What's That Game's About?

[Coin]

@Arkandel

In order:

Yeah, sure, that's fair. People need to be able to compromise. If Sniper Plot is important to me and you want to avoid it, I might do my best not to bring it up, but if it's at the climax and my character knows he's the next target, you're shit out of luck.

I think everyone who's running non-personal, game-wide plots should communicate. For Eldritch, I want to have a person on staff whose main job is to make sure people are aware of things that might affect each other's plots. It's gonna be difficult, but I think it would work great. It is, I think, essentially what @EmmahSue was hired on The Reach for, initially. In my example above, it's just as easy to have the runner of the Sniper plot page the runner of the Festival plot with: "Hey, would it be awesome if our plots intersected and the Sniper shot someone at yuour festival at a moment that affects your plot the least?" Communication is a two way street.

I think if one of the plots is being run by a staffer and the other isn't, it's still important for the communication to happen. The onus is only slightly more on the staffer, but only by a negligible degree. People shouldn't be afraid of paging staffers with stuff like this. A staffer running metaplot (as opposed to "regular" plot) should, IMO, always be on the look-out for how other plots happening can feed and be fed by the metaplot they're running. Lastly, if the plots are both being run by staffers, there's absolutely no reason there shouldn't be communication.

I don't really know what you mean with "precedence". If a plot is affecting things to that degree, it was probably either approved by staff or staff has looked at it and gone "we have no objections, carry on", which means there's no precedence-taking. It's all plot. At least, in sane games. There are always games in which plots are always crazy and contradictory, but if you have that as the default you have bigger problems in the "coherent narrative" department, anyway.

[Pyrephox]

@Arkandel said:

@Pyrephox Do you think though that the "I" in this case would be justified in claiming the first player crossed a line first when he attempted to change theme through their plot?

Also does it matter (or how much does it matter) if that player is staff or a player with a staff-approved plot? I'm excluding the possibility it's just a ST who decided to run major things without asking first, since that's generally frowned upon.

Depends on the policies of the game, really. On a personal level, I'd say no: even if you believe the first player crossed a line, that doesn't make crossing that line in a bigger way somehow more acceptable. It MIGHT mean having justification to go to staff and say, "Hey, I know there's this sniper plot, but a I've had the Frankfort Frank Festival scheduled for two goddamned months. I don't really want to turn it into a head-popping extravaganza - can we work out something where I can run it without having to constantly pose terrified people in kevlar helmets?"

As to the other, I don't think it SHOULD matter, but in most games it probably does. I don't really agree with the idea that PrPs shouldn't affect the wider game or are "lesser" plots than Staff-run plots. My feeling is that if it's IC, then it's part of the game's continuity, whether it's staff-run or not.

[Coin]

@Pyrephox said:

"Hey, I know there's this sniper plot, but a I've had the Frankfort Frank Festival scheduled for two goddamned months. I don't really want to turn it into a head-popping extravaganza - can we work out something where I can run it without having to constantly pose terrified people in kevlar helmets?"

Yeah, this is essentially what I was saying above, except I looked at it from two players/storytellers coming to an agreement, while Pyrephox is looking at it from a point past the possibility of that agreement and at which staff has had to become involved in a mediatory capacity. But it's essentially the same solution. In this scenario, staff's reaction could reasonably be: "It won't be a head-popping extravaganza, but maybe pose a little tension because no one knows if someone might get shot, and we can add an incident towards the end after your scene is mostly over."

[Pyrephox]

@Coin Mostly I was being snarky about my phrasing. Ideally, yeah, the players or players and staff would work it out so that an event would be fun for everyone - personally, I suspect the average festival or social gathering scene could only be improved by adding gunfire and violence. Or at least some intrigue. (Seriously, every large social scene should have sub-goals for people attending - exchange packages or information, cause social strife between specific people, repair relationships, lure someone to an isolated corner and shiv them, SOMETHING.)

