This is not to say that Steven Wright has Antisocial Personality Disorder. All Steven is demonstrating is a flat affect. He speaks in a monotone. When talking about his “fear of widths” he maintains proper eye contact–which is not appropriate considering that he is talking about fear. This, in short, is a flat affect.

Rping this affect takes a bit of effort. A FlagRSP or MyRP entry should refer to the character, “normally speaking in a monotone.” Stick to using “.” over “?” and “!” as the latter will make the avatar express additional emotions. On occasion, throw in a dialog tag like “says flatly” to emphasis the flat-affect.

Talking in this manner does not really charm other people. Steven is funny because he is awkward, he is not particularly charming. Astute readers may remember one of the other APD traits we discussed a few days ago: Charming/Manipulative. Displaying a flat (or blunted) affect is not at all appealing to other people. Many people with APD traits–at least, from my experiences–are able to mimic the appropriate emotional responses even if they do not actually feel them. They “turn on the charm” in order to reach their goals.

RPing the proper Affect is the key to RPing certain character traits: From people with APD to people who are depressed or mind controlled. The affect comes across not just in how your character acts and speaks in game, but in the RP tools we use to demonstrate aspects that the WoW client does not allow us to do.

Please, hit us up with questions and comments. I promise we’ll get around to them as soon as we can…