Interaction

So for you, how important is character interaction in an RP? As in, RPing with your fellow RPers as you interact your characters with each other.

Should it always be required in an RP? Should it remain optional? Or would you prefer on making your own stories with your character by yourself?

I personally like it as something that's optional. My preferred kind of RPing is where the mass of player creates a living breathing world, where the events of one influence the story of another. Character interaction is a cool part of that, but it's not something I require in my RP. It's why I'm usually fine with having other players write the NPCs I'm using, so that even if our characters aren't together, we still show we're part of this big world.

I think it's a pretty important aspect of the majority of RPs out there. If all your characters are going towards the same goal of defeating the evil bad guy, it'd make sense for them to interact with each other. If they don't necessarily work together, their paths would cross from time to time. For the typical Pok?mon journey RPs I could see it being less important because everyone could create their own NPCs and encounters to flesh out their world.

I like interaction. I really do, but a lot of people plan ahead which makes interaction suffer. I am guilty of this, but I have been trying to get better at that by not planning ahead. But it is a really big problems in a lot of RPs that I have seen or been in. Another problem is, people just want to interact with certain people and not getting around to others and there is no reason given.

It should remain optional to answer the question and I don't think it should be required. However, those who want to do what they want and refuse to interact, unless your character is like that, I think they just need to write a story instead of Rping. You can't be in a Rp world where someone does something that should have some effect on your character and just ignore it.

You are supposed to work with your fellow RPers not completely ignore them, otherwise there is no point for you do be in an RP. Your best bet would be to write a story that you control everything in.

I don't like optional interactions. It feels like I'm being given a blank canvas and I have nothing really to work by when it comes to establishing a character dynamic. Maybe I just suck so much at socializing through small talk IRL (I REALLY hate small talk, it makes me feel so smarmy and fake) that it translates into my poor writing. I don't know, being provided scenarios for the inevitable interactions help me out a lot since it gives me more ideas on what to do. Of course, this depends on my own character -- it wouldn't make any sense for an introvert to actively seek out conversation, so making interaction optional seems more appropriate. There's some variables here and there that kind of make it difficult to say what's the best option here. :/

From what I'm seeing, the most important thing is for everything to at least feel connected and ultimately intertwine at some point in the narrative. Maybe Character 1 who's in Town A causes a series of chain of events that inadvertently influences Character 2's mission in Town B -- no direct verbal exchange and maybe they haven't even met yet, but their actions do leave some sort of influence on the other. There's always coherency and conveyance, even if it seems irrelevant at first.

I think that interaction is important to an RP since the whole point is essentially to write a story together. It's about doing something with a group of people so it makes no sense to never work together and it's a lot of fun to write joint posts with your fellow RPers.

It shouldn't be required though for most RPs because writing individually and exploring just your own character is also a part of telling the story I think.

Ice said:

I personally like it as something that's optional. My preferred kind of RPing is where the mass of player creates a living breathing world, where the events of one influence the story of another. Character interaction is a cool part of that, but it's not something I require in my RP. It's why I'm usually fine with having other players write the NPCs I'm using, so that even if our characters aren't together, we still show we're part of this big world.

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That is a very interesting angle at it all. One I want to explore further :)

It's important but I guess interaction is very limited to JPs and such because we don't want to clutter the thread with short posts.

But I like it as optional. I want where the players' choices affect how the world responds, as it is a much bigger issue rather than how another player reacts. RP is all about world-building after all.

As someone who comes from a different mediums for roleplay like MMOs, Tabletop games, excetra, character interaction is in my opinion one of the most important aspects to roleplay. It allows you to build rivalries, friendships and other kinds of relationshipships in a more natural and memorable way. My favorite moment in my history of roleplay began with just a simple conversation where a single thing my character said ended up in this pilgrimage in search for an apothecary, completely and totally improved at that moment.

I guess maybe it's just because I haven't really delved into forum roleplay but I can't really imagine enjoying a roleplay without at least some meaningful form of character interaction.

Also sorry if this reads rather janky, I'm not used to posting on a phone.

I'm totally fine with it being optional I suppose, but as a player I don't really see the point of doing an RP without it?

If I don't want interaction I'll just write my own story, without anyone else getting involved whatsoever. If I have my own character arcs, interactions with, in this case, NPCs and a story to tell that doesn't involve player to player interaction? Then why would I ever bother doing RP in the first place? Obviously it's different for everybody, but from my perspective at least I would have no reason to RP in the first place without the interaction aspect.

Getting to write a story where everybody plays a different character and those characters talk, fight and develop together all the while bouncing off one another for their own personal development along the way. That's what RP is to me, in essence, I can't grasp the appeal in it otherwise.

Like Alissal however, I have also experienced a variety of other Roleplay mediums outside of forum based so my view might be a little biased in this regard... then again I did have my start in Roleplay right here on this very forum, so I'll stand by my viewpoint.

