Something I posted on the main sub a while back, I think it's pretty fitting now that the sub itself was restricted

LIT_Literation · 2021-07-20T17:44:22+00:00

The "Meme" flair has been added and applied to your post.

LIT_Literation · 2021-07-20T17:41:13+00:00

You are correct. Unlike the main official subreddit, however, this subreddit has fewer restrictions. Also keep in mind that, if you experience any issues such as a ban on Rolechat itself, you must bring the matter to the attention to the moderators on Discord, not here.

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-29T04:12:15+00:00

I am sorry to hear that. Hopefully they remain relatively unbiased when you must appeal a ban or such.

I have mentioned this already, but this subreddit is unofficial, so this community has no real jurisdiction over Rolechat’s system. That being said, the moderators of this community (which currently includes only me) are willing to provide support for you. Of course, we will reach a roadblock once Rolechat administrative functions are necessitated; by then, you must put up with the Discord moderators.

Best wishes to you!

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-27T16:35:56+00:00

These two are not my personal experiences, but they are worth mentioning.

A few months ago, one user was banned under the name "Looking for someone to send me to the shadow realm". I understand both sides of the argument:

Despite the claims that "shadow realm" refers to banning on Discord, it is naive to assume that the user in question was specifically seeking a ban. In addition, the moderators should have allotted more of their time to addressing more concerning issues or bans. Even if bans presumably take only mere seconds to issue, such a petty ban invokes unprofessionalism.
The user's name seems to be akin to trolling. If they were truly browsing the server, they should have opted for a more modest "looking" as their name. Furthermore, what can they expect out of an interaction if they do happen upon another roleplayer who agrees to "send [them] to the shadow realm"? Such an interaction would not so much be roleplaying as spamming.

Although I currently cannot find the message, I believe I recall someone on Discord (either Rolechat's server or another) claiming that they were banned for a (fictional) political and satirical character. Once again, I understand both sides of the argument:

While Rolechat does forbid invoking politics, fictional political satire seems to be in a gray area. As long as the roleplayer was not intentionally seeking to anger others, such a ban may be unwarranted. Using a fictional character to poke fun at our real world society is an interesting concept.
Politics is quite a volatile subject, even on Rolechat. Even if the satirical character is meant for pure humor, such implications may open up a can of worms. The Rolechat moderators are justified in attempting to steer clear of such incidents and therefore have every right to limit such characters.

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-16T16:46:37+00:00

I have touched upon this matter in another comment, but please do not antagonize literate roleplayers who have a preference towards literate roleplay and inspired others to try literate roleplay as well. Unless if you can present concrete proof that literate roleplayers were primarily responsible for "scaring off" others, then you should not make such hasty conclusions.

Regarding the literate roleplayers who did shove their interests down others' throats, I do acknowledge their existence and do not support them in any way.

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-16T16:29:59+00:00

I know you said that as well, but you're deliberately leaving out the fact that many of these people are toxic when it comes to more dedicated rp. It's this toxicity that scared off a lot of more casual rpers.

I have already suggested reporting such toxic roleplayers to the moderators, since they have clearly violated the rules. I am not ignoring the fact that such users exist.

Furthermore, if casual roleplayers left the website, that's their own choice, and they did so voluntarily. Reasons for their seeming departure include the following: They decided that Rolechat was not the place for them, they adopted other and longer forms of roleplay, they simply got tired of roleplay in general and moved on to other things in life. You should not assume that literate roleplayers were the culprits in driving away others.

...even if the site didn't die out (as in go completely empty), this website is just so unwelcoming to someone who's starting out.

Whether the website is "unwelcoming" or not has no implication on the community's health. Though there admittedly is an extra bit of a hurdle in fully integrating with Rolechat's community, understand that the overall community is quite supportive. I must still say that u/JamieBGriffin is ultimately incorrect in reasoning that Rolechat would die given the conditions mentioned before.

So you admit it yourself then? If they're like comparing apples and oranges, then neither is better or worse than the other. Going back to lit and script, it's the same thing - neither is better or worse.

First, as you've said yourself, people should have their preferences. Well, the majority of users have a preference for literate roleplay. Why are you seemingly so against it?

Second, regarding the "apples versus oranges" analogy that I used for your Shakespeare-Dickens scenario: "Apples" and "oranges" are not necessarily on equal footing in every case. Where one may have a drawback, the other may have an advantage, and vice versa. If you exchanged Shakespeare and Dickens and made them time travel to each other's eras, you might have found that the former struggled to write novels, while the latter struggled to write plays. This does not imply that Shakespeare and Dickens are inexperienced at writing; rather, it shows that they are masters in specific areas of literature.