[Coin]

@Pyrephox said:

(Seriously, every large social scene should have sub-goals for people attending - exchange packages or information, cause social strife between specific people, repair relationships, lure someone to an isolated corner and shiv them, SOMETHING.)

This forever.

[Arkandel]

@Coin said:

@Pyrephox said:

(Seriously, every large social scene should have sub-goals for people attending - exchange packages or information, cause social strife between specific people, repair relationships, lure someone to an isolated corner and shiv them, SOMETHING.)

This forever.

I don't want to derail this with my thoughts about large social scenes in PrPs (I think once some things I'm currently running are done I'll make a thread about just that) but I'd expand that to say that if every such scene should include more internal structure than its name.

In other words if I plan to run the Frankfort Frank Festival and the only parts of my involvement as a ST is to pose the setting while people just play without any external stimuli from that environment, it's not a PrP. It's a glorified bar scene.

[HelloRaptor]

@Pyrephox said:

@Coin Mostly I was being snarky about my phrasing. Ideally, yeah, the players or players and staff would work it out so that an event would be fun for everyone - personally, I suspect the average festival or social gathering scene could only be improved by adding gunfire and violence. Or at least some intrigue. (Seriously, every large social scene should have sub-goals for people attending - exchange packages or information, cause social strife between specific people, repair relationships, lure someone to an isolated corner and shiv them, SOMETHING.)

While I would agree, I also generally feel almost anything can be improved by adding X THING THAT I LIKE. For instance I long considered Dances with Wolves to be one of the most boring wastes of time I ever spent money on, and told my friend that I'd only ever watch it again if they added aliens or something. Years later Avatar came out, and I loved it.

Some people just like more or less pointless social gatherings that are just an excuse to get a bunch of people in a room together, explicitly without any larger goal or inclusion of sub-plots. This doesn't really address @Arkandel's sniper scenario, I'm just commented on the bit I quoted. Different strokes and all that.

@Bennie

And yet they gave them a book with stats.

@Miss-Demeanor
I know, and its sad. So sad.

@The-Tree-of-Woe
I found them overly simplistic for beings that are supposed to be alien and unknowable. Then again, I was running smack into inflexible players at the same time.

Is that for use anywhere? I was under the impression that Keepers didn't have normal stats when in their Arcadian realms, but only when they left them for the Hedge (constrained but still vastly powerful) and in the 'real' world where they were bound to more concrete rules and diminished heavily. It always seemed like that was why they were loathe to leave their realms, because while there they have Contracts and control over everything around them, in the real world they were limited in a manner that might actually make them killable.

Is this not the case?

[Arkandel]

@HelloRaptor said:

Some people just like more or less pointless social gatherings that are just an excuse to get a bunch of people in a room together, explicitly without any larger goal or inclusion of sub-plots. This doesn't really address @Arkandel's sniper scenario, I'm just commented on the bit I quoted. Different strokes and all that.

The reason I mentioned it - other than my peeve on the matter - is that I literally don't consider that a PrP. It's a bar scene where the setting just happens to not be a bar but a festival, wedding, birthday party, whatever. I wouldn't bring a Sniper to one of those even if my own plot was all bullet-y precisely for the reason you brought up, namely that I'd figure the reason people go to these things is to roleplay having fun and not scrapping chunks of NPCs' brains off their clothes.

As for PrP crossovers, those are very tricky. Very, very tricky. It takes a great amount of communication between two STs before they can play with each others' toys in anything but the most simple of ways. For instance before I can let others play with Darwin's Creek - which is one of my goals - I'd need to sit them down and explain a whole lot of things. Even then, the storytelling process involves spur of the moment decisions, making shit up on the spot, responding to an unexpected question or action by PCs, adjusting to things the party decided to do... so then they have to sit me down to maintain internal consistency.

If it's kept really simple it can work without a lot of extra baggage and even then that's conditional. "So can you kill the bride's mother right when they are exchanging oaths?" is doable since relatively little information has to exchange hands, right? Yes, as long as the sniping is actually random and there's no connection between the people he's been killing.

