What's a hardcore-roleplayer in the best positive sense?Follow

So I ask KerikDaven what then is a hard-core roleplayer in the best positive sense? And since this should be a not sooooo easy task I ask for avoidance of two things:

1. Claims that there is no such thing as a hard-core roleplayer in the best sense (otherwise this comment should have been used as the original answer to my post by KerikDraven)

2. The definition by deducting - statements like "Well its certainly notsomone who does/has/says/needs/wants ..........(insert what you dislike personally)" may feel good for the poster but will yield no answer to my question.

PS: Everybody else is also invited to share his thoughts on a hard-core roleplayer in the best positive sense ;-)[

Edited, Thu Apr 8 18:19:48 2004 by Leiany

Lots of people do this it, has nothing to do with roleplay. It is in opposition to the min/max enthusiasts who tend not to be roleplayers but that is the only point of contact with roleplay, especially not "hardcore".



Many people are fashion victims, roleplayers and non-roleplayers alike. Again nothing in this statement suggests roleplay. I don't like my characters to have helmet graphics. I have sold a helm that upgraded me because it looked bad. Wow I must be a hardcore roleplayer!




Just as well because the question is meaningless. As is so often given in advice here - play the class you think you will enjoy most. This is not really the same as playing the one which you think looks coolest which does sound superficial. However again it has nothing to do with roleplay. Many people play non-optimal race/class combinations. If they didn't then all Shaman would be Troll and all warriors would be Ogre. Yet again nothing to do with roleplay. a non-roleplayer is equally likely to make those sorts of decisions.



I don't think you are suggesting that tradeskills make you a hardcore roleplayer. And I don't know a smithing recipe involving bone-chips. I know lots of people heavily into tradeskills, some of them RP, some don't



This is the same as the beastlord choice. People like and dislike certain races/classes for all sorts of reasons. Here you seem to have chosen convenience above the RP possibilities. As I'm sure you are aware the DE community on FV is the staunchest stronghold of RP. many of them are hardcore roleplayers.



Any 12-year old starting a ranger does exactly the same. Again this is not about roleplay, merely your perception of your character.




This is more the profile of an obsessive tradeskiller. Again you confuse tradeskills with roleplay. This behaviour could well be a part of a well roleplayed persona but of itself is not evidence of roleplay. I regularly group with someone who does exactly this. they are proud of all the new recipes they keep finding and pass around the results. they do not roleplay. Alternatively it is perfectly possible to be a hardcore roleplayer and have nothing at all to do with tradeskills.




This is about personal preference. Many people have favourite and unfavourite zones, it does not make them roleplayers. I am still bouncing around Shadeweaver and Hollowshade and avoiding Paludal except when I need quest items from it. Exp is secondary. This does not make me a roleplayer.




No it isn't.

As I have carefully pointed out it is a profile of someone who plays for enjoyment more than exp, who enjoys tradeskills and who chooses characters and hunting grounds for their looks rather than their benefits.

It does not preclude you being a roleplayer but neither does it make you one.




The final point is quite interesting as I have been involved in a discussion elsewhere in which the roleplay enthusiasts wanted to have such macros banned as contrary to roleplay. I think they were barking mad but it serves to make the point. Having your conversations pre-planned as macros is not roleplay. It can contribute to it but it almost works against the interactive nature of roleplay.

I too have several different ways of saying hello to people and thanking them - and none of them are on macros. They are what it seems right to me to say at the time according to my mood and the situation.

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I suppose I am not going to get away without offering some sort of alternative definition.

I would define a hardcore roleplayer as someone who has a firm and constant picture of their character's life and approach to the world. Almost certainly they have this written up as backstory and may pursue this storyline out of game on roleplay forums as well as in-game.

Their character conforms to this at all times, whatever the cost. That is the hardcore bit.

And they have to be good at it.

That is what roleplay is about. Inherently they will make some of the same choices that you have made. If their character is a wood-elf rogue then that is what they are, stats are irrelevant.

However they can take this one stage further, something only the hardest of the hardcore do, and treat the game as merely a stage for their roleplay. Advancement, possessions are only relevant in respect of their character. The game itself becomes irrelevant and it's only purpose is to provide an environment in which their character can walk abroad and interact with others of like mind. That is ultra-hardcore.