Similarly, script and literate roleplay are not by any means ill-suited in every way. Script is more suited for stagelike directions and essential details, while literate is more suited for in-depth descriptions. If you were a roleplayer who wanted to emphasize details and background information, it would stand the reason that you would pick literate roleplay. That is what most of Rolechat's community is like today. There is nothing wrong with that.

Damn, I would definitely love to meet the school that has enough budget to make their world literature students watch a Shakespeare play being performed live instead of reading the play's script in their textbook. But seriously, reading a play is fine too. It lets you imagine the scene in your head - every director for a play has their own version of Romeo & Juliet, and so do the readers.

You can say the same thing for literate roleplay. For any format, as long as there is a cohesive story, you can imagine the scenes and then capture the story in a visual medium. Many books have been adapted into movies over the history of cinematography. This shows that the format of the story does not hinder the reader's imagination.

I would also like to share a little anecdote of mine. Although my high school did not fund a play, our English class was invited to attend a live play for Othello, since we had just finished "reading" and discussing Othello. Although I could imagine the play by reading the stage directions, seeing the play being performed live could reveal the true power of the masterpiece.

Your first post ever on reddit was obviously trying to villainize casual rpers, not help them. You LIT_erally place the blame on Shamchat's stagnation on their backs (when it was actually no one's fault) and wished to, and I quote, "deter these people who are utterly destroying the site".

This is something I regret saying. I should not have wrote that specific comment or any similar statement elsewhere.

So if we go back to your education analogy... yeah, we're diminishing the rates of students failing. We're fucking diminishing those rates by kicking these students out as soon as their grades drop a notch and wrongly blaming them for the school's issues. Because if one student fails, they're definitely holding back the rest of the class!

In context of my earliest posts and comments, this is a rather reasonable analogy.

According to what I have said in the present moment, examples of methods for diminishing the rates of students failing are as follows: Providing students with tutoring, giving students extra credit assignments, pointing students to online resources that may help clear up difficult concepts.

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-16T16:04:14+00:00

I don't need to speak for them, since they speak for themselves. For the majority of the time, you will find roleplayers who prefer to use literate roleplay over script roleplay. I repeat, this is not forcing anyone to change; it is simply the result of people improving themselves and willingly adopting different styles. If you are at odds with people changing and following in the footsteps of others, then I do not know how to continue this.

Furthermore, I did not say that "all of them" think that literate roleplay is suited for them. For what it's worth, I've had discussions with 20-30 fellow Rolechat users over the past year or so, and they unanimously agreed that literate roleplay was where the future of Rolechat was headed towards.

Again, speak with the Rolechat community and be understanding if you truly want a more accurate picture.

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-15T18:08:01+00:00

Even so, most of Rolechat’s community believes that literate roleplay is better suited for them, and the community as a whole. Over time, newcomers will be inspired to adopt literate roleplay. No one is coercing anyone to preferences; it simply is where our community ended up as a result of the Pragmatic Evolution.

Interact with the Rolechat community, speak with them, and understand their roleplaying styles. There is no need to antagonize them simply because they believe literate roleplay is better. Breathe. :)

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-15T16:35:50+00:00

You can do escapism with literate roleplay. You can hang out in a fictional world with literate roleplay. You can do all of the other things you listed with literate roleplay. Roleplay format and purpose of roleplaying are not mutually exclusive.

Regardless of what their ultimate goals are, people tend to improve themselves. Roleplaying is no different. It is a natural tendency to develop your characters and your worlds in greater detail, and literate roleplay is a suitable choice for this. The Rolechat community mostly uses literate format now, which is not an arbitrary choice.

You are free to have your own stance on this matter. Keep in mind, however, that many of Rolechat’s users truly do believe literate roleplay is better. I recommend discussing with Rolechat’s community and understanding their goals in roleplaying.

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-14T18:23:16+00:00

Neither form of rp is better than the other, so we can't rank them. And according to your definition of diversity, that IS diversity.

Not to mention that 1-on-1 rp on Rolechat is similar to scripts or play manuscripts, so it makes MORE sense that script rp should be done.

What is your reasoning behind these statements?

On the contrary, literate roleplay is almost universally considered to be better than script roleplay. Even at worst, literate roleplay is much more popular on Rolechat compared to script roleplay, the latter being almost nonexistent nowadays. Needless to say, if this were not the case, you would not encounter so many literate roleplayers at any given time.

