NEWBIES VS. VETERANS



I've been roleplaying for a while now, both with standard and chat-based roleplaying systems, and one of the biggest problems I have seen is veterans who think that experience makes the God. Now, I'll be the first to admit that experience can be a big asset, but it does not protect you from a) luck, and b) better roleplaying.

For example, suppose Mr. Devil [ all names are pulled out of thin air, and have nothing to do with actual human beings ] is a veteran roleplayer, and it is well known that he is a somewhat ornery bastard, and that his only real weakness is holy water. Along comes Mr. Newguy, who is new to the chat room, and also happens to be a vampire hunter, and as such carries things like holy water around with him as a matter of course. Mr. Devil, who feels like starting some nonsense, picks a fight with Mr. Newguy.

Here comes the good part. Mr. Newguy thinks that maybe Mr. Devil is a vampire, and so throws a bottle of holy water at him. Well now, this presents a bit of a problem for Mr. Devil. He is now soaked in the only thing that can hurt him to any real degree. So what would most veterans do in a situation like this? Well, what they SHOULD do, is take the hit and then run away, thereby saving their own skin, reputation be damned. However, it has been my experience that this is not what most veterans would actually do. Most veterans would pick apart the newbie's style, trying to find any excuse not to take a life-threatening hit. And then after they suitably humiliated the newbie, they would wander away grumbling about godmoding.

Now, deep in my heart of hearts, I don't believe that the veterans do this on purpose. They probably really believe that they don't have to take the hit, and that the newbie should just learn to roleplay better.

What really happens is that unconciously the veteran says to himself, "Oh my god, I just got my @$$ handed to me by some punk who got lucky! I'm the biggest bad@$$ this side of Hades, and I can't let this happen!" And that's a natural reaction, but it's not good roleplaying. In real life, if you get hit by a car, or someone shoots you, it's just plain bad luck. You can't say, "You didn't do that right, so I don't actually get hurt." That's exactly what happened to Mr. Devil. Bad luck. And he's just going to have to deal with it.

We'll deal with veterans and better roleplaying in the next installment, called "TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM".

-fish sauce


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