...Integrity

At its core, integrity just means that one acts according to internally consistent principles. More bluntly put, it means one does not preach water and drink wine. As is to be expected from our experiences in real life, integrity is a not that common quality in roleplaying communities as well.

At first sight, it looks like it would be easy to act with full integrity. After all, a lot of roleplayers (me included) post their own rules and views quite often. Just the threat of being exposed as having double standards should be enough to keep people honest – or so one would think.

However, a few factors make it very easy for many roleplayers to act without integrity without suffering many if any consequences. Let’s take a look at the most common characteristics of such hypocrites:


„I am the best roleplayer there is!“
Most hypocrites among the roleplayers are legends in their own minds. They spend a lot of time styling themselves as the most mature, most experienced, most anything roleplayers there is – often by painting others as immature, unexperienced or even non-roleplayers – and then present their own rules and principles as the pinnacle of roleplaying. That alone is not a case of hypocrisy – after all, we all know that each of us knows best what’s best for us and everyone else is really, really wrong, unless they agree with us - the hypocrisy actually starts as soon as one mocks others for claiming such lofty titles while doing the same, but we won’t be splitting words – there’s enough hypocrisy around to describe without going into fine print.


„I am right, you are wrong, unless you are my friend“
Judging people is fun for the whole family – provided it’s done over the internet, and there are no consequences to be afraid of. It allows oneself to feel superiour, justified, and even morally conscious. So, it comes as no surprise that most roleplayers do judge others, all the time under those circumstances. The hypocrites can be spotted not by who they judge, but by who they do not judge – themselves, and their friends. No surprise, really, since judging your friends has consequences, especially if those friends are not as mature as they claim, or can’t handle being wrong. And while the resulting change of status from friend to no-friend might make it easier to keep judging them, not many hypocrites want to lose friends – after all, the less such friends one has, the less one hears how great one is.
So, any kind of rule gets bent by hypocrites for friends. Stuff some people get banned for is excused, or it suddenly is „too hard“ to judge people. Or it did not happen in their town or on their forum – and as you all know, if your friend acts like a rabid wombat somewhere else, he or she still is the best roleplayer ever, no matter if you just kicked someone out of your town or forum for acting the same way there. After all, the main thing is not to be a good, decent person, but to be a good friend, right? Right! Now go and write some more how much of a roleplay god I am, I’ll return the favor.


„If I am wrong it’s not the same“
If one does happen to catch a superb roleplayer violating his or her own rules, what happens? Usually one would expect of mature roleplayers that they admit to having made a mistake, and apologise if needed, and don’t do it again. However, that’s only the case if people do have integrity. Alas, many roleplayers have egos so big they tend to influence the solar system’s movement, and so will do anything but admit a mistake. Either the thing done is not actually the same as what one banned or dissed people last week – because, you know, if done to pvpers, it does not count, those subhumans have no rights to be treated with respect, so flame away! – or the rules get relaxed suddenly - staying all the time IC doesn’t apply to Restuss, or the rule of „100% canon, DIE JEDI DIE“ doesn’t apply when it gets in the way of THEIR fun. After all, why should one follow canon and like, treat tusken on Lok like one treats jedi? Everyone knows jedi (other than those played by oneself and one’s friends) are evil immersion breaking powergamers while tusken on Lok are 100% canon with just a touch of originality!


„If I am wrong you deserved it“
„He asked for it!“ is one of the most often heard justifications for breaking one’s own rules. No matter what rule is concerned – no flaming, no corpse camping, no load killing, no scamming – once such an action is aimed at a „rulebreaker“ it suddenly is ok in the eyes of many.
While some of this stems from the already mentioned desire to judge others, growing into the desire to punish others, more often it seems that for many, behaving correctly and in a civilised, mature manner is too much, and they need an excuse to flame, grief, curse and corpse camp at will. That they mainly lower themselves down to the level of those they portray as scum of the earth, or at least SWG escapes those people.
Of course, this being the internet, it’s very very easy to claim all sorts of nasty stuff about others to justify one’s own actions. Just say „you insult/flame/grief me, now you will get the same in return!“ and you can dish out nastiness at will and still look like the noble victim. And if that should fail (which only happens if one has friends who actually think for themselves, and may go to the length of actually spending 5 minutes to check wild claims) one can count on the good old „I was provoked“ defense – usually, at this point, the water has been muddled so much, just about every spectator has no clear picture anymore, and will settle for it. Which is what’s many want, actually, since if no one started to „flame/grief back“, then their own immature behaviour would be easier to spot even for the sort of blind people they are friends with, and they might be called out for their own deeds.



„My friend, right or wr... right!“
This is the number one reason hypocrisy is so wide-spread among roleplayers: As much as many roleplayer style themselves as mature people (and look down on „leet kiddie pvpers“, as they usually call people who like to pvp), many of those roleplayers show attitudes one would usually expect in juvenile cliques. While people are all too ready to bitch about others’ faults, they clam up and close ranks whenever their friends are at fault, with no concern for their own integrity. „My friend can do no wrong!“ is the motto of many a PA, either openly, or covered up by „We’ll handle this internally“ or „this is not the place for it“ smoke screens.
Whatever excuses can be thought of, hypocrites can count on their friends to pull them out or make them up.
Of course, given the general attitude on the internet, this turns just about every problem into a „us against them“ conflict, where attacking the enemy is much more important than staying honest, integer and decent, but then, that’s exactly what many want – by escalating the issue it turns from one player doing something wrong into a conflict between two sides – or in other words, into a political issue where right and wrong behaviour just become tools.



Now, what can be done to promote more integrity among roleplayers? The solution is easy to find, but hard to implement, since it requires self-control, maturity, and the backbone to not just judge your enemies, but even more your friends and yourself.

It means not staying silent or even joining in when a friend of yours is doing something wrong, but standing up, and telling him or her to stop.

It means not flaming or grieving even if you’re hurt.

It means behaving and treating others how you want to be treated.

It means listening to your friends if they tell you to stop.

It means using the same standard for judging yourself and your friends as you use for judging others.

Hard? Yes. You'll also fail often. But no one ever said growing up and becoming mature was easy.