Acting after Stanislavski: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantin_Stanislavski
Acting is about sharing. It is about action and reaction. This is a very simple principle in the actor’s tool box.
-knowing your background so you under stand why you react like you do.
-acting is about having a goal and a problem reaching it.
-action / reaction.
These very simple rules can be easily adapted to role-play, however, they can be very difficult tools to master. I do not expect that people are professional actors in Erebos with a full understanding of good acting, however, I do expect that people will make an effort to try a bit harder than what I have often seen. This is the reason for this note card.
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Background:
Acting is about as Stanislavski would put it “Be like you were the evil Queen. Think to yourself what life did she live? (ie. What is her background story). How did her background impact her? How would she react to different things because of her background and so forth. Think like you would, if you were her, be her, live her and become her in the glimpses of role-play you do”. What kind of circumstances does she have. Is she rich, poor. Where does she live, does she have a land, people? What kind of lover would she pick? Does she want to be a killer or is she feeling forced to into being a killer due to her background.
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Goal /problem/ situation:
The problem -
When making conversation, have a goal, and then a problem reaching this goal. Eg. Amanda is in love with Dawn, but she is too shy to tell her. The conversation could look something like this. Amanda looks at Dawn and moves closer to her, looking at her shoes, blushing, while trying to find the poem she has written for her. “Can….ca…can I please take a brief moment of your life Dawn?”
The important goal-
A very important thing is also it has to mean something for Amanda. If Amanda does not care to be rejected, what is the point of doing the role-play? It must mean a lot to Amanda and the more she make herself convinced this is a “life /death ” situation for her, the more exciting it will be for all involved.
If she gets rejected, and her only response is to role-play “Well whatever, who cares” and then walks off, it makes for bad role-play. However, if it is vitally important to her, she will keep working on the goal despite her problem achieving it, and a long and juicy role-play can then go on for weeks.
The situation-
A good acting situation is to build up a scenario between two people, them both sharing a the goal, and the problem. The important thing in the scenario is that it is hard to reach the goal. The more difficult the goal is, the more exciting it is for all involved. Amanda saying she is in love with Dawn ends the scenario immediately. If Amanda goes to Dawn with the goal being that she wants to tell her she is in love with her, but she is afraid of being rejected, and types out the example above (her Amanda blushing, and stuttering).. this will put Dawn in a situation where she can react, try to find out what is going on, why has this person written a poem to her, is she in love? This will make Dawn curious. So, Dawn’s reaction will be one of curiosity to find out what is going on.
A situation involve your rp – partner in a conflict = goal and problem.
Like Sananda wants to take over the world and she has the whole world as enemy. This goal is impossible to reach, means everything to her, she will never give up and it involves every one.
Perfect situation.
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Action/reaction:
Try to make your role-play partners feel something, provoke them, flirt whit them, move them emotional; involve them, instead of speaking of your self over and over and over.
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Whit entering this sim you say yes to the rp in Erebos meaning a farmboy would not go to the queen saying “Hey you “queen”, you look damn ugly,” unless he has an army at his back, for that would lead to being chopped in pieces for it or get kicked out fro breaking the roleplay. So try keep the rp, you are in an evil land whit a lot of fighters and I am a Queen. Rp the situation that Erebos has.
The big mistake some people do here is they get to Erebos is :
1 -They run around in 3 min and insult everyone whith a pulse nearby and get pissed over getting hack and slashed rp.
2 -then they cast out 2 or 3 orders about how they think rp is (and often extremely wrong rumors they have heard or bad ides about what acting is, often long posts about how they think the weather is )
3 -Then they complain about all the cheating we do in Erebos and leave very mad over getting either attacked or kicked out.
and all of it in one big mix of ooc and ic, random.
1- You are entering Erebos, an evil land, filled with aggressive evil fighters. The big mistake some people make when they enter Erebos is that they insult the people that they encounter, or perhaps try to boss others about (this may be their character’s personality, which is fine). However, please understand that the people of Erebos will take offense in character, and more than likely attack. Erebosians are not know for their diplomacy.
2- If you want to have fun in Erebos try join in the rp , try rp openly whit a mission, a goal something funny for all.
I see a lot of rp going like this
( /me look at the man , feeling very good about my self holding a pot of tea in my hand , sensing the aroma, looking to the sky and dream of better day and drink the tea slowly ),
or things like
( /me take up his divine wild and never beaten extremely demonic looking magic staff up and look at them all whit great fearless eyes not caring about anything , nor fearing death, he let his hands go over his well pumped and strong chest to …blah blah blah )
Hope you get the idea.
I am sorry . I think that is boring and bad rp.
And it is bad self centered acting.
No one cares about your tea and no one has time to sit read endless posts about how strong and goddy and wild you look.
After all the tea is not real and you are just a cartoon.
3- Additionally, OOC comments about how much Erebosians cheat, are not welcome, and will result in being ejected. The people of Erebos spend a lot of time honing their fighting skills, and discussing tactics, and do not appreciate being accused of cheating, simply because of their abilities. We try OOC wise to keep our fighting fair, and abide by the inter-sim rules for conduct. If we make a mistake or an error in judgment, we do want to know about it, and fix the issue, so that we are aligned properly with the rules. Politely IM the individual, or one of the admins, to seek a resolution.
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Good senses:
So what works on a screen, in Second Life.
The same that woks on stage and on movies.
Why are movies boring sometimes? Often it is because you just know the hero will never die and he beat everyone up whit out a drop of sweet, and there is nothing to worry about or be excited about. We know he will win and he won’t even have a hard time doing it. He doesn’t fear anything, he does not have any relations that mean something to him. He do not have any bigger problems; maybe a bomb some where but no inner conflicts, he does not speak or try to reach any one and people around him do not really get involved in what he is doing.
It is a one man show.
So acting is interacting, contact whit other people.
You are not in center for it all , your rp partner is.
try make them in center of your actions and word instead of your self.
Try to make your rp partners feel something, provoke them, flrit whit them, move them emotional, involve them instead of speaking of your self over and over and over.
Let people get their own impressions in stead of forcing it down their throat.
In a meeting with other rpers it is not good rp to say over and over you do not fear anything or that you don’t care.
The real deal is we all fear a lot and we do care a lot to.
It is important that we try keep some real life in the rp even being in a fantasy world.
If you rp you don’t care or do not fear anything, you leave not open door for any kind of problems or meeting whit others in the rp.
even a Queen fear something and have weakness.
The word godmod is important to understand by putting it like this.
Stanislavski would say you do not let your self be open for being influenced by others, meaning others actions do not feed a reaction in you. You do not allow others to move you in anyway. That would explain godmodding in a simple way.
If some one send an army on you and you stand there in a shield and heal your self up, whit out any chance for 50 people to beat on you, you for the first thing make it death boring for your self, for what is the fun in that. We can all go buy a shield and the healing.
And it is godmodding because it is 100 % not realistic to do so.
We can all go buy magic that can kill 50 people with one push on the keyboard but what is the fun in that?
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More random examples on boring rp would be.
-/me sit on a chair. - is waist of words for me seeing you doing it on my screen.
-/me think of how stupid and ugly you are and how bad your hair looks – that is just a stupid excuse for insulting whit out daring the reaction on it
-” you are a slut and you smell like shit and you look like a hooker” – well I can go the nearest hooker street to listen to that kind of speaking from poor lost souls in the real world , I don’t need to pay dollars to listen to that kind of unintelligent and low life kind of communication.
I am a theater director irl and do masters classes in acting and analysis, writing and in general all that have anything to do whit alive story telling , meaning staged story telling.
Veronika Kær