Passive RP and how much it impacts gameplay

[Mavelle]

Passive RP is underrated. 

 

That's a bold claim, but let me explain.

Passive RP can come in many forms; it can be Naval doing bunk inspections, it can be banter between Anakin and Obi-Wan during missions, it can be shouting "FOR THE REPUBLIC" in a clone voice during an event.

But all of those have a really large impact on us, subconsciously. I know I haven't been on the server for a super long time, (only joined in December), but every time I've seen one of these things, I notice people beginning to join in, beginning to have fun being a character. 

And it's awesome.

It brought a smile to everyone's face, even Naval, when Anakin (Snadvich) would just.. Take off.

"He's fucking Anakin, what is he gonna do, WAIT?" - Snad

And that's sick as fuck. It's little things like that that make us feel as though we're in the world that we all pretend to be in for hours a day. 

Next time you see someone working on a LAAT in the Courtyard, opening medbay for checkups, or discussing politics with a senator, join in! It might seem weird at first, but it not only affects you positively, it affects others who see it!

[Daytona211]

I've advocated for passive RP for a long time. Once I got GMD I tried to focus on promoting this but something I noticed is it's hard to promote something that isn't wanted. 

People need to keep in mind that Passive RP is what makes this game different from going into a LAN server and shooting NPCs. If all I wanted to do was play as "epic jedi" or "epic clone" I can get the exact same experience in battlefront 2 or any other star wars game for that matter. What makes this different is in those games you can meaningfully go to a hanger sit down with another real person and work on fixing an ARC-170 together which could be your new best friend on the server.

This not only speaks to how a section of the community plays the server but even more to how some players treat each other. Give new people a chance. Get to know them and allow them to get involved and invested. It's so hard to build an attachment with everyone broken into there own little groups. 

I agree 100% with you Mavelle and if we can encourage things like this to happen more I think the community as a whole will benefit. ( I know I would be on a lot more besides just GM stuff)

 

 

[Hanz]

I helped for an event that promoted Slaves and the Anakin at the time I noticed was on the server, but didn't go. It was a bit puzzling to me why he didn't go because it seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring out the dark Anakin that all of us love to see at some moments. To any lore characters: Do what your lore character would do MOST of the time (not Always as that can bore you out), but when the opportunity presents itself to do something the EXACTLY portrays your character, especially the more prominent one, do it.

[Shake]

Comms rp 

Gear checks

eating in mess hall 

Just walking around talking 

Pt 

Shooting range

I look more at passive rp as stuff to do in down time the little thing soldier would do when not in combat

Edited May 5, 2021 by Shake

[Gears]

People are really spoilt when it comes to the freedom to RP how you want on this server and its great when people utilize that freedom to its fullest. I know myself has done some dumb passive RP or just messed about, but the outcome of that can be more interaction and a more engaging experience for new players. I think when it comes to newer players, they want to explore this server and create their own scenarios and sometimes that can be rejected. I think people should always take a second look at a Shiny and create RP scenarios or entertainments with them, You never know, they might be the next BCMD of your Battalion.

[Comics]

My only problem with Passive RP is that no one ever wants to start it but everyone always wants it to happen.
So you always gotta have those people who are mentally capable of being able to be creative in any way in order to spur on more people to RP.

There's also those people who always wanna be special, like being a regular dude isn't enough for them they have to be some uber special clone who is awesome and different and broke their inhibitor chip. People need to start sitting back and being normal.
And maybe if people weren't such snarky dicks about pushing arrests whenever they can, we'd be able to have a more lax time and enjoy having fun. 

I wish more people passive RP'd but not everyone enjoys a communal effort and prefer others to do the pushing while they reap the benefits of actually enjoying rp

[Black]

As much as I love Passive RP I agree with Comics that people don't always want to PassiveRP and limit themselves just to events.

However i believe the GM team should encourage people to PassiveRP more often or at least help non staff members of the community promote it.

[Mavelle]

13 hours ago, Daytona211 said:

I've advocated for passive RP for a long time. Once I got GMD I tried to focus on promoting this but something I noticed is it's hard to promote something that isn't wanted. 