All of the things you mentioned might have some place in a roleplayers agenda although I doubt any would do something because it was "cool" - such thinking is anathema to them.

But liking tradeskills and playing for enjoyment instead of racing to 65 is not a definition of roleplay.

These days, it seems that the definition of a roleplayer is becoming more and more lax. Probably to some people, if you can complete a sentence without using 'u', 'ur', 'pls' or 'kkthx' you are a roleplayer.

Within the context of a game like Everquest, roleplaying is taking on the persona of someone you are not. This generally includes conceiving a history for the character's past leading up to the point when your adventures in the online world begin. You then dress, act and interact with the world around you in a fashion that is true to the character's persona (and not necessarily your own).

Because every individual is different, each character roleplayed is different. Doing tradeskills isn't necessarily roleplaying. You can roleplay a character that never touches a tradeskill, with the concept that he/she is not interested in pedestrian crafts when there are monsters to be killed. You can't create a druid and say you are roleplaying because you port people around. You can roleplay a druid that will never be involved in a fight against an animal because that is against what your roleplaying persona believes.

When you look for a definition of a hardcore roleplayer, I'd say that means someone who never leaves the persona of the character. You don't stop and talk to your friends out of character, you don't forget your oath never to kill a bear, just this week because you need pelts.

And to get to the crux of the question, I don't feel that hardcore roleplayers would even look a site like EQTraders for a recipe. Hardcore means hardcore. If that information isn't available to your character, in game, then you wouldn't use it. I see no problem asking a friend in game if they know a recipe, but alt-tabbing to a 'spoiler' site doesn't seem very much like roleplaying.

Personally, I fall in the middle. I roleplay, but I am not hardcore. My character has a history, and I play him true to himself. But I have no trouble printing out a recipe or a quest from the web and taking that back in game with me. Ultimately, you are the only person that you answer to. If you have no problem doing a little internet research for your character in game, then no rules have been broken.

I agree with most of the above sentiment. Role playing is literally "Playing a role". You pick a personality and you play that personality. Typically, the role you'll play will be dependant on the environment you're playing in, and the "archtypes" that environment has. In "high fantasy" (which is what EQ is), that's traditionally a set of fantasy races and classes, set in a medival level society, with magic and mystery, and typically involves conflict of some kind against a variety of archtypical "evil forces" in the world. How you fill in the details of your role are left up to you.

A "hardcore" roleplayer roleplays to the exclusion of everything else. He's much more likely to have a very defined set of character traits for the role he's playing. He's also going to play them regardless of the situation. In a game environment, that means he'll take actions that he as a player knows are not optimal, purely because that's what the character would do. In some cases, I think "hardcore" roleplayers go a bit too far, especially in the context of a roleplaying game. They often equate hardcore roleplaying with "unyielding roleplaying". A really good roleplayer can have his character change his beliefs over time, while still maintaining a consistent "character".

Um... That's rare, so most hardcore roleplayers tend to be very rigid and static when they play their characters. The "I'm a cleric of a good race, so I'll never group with a DE or Ogre, or Troll", is a prime example. So, if a troll comes along who has a good heart and is trying to defeat the super evil master of mayhem, and you can't succeed without him, you'll tell him to shove off? A good roleplayer will have plumbed the depths of the character's psyche to know when that character will break his own rules. Now *that's* good roleplaying (but very rare!). Most players in general (both casual and hardcore roleplayers) aren't good enough to pull that off, so that's why hardcore roleplaying is generally considered synomymous to "unyielding" roleplaying. It doesn't have to be though. Just usually is.


There are a few other types of gamers btw, and I think it's worth mentioning them.


Minmaxer. Also known as the "rules rapist". This is the guy who'll always make decisions based on the best game result. He knows the rules inside and out and will use them at every opportunity. He'll always use the weapon that's most effective in the situation. He'll adjust his stats and skills to take advantatge of every loophole the rules allow. He may roleplay, kinda, but generaly his roleplaying consists of a set of justifications for being able to do the rules raping he's doing.

It's worth noting that there are actually some folks who think they are "hardcore roleplayers" who are actually minmaxers. While not really present in EQ (since the rules are computer controlled), the ever popular: "I'm a DE raised by good rangers in the forest, so that's why I can use all the nice stuff DEs get, but with none of the negative effects (cause I'm "good")" is a classic example of this. Whenever someone roleplays a radical departure from the normal archtypes of the game world, keep a sharp eye on what rules benefits are involved. There's a good chance that player is actually a minmaxer.


