Hyper-Realistic Roleplays

[Smilodoncat]

I have discovered I love to roleplay as animals that act like, well, animals.

Around 99.9% "realistic" roleplays around Feral Heart are not really realistic at all. The animals can talk and have personified human personalities.
I used to join these when I was new to Feral Heart, but I can say now I am absolutely bored of them.

What I'm wondering is why aren't there more hyper-realistic roleplays on Feral Heart? No talking, no personification. Just like roleplaying a nature documentary.
The normal "realistic" roleplays only can have so many things happen. And it gets boring after a while. Since hyper-realistic roleplays are not that common, not many story-lines have yet to arise.
And it opens up many more unique opportunities for non-personified characters.  And many of those old character cliques would go away.

Any thoughts on this?

[BlueKinTsukiko]

Well, believe it or not but researchers of many found that animals do have a form of communication as well as perhaps even a speech pattern that humans may not understand or might ever be able too. So talking between the lions is maybe possible but we won't know cause well, we're not lions. However I do think that there is a bit of sense by what you mean as realistic and non realistic, for example, a Hyena and a Lion, never get along. In fact, saying they do or they can be friends is a bit....Well....I won't even go there. If we were to have super realistic roleplays anyways, what happens if one lion is trying to hint at something, like maybe to go hunting, and than the other doesn't understand it, or is unable to. Not to mention we're still learning how animals show their languages through simple body structure so it doesn't make it any easier when even specialist don't fully understand all their sign language let alone body movements for speech. So, although its probably not the best thing in the world for you, its still needed just to get certain points across.

[Vask]

I myself, love to roleplay as realistic animals, though I won't turn down a nice 'human-realism' animal roleplay. However, when I do roleplay as a real animal, I feel like I'm watching discovery channel or something. I've always loved the idea of realistic roleplays, so you really feel like you're a wild animal.

[Smilodoncat]

Well, believe it or not but researchers of many found that animals do have a form of communication as well as perhaps even a speech pattern that humans may not understand or might ever be able too. So talking between the lions is maybe possible but we won't know cause well, we're not lions. However I do think that there is a bit of sense by what you mean as realistic and non realistic, for example, a Hyena and a Lion, never get along. In fact, saying they do or they can be friends is a bit....Well....I won't even go there. If we were to have super realistic roleplays anyways, what happens if one lion is trying to hint at something, like maybe to go hunting, and than the other doesn't understand it, or is unable to. Not to mention we're still learning how animals show their languages through simple body structure so it doesn't make it any easier when even specialist don't fully understand all their sign language let alone body movements for speech. So, although its probably not the best thing in the world for you, its still needed just to get certain points across.

I am well aware that a type of "speech" has been found among many animals. Monkeys, apes, dolphins, elephants etc. I didn't know about lions, but I'm not surprised.

The point is that it would be interesting to role play like a nature documentary. Ever since I was little I've loved nature documentaries. Animals have their own unique world and behaviors that I've always been fascinated by. By adding personification, the charm of that is taken away.
The majority of these animal roleplays in Feral Heart are really more of human roleplays. They follow the same plotlines used in human stories, and the characters are essentially humans in animal bodies, having human emotion and such. I'm not saying animals don't have emotion, because they do. But it's a different kind of emotion. More instinctual, more wild. And I would find it much more interesting to roleplay.
The point isn't that "realistic" roleplays are not realistic enough, the point is that it would be interesting to be part in a different style of roleplay.

[BlueKinTsukiko]

Hm...Well perhaps you should start a group on such a style, it would be interesting, but you'd also would have to teach people not to talk. And that takes away from personification, which while taking away from human qualities and would add animalistic, it'd make it more difficult to explain a characters back story. For example lets say my lion character Lerato just came in to the territory, he's depressed and hasn't exactly been in the best of moods. He ran away from his home at a younger age due to a highly aggressive father, and his mother is being beaten from her mate. How's he suppose to let you know that? That may be why we don't see that style around perhaps.

[Smilodoncat]

See, you've already added personification right there.
The depression. Animals do not display depression like humans do, so by making your character depressed you have already personified him. The closest thing to a depressed animal would be one that probably is very inactive, and avoids other animals as much as possible. He would be most likely to pace around anxiously. (The closest thing to animal depression is probably the distressed behavior of animals in captivity). If his mother was being beaten by his father, a natural lion would not care about this too much. As bad as it sounds, it happens all the time in the wild.

It doesn't mean he's a bad character, it just means he's a personified one. You gave him human characteristics and that's alright.

If I where to start a roleplay like this, I would most likely make a new character. (Because of my current characters, all the ones I roleplay with animalistic behavior are all sci-fi themed)

[Vask]

I would definitely see to joining that group if you were to make one. Role playing as if you were sharing a documentary, but still controlling the animals actions. The way that MOST animals communicate if through body language and sounds they make(Growl, roar, snarl, howl, whimper, etc). If you ever happen to make a realistic animal group, go ahead and tell me. I'd be more than happy to join it.

[Warrior4ever]

I think one of the reasons that this style of RolePlay is so uncommon is our limited actions in-game. If actions such as wagging your tail, purring, barking, growling, sniffing, and panting were added, it'd be much easier to have your character show emotion without being personified.

If you were to make a Discovery Channel like group, I think it'd be fun if you filmed it and added narration to it Perhaps something to make this kind of RP more realistic would be to name your character whatever species you were, and turn off name tags entirely during RolePlay. That way, when someone spoke an action such as *digs* or *sniffs*, it would look like this;
<Polar Bear F> *digs*
<Corgi M> *sniffs*
But the RolePlayers would not see the name tags on their screen. Instead, you would need to actually look for the animal whom had spoken if you were going to interact with them. But hey, it's your RP, go wild!

[StarBurst]

Agreed! This would be so fun! In fact, I'll make one!

[Smilodoncat]

Awesome! I'll totally join your rp group, FeralKitten. My username is Smilodoncat in game. Do you plan on it being mapped?

As for personified characters, I told a friend about my idea and she helped me come up a simple test to tell if a character is personified or not. We call it the "Morgan Freeman" test. Basically, imagine a Morgan Freeman, or just any nature documentary narrator, describing your characters backstory as if it where part of a real documentary. If it sounds funny, your character is most likely personified. If you could really see it as being part of a nature documentary, then your character is just fine.