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BattleMaster => BM General Discussion => Topic started by: Nathan on June 02, 2011, 12:45:56 AM

Title: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Nathan on June 02, 2011, 12:45:56 AM
When I've got little time, I'll often skip the roleplay messages and just read the other types of messages. But recently I've seen quite a few people tag things as "roleplay" when actually it's a letter to someone. I only noticed because one of those roleplays was addressed to my character as I was skipping past it. I went back through my messages and noticed I've actually skipped a lot of letters.

What do you all think about tagging what are obviously letters as being roleplays? How do you respond to them? Part of me says they should be ignored as the player might have meant them to be roleplays and not letters, but then the other part of me says I might be stopping things progressing because I'm ignoring things.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: De-Legro on June 02, 2011, 12:49:54 AM
I've seen people do it when they post the letter to the realm, but only address it to single or group of nobles. The intent as I understand it is to share the role play, while attempting to make it obvious that it is intended to be IG knowledge for only the characters listed within the role play.

I can't see why you would do it in letters that are only sent to those "participating" in the RP, in general a letter written in character is a part of role play with or without the tag. Did the letter include any "actions" that would exist outside of the written text conveyed? That might be a reason.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Anaris on June 02, 2011, 01:03:19 AM
The Roleplay message tag is specifically intended to be used only on narrative roleplays: that is, describing the actions of your character.  They are not meant to be letters sent between characters.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Bedwyr on June 02, 2011, 06:56:21 AM
I hate it when people tag letters as roleplays, because I often skip roleplays when I'm pressed for time as well, and as Tim says, it's not correct.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Perth on June 02, 2011, 08:59:36 AM
Indeed, technically speaking every message you send (except designated OOC, of course) is "roleplay" because you should be writing In-Character and as your character. I've always understood the "roleplay" tag/designation be primarily for narrative stories, etc.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Indirik on June 02, 2011, 02:43:44 PM
Indeed, technically speaking every message you send (except designated OOC, of course) is "roleplay" because you should be writing In-Character and as your character.
I've known people who have insisted on sending everything tagged as "roleplay", because they are always roleplaying their character.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Anaris on June 02, 2011, 02:55:08 PM
I've known people who have insisted on sending everything tagged as "roleplay", because they are always roleplaying their character.

I had a General once who did that.

And then yelled at us for not following orders.  Because we didn't notice that they were orders.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: fodder on June 02, 2011, 05:50:55 PM
easy change would be to just call it narrative instead of rp...
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Chenier on June 03, 2011, 12:30:21 AM
easy change would be to just call it narrative instead of rp...

Indeed, though it's a sad thing if such a change is needed, imo.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Anaris on June 03, 2011, 12:57:11 AM
Actually, when this issue came up on the dev list about two years ago, Tom gave the go-ahead to remove the signature from roleplay messages, which I never got around to doing.

I have now done so.

It's not a huge thing, but it should at least help to show that Roleplay messages are not letters.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Nathan on June 03, 2011, 05:05:13 PM
Is there anything else we can do to show that they're not letters? I still think that people will use them as letters without the signature - they could even just add their own signatures.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: songqu88@gmail.com on June 03, 2011, 05:07:44 PM
Not much to do really. If people don't understand what a roleplay is, perhaps due to language, then we can explain when we encounter them. If it comes from someone who continually insists on using gold letters, then there's just no cure for that.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Sacha on June 03, 2011, 11:30:38 PM
Sure there is. OOC ban them.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: songqu88@gmail.com on June 04, 2011, 12:26:16 AM
OOC bans are for blatant rulebreaking, and even then it's not really used. Tell you what, how about you become a ruler and try it, and report what, if anything, happens to you.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: m2rt on June 06, 2011, 07:45:15 PM
Actually, when this issue came up on the dev list about two years ago, Tom gave the go-ahead to remove the signature from roleplay messages, which I never got around to doing.

I have now done so.

It's not a huge thing, but it should at least help to show that Roleplay messages are not letters.

Finally! /me hugs Anaris
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: fodder on June 22, 2011, 12:09:39 AM
um.... bit late... but is it possible to alter it again?

to something like
------------
Roleplay from <name>
<titles> (in smaller font)

... then the normal text stuff

no sig
--------
... so i don't have to look up the title of the sender.... this would apply mostly if 1 side writes a narrative and then the other side replies with another narrative. especially since my advy doesn't write letters (other than when too lazy to switch type when sending out hunt links) and just use narratives in the odd occasion when having to interact with others.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: ^ban^ on June 23, 2011, 09:25:43 AM
... so i don't have to look up the title of the sender.... this would apply mostly if 1 side writes a narrative and then the other side replies with another narrative. especially since my advy doesn't write letters (other than when too lazy to switch type when sending out hunt links) and just use narratives in the odd occasion when having to interact with others.

The entire point of the change was to point out that the roleplay header is not a letter header. If you want to send a letter then send a letter, not a narrative roleplay. Stop using the wrong message header and your problem disappears.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Fleugs on June 23, 2011, 11:42:37 AM
The entire point of the change was to point out that the roleplay header is not a letter header. If you want to send a letter then send a letter, not a narrative roleplay. Stop using the wrong message header and your problem disappears.

Well said. +1 internets for you.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: fodder on June 23, 2011, 12:37:13 PM
hello? i'm not sending a letter. i'm sending a narrative. but if the narrative involves the other guy's title i'll have to look it up. all i'm asking is a simple way of doing it without opening another tab.

so no. i'm not using the wrong header.

imagine this..

Roleplay from A

"A sends a messenger to summon B"

a reply would be:

Roleplay from B:
"B sees a messenger from A (including title and all) and legs it over"


peasants don't write letters, so narratives is the way to do things. but to do things you need to know who are involved.

and remember... i'm asking for titles in the narratives that i receive. so message types i select doesn't actually matter because it doesn't change what i see on my screen.. which is no description of what the other character is.

if the devs want to show titles as mouseovers (over the sender's name), that's fine by me.
Title: Re: Letters as roleplays
Post by: Chenier on June 24, 2011, 03:21:07 AM
I support having the title back at the top. When I get a roleplay of a duke approaching mine, I want to know who the hell this stranger is to react appropriately, without needing to open a new tab.

This way, it's clearly not a signature imo, but equally as informative. Perhaps have the whole title in parenthesis just to further insist that it isn't a signature or a letter header. Also, I'd favor replacing the term "Roleplay" with "Narrative", as even orders are a form of roleplaying and this might be causing some confusion with non-native english speakers.