This is something that recently crossed my mind, and it has to do with some expereinces I've had during random roleplays. I will list some example stories to kinda explain what I mean:
Story 1:
I was roleplaying as Kopper the red fox out in Flourite Plains. She was skipping along, looking for some of her friends. Well, she encounters another fox near some clan cats. Being social with other foxes, Kopper decided to go over to the fox and say hello. She starts off with her roleplay line, -The vixen trotted up to the other red fox, while wagging her tail right behind her in a greeting sign, "Hey there, stranger," she chirped. "I don't believe I've met you out in this neck of the woods before." After she said that, the stranger fox gets all hostile and starts growling and "hissing" at her? The fox then said, "Get out of here you stinking kit killer! This is -insert clan name- territory, and foxes like you aren't welcome here!" So at this point, I'm all like ".....What?" I take a peek inside the character bio of this fox, and it turns out that it was a fox raised in a clan and now believes it's a cat and not a fox. So I continued on by saying...
Kopper Fox: -She took a few steps back- "But... I'm not a kit killer, I swear," she said, trying to reason with the angry fox. "In fact, I have a few clan friends of my own."
Clan Fox:"LIAR! All foxes are killers that can't be trusted!"
Kopper Fox: "But... but.. you're a fox too," she pointed out.
Clan Fox: "No I'm not! I'm a cat, born and raised in a clan. I'm a loyal warrior that fights for his clan and protects them from killers like you." he spat.
Kopper Fox: "Even if you were raised by cats and lived like one, you're still a fox nonetheless."
Clan Fox: Dude, he doesn't know he's really a fox. Did you even look at my bio.))
Kopper Fox: Yes I did. I already read it.))
Clan Fox: Then you should know that he hates other foxes and will kill them))
Kopper Fox: I know that, but my character doesn't know that yet. I'm playing the part where she's just now finding out, give me some time to play it out here.))
Clan Fox: Okay fine -_-))
Story 2:
I was once up in Sky's Rim roleplaying as Melina the diamond manticore. There were a few dragons and gryphons flying around, and then there were these two "human" characters. They even had the word "human" in their character names. One characteristic of Melina is that she classifies humans as prey. Since she is a manticore, whenever she sees something that appears human, she is going to look at it as potential prey. I looked at their bios and saw that they were shapeshifting creatures. After reading that, I type out a roleplay line that went something like this, "-The manticore paced around the glowing crystal when something caught her eye. She looked down below and saw what looked like two humans sitting on one of the lower floating islands. She got near the ledge for a better view, and looked at them with hungry eyes.-" Well then they blurt out OOC, "We are not humans, we are shapeshifters!" "FAIL!" And then I was all like, "I know that, but my character doesn't know that yet." Then one of them was all like, "Yeah whatever... "
First of all, I'm playing as a character that doesn't know about these "humans" ability to shapeshift. Melina is the type of beast that acts on instinct rather than reasoning when it comes to hunting. I told these two OOC "Well if you "shapeshift" into something else, Melina will no longer see you as prey." So one of them magically turns into a cheetah and runs off while the other "human", or in this case "shapeshifter" stays behind to distract Melina. When I say the roleplay line "-Melina became confused when she saw one of the humans trasform into a cheetah. She wasn't too sure if these humans were warlocks, witches, or something else.-" And so the human shapeshifter says, "We are not humans, we are shapeshifters. You must be a really stupid manticore if you don't know the difference." I wanted to tell them the logic in the situation, but then the game crashed.
Just because my character doesn't know something about your character doesn't automatically make them stupid. They just don't know yet! That's the thing about roleplaying, characters find out about whoever they encounter through roleplay, whether it takes them 5 minutes to find out, or 2 days! If we were all to know exactly what your character was like, it would take away some of the flow of the story. What if my character never encountered a character like yours before? Do you expect them to automatically know what to do or say to you? How was my character supposed to know that yours was actually a shapeshifter and not a human? I KNEW it all along, but she didn't!
What's your opinion on this? Have you ever seen something like this before while roleplaying? Has something like this ever happened to you?