TRP2 and You

[Etmosril]

Hey there.

Now, I'm a bit of an old-timer when it comes to RP addons: I still love FlagRSP, and GHI for character descriptions and scripted items, or whatever you kids call them those days.

I got TRP2 a few months ago to see what I was missing. What made the most impression is how shiny the interface is. You've got individual places to write your character's personality, background, physical appearance, temporary changes. Character directories too, Creations to replace item-making - and for those who like customization and visual aids, there are States, pretty new icons to use, and so on. There are even profiles for your pets. It's a rather nice way of mashing several addons together.

But there is a problem with this, which I'm getting to. State misuse, on the side of the user, and metagamer, on the side of the reader.

1. State misuse.

Why, why, why did the creator of the mod add invisible states like 'Happy', 'Trustworthy', and 'Curse of X' to the list?

Those all have things in common: none of them are things your character should tell by looking at someone. Those are things you should be finding out through good, descriptive emotes.

Say, for example, that you see someone with a 'Happy' State, and they're sitting around morosely, and acting like a jerk to everyone they see. Yet when you ask OOCly, they're happy. Is the person behind the character guilty of using a crutch to RP? Definitely.

Part of the fun of roleplaying is not knowing how other characters think or act. You have to learn their hows and whys when you play with them. If that's all being handed to you as soon as you meet them (along with some inadequate RPing), where's the fun in that?

Sometimes, things like this lead us to the related problem of forcing opinions on the player.

My hypothetical person in this example has a Trustworthy state, which means they look trustworthy to others. Do I think they look trustworthy? Does my character think they look trustworthy? Maybe not. If it's a human in shiny gold armor with a huge sword and a nice happy demeanor, maybe other humans would find that trustworthy. But on the other hand, I should think that a Night Elf or Orc would be annoyed or even aggressive towards the same person.

What if there's someone who behaves suspiciously, wears dark and covering clothing, yet they have a Trustworthy state? Will I trust them? Should I trust them? Hell no. And yet, there's the assumption about your character again.

Someday I'll roll a villain with a Trustworthy state. I swear I will.

Not to demonize the users. There's also..

2. Metagaming

Also known as 'Gaming like Meta', or the favorite pastime of trolling characters. Anyhow.

If you're being presented with all of this information on age, dwelling, personality, history, and States, what's to prevent you from using it? If it's being placed there, someone obviously intends for you to benefit from it. There are probably some people out there who make a habit off this. I don't know.

More dangerously, this metagaming can happen without you trying to do it. If someone has a State (yes, I know, more State Hate) of 'Smells like Flowers', or 'In Love', and they're not showing any signs of those statuses, then aren't you, as a good roleplayer, supposed to notice the details of the character you're playing with? Smell the flowers, so to speak?

Wrong. Unless you're a Night Elf, Worgen, or Tauren, you're probably not going to smell a thing. And if you're standing close enough to do it realistically, you'll just end up looking creepy.

The same thing holds true for all 'invisible' states. You feel like you should notice them ICly because someone took the time to add them, and yet, doing so is metagaming.

All you can conscientiously do in a case like this is ignore it ICly, and/or tell the player. Both of those can be hard. In the latter instance, it can feel like a personal attack.

To sum it up..

TRP2 is great. But don't let OOCly-given information influence you, and definitely don't expect States and such to replace beautiful, informative emotes. Therein lies the death of roleplaying as we know it.

There are also abuses of character description here and there, which I'll ignore for now since they're not unique to TRP2. But if you do notice them, you know what to do. I know I'll be doing the same thing.

[/super serious rant]

[CappnRob]

A good rant, except...

To this day I've never seen anyone use TRP2 states to metagame. I usually use them with a grain of salt to generally define my characters personality, and go from there with it. They're guidelines for both how to react IC and what to expect of a character OOC, not a replacement for actual emotes.

[Kage]

Agreed with above. And I use the states as a reminder as well. I rp a lot of characters, and I forget easily ^^"

[Dae]

For the record, I think all Forsaken should have the "Smells of Death" state. I am a strong advocate of playing up all those little things that make Forsaken... well, talking, walking corpses.

Though now I'm tempted to make a custom state of "Smells of Flowers and Death" and give my Forsaken a bunch of flowers just to be a terrible, terrible person.

[SachikoMaeda]

Oh TRP2. How I love thee. I tend to use it only to describe my characters' physical appearances. The states tend to be general and just for the sale of not having the empty field. It's saved me much time having to sit down and describe the effects of Aendron's muscular dystrophy every time I wish to RP him in a new environment with new people. Or that Doran's a trap...

But the metagaming is something that will happen regardless amongst RPers some form or fashion. The fact some people take advantage of TRP2 to advance their meta agenda is at fault of the metagamer. To whoever, metagaming is bad and you should feel bad.