Jay said:

I'm totally fine with it being optional I suppose, but as a player I don't really see the point of doing an RP without it?

If I don't want interaction I'll just write my own story, without anyone else getting involved whatsoever. If I have my own character arcs, interactions with, in this case, NPCs and a story to tell that doesn't involve player to player interaction? Then why would I ever bother doing RP in the first place? Obviously it's different for everybody, but from my perspective at least I would have no reason to RP in the first place without the interaction aspect.

Getting to write a story where everybody plays a different character and those characters talk, fight and develop together all the while bouncing off one another for their own personal development along the way. That's what RP is to me, in essence, I can't grasp the appeal in it otherwise.

Like Alissal however, I have also experienced a variety of other Roleplay mediums outside of forum based so my view might be a little biased in this regard... then again I did have my start in Roleplay right here on this very forum, so I'll stand by my viewpoint.

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Agreeing with everything here. It's an optional thing for players to interact with each other. Some even create characters that tends to avoid interactions (like almost all my characters) but sooner or later it's needed since every character needs to develop and be fleshed out and that ain't happening if you're in your own world.

Interaction is the most important thing in an rp for your characters and the world around them. There's only so much that we can do for our characters on our own. Even if its just them interacting with the waves that another character makes, interaction helps to develop our characters into something else by making them deal with things we wouldn't have initially thrown them into and causing us to grow as writers as well.

O'aka XXIII said:

Interaction is the most important thing in an rp for your characters and the world around them. There's only so much that we can do for our characters on our own. Even if its just them interacting with the waves that another character makes, interaction helps to develop our characters into something else by making them deal with things we wouldn't have initially thrown them into and causing us to grow as writers as well.

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I entirely agree with this. Interaction is one of, if not the most important (aside from straight plot progression), the main drives for a character and a writer to grow. Without that drive, a character could end an RP with literally just being that 3 paragraph personality section. That's not all they are.

Of course, I think it's optional to an extent. A GM will oftentimes force characters together in particular situations, but there are other times where the characters decide what they want to do. There are some times where someone's alone time can show more character progression then small talk with others. You have to think of the characters as real people and understand what can shape and define them.

Home said:

Agreeing with everything here. It's an optional thing for players to interact with each other. Some even create characters that tends to avoid interactions (like almost all my characters) but sooner or later it's needed since every character needs to develop and be fleshed out and that ain't happening if you're in your own world.

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How would writing posts by yourself with your own NPCs limit the fleshing out of a character or their development?

I tend to do that ^ a lot? I'm not actually very good at interacting and I wish I was. Maybe it's due to clash of writing styles or goals or my controlling nature or something I don't know, but it's rare that I find a player character that I can interact with without struggling a lot. But I love character development through social situations so I have a lot of NPCs lmao.

I tend to prefer the optional, "crossing paths" situation in regards to player character interaction because of all that for sure. But I certainly don't like it to be nonexistent. And the level of interaction certainly depends on the story and goal of the individual RP as well, so it's... pretty variable I guess?

I don't like interacting. Directly at least. Its something i've come to learn as i've continued writing. Which is why the characters that have managed to stay alive are the ones i've written only solo for.

"But whats the point of an RP if you don't interact"

It... just becomes a single player game instead of a multiplayer one? Why are Skyrim and Final Fantasy so popular? Because people like to immerse themselves in a world.

and the smaller forms of interaction, noticing a thing that another player did, or heard about someones exploits, aren't just as valuable.

From an entirely more pedantic point of view, I actually don't like solo role plays. It feels like I should just write a book or fanfiction at that point, where I can move at my own pace without holding people back.

I also don't like "role-playing" in videogames, where the term means less "I play a character" and "this character has stats". Skyrim, I can see why people role play in it, although I personally don't like the limitations of it, you have to be a prisoner of indeterminate background and nothing about your character's life before they stepped foot in Skyrim matters. Not that I have a better solution aside from maybe choosing a background that is occasionally brought up (a la Mass Effect 1-3). Final Fantasy, at least beyond 3, I would argue has no actual "role playing". You can get immersed in the world, but it's a static narrative with set characters with largely set personalities. The early games may have gotten popular due to the roleplaying potential (essentially just being D&D the video game), but the latter games are definitely more popular due to gameplay and story than roleplaying.

This is all likely to to taste, however. I roleplay so I am not playing a lone character in a void. I also enjoy other people's character, and what they come up with can be vastly different than something i would have made. The interaction between these two, where I don't know what is going to happen next in a conversation, or the other person introduces a twist I wouldn't have thought of myself, make the narrative much more interesting and fun to me. While it is also possible for the GM to introduce story wide twists, it's these smaller twists that help maintain the interest in the roleplay itself for me.