A discussion about rules and moderation

Of course, you're right that people are free to have things as they wish on their own servers and I'm not trying to stop this. More I'm just trying to bring attention to an attitude that might be damaging to the community and seeing if we can make a shift in how people feel about it. A server is going to be more than its host and ruleset after all, and people will cry foul if they think they've been wronged even if said rule is not actually applicable to the server they're on, which is sorta similar to what you said about standardizing.

Now, let me reiterate that I want to see good RPing on the part of the users. There are many different approaches that someone might take, different ways they'll enjoy themselves in the game, and I don't want to dissuade anyone from enjoying it the way they want (providing they're not trying to intentionally ruin it for other anyway.).
So while I encourage people who enjoy intricate roleplay to go indepth with how they fight other players, especially if the target responds in kind, I don't think it's fair to force people who don't enjoy that to play that way. Wanting good RP is all well and good but having things this way is what leads to a good portion of arguments on the chat which not only damages the RP itself (Moreso than someone RPing badly, in my opinion) but the community as a whole, and it's cutting down on that which is what this discussion is for, because at this rate we're just going to repeat mistakes.

In regards to the last bit though, I stand by what I said, because good RP usually requires some conflict or threat and I know from personal experience and having listened to the opinions of several others that making sure they didn't break the rules was a demotivator for carrying out their role (and sometimes from even playing the game at all) and providing that conflict and threat narrative and I've seen many rounds fall flat because there was just nothing happening. Not that you can't have things happening without conflict, or that you need the role to kill people for there to be conflict, but you get where I'm coming from I'm sure.

That's only the subset of the main discussion anyway, because like I said, the main goal is to cut down on arguments and drama. How do we avoid this? I'd like to hear some opinions and ideas on that if anyone has any to offer.

I have always went by a little question Yandere used to pose in her rules. "Why would my character do this?"

At its core, this very question is the single biggest part to role playing. It is all about answering that question. "Why would my character shut off the lights?" or "What would my character axe murder an old lady then kill all of the students in the school?" I know this likely seems to be completely irrelevant to the conversation, but in truth it is probably the single most important part to an emote discussion. At its core, Misuterii, and all of the High games, are role playing games. They are not meant to be PVP, or PVE, or Arena games. You're supposed to role play.

Now, you may be asking yourself right now "Satoshi, what the fuck are you talking about?! I still don't get what the basic principles of role playing have to do with a discussion about emote rules?" Well, it's a fair confusion going into this game. The one thing that needs to be said right now is that yes, I know not everyone is a professional role player. Everyone has differing levels of skill, and everyone has their own unique style of going about it. This is what makes everyone unique, and what makes Misuterii and the other Highs both fun and knowledgeable. It's the thrill of interacting with other styles, and learning from them. It's allows one to absorb other people's positive habits, and better their own writing.

As for what the question I previously posed has to do with the discussion at hand, lets begin by defining what role playing is. The common misconception is that it's as simple as playing a character who is not you. This is far from the truth, however. When you RP, you're not just playing your character, you're writing one character's perspective in a large, overarching story. The point of role playing is not to simply play a character, it's to craft and create a larger, more vibrant narrative. Your negative actions have consequences for more than just your character, and can also ruin the experience for others.

With this in mind, lets move on to discussing what an emote is. I can hear you already, guys. "But Satoshi, we know what it is! An emote denotes actions! It's not that important if we don't emote constantly." Well, I'm here to tell you as bluntly as I can. No. Get that thought out of your head right now, because you are wrong on so many levels! However, this is a common mistake and one that is easy to overlook. What people don't really understand is that an emote is the single most important tool that a role player can employ.

That phrase, which has been spoken all throughout history and even links to the Old Testament, is "Actions speak louder than words," is it not? This holds true even in role play, guys. What you say means nothing compared to what you do. It is the actions that drive the role play along, not the words. Now, how do we portray actions in a role play again? That's right! Through that beautiful tool known as the Emote. Emotes are an RPer's best friend, and what shows their actions, reactions, and inner most thoughts. They are what allows us, as role players, to learn about who and what your character is.

This does not mean our character automatically knows that your character is an ax murderer if you emote thinking about it. This means we, as players, know about this crucial fact. This is what is known as the IC/OOC Split. What we, as the player, know from seeing such thoughts is not what our character, as the 'muse' we'll call them, knows. This should NOT change how we play our characters, because our characters do not know. Role playing is about adapting to what happens to your character ICly, not OOCly. With that in mind, this also applies to how we play our characters in the forms of this game. Role play and game mechanics are also two different things.