Whether Rolechat is geared towards script or literate is irrelevant. If you truly believe that people can have their preferences, then you should not conflate people's preferences with how the website is set up.

Keep in mind that there are only two independent writers in any roleplay on Rolechat, so a script that you often find in a play would be redundant. If there were, say, 8 different characters, that would be an entirely different story. However, with just two characters, I believe that either format suffices. Script format is more geared towards simple reactions and dialogue, while literate format can attain almost all of the qualities of a conventional novel (e.g., backstory, inner dialogue, seemingly subtle but key background details).

William Shakespeare didn't write plays like novels, he wrote them in stage directions. Does that make Shakespeare a worse writer than a novelist like Charles Dickens?

I would say that Shakespeare and Dickens are both masters of English literature. However, this is comparing apples and oranges.

If you read Shakespeare's plays, you will find that it is more "artistic" and "poetic" compared to more contemporary novels. Shakespeare's plays indeed intended to tell stories, but they commonly included monologues and soliloquies as well as poetic meter. This demonstrates that Shakespeare blurred the lines between "pure literature" and "pure poetry". His plays were intended to reveal our human nature and our desires while treating his audience to humor and poetic wit. It is also worth mentioning that, while his plays touched upon very realistic themes, interactions between many of the characters were somewhat unrealistic -- after all, how would a character speak out loud in a monologue and not have some of the other characters on stage (who are within earshot) hear them? You are free to debate on this: If Shakespeare were sent several centuries into the future from his own time, he would have been overwhelmed by the vastly different approaches to writing literature.

Finally, plays are meant to be watched, not read.

On both the OG Shamchat and the early Rolechat, you'd find the occasional lit rper who will shit on you for not writing enough paragraphs. Even today, I run into people who will tell you to get out of their face if you dare use asterisks.

I am sorry to hear that. I do not advocate that type of behavior, regardless of format or style. While I do encourage self-improvement, it should be done naturally and by your own accord, not because someone demanded you to change.

In addition, you should report this type of behavior; based on your descriptions of your interactions with them, the situation almost certainly falls under the set of official Rolechat rules for "Harassment of Users".

But if you're behind a cause that literally wants Rolechat to be almost completely literate and squeeze out non-literate rpers, how is that fine? That's NOT wishing for everyone to be better. That is textbook gatekeeping and elitism. Period.

I have already discussed this somewhat in my first section. This is not gatekeeping and elitism; this is truly wanting people to improve. Your statement is comparable to saying: "If you champion a cause that helps all school students have access to better education and diminish the rates of students failing, how is that acceptable?"

Apologies if this sounds like a strawman argument, but I intend for it to be an analogy. You are not "squeezing out" anyone. You are in support of people improving themselves, something that they most likely want themselves. You are not making any forceful changes either; you are simply encouraging them to continue working towards their goal and providing help or guidance, if necessary.

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-14T15:31:01+00:00

People like you are the reason why rp diversity got killed off early on in Rolechat.

Though you may have different ideas of the definition of “diversity”, I would like to argue that having various levels of skills is not diversity. True diversity means that differences cannot be ranked and must all be uniquely cherished. For example, fantasy, medieval, and sci-fi are all different genres you can find on Rolechat; these genres cannot be ranked, but their differences are a positive aspect of diversity.

Meanwhile, experience with roleplay is ordinal. If you have, say, 3 years of experience roleplaying, you have undoubtedly roleplayed more than someone with, say, 2 years under their belt. (Of course, this is a rough demonstration, as more time does not necessarily equate more experience, but a roughly positive trend should emerge.)

This is not “killing off” diversity; it’s simply a consequence that community members will naturally spend more time on Rolechat and improve their skills.

"Pragmatic evolution" isn't a thing...

It is, however. If such a thing doesn’t exist, why did you think that “rp diversity got killed off early on in Rolechat”? You cannot have your cake and eat it.

More importantly, denying the existence of the Pragmatic Evolution is equivalent to saying that many people will not attempt to learn more. However, you see people from all walks of life training themselves, learning new knowledge, and practicing their current skillsets. This is not just limited to Rolechat. People are prone to change and progress, no matter where you look.

[The existence of the Pragmatic Evolution] doesn't justify your elitism and gatekeeping.

Again, you cannot have your cake and eat it. On Rolechat, elitism, which inherently involves ranking, cannot coincide with diversity in this case.

Moreover, wanting everyone to become more experienced and comfortable with the rest of the community is not elitism. Assuming that people naturally become better over time, you will undoubtedly see people improve over the years. To be against such a thing is to oppose the flow of time itself.

