Sly said, "I love all of these ideas. I think currently, I wouldn't really recommend corp life to anyone unless you REALLY just want a lot of safe, social RP. There's more to it, but that's what you're going to be doing the vast majority of the time."
I said, "If this is your corporate experience, then you either aren't seeing beyond the surface of what's going on, or you're not making enough waves. The "safe, social RP" is the masquerade. I'm not saying you're doing it wrong, but there's a massive trove of political actions and shady multi-sector deals you're missing, entirely. Risk a little, win a lot."
Sly said, "I consider shady deals and political actions to be social RP. You're still putting things in motion, not doing them. Having played both sides a good deal, I'm 100% confident corporate and mix play are night and day in terms of what you'll be doing. I'm not missing them at all, I'm doing them. I'm just saying, like it or not, you are closing yourself off to a huge amount of RP by going corporate."
I said, "At the risk of continuing to derail this thread, I'm curious why you consider that brand of social RP to be "safe." From your perspective, is there social RP that isn't safe? What kinds of RP are there aside from social RP?"
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I'd rather this not turn into another "how to corpie" thread. There's at least one guide on the Grid IC for that. I'm more interested in Sly's perspective on the "day and night" comparison and what kinds of RP there is to be had in the corporate world. I could list a few, from my perspective:
- Social event RP. The kind where characters get the flaunt their wealth, or show off new products, have a good time, and be all smiles, even to their enemies. Political intrigue in the corner booth, garnering of support and attention, and all other manners of subtle, unsaid things. Or just the occasional excuse to get drunk and high and do karaoke.
- Plotting RP. The kind where you have discussions behind closed doors, over the phone, or over SIC. Buying and selling of data. Surveillance. Grid surfing. Plans, payments, and pushing ideas that may or may not be technically illegal. Direct interaction with Mixers.
- Preparation RP. Where you gather to write things ahead of time, review pre-written emotes, and so on. This is less RP and more looking over someone else's work, though it's done IC.
- Action RP. Where you execute your plans, either at the forefront or by the wayside. Like social event RP, except it's all about ensuring the dominoes fall into place.
- Leverage RP When the action RP goes wrong. Either someone knows or suspects what you did, or vice versa. In the Mix, this is where one would typically "break their face in." In the corporate world, though, this leads to interrogations, blackmail, lies, alibis, reports, forgeries, manipulation of evidence and so on.
- Expository RP. When the highlight of the scene is dropping facts. Catching someone up on events they missed, info-dumping, new hire orientation, training, interacting with coded systems.
There's plenty more, and much of this happens in the Mix, too, except with a greater likelihood of derailment or violence. I would say that corporate RP is a lot more meticulous than Mix RP. Plots can't as easily be wrapped up by smashing a rival or enemy's face in.
Anyway, I'm mostly interested in hearing what Sly has to say, but I guess other people can chime in too.
