Armchair intellectuals, blogosphere citizens, here’s a thread for you.

I thought about this for a very long time now, this is essentially two things, or well, that’s what I intend to do. Firstly, this is a guide, as is pretty much anything in the world. Secondly, this is the description of a paradigm.

My paradigm models human (or say, human-like) behavior is loosely based on Freud’s model of the the mind, with the id (es), ego (ich) and the super-ego (über-ich). Paradigms are, as we know, not truths in themselves, but merely ways to reflect certain aspects of truth sometimes more accurately sometimes less accurately sometimes wrong altogether. Human behavior falls under the category of things we are not very likely to understand very well being human ourselves.

A little history of conflict models

There are plenty of conflict models out there, Sigmund Freud’s view on behavior, which I previously mentioned, Karl Marx’ socio-economic paradigm (known as Marxism) which describes a conflict between two classes, one owning the means of production and the other using them. To a lesser extent, Levi-Strauss (the sociologist, not the jeans) also had a conflict model which he named “structuralism”, splitting human behavior and perception into categories of opposites (night and day, for instance). I can stretch this as far as Hagel, but I’ll stop there, this isn’t about the history of conflict models.

Basics of my Model

My model is that certain conflicting desires determine behavior in a multitude of ways. We are torn between our conflicting desires. Freud will tell you about your id, that is, selfish desires, conflicting with the super-ego, that is, society’s desires. This paradigm goes above that description to describe higher functions.

So, suppose Plato is hungry. Plato sees a cake, he would then think, “I could eat it”, however, understanding its consequences, and social practices around it, his reaction would not be either “forget it” nor “eat it”. He may ask for a piece, he may take a little, or maybe just a little bit of the cake. He may walk away, but either way, he won’t forget about it.

This example was about our id clashing with our super-ego. Conflicts are not limited to this though. For instance, consider that Plato likes cake because he associates it with his Mom, but at the same time, its his mother’s funeral. The id and the super-ego are irrelevant here, this is Plato subconciously fighting not with anyone, not with his mother, not with his desire to eat cake, but with his conflicting feelings towards the cake in association with his deceased mother.

Certainly, cake is merely one thing in our lives. How about we step further.

Plato is Russian, but lives in America, and lives during the Cold War. Plato loves America, but still loves Russia, where his relatives are and where his parents came from. Plato is torn between these two things.

Conflicts create behavior, which creates more conflicts. Behavior does not create conflicts to excuse it, though. An interest in weapons does not “simply arise”, it comes through association and conflict, something triggers it.

Application to Roleplaying

Rerkel Ranwin is a Forsaken men who had initially died by committing suicide. Each moment in his now second (or third if you count him being a scourge minion as a life) life he is faced with one question: “do I want to give this another chance, or should I just do the old thing yet again?”

Rerkel will try to convince himself that things aren’t as bad as they may seem. True, he had never intended to become a Forsaken, but then again, perhaps that’s something he’ll have to live with.

Perhaps now his life could be better? Could he ever know?

Pretty much every character out there has a conflict of a sort. Do you really expect a draenei to keep believing in the Light although the world is in complete chaos and redemption is nowhere to be seen? They are torn between these two conflicting sides of the issue.

I see many roleplayers making the step to understand these conflicts, but never step beyond that, into an understanding of the conflict and its implications on the character. So you have a “tragic past”, but you either don’t make the connection, or you just skip the implications all along. Don’t start with the present and add a past, start with either one, and build up towards the other.

Even when people go mad, they remain rational, it’s simply that the image of reality they have is skewed and distorted. Those conflicts always exist. Your will to live is always there, the same way that the will to die is constantly present.

Example Conflicts

Identity - Quel’dorei/humans.

Conservation vs. renewal - Is the old way better than the new way? How on Azeroth should i find out? Maybe change is a good thing or maybe I should

Sexuality - What do I want from myself? What do I want FOR myself? Who do I like? Most of us WILL have this conflict at some point in our lives, regardless of gender and sexual orientation.

Fatalism vs. Free Will - Am I fated to die? Is my life meaningless and will result to the same thing no matter what? Can I control my own destiny? Is meaning created or ascribed?