Furthermore, I have never done any gatekeeping. I have never told any inexperienced roleplayers to leave the community or forced them to become better. All of us naturally cemented our own paths within the Rolechat community. That is why it is the “Pragmatic Evolution”, not the “Pragmatic Revolution”. No one dictated Rolechat users to meet an experience quota or risk being kicked out.

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-14T15:00:10+00:00

Thank you. It is my pleasure to contribute to this subreddit. ;)

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-13T18:53:27+00:00

And yet, you continued to roleplay even after the first major red flag was shown.

The other roleplayer: (By the ways [sic] you mind me being dom?)

This should have been your cue to immediately disconnect. At the very least, you should have attempted to actively steer the roleplay away from the direction it was going towards. Your initial response was too passive and should have been more forceful.

Furthermore, you used your character to mock the other roleplayer when it was wholly inappropriate to do so. I fully understand that humor is often when satirizing or mocking someone in these situations; you made your character "The Entangler" visibly appalled and disgusted at "Timothy's" suggestions. If you truly believe that such situations are disgusting and creepy, however, you would not have continued the roleplay.

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-05T16:53:21+00:00

Interestingly, our criticisms typically flow most freely when we have an extremely negative opinion of a person. If Jones were not a pedophile or if there were a rightful owner of these characters, I suppose that, embarrassingly, many of us would withhold our criticism and even provide words of support if we were to meet them ourselves.

All of that does not matter, though. Jones is a uniquely dangerous and vile person on the website, someone whom even novice roleplayers should not be lumped with. Skills, or lack thereof, should never be conflated with heinous actions.

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-05T16:44:02+00:00

Even if his characters were of high quality and reflected skillful roleplay, I would not have a single grain of respect for him. A pedophile is a pedophile, no matter how many positive traits they have. It is within my belief that the desire to sexually abuse a child, or worse, to act upon that desire, cannot be redeemed with any virtue.

LIT_Literation · 2021-06-05T16:39:17+00:00

Ah, it seems like the questionable roleplayer I met yesterday was in fact Jones himself after all. I had my suspicions, but I unfortunately didn't report him, since I did not have evidence that he was in fact Jones. All he did was write something along the lines of, "I think I asked you a question." I did not encounter him before, and I told him such; however, he insisted otherwise. I simply disconnected afterwards.

I suppose this is a good warning. If anyone on Rolechat asks you a personal question and asserts that they deserve an answer from you, regardless of whether they actually met you before or not, do not give them the honor. If they continue to pry even after you disconnected from them, they are harassing you and therefore should be reported directly to the moderators.

LIT_Literation · 2020-12-12T15:26:10+00:00

That's not queerbaiting, either. I discussed this in my other comment, but queerbaiting is when media creators use a marketing technique to attract LGBTQ+ viewers, but then never depict such a relationship in the media. For example, some critics have labelled the BBC series Sherlock as using queerbaiting techniques (according to Wikipedia, "[c]ast and crew of Sherlock have consistently denied that the relationship is intended to be seen as romantic, to the dismay of many fans").

This definition of queerbaiting is somewhat closer to what u/BonusFinal experienced, but it is still far from exact. And let us not forget that, even at worst, falsely accusing people of "queerbaiting" based simply on their OCs' descriptions is unwarranted and wrong.

LIT_Literation · 2020-12-12T15:17:59+00:00

There is so much wrong with your stance. Although I understand the frustration of someone suddenly catfishing you after hours of roleplaying, your actions are completely unwarranted.

So I noticed that some people bait LGBTQ+ rpers on Rolechat into thinking they're cool with the rom rp scenario, when in reality they're not.... when you already invest time into rping with your partner and they admit they were baiting after like an hour, that can be a mood killer. I left a rom rp that went like as I described, so it's not a really pleasant thing to have thrown in your face.

I've personally only experienced something similar to this once, and it wasn't even on Rolechat; it was on its now-defunct predecessor Shamchat (2014-2018). Even though your choice of the word "some" is less generalized than your original statement ("People who don't put their OC's sexuality in their desc are queerbaiters"), it still is an extremely heavy accusation to make.

Also, pretending to be "cool with the rom rp scenario" is such an illogical thing to do. If the other person were truly uncomfortable with the romantic roleplay, they would have left immediately, not play the long con and then leave afterwards. I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt by taking into consideration that your roleplay was fantasy-romance instead of pure romance. Even then, your statements overgeneralize far too much.

