that has created a legitimate plot or storyline on LOTC, could you describe one?

I literally just organized a series of events in Brandybrook centered around the harvest. There was no conflict involved, unless you consider planting seeds and harvesting them later all in roleplay to somehow be a conflict of man vs nature, but that’s grasping at straws.

 

It was a very fun series of events. I quite enjoyed it.

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1 minute ago, NotEvilAtAll said:

I literally just organized a series of events in Brandybrook centered around the harvest. There was no conflict involved, unless you consider planting seeds and harvesting them later all in roleplay to somehow be a conflict of man vs nature, but that’s grasping at straws.

 

It was a very fun series of events. I quite enjoyed it.

That isn’t a storyline. Like look I’m glad you enjoyed it, but im not trying to drag on people who enjoy SOL or say you can’t have fun w/o conflict. I’m saying that storylines and plots can’t be made w/o conflict. 

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11 minutes ago, Unwillingly said:

That isn’t a storyline. Like look I’m glad you enjoyed it, but im not trying to drag on people who enjoy SOL or say you can’t have fun w/o conflict. I’m saying that storylines and plots can’t be made w/o conflict. 

A plot is literally anything you can write a story about. If that story happens to be about planting and harvesting crops, yes, it is a plot.

 

You may not think it’s a very interesting plot, but that doesn’t mean it’s not one.

 

Walden, a book about Henry David Thoreau living in a cabin in the woods for 2 years, has a plot. It is full of nothing but recollections and musings about his experiences, but it absolutely has a plot. There’s no greater conflict inherent to it, unless you try and draw some weird sort of man vs nature conflict out of a man trying to live at peace with the natural world.

 

If I were to go on LOTC, make a cabin in the woods, and then do slice of life roleplay with said cabin, I would thus have created a story. I can put the events of the story on a line and create a storyline. This is a plot. You can write a story about what is happening there. People have literally done this in the real world.

EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_(narrative)

Plot is defined by cause and effect. So long as cause and effect exists, there is a plot. If you are doing Slice of Life roleplay and not conflict RP and there is cause and effect being at play, you are creating a plot.

Edited by NotEvilAtAll
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On 10/4/2020 at 9:24 PM, NotEvilAtAll said:

A plot is literally anything you can write a story about. If that story happens to be about planting and harvesting crops, yes, it is a plot.

 

You may not think it’s a very interesting plot, but that doesn’t mean it’s not one.

 

Walden, a book about Henry David Thoreau living in a cabin in the woods for 2 years, has a plot. It is full of nothing but recollections and musings about his experiences, but it absolutely has a plot. There’s no greater conflict inherent to it, unless you try and draw some weird sort of man vs nature conflict out of a man trying to live at peace with the natural world.

 

If I were to go on LOTC, make a cabin in the woods, and then do slice of life roleplay with said cabin, I would thus have created a story. I can put the events of the story on a line and create a storyline. This is a plot. You can write a story about what is happening there. People have literally done this in the real world.

I find it ironically hilarious that im arguing with the SOL community leader about conflict on a guide 

Sure, by definition, you can have a story w/o conflict, but it’d probably be boring and flat as hell. Like, there’s no way you can convince me that this 
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is in any way a “detailed and complex storyline” 

not to mention at this point, if we both agree that it’d be boring as ****, then it’s just a battle of “who can define the word ‘plot’ better” lmfao

but either way im not gonna spend the rest of the night arguing my point, this is my last response 👋

edit: no I wasn’t calling halfling RP itself “boring and flat as hell,” it was just a general statement. At the very most I implied it wasn’t an example of a detailed and complex storyline that didn’t involve conflict

Edited by Unwillingly
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1 minute ago, Unwillingly said:

I find it ironically hilarious that im arguing with the SOL community leader about conflict on a guide 

Sure, by definition, you can have a story w/o conflict, but it’d probably be boring and flat as hell. Like, there’s no way you can convince me that this 
unknown.png
is in any way a “detailed and complex storyline” 

I’m not saying that these sorts of things are super high detail mega quadrillion IQ multifaceted storylines with twenty bajillion plot twists, but they are stories. I never argued that Slice of Life roleplaying is inherently detailed or complex, just that they are stories, involve plot and storytelling, and should be treated as such. You need to have talent for telling stories to do good Conflict RP, and the same is true with Slice of Life.

