Earning stuff

[Thenomain]

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

actual stories

I'm not interested in a plot structured story. I'm interested to write the story my character tells over its life.

So maybe you and I have different definitions of "story" and, for that matter, the importance of "random social scenes" in getting there.

Maybe the dichotomy is that I don't need a structured reason to have a scene and see where it goes. What you call "random" I call ... well, random, perhaps, but not without sense or purpose.

[Lithium]

The only way to make this fair and balanced is to give everyone the same //OPPORTUNITY// to be special. They all don't have to /be/ special, they just need to have the same chances at being able to tell stories that make them special, or be special.

That's when the cries of favoritism go large, and yes, there is also the idea that every PC is special.

It's not one I personally agree with because we're not dealing with Table Top where the PC's are the 'heroes' of the story, they are just a //part// of the story.

The hard part is making sure people understand this, and to come up with a way to make it all function as smoothly as possible.

[faraday]

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

I'm not interested in a plot structured story. I'm interested to write the story my character tells over its life.
So maybe you and I have different definitions of "story"

I think fundamentally we do. And that's not bad - I mean, your way isn't any less valid than mine.

I also want to tell the story of my character's life. But I want that story to be as interesting as the story of my favorite character in my favorite TV show.

Some folks can get great pleasure in "slice of life" scenes where you just explore your character's reaction to eating icecream with their buddy while talking about the Cubs game. I am not knocking those folks, but I am not one of them.

[Thenomain]

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

I want that story to be as interesting as the story of my favorite character in my favorite TV show.

My favorite TV shows have been ones with imperfect characters, where the characters are part of the world and not the center of it. Where even social scenes are important, because they characterize, they connect characters and while they might not further the plot directly they allow the world-building that is important to furthering the plot.

This is a lot easier in books, where there is more time and effort given to it. Not every scene has to be The Most Important Thing Right Now, and I revel in that. I don't want to wait for The Most Important Thing Right Now. I want to have Right Now be important, even if it's not The Most Important Thing, and having to wait on events and people to decide to crawl out of their private homes to make Now be important is frustrating because I can illustrate games, past and present, where this wasn't a thing.

Random scenes is incredibly important for this, social or otherwise.

Willingness to write collaboratively, to seek narrative rather than structure it, is incredibly important for this.

If you don't like this? Cool. My tangent started because I do. I miss this deeply.

[ThatGuyThere]

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

You don't see a scene with Bob and Mary just randomly meeting in the park to say 'hi how's the weather', which is what a lot of BarRP/random pickup scenes are like. I don't think it's a bad thing that folks have moved away from scenes like that.

I do see the loss of them as a bad thing because while they might not further a specific story they do lead to stories. If I am playing Bob, I am not going to do any meaningful relationship RP and am unlikely to do plot RP with Mary or John or anyone until I reach a comfort level with them, either from knowing them in the past or through social (or bar) RP to see if our play styles so the lose of it I think does make it harder to integrate into new circles.
That goes hand in hand with my biggest issue with Random PRPs outside of superhero games, unless I am playing a superhero the fates of random bystanders aren't really an important thing.

[faraday]

@thenomain My favorite TV shows also have ones with imperfect characters, but those characters are central driving forces in their world. Of course you have social scenes, but those social scenes drive the narrative forward in some way. They have a purpose, whether it's to illustrate some new aspect of the character, or deepen some relationship, or provide some key plot exposition, or even just for comic relief. But whatever they are, they're not just random.

I understand that you miss the "fully unscripted" style ("seek narrative rather than structure it"), and there's nothing wrong with that. I just reject the idea that a slightly more scripted style is somehow less collaborative, or less about writing.

@thatguythere said in Earning stuff:

If I am playing Bob, I am not going to do any meaningful relationship RP and am unlikely to do plot RP with Mary or John or anyone until I reach a comfort level with them

I understand. But in the same way that @Thenomain misses the days where RP was less structured, I miss the days when people were more willing to RP with strangers. Then you could get to know Mary and John through some more interesting avenues than throwing darts at the pub or randomly running into each other in the park.