Anti minmax This guy's histerical. He almost always thinks he's a roleplayer as well. In many ways he's worse then the minmaxer (since a decent GM, or set game rules can hold the minmaxer at bay). This is the guy who strongly believes that nothing in the game should be accomplished without agonizing pain and tribulation. Instead of using the rules to find ways to make an objetive easier to obtain, he'll go out of his way to make sure that every possible negative rule effect is applied to him.

He loves it when his character takes damage. The closer to death, the better. He's so insistent on *not* being a minmaxer, that he'll deliberately take the absolute worse set of actions in game terms he possibly can. He'll often get the rest of the players in trouble as well. This is the guy who'll roleplay that his character will sneeze right when the whole group is hiding from that large enemy patrol. In fact, he'll insist that the GM should make everyone make "sneeze rolls" (and come up with some rationale why it's necessary to maintain some sort of game consistency). What makes him so difficult to deal with is that generally, as a GM, the way you indicate to the party the relative difficulty of an encounter is by how badly they get hurt in the process. Significant encounters are differentiated from minor ones by the difficulty the group has in winning the combat. It's very hard to do this when this guy somehow manages to take a near fatal wound while fighting a level 1 orc pawn.


The builder. This guy likes to build. This is the guy back in D&D who actually insisted that his warrior got X followers at Y level, and a keep at Z level, and so on. He's the guy who forms a guild (even in games where that's not realy a focus). He'll play a merchant and want to settle down and own his own shop (regardless of how hard that is to make fun from a GM point of view). He'll want to get invovled in the politics of the local town, and attempt to put characters into positions of power if he can. He'll make use of any tradeskills the game system has. Even if there's no real benefit, he'll do it just because he likes making stuff.


The builder trait isn't limited to just in game actions though. This is the guy who'll organize all the players characters into a spreadsheet with important skills highlighted and cross indexed so that the group can choose the optimal selection when forming up for a new adventure (he may get the minmaxer to help out on this!). This one's not that bad really. Aside from a penchant for wanting to roleplay his merchanting or tradeskill career, the builder can often be chanelled into "building" a structure that can make getting the characters into an adventure nice and easy. He's usualy pretty middle of the road in terms of roleplaying, but will *always* roleplay someone who's as much interested in finding that new alchemetical formula as he is in defeating the bad guy.


The "Hobbit". I don't know why it's always a hobbit (or halfling, or whatever the game system calls them). There's always going to be one race/class/whatever in a game that lends itself towards mischief, and that's what this player craves. This is the guy who'll go up to that evil overlord's control panel and just randomly start pushing buttons "just to see what happens". I think hobbit's are preferred because they can use the excuse of following their stomachs to find the kitchen (even in the depths of a dungeon!) in order to find mischief.

He's often a pretty decent roleplayer, but can get himself and everyone else into a lot of trouble very easily. These players are a handful, but actually make a game very enjoyable. As a GM, you *really* have to keep an eye on them though, and always work on mitigating their mischief in productive ways. The same personality trait that accidentally swipes the Grand Vizer's pointy hat and gets the whole group in trouble, will also be the one that stumbles across the lever that opens up the secret passageway into the evil overlord's lair. These guys are much more fun to have around then the anti-minmax guys since they aren't trying to get themselves hurt. They're just willing to take the random result of an action.


The Knight. There's lots of terms for this. Loudmouth is another one. He's a roleplayer as well, and may even think he's a good roleplayer. Um... But he's usually just kinda loud and obnoxious. This guy will *always* play the paladin type class if possible. And not in a good way (otherwise, he'd just be a roleplayer playing a paladin). He talks at the table with grand sweeping gestures. He insists on being the leader/spokesman of the group, but often if so brash and singleminded that he's counterproductive in those roles.

He can be fun though, but is a bit hard to direct. He's great during combat, and that's about it. Heck. He lives for glorious battle! He'll have a full set of battlecry's ready to go at the first sight of someone to kill. Of course, the danger is that he's generally thinking of combat as the first, last, and best solution to every problem. Thinking through problems can be difficult for this guy. On the otherhand, it's really hard to pull a fast one on the group as a GM with a Knight in the group. He's looking for a sign that any NPC is a "bad guy", and will automatically be suspicious of everyone.