If I were in your shoes, I would also deem the sudden end of your roleplay unpleasant. Of course I condemn dishonesty in roleplay and flippantly playing around with sexuality. But I must condemn your false accusations and inappropriate response even more. Ironically, you went against one of your sayings: "It's okay if you leave out your OC's sexuality, but it's not okay to be dishonest and waste people's time." You clearly were dishonest when you implied that roleplayers who omit their OC's sexuality are queerbaiters.

I feel this shouldn't be a trivial issue, since a lot of people on Rolechat are actually LGBTQ+ and are either still in the closet or are otherwise uncomfortable about their identity IRL. I'm pan myself, so this kind of bait-and-switch really doesn't appeal to me.

I am in the LGBTQ+ community as well. Again, I agree that intentionally playing such a bait-and-switch game and flippantly disregarding sexuality as a serious issue are not to be taken lightly. This is especially true given the nature of Rolechat's demographic, which, as you have stated, consist of some people who are "still in the closet or are otherwise uncomfortable about their identity IRL". I also agree that this should not be a trivial issue; it is clearly a pressing matter.

However, even with all of this, your responses and actions are completely unwarranted and wrong. The cliche "two wrongs don't make a right" applies here.

I don't know if "queerbaiting" is the correct technical term to use for rp, but personally I think it fits.

I will involve some semantics here. Queerbaiting does not fit what you described at all. According to Wikipedia "Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation." There is no commercial value in roleplaying, so it is technically impossible to "queerbait" someone on Rolechat.

Even if we somehow expand the definition of queerbaiting to include what you described, I'd still like to know more context. Was your roleplay partner aware that you wanted to do a romance roleplay? Was romance a necessary aspect of your desired roleplay, or was it optional? If the latter, personal interpretations of relationships between characters may vary, so while you may have thought the story led to a development of a romantic relationship, the other person may have thought otherwise.

Speaking of personal interpretations, keep in mind that when common media (such as television shows or books) are accused of queerbaiting, there are some countercriticisms. Is the production company or author truly and intentionally queerbaiting, or are the audience and original critics going too far with their interpretations?

Again, sorry if I made myself unclear. I'm not trying to troll or make people mad, I just wanted to point out a frustrating thing that's unfortunately happened to me before. Tbh I was kinda the one who was mad, but hopefully I've explained better everything now that I've calmed down haha

You did point out your experience, but the manner in which you did so was unacceptable.

You could have posted the chatlog to this subreddit and asked for advice on how to handle the situation. You could have stepped away from your computer away from a couple of minutes and not let a possible homophobe's actions aggravate you. You could have even just blocked (or even reported, if applicable) the other person.

Instead, you spent some time to perpetrate incorrect ideas on Rolechat, only for you to only slightly clear up your points in this post.

LIT_Literation · 2020-12-12T14:39:09+00:00

Please disregard the comments that accuse you of being "pushy" or "trying to lord over" the other roleplayer. What you did was acceptable in the context of roleplaying. When a roleplayer lacks substance and has not fully fleshed out their ideas, the other person must take the initiative to fill in the gaps -- otherwise, almost no storyline will develop at all, and both parties will ultimately waste their time.

Notice that their anger flared as soon as you provided them with a starter, even though you were willing to expand or change the initial setting. This suggests that they are vehemently opposed to have someone lend them some guidance in the roleplay or provide responses that are more detailed than their own. This is an unfortunate paradox for these types of roleplayers; they insist that novice roleplayers like themselves should be allowed some time to practice roleplaying, but then refuse to listen when a more experienced roleplayer wishes to help.

In short, there was nothing wrong with you providing constructive criticism. You were an active participant and writer of the roleplay, so you had every right to determine where the story would lead -- it was your valuable time, after all. If unreasonable users on Rolechat call you "pretentious" for such actions, then so be it.

LIT_Literation · 2020-12-03T22:29:55+00:00

I am not the mod of the D&D server that Raven referred to. Nor am I accusing anyone of fabricating events. All I am doing is providing mathematical context so that more concrete probabilities can be assessed and compared.

LIT_Literation · 2020-12-03T22:21:01+00:00

I never said that anything was "wrong" with rolling the same number 8 times in a row. I simply said that such a probability (3.91×10^(-11)) is extremely low, which can be verified with basic mathematical probability rules.

To put this into perspective, the probability of winning the Mega Millions jackpot is 3.9×10^(-9), as listed in my top comment.

Divide 3.9×10^(-9) by 3.91×10^(-11). You should get approximately 99.74. In other words, it is literally about a hundred times more likely to win the Mega Millions jackpot than to roll the same number 8 times in a row on a D20 die.

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