What Is and Isn't Self-Indulgent Roleplay
Posted by: Mylor Clearspring on 2004-12-17
Category: Roleplay
The self-indulgent player will not allow others to interact with the situation in reasonable ways. It is the difference between acting and interacting. It is a narrow corridor with closed doors at either end. It fails to promote RP. Rather, it discourages it.
To give an example of what I would consider "over-indulgent" RP:
Someone describes herself staggering into the middle of town with multiple wounds and fails to allow others' reasonable, simple actions (like a cleric laying on hands or trying to pick her up to carry her to the town's shrine) to have any effect in the scene. Or worse, the player doesn't even acknowledge reasonable actions by another character for no reason than because the self-indulgent player waits for a specific character or a specific action. This is easiest to identify when the favored character succeeds at a resolving action (like helping the self-indulgent player's character to the shrine) that was already tried by another character but without success.
...(In reference to a series of RP sessions revolving around an illness afflicting Venus Darkmoon)
First, Venus did not plan out the prolonged illness for her character. She made it so in response to the reactive play by others (myself included). People played to the situation on more than one night, and Venus went with it. Second, Venus did not exclude others from play by presenting a scripted piece or scripting a central element so that only a select group could interact with her character and the situation. She improvised along the way, and left it open-ended. It promoted role playing, rather than inhibiting it.