 

So far, not a single person who’s attended any of these events has complained about them being boring. They only last for an hour, and a whole lot of stuff is crammed into that one hour. 

 

For your information, after this one event in particular that you’ve singled out from all the others, multiple key developments occurred in the village. A marriage proposal was announced, characters grew closer together, and afterwards the Demons invaded Aegrothond nearby and everybody hid in bunkers underneath the earth for 3 hours straight as we waited for it to end. It was about as un-boring as it gets.

 

I’m not doing these events to shield my playerbase from drama, only to make sure that there is a baseline of slice of life to go off of when things go crazy and insane, so that there’s some semblance of “normal” from which other things can be judged. It’s much more interesting to have just been minding your business normally in a settlement when Demons invade than to suddenly respond to a discord ping and rally to defend. You go from the normal world to the insane instead of starting right at insanity.

 

I do these things because people enjoy them. They find it relaxing, interesting, and fun. I’m sorry that you will never be one of those people.

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I find your remark on events to be distasteful and rude. It reeks of elitism. I ask that you please retract that statement. That is all, have a good day.

 

3 hours ago, Unwillingly said:


          — Rule #2: Do not expect to always win

Neither the defender nor instigator should always expect to win simply because of the events leading up to the situation at hand. It is mutual respect and understanding each party must have for each other if you want to get the most out of the RP. By accepting that you will not win every single fight or conflict you engage in, it will not only be much easier to lose to your enemy in RP but also makes the ending much more satisfactory for both parties. 

this is actually rly key here though. you’re going to run into a lot of ppl on lotc whose characters are just flat-out better in a fight or something (how legitimate or not they might be is another discussion entirely). learning how to be a good loser in RP will actually endear people to you, and more often than not if you’re regarded as someone who is a respectable opponent in combat RP, people will be far more likely to listen to your arguments in situations where you genuinely believe your character ought to win. it’s an unavoidable fact that a lot of people take CRP way too OOCly and hate losing no matter the cost, but as long as you acquire a reputation as someone who CRPs in good faith, you’re going to get on good terms with people who’d like nothing more than to have fair, genuine conflict, which is always really fun.

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Edited by NotEvilAtAll
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1 hour ago, Unwillingly said:

I find it ironically hilarious that im arguing with the SOL community leader about conflict on a guide 

The fact that there is a community that is built around SOL proves that you can have interesting and complex stories without the need for conflict. 

 

Let’s take some examples from the Wood Elven playerbase, seeing as we are both members of it. The majority, if not all of the seeds within Siramenor require a character to complete a series of trials to become a member, generally these do not contain the type of conflict that is discussed in your post, but it provides a quality story which can easily lead to player development. Another example, a Druidic Dedicancy, it doesn’t ever have to involve a conflict, but is a hard task that can take some people months or even years to finish and has an extreme amount of depth to it, and leads to great development of a character, if done correctly, really any form of teacher/student RP can create a strong storyline that causes amazing character development.

Obviously conflict can create an amazing story, and provides a great way to grow your character, but it isn’t required to develop a great story. I can say I get enjoyment out of both combat/conflict, and mundane SOL. I’ve had an abundant amount of character development from RP that involves no true conflict, but I’ve also had an decent amount of development because of conflict. Each person prefers a different type of RP, but saying that a type of RP is “boring and flat as hell”, when a decently sized group of people enjoy it is flat out rude. On a server the size of LOTC, having access to conflict, and the lack of conflict are both important, and can both provide development of a character, just because you think one is more important doesn’t make it okay to be rude to those to disagree. 

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