Caelria 2618 Share Posted May 9, 2022 Usually I'm trolling but this one's for real no big lofty speech. I'm maybe just popping into places at bad hours, but it feels like everywhere I go for random unscheduled roleplay there's maybe one person bobbing around per city that's actually willing to do or doing anything roleplay-adjacent. Two at most. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy one on one roleplay, but just talking with one person and having nobody new to interject with anything nor a band of merry friends to organize anything with feels desperately lonely, especially in these gigantic builds. It can be really hard to stay interested. Should I just give up on trying to seek out roleplay with strangers and join a Discord community to go to all of their dinners and play iphone games between replies? Only log in for events? If this is a common problem, how do you cope with only being able to roleplay within your own friend group -- or do you prefer it that way? If you're a hero of random encounters, where do you usually go for them? Do you often find yourself mingling with multiple people on quests or journeys, or just making small talk with one wandering stranger about the weather or whatever else is on the top of your head, getting exhausted or bored, and moving on feeling unfulfilled? I guess what I'm trying to say is: is roleplay with strangers dead on LotC? 29 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
puffables 1125 Share Posted May 9, 2022 not at all ! in recent days, I've found a good bit of fun rp with strangers - plenty of fresh faces paying a visit to the city, some rly good rp had ! not sure if this is just a me thing as i tend to actively try pull new folk into conversation when i can, but yeah; i think making-new-friends rp is definitely out there :] 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sorcerio 4595 Share Posted May 9, 2022 As someone who enjoys villainy roleplay, random encounters are the cream of the crop. They enable you to create a unique and lasting encounter with someone that doesn't just end in death, whether they're new or old. There's nothing I enjoy more than coming upon some hapless pink tag and (instead of massacring them) I offer them engaging roleplay, advocate my characters views, and maybe even recruit them — all this done with a stranger on a road. I have noticed this has become increasingly more difficult to do. While I think roleplay with strangers is still possible, it has become a much more rare occurrence and requires much more effort than before. There are multiple causes of this, but the primary one can be addressed simply as map size. Most people already RP in certain groups or regions and simply don't go beyond their designated city or capital. It's not that they are entirely opposed to the idea of new encounters, but that they're comfortable where they are and seeking out new environments is more trouble than its worth. They're not going out as much and exploring the roads to different cities, nor the woods and mountains between them; if someone wants to travel somewhere of importance to RP usually they just use their bound soulstone. I don't blame them for this, of course. The map is unnecessarily vast and there is so much empty space that it takes forever to get anywhere. New players I feel especially encounter difficulty finding active roleplay environments, given that no matter which Hub you travel to you're going to have to walk for about 4-7 minutes before finding anything remotely active. Instead of finding roleplay in two minutes or less, new players will be spending their time perusing empty roads and the abandoned California-esque flats which sit beside them (take a look at the Northeast). They'll come across the capital sooner or later, but if they're greeted with a sparse population they're likely not going to want to walk another ten minutes to find somewhere else to RP. Given how our current system is, I wouldn't say random-encounter RP is dead, but more so hurt. It can be fixed, but we need to be willing to fix it. While fast-travel may help to temporarily solve the problem of quickly finding RP, it doesn't actually address the issue; people will teleport from place to place toseek RP and then simply stay in that group and not go out and explore the world. Real random encounters happen on the roads, and that only works if the roads are short and can be traversed in only a couple minutes. 13 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
satinkira 5875 Share Posted May 9, 2022 My favourite RP has come from random encounters, it feels far more organic then scheduled roleplay 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buffsanta 960 Share Posted May 9, 2022 This is an interesting point. I think that RP is far more natural especially for new players when with a stranger, rather than RP expected in an event. Generally, people in cities are just bored and don't have the motivation to work in a stranger orientated RP. I feel its moreso an issue with the way certain players see random encounter RP as apposed to others. We've all had that player who thought we were a weirdo for walking up to them and saying hi. Its just difficult to judge who's who. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