But TRP2 and Elephant are the only addons I use. I gave GHI a shot and couldn't stand it. TRP2 shall be my favorite for giving me quick access to a short little bitty (or in Aendron's case a novel) about a character's appearance and what should be noticeable about the character when yours looks at him or her.

[Piroska]

Though now I'm tempted to make a custom state of "Smells of Flowers and Death" and give my Forsaken a bunch of flowers just to be a terrible, terrible person.

From experience, rotting flowers and decomposing flesh are not enjoyable smells, especially when combined. It results in a strong, sickly-sweet odor that really churns the stomach.

[Ebenezer]

For the record, I think all Forsaken should have the "Smells of Death" state. I am a strong advocate of playing up all those little things that make Forsaken... well, talking, walking corpses.

Though now I'm tempted to make a custom state of "Smells of Flowers and Death" and give my Forsaken a bunch of flowers just to be a terrible, terrible person.

I would assume most Forsaken do smell like corpes regardless if they have activated this state or not, but that flower idea of yours sounds very, very tasty.

[CappnRob]

... (or in Aendron's case a novel) ...

EVERY TIME I HIGHLIGHT HIM WITH MY MOUSE.

EVERY.

TIME.

[flammos200]

I hate TRP2. Endlessly. It bugs pretty much everything up on my end. And it has far too many cumbersome details. Why would we instantly know that someone dislikes cocoa beans and that they have a second cousin/dark and brooding history at a glance? No, thanks. I'd rather stick to what is objectively perceivable. I.E. A physical description.

Also, the slider mechanic in TRP is - and forgive my poor choice of wording here - utterly silly. This is Warcraft. How is 'Rational' opposed to 'Devout', when religions are a very tangible and reasonable thing in the World of Warcraft, producing immediate results due to acts of faith, I ask you. Also, who can judge the psychological profile of another person just by glancing at them? "OH! I INSTANTLY KNOW YOU'RE DEVOUT AND SHALL THEREFORE ADAPT MY BEHAVIOR TO YOU!"... bleh.

I use FlagRSP2 and GHI. Only addons I've ever needed. They do what they're supposed to. FlagRSP2 provides name/title/description options, and GHI gives the ability to write stuff, create items that put up buffs(Fully customizable, much like your states), play sounds, do emotes, or simply give messages.

And that's not counting awesome GHI scripts like screen-filters, voice-commands and the like.(So, for instance, your character /says Jump. An item in a person's GHI forces them to jump. It was used in the past for slave collars and the like.)

Also, TRP2 truncates emotes. It bothers me to no end for that. Cutting off stuff mid-speech is annoying as hell.

In short, it all feels extremely cumbersome and unwieldy, being all flash and no function. I'd rather have my streamlined, quick and easy to use addons, thank-you-very-much.

EDIT: Also, how does a character -look Trustworthy- or in love? Does he smell like love? Does he have a huge sign over his head going "I AM IN LOVE! TOTALLY!"? It's such a broken system, that of States. And people seem to over-use it to the point at which it becomes utterly hilarious (Happy and Sad at the same time, and whatnot).

[Piroska]

I use FlagRSP2 and GHI. Only addons I've ever needed. They do what they're supposed to. FlagRSP2 provides name/title/description options, and GHI gives the ability to write stuff, create items that put up buffs(Fully customizable, much like your states), play sounds, do emotes, or simply give messages.

I favor FlagRSP2 myself (especially since a Feathermooner is responsible for it!) and for many of the same reasons. I'm also much more familiar with the addon since it's the one primarily utilized on my retail servers. You really shouldn't know anything of a character beyond what you can interpret just by looking at him. In fact, if you remember earlier versions of the addon, it actually used to have a huge dialogue box that appeared when you edited the description; it let you know that the appearance box was just for physical appearance and nothing else. You couldn't edit anything in there until you acknowledged it.

Unfortunately, I tend to use TRP2 because it is so prolific on this server.

Regarding the history and titles and other superfluous things, the only justification that I can think of for their existence is the off-chance that a character from a similar background comes across him. Then you have the possibility of shared experiences, upon which you can build a rapport. So characters claiming to be from the same town can approach another in recognition and share in that,

For example, there was a player on Feathermoon who included in his character's history that she was searching for a long-lost twin sister. Someone actually took the initiative to create this character, which led to all sorts of unintended fun.

[ImagenAshyun]

I stopped most features in TRP2, mostly regarding Personality, Behavior, etc. That's what the wiki profiles are for (which I just link). As for States, they're just trivia IMO. I never really consider using them anymore because it's a hassle.


If there are things I do appreciate and am thankful for in TRP2, it's the following:

1.) Allowing the (other TRP2) players to see full names. Not everyone does, but I do. I tend to appreciate seeing "Annabelle Greene" rather than just "Annabelle" or "Matthew Hunter" than just "Matthew". I also love it especially on races that makes use of apostrophes: "Du'guro" has more trollish character than "Duguro", and "Mahen'tosh" for "Mahentosh" for an orc. TRP2 is a great tool for names in which you hope your characters to be known as without breaking server rules.

