with a little help from the Argo Screenshot Thread
"Lurking" is a term used to refer to the act of watching an RP scene without participating. I've found over time, that occasionally, people from certain RP backgrounds will find this concept to be foreign, or even worrying. If you're one of those people, that's okay. Hopefully this will help you understand and ease your fears.
Now, why would people want to just watch and not play?, you might ask. Because when we're RPing, we're collectively telling a story. Just because the characters we're writing don't happen to be in this chapter, doesn't mean that we aren't interested in what's going on; doesn't mean we don't want to read the story. But Kermit, you might say, I thought our characters weren't supposed to be able to know things that they weren't present for? Isn't lurking sort of like god-moding? And I'd say, no! Because...
First and foremost, lurking is firmly rooted in the concept of the separation of IC and OOC knowledge. Lurkers have to be extra careful not to become victims of information seep: We all have a responsibility to remember that what YOU read OOCly is not what your character knows ICly. This is based on trust, and I'm extremely thankful to be part of a community where we can all trust each other to do the right thing. Because of this, when people are lurking on your RP, you can rest assured that those players are not going to misuse anything they see or hear.
But wait! That must be confusing! There's no way to tell who's lurking and who's participating, right? Wrong! The key is suspension of disbelief.
Things happen all the time that roleplayers need to ignore or retcon or consider to have not happened. OOC occurrences, or player-mistakes, or failures of game mechanics, or any number of other things can lead to unintended visual cues that we, as players, understand aren't what our characters are seeing. And this is how we handle lurkers.
In Argo, when we need to designate ourselves as OOC (lurking, going afk, using a starbase bank console for OOC reasons while there is RP nearby, etc, etc, etc.), we do so by placing our character in an EV Suit or other full-body armor. This lets the other players know that the OOC character can be safely ignored for the purposes of the RP.
Lurkers are a very common sight around the fleet holdings. As you spend more time in the fleet, you'll start to notice locations where lurkers tend to hang out, such as the bottom of the ramp leading to the bar or the corners formed by the embassy doorframe.
Most of the time, it's fairly obvious which characters aren't part of the RP. However, in cases where a character might actually have some IC reason to be wearing a full suit of armor or an EV suit, some common sense is required. OOC players will generally be tucked into a corner or standing somewhere away from the RP. If there's any doubt, just ask! If we're IC, we'll tell you, we promise!
Even when the RP moves to a ship or other non-fleet maps, you may find that other interested players want to come lurk and see what's going on. Most of the time there's no issue with this, though it's understood that some RP may be more private for whatever reason. In short, nobody should be afraid to ask for an invite to lurk, and likewise, nobody ever needs to be afraid to say 'no' if the RP is private.
The idea is to be inconspicuous, unobtrusive, out of the way, and non-disruptive...
..it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes people get silly, mess around, turn on the giant promenade breen hologram, troll each other with cover shields and Iconian Portals, etc. And that's okay! During quiet times or when there's no RP going on nearby, nobody's going to fault you for having fun. I'd only ask that everyone be considerate when people want to go IC, or when the RP shifts to the area you're fooling around in. And conversely, if you're RPing and people are being disruptive in any way, remember, we're all Human, and we all slip up from time to time. Don't ever be afraid to ask someone to stop messing around OOCly.
If you take nothing else from this post, remember this: all of this works because we have a community here where we can do things based on trust. We all contribute to that, and we are all responsible for maintaining it.
Thanks for reading