The "straight line. This one's a bit hard to define (which is why I left him for last). This player may roleplay just fine most of the time, but he's always very "straightforward". He's close to a minmaxer in some ways, but his focus is not on game rules, but scenario objectives. He does not think of the scenario as a story to be unraveled, but a simple mission to be accomplished. He is constantly looking for the "end goal" to be revealed and at the first sign of one, will make a beeline for it (often ignoring or avoiding the important adventure along the way).

This one's probably the hardest to manage in a group (ok, the ani-minmaxer is still more annoying IMO). He can break a scenario very easily. You have to always be on the lookout for this. You can't even let the group know where the main bad guy is because this guy will argue that they should abandon the adventure, run right up to his stronghold, and just attack him. You have to go to great lengths to make sure that they actually go through the adventure on the way to the end, and this guy will attempt to shortcut sections at every turn ("Oh. The guy we need to kill is in this town? Then what are we doing waiting for this guy who said he had valuable information for us? Let's just go kill the bad guy!"). Very hard to deal with, but you can have fun getting him in trouble ("Well... If you'd waited for your informant, you would have known about the invisible basilisks guarding the bad guys foyer, and you wouldn't be needing that stone to flesh spell right now would you?"). Sadly, this type of player pretty much never learns his lesson...

Yeah. I can see that. The usual litmus test I use when determining if someone's doing something for a roleplaying reason or not is a comparison between the importance of the role he's playing, and the value of the "goals" of that character and those of the rest of the group (typically the adventure he's in).

Declaring that you wont have anything to do with your class/race traditional enemies isn't really "roleplaying", it's "archtype playing". A character should be able to diverge from the archtype a bit when coming up with the personality of the character he's playing. A player should certainly think about ways to do that in order to allow the goals of the scenario he's in to be met. Most of us, in real life, will weigh our choices based on the value of the outcomes of the different options. Most "rational" people will make a choice to put up with something they dislike in order to gain a more important victory. Thus, refusing to do so might be "hardcore roleplaying", but at that point has crossed into just plain "bad roleplaying". A good roleplayer can find ways to play his role that don't intefere with the enjoyment of the other players of the game. Ultimately, we are talking about playing a roleplaying game, which in most cases involves objectives beyond just playing a role (and in all cases that matter involve multiple players). There has to be a balance, or you just plain aren't a good "player", role or not...


The other extreme is just as important. Playing a role that's waaaay too far off the archtype is often a sign of minmaxing. There's no scenario need for you to deviate from your achtype's norms here. You've chosen to do so at character creation. It's usualy really obvious to a GM when a player is doing that for legitimate roleplaying reasons, and when it's being done purely to gain a combination of race/class/social game mechanic benefits. It's usually a sign of a poor roleplayer if you must play something "weird" every time. If every character has not just a detailed backround, but a very complex and convoluted and/or just plain "bizaare" backround, odds are that's the result of lazy roleplaying. A good roleplayer can take an archtype, make a few minor modifications, add a couple personality quirks, and make a character truely come alive. A good roleplayer will make decisions along the way that will change that character over time. Is that "hardcore". That really depends on what you look at.


I just think that a lot of what some people call "hardcore" roleplayers are really those who just use a crutch when playing, but play very strictly. A true "hardcore" roleplayer is just someone who really gets into the role when he plays. That role does not have to be super strict, or narrow, or complex. I've seen players who can play the hell out of a character with nothing "special" about him except he likes to play the flute. Really. You don't need anything special about a character to play him well.

Oh, wanted to add, the "pen and paper" role-playing games like AD&D are really the best forms of role-playing in my opinion(Privately run "Ren-Fests"(also called "gathers"(where people actually dress up and play their characters) are excellent also(been to a few of those, it's a LOT of fun)). In these types of settings, you really have to act and describe your actions. You're a lot more in the role of your character and EVERY person you meet in the game is being act out as a real person that you can interact with and isn't just a generic NPC.