[ThatGuyThere]

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

. But in the same way that @Thenomain misses the days where RP was less structured, I miss the days when people were more willing to RP with strangers.

I think both are tied to the same issue, as the mushing population ages they have less time to mush, so less risks are taken to try an make sure the time spent is put to good use, which while that makes perfect sense it also cuts out some of the good things as well.

[Apos]

@thatguythere Yeah, I think that's definitely true. A lot of older players are way more risk averse about not seeing their time wasted, a lot more protective of their time/hostile towards people that impose upon it, and also way, way less patient when they think they recognize patterns that have been problems for them in the past.

I don't blame people for this. It's understandable, even if I think sometimes it can be counterproductive. Like for example, the ad threads or idea pooling threads that turn super sharply negative really fast are symptomatic of that. Like I know it's easy to say everyone is old and cranky but it's more like, 'if people have been doing this for 20 years, and they see something that has failed multiple times being talked about, while they impatiently wait for something that they can have fun in, they get pissy unnecessarily at some poor game creator.'

[surreality]

@apos said in Earning stuff:

I think that this stuff comes down to tradeoffs and just what staff are willing to deal with, and more importantly, what they enjoy doing. Like I worry that we'd drift into talking about design in a way of best practices, when a well run sandbox game with no metaplot could be infinitely better than a plot driven game that just isn't run well, and I think because of people's experiences on good games they might be more inclined to say, 'this is the best way to do it' when really it was just colored by that particular approach being well done.

Adding to this, some players are just looking for something completely different from other players. It's why the 'more games is better' principle is one I still believe in pretty strongly. It's why I worry when there's too many loud voices pushing for a 'one true way' all games must be in some respect or another, whatever that is. It could be: metaplot, y/n? sandbox y/n? heavily coded economy? y/n? -- it really could be anything. And for every one of those things, there are people who like that thing and people who don't.

I would rather see fifty games with 12-30 people having a blast on each of them than five with 200 trying to please everyone. And having a mix there is fine, too! We sorta have that now, but a lot of the smaller projects get smashed by the loud voices making 'one true way' demands. These people should be making their own projects in their 'one true way' and leaving the people wanting something else, or even wanting to just try something else, to do so in peace to sink or swim; criticism or inquiry is fine and dandy, but the non-stop bashing of other ideas starts to have some eerie parallels to the 'only I can be special' problem. Namely, 'If someone else is doing it differently, they are simply wrong and bad and should feel bad!', or 'If someone else is doing it differently, the very act of them doing it differently is making the claim that I'm doing it wrong! It's working fine for me, so they're obviously wrong! I must defend my way by attacking them!' This is pretty dang toxic, and it's a big ol' bootheel ground into the face of trying new things, or even things that are not currently loud-voice popular.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I get a decent amount of random RP on Arx. I seek it out because I have free time. The public grid and randomscenes (XP if you tag certain random RP partners in a given week) help drive it, as does the large population.

I'm not singing the unqualified praises of these scenes. Some of them are tedious and if I'm not enjoying them I have '5 poses and out' rule. It's less about wasting my time then not engaging in RP I don't find fun. Then again, some of them are entirely fun and interesting and sometimes I make new IC friends. It ebbs and flows. I still have to cultivate the scenes that are meaty by seeking them out, which I feel like I have to be pretty aggressive about. I'm probably better classified as a player who prefers a certain amount of control over one who prizes verisimilitude of environment, though I think I actually like a mix ideally. Plentiful bar RP is not a magical utopia or a cure-all for hobby malaise, at least not for me, though I do enjoy it enough to keep at it. I do think getting it regularly is more a factor of having a big game than anything else, though. Like, I plant myself in public on a game with 100 people logged on, there's at least a better-than-average chance one of them will maybe RP with me. I do this on a game with 30 people logged on? The chances of crickets increases, until it no longer becomes a useful way to get a scene when you want one.

