@deadculture said in The limits of IC/OOC responsibility:
@darinelle To what extent do you consider character vs character interactions to be that? As in -- is actively subverting someone but never actually attacking them physically or socially to be considered CvC? And CvE - where do you draw the line, there? Say, someone wants to declare war on NPC enemy faction Z; this can be a lot of fun, OOCly, and ICly it might be catastrophic for the Allied Forces of Whateveria.
But your character, who is currently invested in rebuilding after a very recent (internecine or not) war, decides to speak out against it and pulls out their troops from the alliance. Is this CvC? Is it CvE? Does this action of your character merit going through due to IC considerations or should it be discarded in favor of the more OOCly fun pursuit?
Also, yes, players are generally blamed for the failings of their characters, it's something we've all experienced to some extent, I think.
Goodness. So any of that can be fine. IC subverting is fine. We'll use Dawn as an example because she was in a leadership position and took a lot of shit but it's also stone age Arx so hopefully no one's still frothing at the mouth over it.
"The Leadership" make the decision to pay the Tiend (which involves human sacrifice, which also was voluntary, which also saved the world ). Dawn decides to go pay the Tiend with a bunch of NPCs. She intended to die herself there, but wasn't allowed to for IC reasons. Someone else went in her stead. So - the Tiend is paid, she comes back to Arx, and EVERYONE IS MAD.
Okay so here's where it gets iffy and where I think consideration for the other player comes into play:
How long should EVERYONE BE MAD AT DAWN?
How long is she going to have to join every single scene in public and get absolutely shit on because EVERYONE IS MAD AT DAWN?
How long is it going to be fun when it's literally one (or two) people against EVERYONE IN THE WORLD before they're going to quit the character?
How much fun is it if literally every scene you are in, someone wants to personally extract their pound of flesh?
That's more what @Kanye-Qwest and I are talking about here. Not that IC is free from repercussions. But that at a certain point as players it's important to step back and say "wow, giving this person shit is hella fun for me ICly, but what fun am I creating for them?" Like - if there's no way past it, and your relationship is never going to get better no matter what they do, maybe just handwave the scene and say "welp, I'm going to hate them forever and there's nothing they'll ever be able to do to make things better." It can still happen IC. You can still work against them. But maybe don't make them sit there and take your character yelling at them for an hour with no recourse or any way to make things better.
If you want a scene with someone, it doesn't have to be positive. It can be negative - but both players need to have some kind of agency and ability to make story, or you might as well agree oocly "hey, our characters now hate each other for these reasons that won't change." Then you can get your hate on in public group scenes (which is fun and hilarious for everyone) while both having some kind of character development and growth.
That's what I mean when I say "consider the player." Dawn went off grid not because she made some poor decisions (which also saved the world so good job dogpiling on the person who did the needful there guys. Hella standup) but because every time someone asked her for a scene it was to shit on her and call her a traitor and be hateful to her, and there's no actual fun that comes from constantly being berated IC with no development, shift, change, reason, or character growth.