Do you role-play in MP games and why or why not?

[PvK]

"Making a strategic decision for thematic reasons though, that's crazy!"

Not if you look at it as making fun and imagination more important than optimization and winning.

I'd rather have imaginative fun than optimal winning any day (except maybe if there's a mighty prize involved, like a magic cursed trident... ).

[sector24]

I thought you were roleplaying the Firefox spellchecker.

[AlgaeNymph]

While I don't immerse myself in-character, I try to refer to myself as "we" (as in the nation) and modify my syntax ("we know not" instead of "we do not know").

Although I'm lax with pretender names unless I can think of something better, I did create a great alchemist for MA Ulm named "Le Comte de Saint Germain," and am using a prince of death for LA Ermor named...yes, "Orcus."

[moderation]

Aezeal said:
--> I disagree.. even nations could forget to send items/tribute and whatnot to another nation, it could be forgotten, but usually some economic reason would delay the transmission I guess. If the other nation then declared war it's only natural not to repay debts, in fact all merchants from that nation would be locked up and their goods taken..

I don't really see the point in role-playing these types of scenarios. While it's true that you can created all kinds of imagined "in-game" scenarios for why the gems weren't sent, at the end of the day, the reason that the other play didn't get the gems was that you forgot to click send. To me this is a event that has occurred on the player-level, not the game-level and a player that that believes in good sportsmanship should resolve it at the player level. "Oops, my bad, I'll send the gems this turn." To deliberately not send the gems turn after turn and then make up explanations that involve make-believe merchants is irresponsible. How would you feel if you were the player at the other end of a trade where the other player "forgets" or deliberately does not live up to their end of the bargain and blames imaginary merchants? I find this explanation to be immature and unmeaningful. This is simply breaking an agreement with another player and then finding an imaginary excuse for why you didn't the "send the gems" button" in order to gain a short-term advantage. There's nothing meaningful being role-played here. There is no story being told.

I think of role-playing as similar to improv theater. There is a story or play that multiple players are collaborating to create. Tuidjy offers a much better example of roleplaying here. I think there is a clear and sharp contrast between these two types of roleplaying. In Aezeal's example with the gems, there is no meaningful story, there is only one person cheating another.

Here is a clearer example: Say you are playing TCP/IP game and you forget to set a password for your pretender or you happen to choose a password that someone else has gained access to. Or say he has simply scripted a password cracker and and cracked his way into your account. Now say another player in the game learns of this and logs into your account to learn about your troop positions and strategic weakness and defeat you. While it is possible to create roleplaying reasons for why he has access to all your army movements "Hey, I had some spies in your empire," or "I paid off your advisors to betray you," well all know at the end of the day that he cracked into your account and cheated. Yes, it is possible to roleplay this, but for the purposes of the game, is there a compelling story being told? I think it is pretty clear that for the purposes of Dom 3, there is no compelling story unless you enjoy playing with cheaters.

While this is a strong example, I think it important and useful to illustrate my point. I've encountered a number of examples of bullying and cheating in this game and others where bullying and cheating for personal advantage are disguised as "role-playing" and I can think of plenty of other examples of unsportsman-like conduct that could be dressed up as role-playing. Spotty roleplaying to cover up mistakes only compromises our ability to speak and think clearly about what is going on in the game and obfuscates the issues without contributing in any meaningful way to a shared narrative. I'm starting to think that roleplaying should either be done completely in a crafted scenario, or not at all. Otherwise, there are simply too many ways ambiguous roleplaying can be abused. So here's another question to consider: What is good roleplaying and how do you differentiate it from bad roleplaying?