People need to keep in mind that Passive RP is what makes this game different from going into a LAN server and shooting NPCs. If all I wanted to do was play as "epic jedi" or "epic clone" I can get the exact same experience in battlefront 2 or any other star wars game for that matter. What makes this different is in those games you can meaningfully go to a hanger sit down with another real person and work on fixing an ARC-170 together which could be your new best friend on the server.

This not only speaks to how a section of the community plays the server but even more to how some players treat each other. Give new people a chance. Get to know them and allow them to get involved and invested. It's so hard to build an attachment with everyone broken into there own little groups. 

I agree 100% with you Mavelle and if we can encourage things like this to happen more I think the community as a whole will benefit. ( I know I would be on a lot more besides just GM stuff)

 

 

If you're ever interested I would love to brainstorm up even more ideas of how to promote passive RP with you! (Big fan of long term deployments, too >:) )

[Jovanovic]

hells yeah, the senate is currently helping up to hopefully help with passive roleplay here, but +100% to this. makes it so much easier when everyone is engaged :)

[BigZach]

An issue with a lot of event based RP is that everyone wants in on it. You know, a LAAT Comes in and everyone who has been bored for the last 1-3 hours crowds, understandably, around the LAAT. And GMs are being told to make sure there is something for everyone, however I think events are at their best both GM side and player side when a limited amount of people are participating and they're in a TS channel or all on the same page. One of my favourite events ever was when I was an event job for snad on a small contained The Thing based Rancor deployment and Rancor participated tremendously. 

I think the the best way to push for passive RP and quality events, is for more conistently hosted and contained events. Obviously varying in who would be participating. We ain't tryna leave mfs out

I phrased this like this was some profound awnser but it's just me putting thoughts down. like some essay type mf

Edited May 6, 2021 by BigZach

[Conrad]

On 5/5/2021 at 7:48 AM, Mavelle said:

Passive RP is underrated.

I'mma disagree with this one man. I personally thank Passive RP is the shit. I think the trouble with passive RP comes from people not knowing how to start off in RP situations. Its a lot easier to jut be talking to someone normally as if you aren't characters in the game. Starting RP can be really difficult for newer people, and can feel stale for the older ones just interacting with fellow clones around the base. I think things like Bounty Hunter however can be great bridges in the gaps here for creating RP. I'm talking about the bounty hunters that don't just sneak onto base but actually try to interact with people. Someone with this higher freedom in their RP makes it easier to start situations of creativity.

I'm not a fan of doing /me RP, but when you can run around base talking in character, thats that good shit.

[Unkindled]

On 5/5/2021 at 12:55 PM, Gears said:

People are really spoilt when it comes to the freedom to RP how you want on this server and its great when people utilize that freedom to its fullest. I know myself has done some dumb passive RP or just messed about, but the outcome of that can be more interaction and a more engaging experience for new players. I think when it comes to newer players, they want to explore this server and create their own scenarios and sometimes that can be rejected. I think people should always take a second look at a Shiny and create RP scenarios or entertainments with them, You never know, they might be the next BCMD of your Battalion.

For real I gotta agree with this when I first came to GMOD and especially SWRP I had no intention of staying or anything like that, I was just one of those minges that wanted to fuck around and do nothing. Then I got wrapped up into it and made tons of friends who I still talk to this day.

[Gadget]

I barely see passive rp that isn't organised by staff. Most rp devolves into shoot. 

Currently, the RP the way you want results in most people not bothering or doing fail rp but they get away with it now.

Synergy can't really call itself an RP server at the moment.

But thats my opinion.

The fact Synergy is performing significantly worse than our past main competitors who we were on par with supports my hypothesis.

[Ratio]

A lot of stuff I would have said is something that's been said already so I'm not going to circlejerk further, but I do have a solution that could bring some passive RP.

Continuity.

The Gamemaster Team, bless their heart, does whatever they can to bring us the best possible events they can muster. The only problem is that they can only do it in the moment. In some servers (I can think of one in particular), the Event Planners occasionally have these large-scale operations that can completely change the lore of the server. Just imagine, Game Masters introduce you to this Clone Commander (let's say it's someone like Mexico because he was really close). This Commander starts to assert himself more into the GM's main server events until everyone starts noticing a pattern. The Commander then has us being sent on several deployments that turn into a campaign with a rich story and expands over a month or so, and then it all ends with one big operation in which that Commander dies.