[Roz]

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

This is a lot easier in books, where there is more time and effort given to it. Not every scene has to be The Most Important Thing Right Now, and I revel in that. I don't want to wait for The Most Important Thing Right Now. I want to have Right Now be important, even if it's not The Most Important Thing, and having to wait on events and people to decide to crawl out of their private homes to make Now be important is frustrating because I can illustrate games, past and present, where this wasn't a thing.

Random scenes is incredibly important for this, social or otherwise.

I think it's still important to note that while books often have more space to spread out than an episode of television, every scene in a book should still serve a specific purpose. Move the plot forward, reveal something about the character, build important notes of a relationship. The real difference is in how writing builds when it's planned versus unplanned, as in RP. The problem isn't the existence of social scenes, it's that you don't know going in if a social scene you wander into is going to manage to hit any interesting or relevant notes. Because sometimes they just don't. Sometimes you can't really manage to hook with the other player(s), sometimes you don't get to explore or reveal character or relationships. Sometimes the Right Now simply doesn't manage to be important or relevant, and that's what makes people bored. When people complain about BarRP, I assume they're talking about scenes that never really find a spark. And I'm not saying that all social scenes need to find something super deep in them, but I think the spark is what people are looking for. So when people have the choice between a private scene with a character they already have a spark with versus going out to maybe meet some new people that might be a lot of fun or might be dull as dishwasher -- sometimes people just don't have the time or energy to roll the dice on the latter.

I love social RP. I think the time in between the big, world-shattering events is hugely important, just as important -- if not moreso -- than the events themselves. How the characters grow and react, how their lives and attitudes change, all of it. And tons of my great, important IC relationships are built from a foundation of just -- meeting a random PC in public.

In a medium that you can write out and plan, every scene, every passage, can have a purpose, from big to small. That's what good writing does. And I think that's what most people seek in their RP: for interactions to feel alive and relevant in the world. It's just that the results of random public RP can be hugely inconsistent.

[Thenomain]

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

but those characters are central driving forces in their world.

And to me, the key word here is their. Not the. Not central to the story. They may be central to a story, but that's entirely different than making the world as we, the viewer, know it revolve around them.

I understand that you miss the "fully unscripted" style

No, I miss the less scripted style.

There are things I miss about AD&D 2nd Edition. I feel this version was more laid-back and far easier to get into than D&D 3e or 4e. (5e fixes a lot of this; this is an example, not a discussion.) It would be 100% wrong to say that I missed THAC0.

I am capable of deconstructing my darlings, and in fact I always am.

--

@roz said in Earning stuff:

I think it's still important to note that while books often have more space to spread out than an episode of television, every scene in a book should still serve a specific purpose.

I still quite enjoy a lot of the Douglas Adams tangents that had, effectively, nothing to do with the story. Most of them were about Arthur Dent. (Arthur Dent and Fenchurch having sex while flying serves zero plot elements, and don't tell us much about the character, but it's still a fun story because it links to something later on.)

What I'm saying is that I think you and @faraday are over-analyzing this, and that I respectfully disagree with your position that specific plot-driven story is important as all that.

Stricken and not deleted because the last time I deleted things I said when I was wrong, so many people got bent out of shape. I'm pretty sure this isn't what you intended, but it did read that way at first. I'm pretty sure it is what Faraday intends, as is her play style.

I also accept that Douglas Adams was that kind of writer whose exception proves the rule.

...

Though as I type the above, I realize that we're more agreeing than not: Character development is where I find my joy, the story of the character. "Random social scenes" can be great for this, if you and those around you are aware that presenting and furthering the character's goals and interests are always on the table.

[Roz]

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

@roz said in Earning stuff:

I think it's still important to note that while books often have more space to spread out than an episode of television, every scene in a book should still serve a specific purpose.

I still quite enjoy a lot of the Douglas Adams tangents that had, effectively, nothing to do with the story. Most of them were about Arthur Dent. (Arthur Dent and Fenchurch having sex while flying serves zero plot elements, and don't tell us much about the character, but it's still a fun story because it links to something later on.)

What I'm saying is that I think you and @faraday are over-analyzing this, and that I respectfully disagree with your position that specific plot-driven story is important as all that.