I don't really know how to farther vocalize, so I'll end with this.

In the end, in a role playing environment, emotes are necessary and essential. However, in practice with the High games, enforcing them tends to ruin the experience. Perhaps we should do what we can to instruct people on role playing..? That may be the best solution.

(Disclaimer: On MH, I normally tend more toward "light" than "heavy" RP, unless the latter comes about naturally by the movement of the game.)

Personally, I think that requiring an emoted attack when you attack interferes with the mechanical aspect of the game.

I'm not against using emotes in roleplaying, but mechanically speaking, Mitadake High and its descendants are action-RPGs, and the mechanics do serve to constrain the roleplay. One's ability to brutally murder a target often rests on surprise attacks and the idea that an adversary might take a few whacks before they can react, and simply put, that's not nearly as easy if you emote. Even if the other player is playing fair, they'll respond, maybe take a hit, and then they'll move away and be on full fighting alert.

In addition, the rule that "you must emote an attack" was too often used to mean "emoting an attack is as far as you're required to RP." If you emoted, it was considered a random attack; if you did, it wasn't. Granted, this was mostly under idiot hosts, but I personally prefer not to require too much host intelligence in the game.

So when it comes to combat, I'd prefer to let the mechanics decide and even take the place of the emotes. Emoting the actual motions of combat in MH somewhat reduces the emphasis on the mechanics, which is a shame, because the mechanics encourage a particular playstyle, where the advantage goes to whoever gets in a sucker-punch and whoever's better-prepared. This reinforces the storytelling aspect (though as a note, I prefer modes styled off the classic MH, such as Normal and DN, to modes like Umineko; the former leads to emergent roleplay under tension, while the latter relies on one player's ability to write a story that the rest can go along with).

In this game, I find most of the fun comes more from the mind games than from any other source; betrayal, paranoia, and even the occasional Mexican standoff gone horribly wrong. I don't think that emoted attacks actually add to this.

Ah. The age-old question of mechanics vs roleplay.

I'm rather new with this specific game, but I think that it wouldn't hurt for me to give my input into the area, because while I am not overly experienced with this community, I am rather experienced with a few things which the topic addresses. Because of that, I have to admit that I will understand if everything I say is discounted because I am not an old veteran of the community-- Regardless, I hope my opinion means something if I am logical about it.

First, I wanted to bring direct attention to something that MetaFrosty has stated:

MetaFrosty Stated:

"More I'm just trying to bring attention to an attitude that might be damaging to the community and seeing if we can make a shift in how people feel about it. "

This is the entirely appropriate approach, in my opinion. It is commendable, and it is exactly what needs to be done. I actually was intending to write up an article discussing this shortly and posting it in general discussion, and still might do so. The fact that MetaFrosty advocates such an attitude feels me with.. an actual hopeful happiness.

The reasoning? The community is not made up by arbitrary restrictions and rules, even if they are in place. The community is also not made up of the structure of the game, even if it is in place. It is made up by the community, which is what the game is for and the playing is for; and the focus should, in a social game, be on the community and not on the 'ideals' of a single individual or server or game.

And now, referring to the actual content of the conversation. I think that I can sum up the initial topic as:

Should emotes be required in order to perform an attack?

My opinion is first that it isn't a broad enough question. Why should you limit it to attack when there are other hostile actions, such as locking a door or intentionally closing the freezer on someone or.. well, anything of the sort. So, let me please rephrase that to what I intend to address.

Should emotes be required in order to perform a hostile action?

My opinion is that they should not be required. Instead, it should only be established within a reasonable doubt that there is the intent to perform the action, whether through verbal play ('The red haired boy says, "Die!"') beforehand, or emotes ('"The red haired boy frowns for a moment before slowly raising the knife, staring directly at the boy with green haired. After a few moments, he rushes forward with the knife almost loose in his hand, moving it in a slashing motion!"') that tantalize the senses. Whyso?

The game is not purely emote-based. There is likely a clear preference (one may look at the latter and praise the player for being verbose, and the former dislike the player for lacking the same verbosity), but both show the intent, and from a purely roleplaying perspective, this means that the other player is aware that they are being attacked.

What then, is there to say about roleplay quality?

