Breaking "Canon"

[Smilodoncat]

I don't really think the title works for this, as canon would refer to a published work, but meh, here we go.

Something I've noticed in roleplay is that when people randomly jump into an rp you are doing, or you let them join, sometimes their characters will break the "laws" so to speak of the original roleplay. This can make things very annoying.

The other day I was roleplaying with a friend in a private map (that is public download). We where continuing along a roleplay we had been doing for a while, basically an Area 51 type thing with our alien characters. These characters and the roleplay in general had a pretty strict sci-fi theme (in other words we tried to avoid breaking too many laws of physics xD).
So then another character shows up and sees us roleplaying. She asked if she could join, and not wanting to be rude, we let her.
Turns out her character is a several million year old immortal magical two-tailed canine that could withstand being thrown in a tank full of lava.
It completely ruined the theme of our roleplay. Later a few more people came along and joined in the roleplay without asking. Many of them had "magical" powers and such.

We didn't want to be rude and tell them they couldn't rp with us (we considered moving it into party a few times, but eventually decided not too), but it still broke the laws of the "universe" that governed our rp.

Just want to hear your thoughts on this kind of situation.

[Wizardmymom]

Ah, this.
Where you have a plot and someone comes charging in and changes EVERYTHING.
I was in an RP once (Left it quickly) where some noob literate was accepted, even though they were really rude.
Anyways, they joined, RPed, then suddenly walked over to my character (T'was beta because I was once of de first people) and told me to get lost and give them my rank, or they would kill me.

Hold on, you don't have to do that.
It worked a bit like in the Survivors books, where you ask the alpha if you can challenge someone for their rank.


But NOOOOOOO.
This person is too awesome to do that, they told us that literally.
Anyways, people are weird.

[darkknight]

In my opinion, I believe it was rude of the person to simply come and change the theme of the role-play. The polite thing would have been for the person to just change their character for the purpose of the majority theme or just make an entirely new character to role-play for a while. That way, they could either explore a different theme they may have never participated in before or just role-play with new people at ease.

Everyone enjoys a concern theme, but when you force one onto others, it's rude. For instance, Queen Chrysalis, you were all doing a sci-fi type role-play and the magic character can along. It was rude of them to change the rules, not you and your friends. To be fair, some people don't mind to change the theme to make it interesting and allow other people to join in. However, some other people find it very distracting or could lead to possible god-mod, depending on the character.   

[Lady_Alizarin]

Yeah... things like this happen every now and then. I find it a bit rude that they would cut into a sci-fi roleplay with their fantasy kind of characters.... but I may as well put a guilty stamp on my own head. I've used a fantasy character in roleplays that people would prefer to be realistic, even when my character acts more like a mortal animal than a mythical being.

Some of my Warrior Cats roleplaying friends have made a little Warriorstuck kind of roleplay (Mixing Warrior Cats and Homestuck). They would play as zodiacian troll cats based on the characters of Homestuck. I wanted to include my unicorn fox into their little roleplays but thought she wouldn't fit. I KNOW! -gets an idea- I'll just say she's also a lusus animal! She's all white and motherly like, so she could pass off as a lusus. It's practically cannon. Done deal. We get some fun roleplays out of that.

When it comes to situations like these, instead of barging into a roleplay that has a certain theme, I would ask first if my "unfitting" character can join in. If not, I would just make a character that fits, then join in.

[rustheart]

I made a group for my Vorox breed I made once.  I had the people read the form about the breed before making a character so they would understand what the breed was.  But one person clearly did not read it.  Vorox would NEVER get anywhere near water but this persons character loved water.  Even when I told her this was something that was braking the breed she just said that her character was just different and would not change it.  Also my breed has more males then females, but people insisted on filling the group up with females when a female vorox is very rare.  Finally I just got rid of the group because no one would follow the guidelines set up for the breed.

[Silhouette]

[nubeees]

[ace13]

Well, I see what you're on about here. It does suck when you and your friends are having an RP that you're really getting the mood into, but then when everything starts getting good or climaxes... a newbie steps in to throw away the whole groove of the RP. To be honest, if I were in this situation (which I've been in a few I believe), I would just either go along with the other participant and try to move the RP back into the law of the role play. Sadly, when this works out the nub will most likely say something like: "eats a mysterious cookie and then gain magical powers" or "hears voice in head, the Spaghetti King grants unbelievable power" (xD lol) ... yeah, and then trying to curve it back into the original plot would have been a waste. SO, what you should do is probably inform them of the rules in the kindest way possible, at least that's my theory.

If they don't want to change the plot then I guess you'll just have to go along with them or be mean and come up with a lame excuse to switch characters xD lol, joke. But what I would do is just ask them kindly if they could follow the rule of the RP.