megavoltar 1110 Share Posted May 9, 2022 stranger rp is cool, depends on the group though. If ur in the villiany jungle its a gimp to ur attempts most of the time, too much history of spookies committing mass pink tag murder, and the dreaded quota 4 feeding cas. Otherwise, is just peeps not wanting to rp or them bein in a discord talkin about something else (or waiting for a specific roleplay) 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laeonathan 3957 Share Posted May 9, 2022 I always run into RP with strangers - of course, one "issue" with that is: They often become your friends after a few random encounters, because your characters become friends or enemies and you start scheduling roleplay... But I atleast run into strangers willing to RP every day in which I actively RP 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkeypoacher 6993 Share Posted May 9, 2022 I wouldn't say it's dead, but most of my stranger RP this map came from the roads and the cloud temple, weirdly enough. Cities seem to be hubs for people to idle while doing other things, and it's very hard to get RP started with someone who is only sort of there and wants to go back to watching MrBeast videos or whatever. It's hard to blame people for this because it's what everyone else is doing. The problem is the discord servers. You can't get rid of them, but you can at least limit their functionality. Delete all #housing-request, #citizen-doors, #trade, #campaigning channels, delete #events and move announcements in game (or tech team can sync it with some sort of in-game chat so that at least noobs can access it), encourage people to just log on and interact with each other as much as possible by paring these servers down to the bare minimum. I think some concerted effort has to be done by the staff to at least wrestle ownership of these servers from players who can abuse them to politick and metagame as unquestioned OOC despots, trivializing actual roleplay in the process. This sounds radical, self-destructive even. Why would anyone want to get rid of the helpful #events channel? The reason is that it is unhealthy. So much of this server has been built around contrivances to get around actually roleplaying and having fun, some things we think are necessary and healthy for the server are in fact cancerous growths suffocating out the last bits of healthy tissue in LoTC's aged, decrepit corpus. Also get rid of ******* citizen doors. Either keep your gates open and let in all kinds or close them and pay the price to have a gatekeeper on standby. If you do neither and rely on your players obediently asking Discord Daddy for door lwc I will flyhack into your city. Thanks 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TreeSmoothie 4896 Share Posted May 9, 2022 Yeah, honestly I agree. So many times I've tried to interact /w people in cities when they're like this (w/ just a few bits of dialouge and an emote of walking up, or my character asking for directions to start conversation) but they'll just pause for a sec and run off. It sucks- hopefully next map is smaller, alongside the cities. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorsand 1745 Share Posted May 9, 2022 im scared of strangers 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
saint swag 2445 Share Posted May 9, 2022 game stops being fun if u dont interact with some strangers once in a while 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
warlord of filth 7714 Share Posted May 9, 2022 lotc reaches a plateau of stagnation w/ the staleness of almaris, and i think that cliques are more deeply rooted now more than ever its a byproduct of dollhouse syndrome: people reluctant to change, even if that change means rping out of their social circle where they feel comfortable the world of lotc should feel foreign and scary-... in character. most people play out short sequences on their character while they're on the server, they don't engross themselves in the day to day of their character. the map SHOULD be more appealing filled with stuff to find, players should be empowered to wander the map and go from city to city to interact with people. . . . . but cliques are so deeply rooted that if you even so as wander chances are one group will shit talk another group and there is zero cohesion for a healthier server. discordism and rp elitism are the main causes of this mentality and the current culture of the server 7 minute walking times to a closed gate murders roleplay with strangers toxic communities that think they're better because instead of erping as elves they erp as human nobles murder rp with strangers a wholly uninteresting map and uninteresting world murders roleplay with strangers bureaucratic staff-heavy systems murder roleplay with strangers piss poor attitudes that result in calling blue jannys murders rp with strangers 15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
irrl 229 Share Posted May 9, 2022 sadly, it has become a common problem and has been one for many years while I've been on and off with the server. A lot of people have been resorting to squeezing into groups that have been dividing roleplay, and (most times) aren't welcoming. Each person has their own social circle and will tend to stick with those people, moving whereever they go. It's become a word of mouth type deal, you won't get into a group unless you truly know someone or are stupidly active. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rukio 8910 Share Posted May 9, 2022 If people don't like you OOCly they will simply actively shun you by ignoring your RP regardless of if they know you personally or not. The server isn't big enough for most people to be real "strangers" unless one is new. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myleres 1658 Share Posted May 9, 2022 i have no issue finding roleplay with strangers! definitely just need to look in the right places. if you're ever online and looking for RP, just shoot me a message 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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