Where's your RP at?

[Miss Demeanor]

@surreality I don't see why we're being held to a higher standard than you're holding yourself, or others, to. The same exact argument, reversed, has been getting thrown up here over and over again as to why games that allow non-consent PC death (whether by pvp or NPC) should be avoided or not allowed. I'm being told that because I like a game that has a risk of character death, that I am obviously advocating for PVP and PKing and that I want everyone's character to die. I never told anyone they had to play on that game. I never suggested that if you don't want your character to die that you should play there anyways. I'm actively saying, if you don't want that to happen, then don't play on a game where that can happen. I'm questioning why people that don't want character death to be a thing will play on a game where character death is a thing.

PK and PVP is a thing. But it happens to a SMALL percentage of characters. Character death at ALL is relatively rare, even on most non-consent games. I'm honestly curious if people are so attached to a single character that they can't bear to see it die? Is it because so many characters and games over the years have petered out, fizzled, or otherwise died before people got to come to any kind of conclusion for the characters that now they insist on their story running its course, for however long that may last? I just can't form that kind of deep attachment to... a fictional character that doesn't exist beyond my own head. So I try to understand why people are clinging so hard to a single character or story.

[Seraphim73]

So, a question for those on both sides of the Death Argument:

At what point does the story of one character trump that of another character?

Example: Sith Lord A is doing their thing, inspecting the troops. Sith Trooper B steps forward and starts mouthing off to Sith Lord A, insulting them and calling them weak. Should Sith Lord A be allowed to strike them down? Throw them in the brig for a week? A month? Or should they have to accept the IC abuse, because to inflict appropriate punishment on Sith Trooper B would be rendering Sith Trooper B unplayable?

So basically, how far do I have to OOCly manipulate the IC actions of my character to keep from making your character unplayable?

I think I know my answer, but I'm curious as to the answers of others.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Gilette said in Where's your RP at?:

@ThatGuyThere said in Where's your RP at?:

Honestly most of the time these days I pick a game because it is a place to play the character I wanted to play, more than for the game itself.

This is kind of the whole problem. "I'm not here for the game, I'm here because it's the only place I can play my particular snowflake."

How is wanting to play a character automatically equal to that character being a snowflake?
Hell the last game I went to Fallcoast, I mixed so I could play Sloan. A character that is a pretty bog standard NWoD troll, Fallcoast was the place chosen because it was the only game at the time with NWoD changeling. What pray tell makes him a snowflake? I am pretty certain every ability he has is held by at least one other PC on the game.
I get inspired to play characters not games, that is just how my mind works. I would love to try out the Fate system Rifts game out there. Sadly I have no ideas for a Rifts character. If I come up with a character that fits elsewhere does that make it a snowflake because I find a game to play it? Or should I not play anything until I think of a character to fit into some other game?

[Ghost]

@Seraphim73 MY answer is that, in theme, the Sith Trooper is not a free-willed smuggler. Troopers have rules to follow, and there are rules about insubordination. Part of playing a soldier in a standing army means having been trained to not mouth off.

I'd have my Sith Lord inform the Trooper of the rules, ICly, as a menacing warning. If he backs off, I'd send a message to his IC superior to deal with it. If the Trooper keeps mouthing off, it'd result in some touching.

[mietze]

Except for no one has said those games shouldn't be allowed--but there has been lots of ZOMG IF U DON'T LIKE DEATH AT ANY MOMENT THEN U HATE RISK!

I don't really care about PC death being a probability, even. I don't like full consent games and avoid them; I have none of the hang ups many other players have (I'd be fine with a PC raping/seducing mine via dice effects, though if they were boring or a dick I might choose to FTB).

But when a game or player makes a big deal of how they're Edgelords 'N' Ladies or Edgy by Night because PKilling and PC death...just in my experience it's like truck balls. Usually there's a little overcompensation for something kind of lackluster going on.

Most of the excellent non-consent games I've been on didn't have to sell themselves as PK/PC death havens.

[Roz]

I feel really sorry for the OP of this thread.

[mietze]

Deal with it, @Ghost like a real person who can handle real stress!

[mietze]

I'm going to PK @Roz now for getting between my double posts.

[Roz]

@mietze omg i didn't consent to this

[Gilette]

@ThatGuyThere

Man, you said it yourself: you go to games because you can play a certain character you want to play there, not because the game itself - the setting, the rules, the atmosphere - attracts you.