There's a reason most PrPs are linear and combat based. "Help! I'm being attacked by monsters!" is hard to screw up; the PCs kill the monsters, the end.

[HelloRaptor]

@Arkandel

I literally don't consider that a PrP.

Yeah, sorry, I got a little off point there. The sentiments being expressed are ones that get expressed any time someone organizes a large social event, whether or not they tag it as a PRP or get any sort of PRP credit for it. I'm not really a fan of them myself, either way.

[3543thrh67]

@ThatOneDude Pull me into what? I've not been watching this topic but I'm game for whatever, generally! Feel free to PM or Skype or whatever me so this isn't spammed with repeats!

[Quibbler]

@Pyrephox said:

@Coin Mostly I was being snarky about my phrasing. Ideally, yeah, the players or players and staff would work it out so that an event would be fun for everyone - personally, I suspect the average festival or social gathering scene could only be improved by adding gunfire and violence. Or at least some intrigue. (Seriously, every large social scene should have sub-goals for people attending - exchange packages or information, cause social strife between specific people, repair relationships, lure someone to an isolated corner and shiv them, SOMETHING.)

Agreed. Usually my goal for large social scenes was 'find new characters/characters you don't know/characters that aren't posing doing much and seem to need an in, talk to them and make sure they get some interaction in this swamp of posing, and point them toward other things they might want to look into IC' - who to talk to to find a place to live, or where there are good noodles, or whatever. Beneficial for me (something to do/focus on), beneficial for them.

[Arkandel]

I don't know if large plotless social scenes are the place to meet new people (but I'm biased because I'm not sure what they are the place for). It's just too spammy, unless places are being used deligently and even then it can get to be too much; for some reason rooms with 9 people in them seem to be precisely where some folks decide to post their novels - I mean I'm as guilty as anyone of posing proliferation but come on, that 12-liner describing your PC's delighted laughter at the sheer pleasure of being with their spouse was probably unwarranted.

That's just not the best place to meet a new person who's probably miserable and will likely miss your pose (if not this one then the next one where you're directing them to the noodles table) in the madness. I guess at least it gives you both something to do though.

[Coin]

@Arkandel, I like to use places and then high-light the "At your table," portion so I don't miss people doing that. Also, my client high-lights my character's name, too. But yeah, long poses in huge scenes are nngh.

[Arkandel]

I don't know if this topic warrants its own thread, so I'll park it here.

So I was wondering, how important is IC realism when it comes to mundane skills and professions to you? Does it break immersion or affect your suspension of disbelief when things are done differently or wrong? On the other hand can it go too far, where gameplay is affected by not knowing a lot about a subject?

Two extremes:

• At TR playing a police officer at some point required knowing a lot about cop protocol. How to talk on the radio, how badge numbers worked, even how to call out incidents. It was mandatory for characters to have very specific dots in a number of skills, and ranks were handled exclusively in-game. If you were to play an officer you had to learn the lingo and protocols.

• On the other hand I've seen many people do impossible technical things: Hack into systems which aren't on open networks (or even networked), people who never went to medical school advance to Medicine 4 (or are doctors and state things which are medically simply untrue), IC lawyers whose players very clearly know nothing about law refer to absurd facts they believe to be true, etc.

Does that matter to you either way?

[Coin]

For the most part: no. Because we play in a world of fiction and if you watch television, which is our basis for what constitutes "acceptable fiction" currently (as a whole, some shows are obviously better than others) even the best shows get tons of shit just plain wrong.

For the most part.

I don't mind someone with Medicine 4 who isn't a medical doctor. Maybe they're just incredibly talented and self-taught. It helps if their Intelligence is high, or have the Eidetic Memory Merit, etc. These things work in concert.