Reality vs. Illusion - Are things really what they seem? Am I really who I am, or am I merely in an illusion?

Stretching this further

Isn’t life all about our conflict with ourself? Every moment of your lives we wish we were dead, every moment of our lives we wish we were alive and every moment we wonder about these two, we also want to eat cake, but want to stay thin, and we want to write a new post on the forums, but we don’t want to have to read the rest.

When we roleplay, we model situations in life. We model a living thing, a mind, or if you want a soul. We assume that all characters are basically humans give or take tusks, horns, hooves, ears, pink skin and the occasional tattoo. These minds, or “souls” if you will, all function more or less the same.

A tip of the hat off to Freud, Marx, Levi-Stauss and my ex

Freud, Marx and Levi-Strauss for showing me how things can be explained through conflict and dichotomies, my ex for emphasizing conflicts.

Also, I would like to thank Sisse, Moruku and Theresea for keeping my feet on the ground while I ventured into the depths of philosophy. (One-manned heroic Kara)

A tip of the hat to Moonglade, the RP community and everyone else

You’ve all contributed to this.

I know, most of us don’t think about roleplaying/literature/life as theoretically as this, but, some do, and I so happen to.

Tagged as: life, literature, philosophy, roleplaying

Edit: He has a placeholder blog for now.

I was thinking to myself (in rhyme of course, the way I usually talk to myself) yesterday, and devised a simple plan to serve as something to expand my musical horizons and serve the Blogosphere (in which Richard M. Stallman hovers above the earth) some proper record reviews.

I’m sitting here in the lounge, trying to write a blog post. People come, see me listening to something and “concentrated” on doing something with my laptop and decide to just turn back and leave. By saying that I just unconsciously denied the possibility that they just don’t like me, which could very well be it.

All of a sudden I realize me mom seemed to have added me on Facebook. I’m not kidding, she actually opened a Facebook account.

It’s funny, she asked me during dinner two days ago what Facebook is exactly, to which I replied “a networking site.” Explaining what a networking site actually is is no easy task for someone above the Internet “proficiency” of a guru. “What’s the point?” - I really couldn’t answer, I just didn’t know how to tell her that it sort of… doesn’t have on one many levels, and still probably has one.

Maybe I’m underestimating her will to get into this whole thing. Who knows, maybe the next step would be to start posting things on del.icio.us or declaring war on my guild in World of Warcraft.

… Like I was starting to say before my mom jumped in. I’ll exchange a record with Moruku (who is currently blogless due to some issues) every two weeks, I’ll give him one, he’ll give me one, at which point we’ll have to write a review and give it a certain score based on a set of criteria.

It’s being developed as we speak, in my mind for the most part. It’s all coming together now, and I expect to exchange the first record between Friday and Sunday.

Tagged as: family, internet, life, music

Edit: Kuileen and her fellow god-modders must have complained (by using their vampiric powers) and my post was removed, additionally, I was banned until tomorrow evening (o noes). No worries, I had no intention to make any further posts in the next few days anyway. Either way, the relationship was, sort of, restored thanks to the statement I tend to think.

I would like to use this opportunity to make a note that guilds have been known to implode for this very reason. However, the Circle of Vidomi lives on.

This is what you get for trusting people. From a post on the World of Warcraft forums regarding a misfortunate turn of events. Here it is, copy-pasted for your convenience:

Let me start with some background information regarding why I, on the behalf of the Circle even bother with this. As some of you probably know by now, the Circle of Vidomi is a role-playing guild (we dare call ourselves that) based on Nairuil’s insanity, which makes her believe she’s seen a certain Goddess in a vision and follow her way. She managed to gather several followers, i.e. the Circle.

At some point, a certain human joined the Circle after having lost her memory, Rayanne, who used to be with the Old Town gang or so I believe. Sidarta (”Sid”) was obviously not happy with it, and basically said the Circle was brainwashing Rayanne.

I personally would like to state that Old Town was a guild I’ve always looked up to from my early days in Moonglade and even now. When Sid contacted me, even though it was hostile IC, I was absolutely ecstatic and thought to myself that perhaps now our small and upcoming guild will finally gain its place among the category of “good well established roleplaying guilds”.