It's like when I went to HeroMUX and made this character to fit into the world because I really wanted to play in that world, and then I looked over and there was this typical anime sparkle princess.

You're either not very good at explaining yourself, or not being accurate about what you're saying.

Players should fit to the games they join, not try to hammer out a niche for their character in a game that they may not be suited for.

@Seraphim73

Option C. The game probably should consider whether it really wants to allow player character to run the gamut from front-line soldier to Actual Sith Lord.

Otherwise, the Sith Trooper - by being a member of the Sith group - should be willing to accept and play within the confines of the pecking order, particularly if he is going to be inflammatory. Likewise, the Sith Lord should not UNLIIIIMITED POWWWEERRRR the people below him for no reason.

If the Sith trooper is not willing to play by the rules of the group he app'd his own character into, then staff would need to intervene.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Gilette said in Where's your RP at?:

@ThatGuyThere

Man, you said it yourself: you go to games because you can play a certain character you want to play there, not because the game itself - the setting, the rules, the atmosphere - attracts you.

Then we have a much different definition of snowflake. To me a snow flake is someone who decides that the rules don't apply to them or that they should be the only one allowed to have certain things.
In my case my char was built fulling within the c-gen rules and I fully acknowledge the right of every player to make the same choices I did in c-gen.
I am a firm believer in no one being a special case.
As to someone's motivation to play a game I fail to see how that is important in the slightest as long as they obey the rules of the game.

[Thenomain]

@Sparks

I cannot tell you how many people have asked me to do this, mostly by stealing ideas from RfK which did something much like this, but with far too much staff interaction required.

Could you send me a copy of this system for me to pick apart? Thanks.

[Nein]

Trying superhero games and after 2 months I'm ready to abandon them as a lost cause. Between try-hard poses crammed with more NPCs than Skyrim and 90's Matrix Bullet Time 'Look at how badass I am' along with a 30-45 minute wait time between poses, not being able to do more than four 'turns' in an entire session, people who don't read what you wrote, horny lesbian superheroines slug-trailing up my leg, ridiculous TPS Report applications/corrections, the "I Have A Main Character And Will Not Touch The Peasants Beneath Me" friend circles, and now random rule 63 genderswaps of major characters (not canon) for no discernible reason, I'm ready to either retire or look at some other genre/theme.

But not WoD. I've heard too much.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Roz said in Where's your RP at?:

I feel really sorry for the OP of this thread.

RIGHT?

[Gilette]

@Nein Which games, out of curiosity?

[surreality]

@Miss-Demeanor said in Where's your RP at?:

@surreality I don't see why we're being held to a higher standard than you're holding yourself, or others, to.

Let's see... because the dozen times I said 'maybe looking at the extreme cases is a useless prospect because neither one addresses the real issues that crop up 95% of the time' half a dozen times and y'all kept banging on screaming hyperbolic bullshit like this is a black and white issue? Because that's totally fucking reasonable behavior, right? That isn't even an accurate assessment of the fucking problem here.

Because respecting anybody else's play style as 'live and let live' is simply not something either you or @Ghost was bothering for a hot second earlier on•, we have @Gilette chiming in with the consent-twinking shade, and then we have the very notion of a character being removed from play by the actions of someone else as an issue brushed aside with reference to people playing selfish bullshit head games thrown into the mix that is a readily solved non-problem of its own, and watching a pile of people resorting to crazy-ass tangents and side smear-issues in ways I have not seen people not into this do has officially expended my patience with this narrow-minded only-my-view-is-valid behavior. For instance, nobody here who isn't keen on 'any death is cool for any reason at any time' has made the claim that you, personally, because you're ok with this, are the kind of player who would have a shitty day RL and decide to go after the proverbial schoolbus full of PC nuns to make everyone else as miserable as you are RL. Yet, for some reason, y'all have zero fucking qualms insisting that anyone not keen on the same thing you are 'just doesn't want anything bad ever happening to their character', that they aren't interested in playing a game, and a whole shedload of other shit that isn't even suitable to fertilize a mushroom field.

The same exact argument, reversed, has been getting thrown up here over and over again as to why games that allow non-consent PC death (whether by pvp or NPC) should be avoided or not allowed.

