IC/OOC Separation

This is a topic that I feel very strongly about, as in my personal opinion this is the largest problem in the NS RP community that I’ve experienced over the years, and on a near daily basis. I’ve seen it cause the death of many roleplaying communities, cause years-long personal rifts, destroy roleplays and ruin the reputations of many writers. In other words, this is a very serious topic, and one that I feel is an essential subject to lecture about.

I should note that throughout the course of this lecture I'll often be referring to both nations and characters (really the only two things that a person can RP on NS). However certain things specifically pertain to roleplaying characters (such as emotions). The distinction between Nation and Character RP is a topic for another day, but alas the key issue of IC/OOC separation applies to both.

The beginning of this lecture consists of explaining what the difference between In Character and Out of Character is. Please keep these in mind throughout the course of the lecture, because the distinction between these two forms the core of this topic.

In Character- Anything pertaining to the fictional world where your nation and characters exist.

Out of Character- Anything pertaining to the real world, and you as a person.

The Mythical Line Between Writer and Nation

Lots of people have a hard time understanding the separation between writer and nation. They have for years, as long as I’ve been on NS. Many guides have been written on the subject, and yet there’s a lack of understanding in the roleplaying community, especially among novices. So I’ll state it plainly right here and now. The writer is not the nation. Don’t confuse the two.

Let’s get one thing straight: you do not exist ICly. You’re not being a nation or a character. You’re attempting to make choices for a nation or character based on your understanding of their motivations and the world and the consequences. Everything you choose for your nation or character is warped through the lens of your own perception, your own understanding, your own experiences, your own biases. And, a lot of the time, you’re guessing. You’re guessing what it would be like to be this completely different person in completely different circumstances in a world that doesn’t exist. Two players writing identical nations or characters in identical situations will still arrive at different choices because their choices are skewed through the lens of their own perceptions and experiences. Even actors – who don’t have to make decisions for their characters because some screenwriter already made the decisions – even actors bring something of themselves to every role they play.

But, here’s the weird thing: it’s kind of crazy to expect people to remove themselves from the equation all together. You are “playing the game” because some part of you wants to play the game. Some part of you wants to be in the story. You want to make the decisions. You don’t actually want to just find out how some person who isn’t you would handle things. You want the agency over the decisions. If you didn’t, you’d just read books or watch movies. Of course, the game and the story have to satisfy you. They have to appeal to your sense of what makes a good story, what makes interesting characters, and what makes a fun gaming experience. You want to win the battles through your nation. You want to make the choices through your nation. You want to solve puzzles through your nation. Whatever.

Have you ever cried during the sad part in a movie? Have you ever felt excited when something awesome was happening in a book? Have you ever been scared or freaked out at something you saw and had a hard time going to sleep that night? I’ve experienced all of these things, and I’m sure most of you have too. It’s a natural emotional response.

Stories are meant to evoke emotions. By and large that's how you tell whether it's a good story: by how it affects you and engages you, emotionally. Roleplay stories are no different. We are playing (or should try to be playing) well-rounded characters with depth, fears, and passions. We involve them in complex, dramatic stories. We live vicariously, to various degrees. It is both to be expected, and very normal, that sometimes we feel real life emotions due to in-game developments and events. That we are so much into our character's heads that we not only know what they think, but feel how they feel. This blurring of emotional lines between what the character feels, IC, and what you the player feel, OOC, is what is referred to as IC/OOC Separation.

First Person Versus Third Person Pronouns

A bad habit I’ve observed over the years (and perhaps the most commonplace) is the use of first person pronouns in reference to people’s work. This really gets on my nerves (I consider this my greatest pet peeve on NS) because it is a habit that inevitably blurs the lines by virtue of the nature of pronouns. Specifically, this is the use of the terms “I, me, my, mine, we, ours, etc.” in reference to someone’s nation or characters. I wrote about this topic previously in the MT Advice and Assistance thread, and you can find that discussion topic here: First versus Third Person pronouns.

Examples:

“I’m sending a diplomat to you.”
“Why are you attacking me?”
“My nation is going to attack you.”
“We do not like X nation’s actions.”
“This disputed border territory is mine.”

By now you see where I’m going with this. This type of language makes it seem as though the writer is inserting themselves into the IC world, in the form of their nation or character. This of course sets a dangerous precedent, because if you believe that your IC creative assets are extensions of yourself or your ego, then you’re going to take things a lot more personally (instead of treating it like fiction, which almost always gives you things you don’t like in the course of the story). Whenever I refer to my nation or characters, I always make sure that I refer to them in the third person.