2.) Current Information. A great sin several TRP2 users do is copy-paste entire histories or personalities onto the Current Information when in reality, we just want something brief. Yes, actually describing your character's state through emotes is far more ideal than skipping it with an addon, but I cannot tell you how many times RP is interrupted because a newcomer wants to know how deformed Dr. Dino is, which takes me almost literally 5-10 minutes to describe even if I leave out the unneeded details.

Now, of course, metagaming and forcing players to accept information are practices that do not need the addon to exist. Does the addon encourage it such practices? It depends on the player. Bear in mind that there is a difference between a player volunteering information OOC to another player and actual metagaming. TRP2 users using Current Information to volunteer something about their character is done something voluntarily.


I've heard a lot of praise for GHI, and to be honest, I'm not sure if I'd use it. I already use Elephant on top of TRP2, and I'm anxious about using other addons in fear it'll break my game (my computers are crap already).

[Etmosril]

Also, the slider mechanic in TRP is - and forgive my poor choice of wording here - utterly silly. This is Warcraft. How is 'Rational' opposed to 'Devout', when religions are a very tangible and reasonable thing in the World of Warcraft, producing immediate results due to acts of faith, I ask you.

This is a pet peeve of mine. In a world where Light heals people, cures their diseases and brings them back to life, Fel corrupts them to align with the Legion, Shadow leaves them husks of their former selves, Nature and the elements maintain or change the world around you, belief in justice gives you powers, necromancy replaces life with unlife (and adds a ton of semi-religious themes too), and Loa reward their followers, rational and devout are pretty much the same thing.

And about TRP2. About 80-90% of the space for a TRP2 profile is meant for information that you wouldn't know by looking at a person. That's not a good thing. You take away all the mystery and interest of a character by also adding their age, where they live, what their personal beliefs are, their personality, their history, their private thoughts (States), and what they ate for breakfast that morning. You may not fill out all this information yourself, but what if you RP with people who do?

It also opens the opportunity to get almost chatty, OOC or fickle with your TRP2 profile. This is very hard thing to describe, but if you've seen some bad profiles in your time (or if you've been on a retail RP server), you know exactly what I mean. Chatty and fickle is updating your profile constantly to jab at people, or let everyone know of some RP you had, or some changes you made. OOC is adding in a theme song, or making OOC references. Those are both things I have seen here.

Oh, and Immy, GHI is amazing. It's very open-ended. If you like taking notes or getting creative when it comes to item-making, it's worth looking into. And speaking as someone who uses both TRP2 and GHI, the only conflict is that TRP2 can prevent linked GHI items from appearing properly in chat.

[ImagenAshyun]

You take away all the mystery and interest of a character by also adding their age,

That's one of the areas where it's excusable to make known. In real life, you can guess an individual's age by how they look, but you can't do that in-game. It's rather annoying when I play Dino and people think he's an old man because I use the old man model (he's only 42--I use the old man model because it's the closest I can recreate his ugly mug) while, at the same time, I'm playing Mahen'tosh (82) when I mistaken the orc in front of me to be in his 20s when he's really nearing 60 (but the player uses a very young looking model).

I'll give GHI a try

[flammos200]

1.) Allowing the (other TRP2) players to see full names. Not everyone does, but I do. I tend to appreciate seeing "Annabelle Greene" rather than just "Annabelle" or "Matthew Hunter" than just "Matthew". I also love it especially on races that makes use of apostrophes: "Du'guro" has more trollish character than "Duguro", and "Mahen'tosh" for "Mahentosh" for an orc. TRP2 is a great tool for names in which you hope your characters to be known as without breaking server rules.

2.) Current Information. A great sin several TRP2 users do is copy-paste entire histories or personalities onto the Current Information when in reality, we just want something brief. Yes, actually describing your character's state through emotes is far more ideal than skipping it with an addon, but I cannot tell you how many times RP is interrupted because a newcomer wants to know how deformed Dr. Dino is, which takes me almost literally 5-10 minutes to describe even if I leave out the unneeded details.

Both of those can easily be done with FlagRSP2(admittedly, not so much on the part of apostrophes in the name). And it's way less cumbersome.

Also, the age bit is excusable when people play elves or Draenei, for example. Since they don't really look like they age. /snicker.

Oh, and good luck with GHI!

[CappnRob]

Eh, there is to a degree some justification between Rational and Pious in TRP2. The flavor text for the two says basically "praise the whatever my crops are growing" VS "praise my farming ingenuity". It isn't so much theism VS atheism, as it is how much credit you give the divine forces for their influences in your life. A holy rolling priest/shaman/whatever would put much more credit to the divine than a common joe schmoe who only has a basic understanding of the divine power's influences in the world.