legitimating RP w/o DM supervision

[caricaturd]

I find that a lot of great rp'ing will inevitably end up under the radar because of DM time constraints and the sheer mass of players trying to get their character's up and running. I know these missed instances are in no way the fault of the DMs. I very much appreciate the long and grueling hours theyre already putting into this project. The issue however is that I find there are some rp scenarios that become a lot harder to achieve without the explicit guidance of a DM. Most of these situations depend on the interaction of an NPC or otherwise inaccessible facet of the game experience to materialize.
So I'm openning this thread for any suggestions as to what a character ought to do when there is an instance (like in Gusty's cabin anecdote) where an rp scenario crucial for that character's development can't be achieved through conventional means. (eg: what if Gusty's labor went unnoticed and the cabin never came).

[thogrimur]

Well...if there other players around and involved, I would think that everyone should talk OOC about the scene and what is hoped to be accomplished by all involved...and then just do the best you can to RP out the scenes in lieu of DM intervention. This won't always work of course, because some situations will absolutely require a DM to be around. ((In a solo situation such as building the cabin, I think you are pretty much hosed...no DM = no cabin!)

But...as an example...

This past week I managed to capture a 'criminal' (with aid and luck) and we jailed him without DM intervention by working the scene out through tells and RP. Then after no DM trial materialized within 2 days of the scene there were attempts (heh bribes) to get me to drop the charges...when these attempts failed we worked a scene out through tells that allowed a jail break to occur...maybe we got hasty?...maybe 2 days was not a long enough wait for the trial to get going?

Of course these may be the very scenes that prompted your post! Either way I am glad it HAS been brought up, as I can find out if the above scenes were handled properly...

My thought (for what it is worth) is that when there are no DM's around...as long as the parties involved come to a reasonable solution and are willing to RP it, then it is legitimized...

Anyone else have any ideas? DM's?

[Quadhund/Greenhouse]

Just do the best ya can. Most of us here are willing to hear you out, especially if it is a scene like catching a criminal. I'd say you did pretty well in the case of putting someone in the jail and then letting them escape. Remember, there is give and take in RP situations and just because catching the crook means "you won" ... doesn't mean you shouldn't give them the chance to "win" as well. So hats off to you Thogrimur, sounds like you did well. But than again, for any master thief, the jail cells of the Red Ravens do not pose much of a threat ... those of suzail on the other hand do.

The DM's are always watching, so if you are rping building a cabin in the woods, be persistant and you will eventually get what you are rping. As for immediate needs, just try your best with what you have.

[caricaturd]

yeah in the past i've spoken with the individuals involved and more often than not they were willing to go along with whatever craziness i'd envisioned. Just to clarify the sort of situation I was alluding to, there was an rp thread that i thought was pretty necessary to give my character Aramil a solid goal for some time. The rp however required the participation of an npc (that dog of a bard Frubo). I did the best i could in tells to inform the other players of what I was trying to accomplish, but without a working dialogue b/n Frubo and Aramil, i couldnt keep up with all the tells i would have had to send out to what mustve been 6 or 7 other players at its peak.
I sppose what irked me the most however was when a DM played guard of Isinhold asked Aramil what the fuss was about. But here I am trying to implicate this npc in a crime that i couldnt prove (the guard asked for proof of my accusations, and as you can imagine the plot flopped after that since i couldnt produce a tangible item to show for it). As such the crowd dissipated soon after the guard left, which left me a bit disappointed after the preparation and tells sent to set this thing up.

So i sppose what this thread comes down to is what line can't a player cross when attempting to navigate his character's future. The server rules state that players cant suggest rp, but i think the line becomes blurred in these sorts of situations. I'd love to carry on the above rp w/o bothering the dm's, but then i'd most probably end up with just the husk of my original intent. So when I raise the issue of dm intervention I think Im also asking what standard of rp navigation is the player allowed to push for?

[Aodhan the Unusual]

As a DM, I can tell you, that you never know when one will come on. My suggestion is to always assume there's one on, lurking around somewhere. True this doesn't help if an NPC is involved, espcially if no one's around to actually take control or is busy handling something else, but, take the intiative and just rp it out. Discussing how things MIGHT go OOC through tells is all right, but think of it like this:

By TELLING someone what's going on and what you're trying to achieve, you're setting pre-determined thoughts and set of actions. By ROLEPLAYING you're leaving the field open that could expand into something more later. CLARIFYING something (ie. If someone asks you in tells what it is you're doing or trying to do and you tell them what it is their character is seeing/hearing) is completely another and can still lead to some good rp.

My suggestion is to rp your heart out. But, then again, that's just me.

[Gusty]

If the cabin never materialized I would have roleplayed that my paladin wasn't a very good carpenter. heh.