You're misunderstanding my point. Note that I didn't say the purpose needs to be about plot. I'm not saying that every social scene needs to delve into whatever plot is happening on the game. I'm saying that, in good writing, every word has some sort of purpose. Sometimes that purpose is plot, but sometimes it's about character, sometimes it's building something to call back to later, sometimes it's about revealing something -- maybe it's small, maybe it's insignificant, but it's still relevant and interesting in some way. Good writing has a point. I was actually specifically stating that the character growth in between plot is where I find a large bulk of my interest, and I specifically said before that when I said good writing has a purpose, I listed things other than moving plot forward. There are multiple kinds of purpose that are important to build in something like, say, a novel.

The problem is that bad social RP can end up without any purpose, without any point. You never manage to find something interesting in it anywhere. And when people have limited time to RP, they may not want to risk ending up in a total dud of a scene, even if there's also the possibility that they'll get something brilliant.

[Thenomain]

@roz said in Earning stuff:

The problem is that bad social RP can end up without any purpose, without any point.

And this is one reason why people don't put themselves out for it, sure, and we hit the mediocrity spiral, a critical mass of inaction.

I started this tangent putting Staff as a motivator, getting people out there with things to react to (Unholy Caine on a Motorcycle!) which also don't necessarily add anything to anyone's day, but does fill it with something interesting which is a huge reason we do this.

[surreality]

Respectfully, I think you're both (Theno and Roz) saying something very similar, and using different language to do it.

I've played with folks who have insisted that playing anything but 'hunt the monster' was a waste of time. I've played with folks who thought that not going into every personal detail of their character's purely social birthday weekend party trip were missing a critical character development opportunity.

These two types people are probably never going to see eye to eye on what an ideal game would entail, and that's ultimately fine. They just have different ideas of what constitutes fun, and they want the game they are on to be promoting and enabling and supporting the kind of fun they want.

In an ideal world, there will be games that cater to both, and sometimes, the same game will suit both (in part because side trips are something players can do amongst themselves off in a temp room on their own), but more often than not, they're going to be happier on different games that focus more in the direction of the kind of fun they're into. This is also totally fine. It really, really is.

Also, goddammit, I really liked the ideas I had on this specific front, which I'm not going to go into, but consider a fist raised to the sky and shaken at both of you because my waffling-fu has me on the fence again about dev. DAMMIT, people. This fencepost is giving me splinters on my butt.

[faraday]

@roz said in Earning stuff:

You're misunderstanding my point. Note that I didn't say the purpose needs to be about plot. ... I'm saying that, in good writing, every word has some sort of purpose. Sometimes that purpose is plot, but sometimes it's about character... but it's still relevant and interesting in some way. Good writing has a point.

Yes, that's what I was trying to say as well. One of my favorite scenes on BSGU was the pilots going to a karaoke bar during shore leave. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the plot, but it was funny. And the uptight squadron leader kicking loose with a self-deprecating song was an important icebreaker for the group, and a key moment for that character. In contrast, some of my least favorite scenes were random "let's stack some Cylon planes up and mow them down" combat missions, because they had no real point other than people turning up to pad their kill counts.

And when people have limited time to RP, they may not want to risk ending up in a total dud of a scene, even if there's also the possibility that they'll get something brilliant.

That's it exactly. If the ratio of "dud to brilliant" was high, I wouldn't mind chancing it. But it sadly isn't. So I view the random social scenes as a necessary ice-breaker to something more fun, as opposed to the reason I play.

@surreality said in Earning stuff:

It's why the 'more games is better' principle is one I still believe in pretty strongly. It's why I worry when there's too many loud voices pushing for a 'one true way' all games must be in some respect or another, whatever that is.

I agree wholeheartedly, and want to clarify again that what I'm talking about here are just my preferences, not "The One True Way of RPing". I have nothing against Theno's preferred style. It was the "Remember when people actually liked to write?" remark I took exception to, thinking it implied an unhealthy disdain for the modern status quo.

[ThatGuyThere]

@roz said in Earning stuff:

The problem is that bad social RP can end up without any purpose, without any point. You never manage to find something interesting in it anywhere.