Examples:

“Ghant is sending a diplomat to Nation X.”
“Why is Nation X attacking Ghant?”
“Ghant is going to attack Nation X.”
“Ghant does not like Nation X’s actions.”
“This disputed border territory is Ghant’s.”

I specifically word my sentences that way so that the person I’m talking to understands quite clearly that Ghant the nation and Ghant the person are two different things that exist in two different universes. Ghant the person is me, the guy writing this lecture. Ghant the nation is a fictional setting that exists within a collaborative fiction writing community. I am not it, and it is not me. I merely write about it. Yet a lot of roleplayers don't get this, and that leads to the next part of the lecture.

Self-Insertion

It is very important in roleplay to understand that IC (in character) is not OOC (out of character) and vice versa. You aren't your character. Your character isn't you. If someone thinks your nation is ran by assholes, that doesn't mean they don't like you. If your character is in love with another character, it doesn't mean you are in love with that character (or that character's writer). The wall there, that understanding that IC is not OOC, is important to have.

The lack of IC/OOC separation becomes a problem when people project their real-life feelings onto their nation (or other peoples’ nations), or when they allow their nation’s actions or their character's feelings to change how they behave in real life.

For example:

Imagine that you think that homosexuality is wrong (OOC), but you play a nation that is ambivalent about the issue with no strong feelings either way. You interact with a nation, ICly, that is very accepting of homosexuality. If you RP your nation to lecture the other on how homosexuality is immoral, you're failing to separate IC and OOC. You feel that way; your nation doesn't care. Or, vice versa, perhaps you strongly feel that homosexuality is perfectly fine (OOC), and you interact with a nation that is homophobic. Because the nation holds views that you as a person don't agree with, you become hostile or unfriendly towards the other nation's player (I see this happen all the time). That's failure to separate IC/OOC.

Another example:

Your character is dating Character A, in a roleplay. If you become possessive or jealous of the player, and begin feeling jealous or giving them a hard time about playing with other people, that's a huge OOC/IC failure (this is based on a personal experience of mine right here on NS). The fact that your characters are involved, doesn't mean that you, the players, are. The same thing applies for 'negative' feelings as well. Your character and another character might hate each other! But when you hate the person behind the keyboard, just because they're mean to your character...that's an IC/OOC failure. That's you not being able to tell where fantasy ends and reality begins.

Emotional Entanglement

Roleplaying in the context of NS is an exercise in creating a nation that is convincing. It's a bit like an acting exercise; convincing roleplay requires you to sink yourself into your characters and see the world through their eyes, to react to situations and other characters just as a real person would. When you pull this off, a character turns into a realistic avatar that appears to have just as many emotions and feelings as any real person would.

But roleplaying emotions and experiencing emotions are two very, very different things. For some, it's hard to separate real emotion from character emotion -- they seem like one and the same. Actors are experts in identifying that line between what is fiction and what is reality. They can slip into convincing emotional states and out again with relative ease. Roleplayers may seem like actors, but while actors are trained to see that line, roleplayers have to find that line for themselves.

Many roleplayers never find that line or even think about it. For some, what they roleplay and the emotions they feel while they roleplay translates and crosses over to how they are feeling in real life. If they roleplay a scene and their character gets angry, they feel anger even after they've walked away from the computer. If they roleplay a romance with another character, they begin to think they have genuine feelings for the person they are roleplaying with -- even if they've never exchanged any details about their out-of-game lives with each other (you’d be surprised how often stuff like this happens on NS).

It can be hard to spot when a roleplayer is taking events a little too seriously. As a roleplayer, you're looking for genuine bits of emotion from those you roleplay with, but those genuine bits of emotion are an in-character thing. If you notice that your roleplaying partner is acting strangely, carrying anger out of character or treating you as more than a roleplay partner, this may be a warning sign. And if that's the case, you may want to stop the roleplay between the two of you and let things go before it gets too serious.

If you are having issues with emotional entanglements in game, don't beat yourself up over it. Actors are trained to separate that line; roleplayers are not. However, if you feel that your emotions are getting the better of you -- if you begin to feel those emotions carry over even after you log off and say goodbye for the evening -- you may want to examine how seriously you're taking your roleplay.

If you're still angry, ask yourself why exactly you're angry and who you are angry at. If you're feeling a romantic connection with a roleplay partner, ask yourself how well, really, do you know them? Are those things you fancy traits of the roleplayer or just traits of the character? If your emotions are getting the better of you, you may want to consider taking a break and stepping back from roleplaying until you evaluate the situation.