People are going to make mistakes and that's just how the gaming world works. If, to run a scene wherein a lawyer is present, I have to know real law and court procedures, I'm never gonna run that shit. But we clearly don't put that sort of pressure on the writers of fiction out in TVland or Hollywood, so I'm okay with lee-way.

Just don't be ridiculous. Don't be a biologist and say "insects aren't animals, they're insects". Don't be a hacker and try to hack an isolated network (without some power that explicitly allows it). Don't get caught fucking a judge on camera and then pretend to actually have that judge preside over any case you're trying.

Just, you know, be reasonable.

[Arkandel]

@Coin What about the flipside though? For example although I liked the staff in charge of police-things@TR at the time, I really didn't want to bother with the extra realism. Knowing how to parse a badge number to tell someone's rank or position within the department wasn't improving my fun any.

To me that was unreasonable. But others might feel differently (and that community seemed pretty into this stuff, although that might have been a matter of alienating others who didn't so only the yay-sayers remained), so I figured to ask around.

[Coin]

It's up to staff to draw the line regarding what's absolutely necessay to play in a sphere (and indeed, a game) and what's just bonus. I would consider those things you mentioned the latter. If someone within the sphere tries to apply those things as a necessary quality to have fun, it's up to staff to say "wow, stop, no." If staff is the one applying those overqualifying limits, then that sphere might not be for you.

[Pyrephox]

Cinematic reality matters to me - I neither want nor expect players to have a working knowledge of how a profession works in the real world, or (for that matter) know things like how computer security actually works to be a hacker. But my smell test is usually "could I see this happening in a good, fun movie or other media product in the genre of this game without breaking my sense of disbelief". Which is, obviously, horribly vague. But I've learned that "realism" can be absolute murder on fun (could you imagine having to roll for infection after every point of lethal that broke skin, or having to roll for concussion for knocks on the head and then having to keep rolling for concussion effects for six months to a year after the fact? - I've recently worked with someone who had a Real Concussion from a relatively minor bonk on the head, and it's no joke.), and it's better to just roll with what's going to be fun. Sure, sometime you end up with Die Hard With a Vengeance, but I would much rather that than Cop: The Traffic Management.

[HelloRaptor]

As long as I don't have to write reports, I'm usually pretty relaxed on roleplay requirements for the rest. I'm willing to assume that the majority of folks who want to play as part of a regimented force are going to be okay with or actively want to play into some of the details that are part and parcel of that. If you're in the military, as in actively in service and routinely dealing with other members of the same service, you're probably going to be expected to learn what the various ranks are relative to one another. So things like learning how badge numbers work, enh, I'd be fine with it.

That said, it absolutely goes too far, and people who play characters (or worse are staff for spheres that involve shit they do RL) tend to get way too fucking detail oriented about that shit and getting on peoples cases when they Aren't Doing Things Right.

I work with computers, I'm pretty intimately familiar with how they and their associated hardware, networking, etc functions. I give exactly no fucks if people playing 'hackers' do not. As @Pyrephox said, if I could see it happening in a movie I'm having fun watching, I don't care. If someone is allowed to break into an air gapped network, that's on the staffer running the scene for letting it happen, and I just assume that offscreen actions were taken to facilitate the remote entry.

But on the subject of having to learn some shit to facilitate playing what you're playing (badge numbers, ranks, etc as a cop), to a point I don't see it as much different than how you'd better have learned the various details of rank, auspice, tribe, forms, etc when you decided to play a Werewolf. It can go too far, but some is fine if it'll help.

[Thenomain]

I am not a gunsmith nor a metallurgist, yet I have come to accept that if I want rules on an elephant gun or want to make a sword out of Toledo Steel and the multi folding technique, it is not unreasonable that I be asked to pitch the rules I want with some kind of reference as to why I think this is reasonable.

This allows staff to delegate and not have to do everything for all the things, and it means I am starting with the pitch that I already think is reasonable and staff and I can negotiate from there.

I resisted this at first as so unfair (back in general early days of Paris), but I admit that having me do it is an all around advantage.