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aoisakana - blog owner
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
--- RP Taboo: Mixing RT and VT ---
   Now onto a big point: mixing r/t with v/t (ooc with ic). This is probably one of the biggest problems that exist in the world of roleplay. Most seasoned roleplayers are able to seperate themselves from their characters, but I also know that when you're just starting out roleplay that it could be pretty difficult. When I started out roleplay I managed to mix the two up at some points (which I will explain a little later in this post).

   Basically the key to keeping your real life out of your online roleplaying life is to remember that they're seperate lives. You are not your character. When you go to turn off your computer, your character is turned off with it. You do not go around living a life with the mindset of your character. And when you go to put on your codes and your av and slip into the role of your character, you do not exist in that fabricated world that your character lives in.

   I do realize that you cannot play your character completely objectively, else you'd have no passion for interaction but you have to remember that your character is not you.

   What your character feels may not be what you feel and vice versa. Example: when I started roleplaying, 7-8 years ago, my character got involved with another character and we were happy. I was happy. But when his character went off with someone else, my character was hurt; I was hurt and I shouldn't have been. Why? Because this was roleplay; this wasn't real life. I wasn't being cheated on, my character was. I may have "felt" something for the typist but he probably didn't fee the same way. At that point in time, I hadn't fully realized and grasped the idea that this was a game. It wasn't real life. While I do acknowledge that online relationship are possible and do happen, because your character is attracted to another character does not necessarily mean you and the other typist are a couple outside of roleplay.

   Another point. What you, as the typist, knows about another may not be what your character knows. Now this can be a little difficult to seperate, because, say, you, the typist, found out that some hunter is going after you and is hiding out in your home to stab you to death the moment you fall asleep, your character may decide to spend the next several nights at a friend's house or camping, whatever. This is not exactly what I'm talking about because such information is hard to forget; not many of us make characters just so they can be killed by the next bob on the street. What I am talking about is when you're ooc and you find out some information, like a weakness, of a character; you cannot use that information about that character. When you obtain information ooc, you cannot and should not let this information leak into your character's knowledge. There is no magical link that connects your brain to your character's brain like that. This is not how it works in real life either. If your character needs information, they have to do their own homework: research, spying, asking people, whatever. Your character does not know what you, the typist, are thinking.
 aoisakana 19:04