Emotional Manipulation

I had a friend who joined a region with the best intentions of simply getting out there and roleplaying his nation and his characters. He quickly worked his way up the ladder within the roleplaying group and found himself an “officer” in it. But after he became an officer, one of his fellow officers began making advances on his character, and it quickly became apparent she wanted to roleplay some sort of relationship with him. He wasn't interested in roleplaying romances with his character; what he wanted out of roleplay was more serious story and less soap opera romance.

This was all well and good, but when he politely informed her of this out of character and had his character gently turn her character down, she didn't care for it at all. And thus began weeks upon weeks of her character slowly sinking into depression and experiencing all sorts of horrible situations, all because his character had refused her advances. Not only did this make him feel guilty for not giving in to her demands, but it brought the mood of the rest of the region down as well. Having a roleplaying officer do nothing but roleplay her character's misery wasn't really anyone's idea of a good time.

Any attempt to cheer her character up was met with yet another wave of misery. Any attempt to make her character happy failed miserably. It was becoming incredibly clear that the only way her character would ever cheer up and snap out of her pit of woe was if his character consented, gave in, and agreed to be in a relationship with hers. Until then, the region would be forced to deal with a character who did nothing to further the region's fun factor and instead deliberately dragged it down.

Let me be clear here: This was not a situation where a character was being played as true to character. This was a situation where one roleplayer decided to make another feel incredibly guilty in order to get her way. She had no respect for how he wished to play his character, and she had no intention of allowing him to play his character the way he intended to play it. Not only was she completely dismissing everything his character was, she was trying to personally guilt him into giving in.

And he felt terrible about it. He felt horrible that her character was so depressed. He hated seeing what fun new bout of depression she was going through in each subsequent post. He felt incredibly guilty that he didn't give in. Attempting to write roleplay was like entering an tense battlefield, and every roleplayer in the region was simply walking on eggshells and waiting for the explosion. Needless to say, the explosion happened, and the entire region detonated as a result.

If you ever, ever feel pressured to have your nation or character act in a way that is contrary to how you think your character should act, get out. Don't feel badly about it, and certainly don't give in to it. If your roleplaying partners have that little respect for your style of roleplay, if they are so obsessed with giving their nation and characters what they want, that is emotional manipulation, not roleplay. That is metagaming taken to the extreme. Get out. Don't look back.

Threatening Behavior

In fact, if you're ever feeling uncomfortable in a roleplay situation, no matter what that situation, that's a gigantic red flag you shouldn't ignore. In-character threats should never make you feel threatened in real life, and if you feel like things are spinning out of control-- if you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable with what is happening to your nation or character -- you should immediately call a halt to the roleplay. Have a discussion with your roleplaying partner, and let them know that you aren't comfortable with how the situation is turning out (sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, then it’s time to reevaluate your roleplaying partnership).

There is a certain degree of give-and-take with roleplay. Your nation isn’t always going to be experiencing a wave of good feelings, and your character isn't always going to have a life of sunshine and roses. Occasionally, they're going to run across a nation or person that doesn't care for them. This isn't a reflection on you as a person; it's one fictional character disliking another fictional character. But just because it's all fictional doesn't mean that every roleplay situation needs to be played out. It doesn't mean that you have to be comfortable with everything that happens to your character.

And it certainly doesn't mean you're required to roleplay any experience you run into, especially if it's emotionally taxing or repugnant. Situations like these require some out-of-character conversation to clear up. If your roleplay partner isn't willing to compromise on roleplay situations you're uncomfortable with, it may be time to find another roleplay partner (it’s as simple as that).

In Conclusion

Roleplaying can be incredibly fun, but it can also lead to some incredibly intense situations. Human emotion is a volatile thing, and it's sometimes hard to separate reality from fiction. But the emotion that two fictional characters experience should always be between those characters and never between the players (some of my best NS friends RP nations that are enemies with nations that I RP). Keeping a watchful eye for these red flags will help you avoid the drama, and embrace the fun.

IC/OOC separation is hard, and it takes practice to get it down to an art. A lot of roleplayers are either unaware of the issue, or simply don’t care about it. Which is fine, but at the same time, I’ve often found that if you don’t do the things I’ve warned you not to do, and you do the things that I’ve encouraged throughout the lecture, the less likely you’ll be to encounter problems associated with a lack of IC/OOC separation.