I managed to eventually schedule a time, Sunday the 25th of November 2007 at 19:30 CET in Gurubashi Arena. Sid brought his folks, I brought Saif and Rayanne, and eventually Kuileen joined as well, prowling her way into the arena.

It went great for a while, we had some great RP, eventually, we were defeated (obviously, being outnumbered) and Rayanne was kidnapped.

And so Saif, Kuileen and I were faced with the task of finding Rayanne. Where do we even start looking? We have no idea - in character that is. It was very clear to us that she was in the Arathi Highlands, as /who unambiguously stated, though of course, in-character we had no idea. We went from Booty Bay to Stormwind attempting to find leads until all of a sudden, Kuileen comes up with a great genius way to spot Kuileen, “I got information”. “Great,” I thought to myself, “she must have tortured one of them, or maybe she has connections? She wouldn’t say much yet besides “Arathi Highlands.” I made the mistake of trusting her not questioning her sources too much.

Stupidly enough, I trusted Kuileen not to god-mod her way through this whole encounter. It didn’t even occur to me she did that until out of the blue I realize that the group of stranger I found myself in a raid group with found them.

“Great! Seems like she knows her way around.” But then I had that sneaky suspicion, “wait, how do we know where to go?”

Apparently, a certain person, whose name I will not discuss here has magical powers. He can sense people’s “energy” to know where they are. Strangely enough, I don’t think they have it in their spellbook - guess what, we have a word for that, god-modding.

I tried to stop them, but it was too late, Sid already realized he was spotted by a group of strangers who aren’t even supposed to recognize him, and suddenly, a person whose great achievements I appreciated so much tells me, more or less: “I don’t want to have anything to do with you guys.”

I understand why he was angry, and as a result, I on the behalf of the Circle of Vidomi wish to express the following in hopes of continuing to roleplay with Sidarta and the Old Town gang in the future.
We express the following:

1. The Circle of Vidomi does not agree with “god-modders”, and does not wish to be associated with them or have them in the guild. Saif and I, Nairuil would have stopped this horrible unfortunate turn of events if only Kuileen had properly informed us.

2. One must be more picky as to the sort of people the guild accepts. Although Kuileen seemed to have been a good and “contributing” member, we were wrong, and we need not have put our trust in her and questioned her way of receiving information.

3. Kuileen was kicked out of the Circle of Vidomi for her poor roleplaying etiquette. We do not wish to have anything with her. She will stay out of the guild for what is probably forever. She has been dishonorably discharged.

4. The Circle of Vidomi apologizes for one of its (now dishonorably discharged) members’ dreadful behavior and she was dishonorably discharged. The Circle apologizes to Sidarta of Old Town, the Old Town guild as a whole and any other participants affected by this player’s misconduct.

5. The Circle of Vidomi will do everything in its power to prevent subsequent events and miscommunication of this nature in the future.

Again, I personally would like to apologize for this, I should probably take matters into my own hands a little more.

Sincerely,
Adi Ron
“Nairuil Cloudweaver” on the behalf of The Circle of Vidomi.

Now, why am I angry? Why do I even bother?

Seems like this is what you get for putting some trust is people. They screw you back, not necessarily because they want to, but because they have stupid friends and/or they’re retards. What the fuck was Kuileen thinking when she got us into this crappy situation?

I’ve been working on this concept for months, and now, that it’s finally somewhere near up and running, Kuileen messes things up.

You know what, I wonder if the circle will ever shake its bad name after this one. It could very well mean that nobody in the serious roleplaying community would want to talk to us - ergo, I’m stuck with stupid dragons vampires and for heavens’ sake maybe even worse.

I don’t know what to do, should I give up? Maybe so.

I can’t ditch the ship as it starts to sink, the captain, i.e. me, has to go down with the ship. It’s inevitable, I’m afraid, but for now, the guild goes on.

I can only hope that the RP community will ever forgive the circle.

“Trust no one!”

Tagged as: annoying, life, roleplaying, wow