Real People You Can't Play
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He's spammy, and you use fancy words. YOU DON'T HAVE ROOM TO THROW STONES, LAMP!
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I find @HelloRaptor tends to hyperbolize, then step his statements backwards into something better for even-keeled discussion, if pressed.
Then again, I find Ganymede as someone you have to make defend her thesis before she will find the words to compromise.
And me? Both of them have criticized (in a constructive manner) my conversational style, so I don't mind saying so.
I mean, seriously HR, "it's happened" is not the sole reason to accept anyone doing it, just as "it's a fantasy world" is not the reason to deviate from that world's internal consistency.
I don't personally care as long as the person playing the character is engaging. I'll bend all sorts of rules on theme if they know what that rule is to begin with.
To get away with breaking any rule, you first have to understand it.
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Is this a case where 'fantasy escapist' is used to mean 'Mary Sue'?
"... you'll find the story doesn’t end how you think, and the most important characters aren’t who you expect.” - Penny 40 to Derek, The Magicians S04E07 ‘The Side Effect’
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@Ganymede Yeah, yeah, I noticed the ribbing before. I'd say more of his message gets buried under his, uh, cockfight-ready attitude. With a bit of acid spit. More like a zergling than a cock, then. But it's often very spot on because he probably has no life and has spent most of it on MUshes unlike such plebes as myself.
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@il-volpe I imagine so. Yeah, this stuff happens RL, and that's cool. I'm not gonna shun someone for playing a supar special 19 year old Dougie or whatever, but it gets kind of old kinda fast.
Wish fulfillment in RP happens, and hey, I would totally dig being young looking and having magic powers. I think a lot of the annoyance comes from attitude, execution and the inevitable must be the -est arms races.
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Yep. The thing that gets old with these super talented sorts is that they tend to lack flaws, or they have flaws like "does not suffer fools gladly." Coooool flaws. That's just Mary Sueism, really. Characters don't have to be 19 year olds with PhDs to be annoying in just this way, and often are not.
The tendency to ring the twink alarm whenever somebody with a certain (rather corny, sure) type of special shows up doesn't prevent the problem that we're associating with said critters, and limits the possibilities for good players to get into RP with PCs that have snowflakish aspects. Which can be done very well, really, and have been.
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Also that bit where they do have flaws, but the flaws are the player's, and the player gets totally pissed when other characters respond as if these flaws are, in fact, flaws.
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@Ganymede I think what you meant was the wish fulfillment crowd. Who rather than making a character or build a story, just want to be the best. With the most stuff. And the best. And with the hot sex. And the best. Did I mention the best? At all things? While looking super sexy while I do all the things?
Sure, Fantasy Escapist.. but y'know, it's a term that on some level pretty much fits us all. Which HR's point, I guess. We're running into fantasy, whether it's because it makes us feel better because shit is aweful, or just because we're bored. Just watching a movie, or a tv-show, or reading a book can be equally escaping into fantasy. And I don't think it's even a bad thing, as long as you don't vanish so completely you have nothing outside.
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@lordbelh There are a few things to consider here, I think.
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As long as there's no clear separation between "I lose" and "my character loses" it's impossible for someone to even understand their behavior is an issue. It doesn't help some people are just hypocrites. I've literally seen someone complain that people are afraid of losing on WORA while on Skype they were trying to rally OOC support to help their PC avoid losing.
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Having said that I can still understand being attached to a character. You invest time in them, you have developed IC friends, in some cases regaining XP is hard... it's natural losing them would suck. "My character got his ass kicked/humiliated/disgraced" is a whole lot different from "my character is dead". Especially if it just happens for no semi-meaningful reason.
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Other than multiplayer gaming specifically, nothing prepares players for the idea they're not the center of the universe. In books or movies the protagonist doesn't die (or not often), in table-top PCs tend to benefit from plot armor, etc. Then you play a MU* and that nasty homicidal Gangrel just took your head off, wtf!
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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I'm with @lordbelh on this one.
It isn't the fantasy factor that gets irksome with this one, but it's more the 'must be the -est' issue mentioned upthread, or what @il-volpe mentioned regarding flaws.
Be an -est if you must, just pick a specific thing, not all the things ever, and generally you're fine.
It's generally only irksome when someone can't be all the -ests and throws a tantrum on what is ultimate a very basic, fundamental playground level truth: the -est pile of toys is for everybody to share across the whole playground, you can't have them all, little Mary-Sue-GreedyBritches.
On a reasonably sized game, well-shared -ests can be a kickass RP asset, because they're simply niches; you know who to go to when you need that thing, and everybody gets RP out of the deal. It can also foster community amazingly well when a group recognizes each other for their hand-selected snowflake factor and gives everybody a chance to shine in their chosen way.
None of that is a bad thing, and it's pretty basic to the way most groups are built going back to the old D&D days of 'everybody pick a different character class so we have a well-rounded party, guys!'
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I think one of the limitations of Mage in the MU world is that aside from Arcana which you might not possess, a few dots in Mind and Life can literally make mortals and others who have niche expertise in Skills that you might not have obsolete, thereby making the IC reasons to interact with them smaller.
If my mage has Mind 3, he can get up to his Gnosis in any Skill and/or Mental/Social Attribute. So he buffs his Intelligence and his Computers, and suddenly, depending on his Gnosis and original scores, could potentially have Int 5, Computers 5. A little Fate to give it some dice permutations, and you're well on your way to making any mortal whose RP is heavily supplemented by being able to supply for a demand obsolete.
Granted, Demon does this to almost a ridiculous extent with social stuff, too. Christ.
But yeah, Mind is a breaker, all right.
@surreality, I like to call that "superlativitis".
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@Arkandel said:
- As long as there's no clear separation between "I lose" and "my character loses" it's impossible for someone to even understand their behavior is an issue. It doesn't help some people are just hypocrites. I've literally seen someone complain that people are afraid of losing on WORA while on Skype they were trying to rally OOC support to help their PC avoid losing.
Hahahha, joke's on them. The consensus in my circle is, if you post on WORA, you've already lost!
Edit: WAIT. I just woke up and apparently can't read. facepalm
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@Misadventure said:
Fuck, make a WORLD setting where 19 year old genius CEO surgeons are the norm. Then everyone can be special, and any concept that rules or setting are linked to our reality will be blissfully euthanized.
Have you ever been to one of these royalty MU*s where everyone is a nobleman/noblewoman at the sweet age range of 16-24, have won the world with achievements, are the darling of the Court, are absolute darlings to each other and are Beautiful People to boot?
Yeah, it's been done.
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@lordbelh said:
@Ganymede I think what you meant was the wish fulfillment crowd.
That's probably a better way to describe them, yes.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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It's worth noting that most of these concepts can't be built with standard starting points, anyway.
The bigger 'reality break' tends to be due to rapid advancement, I'd think, as a result, barring the 'I have a mountain of points to transfer so the new alt will be epic from the jump' scenario. Transfers are a different thing.
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