People get attached to consistency because people are creatures of habit. This is all event stuff, but imagine how it would affect everyone who cared to follow that kind of thing. Maybe they would arrange a passive RP funeral for this Commander in his honor, maybe the clones would have conversations about him and how they either miss him (or if they're edge lords) don't and think he deserved to die.

People will probably read this and say that the Synergy playerbase doesn't care, but that's not true because I've SEEN it happen before in the old days with Avavel's character "Admiral Lok". It was a big deal when we thought there was an event where we finally got to kill the fucker because he was so incompetent like a cartoon super villain and would always escape at the last moment. Everyone loves that shit, if you give them a reason to care and not just pop back into status quo, people will adore the prospects of passive RP. Even edgy ARC troopers that b-hop at 90 miles an hour.

[Dono]

Just so everyone is aware as well. The GM leadership team is planning some things in the hopefully near future that would address some ideas that were brought up here. I wont say much, but I can assure you that there are members in leadership that are pushing for something more to be done than just the endless cycle of event - db - do nothing but wait until next event. Strap on in because things might be getting a little funky if things go well. :) 

Passive rp starts with the individual - if you want something to happen, you can't always just sit around and hope for it to just magically come to fruition. Its easy to miss one person trying to promote rp out of 60+ players but, bring in others and it becomes harder for staff and other players to not see what your doing and chime in. I urge you, if you ever have any ideas for events or just any rp that really just can't be done alone, reach out to a staff member in game, teamspeak, the forums, discord, etc. Use myspace if you have to. Even if its just a Admin spawning a couple droid at aurek or civilians in the village. No matter how scuffed it is, you will enjoy the experience a lot more than just standing around in MHB or lobby and doing nothing. 

As a side note, if you have any deployment ideas that you would like to see completed for your battalion, regiment, etc. Please contact anyone in the GM team. Exam week is approaching but that doesn't mean all of us are unavailable. If yall liked that planetary incursion that shockpoint did on endor and have any ideas for that as well please dm them to me ;)

[Gadget]

39 minutes ago, Dono said:

Just so everyone is aware as well. The GM leadership team is planning some things in the hopefully near future that would address some ideas that were brought up here. I wont say much, but I can assure you that there are members in leadership that are pushing for something more to be done than just the endless cycle of event - db - do nothing but wait until next event. Strap on in because things might be getting a little funky if things go well. :) 

Passive rp starts with the individual - if you want something to happen, you can't always just sit around and hope for it to just magically come to fruition. Its easy to miss one person trying to promote rp out of 60+ players but, bring in others and it becomes harder for staff and other players to not see what your doing and chime in. I urge you, if you ever have any ideas for events or just any rp that really just can't be done alone, reach out to a staff member in game, teamspeak, the forums, discord, etc. Use myspace if you have to. Even if its just a Admin spawning a couple droid at aurek or civilians in the village. No matter how scuffed it is, you will enjoy the experience a lot more than just standing around in MHB or lobby and doing nothing. 

As a side note, if you have any deployment ideas that you would like to see completed for your battalion, regiment, etc. Please contact anyone in the GM team. Exam week is approaching but that doesn't mean all of us are unavailable. If yall liked that planetary incursion that shockpoint did on endor and have any ideas for that as well please dm them to me ;)

We have heard this before, but the road to hell is paved by good intentions and I am woefully pessimistic this will work as it isn't the GM programs fault wholly.

[Dono]

1 minute ago, Gadget said:

We have heard this before, but the road to hell is paved by good intentions and I am woefully pessimistic this will work as it isn't the GM programs fault wholly.

We can only try to do our best! I wont make promises but just know that leadership is aware of these problems and are attempting to implement solutions.

[Matt-Matthos]

When you do passive RP theirs always one guy who's like he he dc shotgun go brrrr and then then theirs no more passive RP to do cause its been ruined...