Again, in my opinion and experience, quality is not something that you 'enforce' so much as 'encourage'. Instead of having direct and worrying rules on a specific thing, it tends to be better to have incentives towards certain behaviors.

I provide a scenario next wherein you see some of the dangers of hard rules.


Player A (We'll call them Marley) is speaking with Player B (We'll call them Hayden). In this metaphorical scenario, Marley is a killer and Hayden is his next intended victim. Marley has the opportunity to leave him alone in the freezer, but the server rules state that he has to make an emote beforehand in order to perform a hostile action such as that, as well as give Hayden time to react (we'll say, fifteen seconds).

Marley is aware of this, and is also aware that if he makes the emote and attempts to close the freezer, Hayden will simply run out of the room as the reply before fifteen seconds goes out. Because of this, Marley ends up not using the opportunity and ends up mildly frustrated as a result, as a perfectly reasonable IC possibility is not, due to the fact that the rules insist upon being so inflexible.


I admit: The above scenario is not perfectly thought out (Why doesn't Marley just block Hayden?), but it is a possibility and does detail one of the possible issues that may arise. Why would the rules exist but to improve the quality and variability in roleplay?

There are a few solutions which are useful. One approach is the 'Equal Responsibility' approach. In it, the rules would be a variation of thus:


If Marley wishes to perform a hostile action to Hayden, Marley must make the intent clear in an emote.

Marley must then activate a counter (which both players could see, so as to ensure the fairness of). This counter may be of variable length depending on balance and preference.

Hayden has the opportunity to reply in his own emote.

If he does not complete the emote before the counter ends, Hayden must complete one before performing any returning action; Marley may go ahead and perform his action when the counter ends.

If Hayden does complete his emote before the counter ends, and sends it, both Marley and Hayden may do as they have emoted at the time of that emote. This allows both a roughly equal chance of fairness towards both players, as both have the opportunity to perform their actions, both had an opportunity to be aware of each other's actions, and both got to carry out what they reasonably would be able to do.


The above is a very fair solution. However, it has a few issues which make it rather inelegant. I'll try to list a few I can think of right now:

* What if there were more than just Hayden and Marley? What if there were a Bethany, a J.R., a Little John? With more people the complexity becomes much worse. Think about interference from other people.

* Essentially 'freezes' time in that area as the counter is going down, while the rest of the world continues.

* If the community is not used to such a rule, it would become difficult to begin using consistently.

And that is only a single approach.

My own preferred approach to handle those rules are as thus:

Marley shows clear intent to harm Hayden in some way. This may even be in drawing a weapon (so that it appears on the sprite), or specifically closing the door to close the two in.

Hayden responds as he wishes?

Why, though? Because mechanics are roleplay, too. If you draw a weapon in the game, you are drawing a weapon, regardless of whether or not you emote it. If you are killing everyone in full view of everyone then everyone knows that you're killing them, and your actions speak for themselves.

What, then, is the importance of mechanics when related to roleplay? That they assist roleplay, of course, if we intend for it to be a roleplay-centric game. Roleplay is the actions that you perform and the story that those create, and not just what you happen to write up in words. You need to have fitting mechanics which feel nice and appropriate with the game, and it is roleplaying to use these mechanics, so people should be able to use them as intent. The reason why we are here and not on Roleplay Hub (and I like Roleplay Hub when I say this!) is because we want to have a more immersive roleplaying experience, and oftentimes a visual representation and some mechanics-based gameplay is a lot more immersive than constant reading and writing.

That said, please do not take away that I am trying to discourage emotes or writing. I love both! I try to be as expressive as possible, as versatile as possible, and it always makes me smile to see a good emote or people who are emoting consistently to show their actions. I fully admit that it adds to the game. Instead, my point is that actions are roleplay as well as emotes, and instead of using a hard rule it is better to use encouragement for good roleplaying guidelines.

I hereby apologize for the length of this post, which was entirely unintended. If you have any questions, note any inconsistencies or logical mistakes that I have made, please do criticize my thinking, as I highly appreciate that and will be receptive to feed back.

Hope that this helps someone. Have a nice day, and enjoy your game.

Egil: Most of those already can be enforced by the game, the reason why some aren't enforced is because every host is different and I don't want to enforce said rules, but yes, those can have a toggle too. Specifically Rule #2, #3, The end of #12, and #16 are/can be enforced through the game itself currently.