Please cite who said the bolded bit and where. I'll be waiting, because I haven't seen a single person say these games should not be allowed to exist, or that people should avoid them. Individual people have said they would personally avoid such games, but if there is so much as a single instance of someone saying what you're claiming here, I sure as fuck missed it.

I'm being told that because I like a game that has a risk of character death, that I am obviously advocating for PVP and PKing and that I want everyone's character to die.

Except you're not. You are explicitly not having that said about you -- at least not by me. In fact, let's go back a few pages... <time machine noises>

@surreality said in Where's your RP at?:

I think this is a mindset thing. For instance -- think about the backgrounds thing. You prefer to go in light and evolve things. It's not so much of an up front investment -- and I think that should be supported as a play style.

By the same token, others do things with a lot of work going in, which is also an approach that deserves respect -- or at least enough respect to not dismiss it was 'being so attached to one character they can't stand to see them go', which is rarely the case.

Essentially, it's just a different approach to the game, and probably a little bit of 'wanting something different from the play experience'. Dismissing the folks who do a lot of prep and get disappointed if their work is ended in a footnote as being overly attached and unable to let go is, to me, as inappropriate as it would be to suggest that you 'just don't feel like doing the work and writing an elaborate multi-step background thing'. That isn't the case at all -- in both of these instances -- and unless the game in question is designed to support one of these general approaches exclusively, it's a space that people of both mindsets are going to have to share. The first step to doing that effectively is by listening to what someone is saying and not instantly diminishing/dismissing it as being indicative of one of the red flags in the hobby like 'overly attached' and 'doesn't feel like putting in the effort' both are, and both are not often accurately attributed at all.

Oh shit, ain't that inconvenient as hell to your current narrative?

I never told anyone they had to play on that game. I never suggested that if you don't want your character to die that you should play there anyways. I'm actively saying, if you don't want that to happen, then don't play on a game where that can happen. I'm questioning why people that don't want character death to be a thing will play on a game where character death is a thing.

Most games include death as a possibility, including full consent games. Every game will have pros and cons to any given player. There aren't endless games around any more. In each case, you have to weigh the pros and cons.

Look, maybe you weren't around in the days of Darkmetal's roving PK mobs or headshots for stealing a bar stool. Maybe you didn't see a group of people throwing pages around about how they were having a shitty day and decided to off a bunch of PCs to make themselves feel better for the flimsiest of reasons -- behavior these days we'd call complete bullshit, but was ardently supported up until the earliest days of MSB post-WORA by some very vocal folk. Maybe you missed all the conversations about how if somebody wanted to get their rocks off OOC by fucking up somebody else's day OOC by screwing with their character and making them upset or being a vengeful ass after getting shot down for TS meant it was time to start threatening PK as completely and totally valid ways of enjoying a game, but I didn't, and I've seen all of the above first hand, seen it championed as super cool gamer behavior, and that's just fucking crazytown bunk. It is behavior as horrible and immature as all of the pretty snowflake princesses who can't bear to break a nail and will flail and pout and scream OOC the moment they don't get their way in the exact way they want to get it.

Both of these player types? Frankly, they can fuck right off and I'd have zero qualms banning the shit out of either extreme, having no patience for either. The problems as they exist in reality are not with these extremes, however -- now we seem to be smart enough, collectively, to show these idiots the door, whichever side of this particular argument we're on, because it seems to be recognized, finally, that both of these extremes are examples of toxic player behavior that will eventually poison a game if permitted to take root.

• And I still love you both but, jesus, you're being rabid in this thread.

[Gilette]

lol this isn't the hog pit

[Goyim]

There was a point where we needed to stop and we have clearly passed it but let's keep going and see what happens.

People, uh, that don't like dying are babies and are also probably have unsightly acne scarred faces. And stuff.

[surreality]

@Goyim I heard we also masturbate with spray cheese instead of lube.

[Sparks]

@Thenomain said in Where's your RP at?:

@Sparks

I cannot tell you how many people have asked me to do this, mostly by stealing ideas from RfK which did something much like this, but with far too much staff interaction required.

Could you send me a copy of this system for me to pick apart? Thanks.

I wish I could. The original version of DICE was my very first big softcode systems project as a wee baby MUSHer; I have long since lost it, to my infinite regret, along with the rest of the Lost Stars database.

I do still have a design document for a DICE 2.0, since I have been considering recreating the system conceptually as an Evennia module.

(However, I get the sense that this is all rather off-topic for the thread.)