How A Good Protagonist Do. (A Newb's Guide To Avoiding Meta As A White Knight)

[hex37 734]

How a Good Protagonist Do.

  
 (Credit to Theo for the inspiration.)

The Crusader exhaled. He gave the nod to his comrades, and they began to set up an ambush outside the cultist base. If the hostage negotiation failed, those bastards would coming here- exactly where the knight wanted them to be.
 
Now, I really don't care all that much about what kind of White Knight you are. To be perfectly honest, they are of all sorts, and come from all walks of life. Anyone can be a good guy from time to time, but some excel in it more than others.
 
Lets assume, however, that you are intending to make a character whose intention is to "Fight evil good." A character like this, by default, is more or less made to be a villain's rival, the ones that they'll have to deal with time and again, because you're "The Good Guy" and you always have to fight the "Bad Guy."
 
This often causes the mistaken assumption that Villainous RPers should be doing their best to cater to you, and only you, because you are the Good Guy hunting the Bad Guy. DO NOT MAKE THIS MISTAKE. A white knight is not the player that Villains focus on. Villains focus on making RP engaging for their victims- a White Knight is just the interloper that disrupts their nefarious deeds.
 
Since White Knights, essentially and without fail, always manage to step into a scenario that they are almost never involved with, and I've taken this time to remind all burgeoning white knights out there about one simple rule that will improve your RP a hundredfold.
 
 

Do. Not. Meta.

This should be a no-brainer, but unfortunately it is not. Meta is one of the most repeated crimes that White Knights commit, and many times they don't do it intentionally. I'm not going to lie, considering many of the things that happen on this server, accidentally metaing a situation less apparent than it seems, and this is never so true as with White Knight characters.
 
I'm going to lay out a simple set of scenarios to outline the various ways these discrepancies can occur.
 
A: Classic Meta
Say, a Sir Quixote is a White Knight is walking along the road. Suddenly, Quixote gets a PM from a friend that her character is being kidnapped by a mean old bandit and is being taken to an abandoned windmill at X,Y. Sir Quixote, fool that he is, rises to the occasion, and valiantly metas by heading to that exact location to save the damsel in distress.

 

This is clear cut meta, and I really do not think I need to go into why, it should be apparent.
 
B: Second-Hand Meta
Alright, here is where things get more complicated. Say, dear old Quixote is walking along the road, when suddenly he is stopped by a fretful passer-by. The man remarks about how he witnessed a dastardly man named Sancho kidnapping a woman. Mister Quixote, who happens to know that Sancho lives in a nearby abandoned windmill, rises to the occasion once more, and heads off to catch the villain before he can harm the fair maiden.
 
Upon arriving and making a spectacle of yourself, Sancho makes a rather annoyed point in OOC about how he was clearly disguised while he was kidnapping the woman and no one who saw this would have known it was him at all!
 
If you are ever faced with this conundrum, I implore you to do two things. First, contact the person who told you this.
 
-Ask him how the witness would know it was Sancho,and if his reasoning is insufficient, tell him as such, and end the conversation there.
 
-If the person who witnessed the happening is not online, or if you find the person who told you cannot come up with a proper answer, apologize to the villain, and VOID the RP. Too many times have I seen protagonists just shrug and say "I'm just acting off of what I was told." That's a very weak argument, and it is not acceptable. Proper White Knights must go out of their way to avoid and actively hunt down meta. It builds a good relationship with the villain they encounter, and keeps rubbing players the wrong way to a minimum. After all, if you are truly a white-knight character, Villains constitute a sizable portion of your RP. The least you can do is make sure they feel you play fair.

 

As an added note, it needs special mention that guards need to be especially careful when taking witnesses, because of second-hand meta. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS TRAP, GUARDS.

 

 

C: Meta through Extensive Assumptions

 

Lets say our dear old friend Quixote is walking down the road once more. Suddenly, he gets a PM from his duchess claiming that she was kidnapped while she was visiting another town, and was taken to an abandoned windmill. Now, Quixote, having at least one additional braincell over a dog's, realizes that he can't help, because he doesn't know about it happening.

 

This is where things, once more, get complicated. The duchess, hearing this, PMs Quixote telling him that the Duchess RPly always announces where she is headed to her knights, and if she doesn't return for any length of time, they will know where she went by default, and automatically know where to go to save her. Don Quixote, knowing the town where the windmill owned by the dastardly Sancho is, once again makes the mistake of rising to the occasion.

 

Quixote immediately heads to the town, and begins "Searching buildings at random" until he finds the windmill, Sancho, and his duchess. When Sancho asks OOCly about how he possibly could know he and the duchess were there, Quixote goes into the long and contrived explanation about how the duchess hadn't returned, and how he would know where she went, and about how he made sure to search every building until he found, by chance, yours.

 

Unfortunately, I've seen this done more times than is comfortable. If you're reading this, you know who you are, and should hang your head in shame. Contriving RP reasoning that just happens to result in finding a culprit is NOT how a good protagonist do. At all times, you should avoid really looking for a kidnapped person for at LEAST and elven day, and even then, you should never know where to start unless you have a clear lead.

 

 

 

Overall, the only thing I would like to stress again, to all of you crusaders of the innocent out there, is to be OOCly courteous and systematic when looking for a perpetrator. If you just jump right into things without thinking, I can guarantee people will be rubbed the wrong way eventually. Heed a villain when they claim that meta is occurring. More often than not, they are usually right.

[Yoff 328]

Moo. . .Wait. . .this isn't the post I was expecting.

[JtPv 140]

Nice guide.
Might even help some of the older players in the long run.
 

[Shadeleaf 757]

This post, I enjoy it thoroughly.

[mpcommander 5]

I like the guide, but all it really says is be careful of metaing. I don't really play a white knight, but I thought there would be more to it than that. 

[Neri 3587]

"Good Guide on how to not be a Bad Good Guy but not a Good Guide on how to be a Good Good Guy." 

 

It's all OOC stuff! Although if that's intended then it's a good guide. 

[hex37 734]

'twas indeed the intent~

[Bakerismaxamis 122]

  Another excellent explanation on the dos and don'ts to playing a protagonist type of character.  +1 to you Hex for summing this all together. I'm sure plenty of people will gain some insight and good tips from reading this.

[Hanrahan 2885]

I love the Don Quixote. +1 Hex.

[hex37 734]

I love the Don Quixote. +1 Hex.

 

Because who better to reference than a ficticious person who thought himself a knight, for a thread on white knights on a RP server?