This is the exact reason i use social RP as the gate keeping device because with bad social RP the only thing at risk is the time used for it. When plot or relationship (romantic or otherwise) RP goes bad it can lead to making the character unplayable which causes a lot more issues than a pointless scene.

[Lisse24]

@roz said in Earning stuff:

The problem is that bad social RP can end up without any purpose, without any point. You never manage to find something interesting in it anywhere. And when people have limited time to RP, they may not want to risk ending up in a total dud of a scene, even if there's also the possibility that they'll get something brilliant.

This. This is the problem that needs to be solved. I agree with everyone that agrees that social RP is important - nay it's essential. It's a key element of all good writing, book, movie, tv show, or otherwise, but too often, when we try to add it into games, we spend multiple scenes trying to figure out what we should be talking about or how our characters should relate.
I think we need to do a better job of finding ways to make random/social RP focused and meaningful from the outset.

[Lotherio]

@lisse24 said in Earning stuff:

I think we need to do a better job of finding ways to make random/social RP focused and meaningful from the outset.

It would be great to find a solution that could reward random/social without unbalancing scales; without becoming code heavy/staff reliant.

I can say from my perspective, when playing on others games, I look at recent IC info/news/events and know the stances on these things. I don't set my characters stance until I get into an IC discussion and I usually shift to offer some argument or counterpoint. Even if characters might otherwise agree and I see no way to shift my character to an opposite viewpoint (rare, I usually find a way to say something in opposition), I may offer a counter point on the same side (I agree the leader should raise taxes, but I don't think it should come from the commoners like you say, I think jousting should be taxed and jousters should only be allowed in tourneys with jousting permits).

Aside from that, I adhere to the RP Sparkle concepts; @Faraday still keeps this at the AresMUSH site: Here. The random social is a way to meet other players on a mush to figure out if you do want to develop more story and plot together. I do not mean relationship RP, I'm not out looking for TS, but if I want to run some plot as allowed within a given Mu*, I want players I trust when the story gets deeper. And I mean the player, we can be antagonistic, but the trust that neither will try to ruin the story, or derail things that are driving that story, for some personal attention or gain. I love to collaborate and I love when it develops organically; I do not like planning forward for some scene with a player. Even if we plan a scene that isn't wholly resolved, too much planning feels like we might as well just have determined the outcome in page or offline chatting. This could just be me, I need to not know or have some expectation of how a scene will turn out, I prefer not knowing and seeing what develops organically. If there is no organic chemistry, I know not to introduce plot ideas and hooks; I'll still take random scenes with people I don't click with, I just won't seek them out as much.

I think this was part of the issue discussed here or in another thread. Missing the random social scenes. It can end without development, but that's less on other players or staff and more on the players themselves I think. If I don't feel my character has developed in a random social scene after so long, I will bow out. But I will make effort to develop my char, even if in reaction to someone else's poses. If we're not clicking cause they're just doing goofy drinking, sloppy drunk at the bar, my character is developing some taste for not liking sloppy drunks. I'll probably get in a comment to the effect of not liking the situation. Who knows, maybe it will anger the sloppy drunk for a few terse words then I'll do my bow out even.

ETA: I was going somewhere with that. @Thenomain mentioned people used to get on to write and that's how I view random social scenes, my chance to write even if no one else is on board. And as @ThatGuyThere said, its how I gauge my interest in developing more story with another player on a game or not.

[Thenomain]

@lotherio said in Earning stuff:

@lisse24 said in Earning stuff:

I think we need to do a better job of finding ways to make random/social RP focused and meaningful from the outset.

It would be great to find a solution that could reward random/social without unbalancing scales; without becoming code heavy/staff reliant.

Maybe some light code system that gives characters a reason to interact. Ooh! How about a game system where there are unknowns and the characters get together sometimes to pass along...lets call it lore. Oh! Better! Clues.

All praise and joking aside, even a system like this is very game dependent. Another system I’ve seen is one that rewards people for playing together, but I’ve seen it work (Arx) and not work (The Reach). It doesn’t matter what system you design if the players don’t engage with it.