What makes a good RP encounter?

This is a fairly simple question, but one that's important for most players: what makes a good RP encounter?

Whether you're a PC or an NPC, I find, it's really easy to tell when you've had a solid RP encounter. It's a feeling. For me, the best RP encounters are understated: a mostly unspoken understanding that occurs between players. Something you can't really describe, because it belongs so wholly to a particular moment. As an NPC, it's rewarding for me when this happens-- it means, in a somewhat limited time frame, I've facilitated a meaningful narrative. As a PC, good RP anchors me to the gameworld. I'm easily distracted, and I need this.

As either an NPC or a PC, how do you know/intuit that you've had a good RP encounter? Of what does a good RP encounter consist? Moreover, how do you work towards positive RP encounters? Or do you try not to think about it?

So many feelings.*

* Yes. I'm aware that I just sabotaged the integrity of my own blog.

Cat in a Shetra Crown

Contributor: Zoe Eddy

Submission: Sharpie, pencil, paper, colored pencil
LARP system: Madrigal / Accelerant
Your Location: Cambridge, MA
Character name: Esme
Years LARPing: 2ish

This is my version of the GM's white cat in a Shetra headdress. The Shetra are an ancient spider race that like to bring people into their world-wide Web. My character, Esme, willingly walked into the Shetra web courtesy the Lord of the Web's majestic sister (you know she hates me); along with two others (both more experienced than I am), I work to rectify the maledicted (tainted and terribly evil) weave of the Web.

You know I do.

The cat. The White Cat is not the GM's pet (I think...). It is the GM, garbed as a white cat, who comes to visit an IG group, the Order of the Star, in order to help them on all sorts of vampire-slaying things. The White Cat, which may or may not be 6'7"+, also helps all sorts of other people IG.

I really have nothing to do with him.