Computer RPGs really aren't true to form, but some are better than others. Gbaji really nailed down a lot of the different player types(for pen and paper games and computer games). I think I'm more of a Minmaxer myself, I tend to try to be as effective as I can within the rules given and go for efficiency more than most other things. I do happen to be able to role-play well even with that personality type. I generally try to play the "professional" Ranger who's the best he is at what he does and gets results. That was more in AD&D though than EQ. I still go Minmax in EQ, but really don't role-play.

The 'good' Dark Elf Rangers are usually Drizzt knock-offs from the R.A. Salvatore books. Awesome series, I highly recommend them. I do know what you mean though about trying to bend rules for the most advantageous combinations you can make.

I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by all of your comments and there are some quotes I would like to respond to that made me chuckle, think about, shake my head and nod but I am a bit short on time for that right now *blush*

Having read all this I am afraid my playing style changed over the half year I played. On FV I think I was a true roleplayer, that was the time when I had heated discussions with people who told me "You made a mistake on character choice cause a Rogue can't solo" and insisted that one either plays by the book or declares himself a freak. I always used backstab when soloing and sneaked into every dungeon I could or city where I was KOS just for the sneaky-thief feeling. Eventually I was finished after lvl 25 with soloing and LDoN was such an anti-roleplay-environment that I didn't have enough fun to continue that way.

Based on all your comments I guess I have become nothing more than an "Archetypist" since I play on MR (having a family of toons was just to tempting). I try to play my characters consistent with the High-Fantasy "chliches" and the EQ-exclusive racial and faction issues but I admit I am not longer going through any real pain to give my characters more than average depth.


Edited, Fri Apr 9 02:42:13 2004 by Leiany

This one comment has to be done: You really think I would be hoping for public support in an argument on this board?

/em chuckle
/em giggle
/em laugh

Edited, Fri Apr 9 02:51:44 2004 by Leiany

How can you read this thread and STILL not really understand what roleplaying is? Playing a rogue and using the frikkin class abilities does not make you a Roleplayer. That is like a Paladin claiming they are a roleplayer because they LoH people. Roleplaying is about the personality of your character, and more specifically how that personality interacts with others. Roleplaying a solo playstyle is a bit counter-productive to roleplay. Who are you trying to convince with your roleplaying? Yourself?

To put it another way, what is the point of an actor playing a part alone in their bedroom? There is none other than practice for the real thing. An actor needs a stage and an audience to be worthwhile.

We were not arguing with you on the soloing Rogue thread, we were advising you. The Rogue class is designed to be a group class. Past a certain (pretty low) level, it is impossible to solo a rogue. Not disadvantageous, impossible. You had expressed a desire to solo, you playing a Rogue. We were trying to avoid you wasting time. Your gratitude never was forthcoming.

Funnily enough you soon ditched the rogue and started an Enchanter, which just happens to be one of the few classes that can solo to 65. Didn't take ya long to start playing by the book, did it freak?

Leiany wrote:

Well you did think you knew what roleplaying was and were mistaken. You also started a new thread just for the sake of making a point when the old thread would have served just as well and been less dramatic.

Btw, roleplaying is a social thing. Sneaking into towns and/or backstabbing(I'll assume you just get 1 shot btw) while soloing is pretty much pointless in a game like this. Though maybe a "hardcore roleplayer" would disagree. Also, you can generally do just about ANYTHING in a roleplaying environment as long as you have a reasonable justification for the action, so whoever said you can't do a certain thing probably or be a certain race/class etc, is probably just some idiot who doesn't know what they're talking about or even what roleplaying really is. I wouldn't be surprised if 50% of the people on FV didn't know what roleplaying really was.

Patrician,

You better keep your head down! Once Leiany gets on you she'll keep hammering away until she gets the last word and you either agreed with her or gave up trying to make a point and walked off in frustration. Need a good example just check out the thread I linked above. I tried to get out and she came out to get me with this thread. Just a friendly warning.

Before online-gaming was invented we all played role-playing games on the PC. The gaming industry and the gamers also drew a very distinctive borderline between "roleplaying games" and "adventure games". Stating that roleplaying only occurs due to interaction with other players would implie that a whole genre of PC-games where labeled wrong for 2 decades.

And I claim that Baldurs Gate is still more of a role-playing game than Diablo online.

how can someone waste time as long as he has fun in what hes doing?

Does this mean "yes"?