Our Tendency Towards Absolutes
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@Scorn said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
@Sunny Except.. okay, example. You and your group are standing there as the shambling hoard of zombies edges closer and closer to you. Shambleshamble.
Your friends get the f*ck outta Dodge.
You stand there. You fail to act. You get your brains nommed by shambly zombies.
Sometimes failure to act should reasonably result in consequences.
Augh, yeah, but we're talking about people electing to not get involved with plots, not a scene. Scene consequences = ok. Consequences for not getting involved in staff plots = oh hell no.
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@Sunny lol, nah, I wouldn't ever condone doling out consequences to people who simply noped out of a plot that they weren't interested in.
One problem I've seen now and again, though, that does tend to grate on my nerves is when people do get involved in something, and even go so far as to gain some critical bit of knowledge that would help further the plot, or something similar.. and then they just sit on it.
Endlessly.
To the detriment of other players, and the progression of the plot as a whole. Sure, the ST could find a way to nudge another player toward that same bit of knowledge. It's doable. But it also means that whatever scene they ran for the first player was.. well, let's be a frank. A waste of the ST's time.
So in those cases, I could also see some kind of.. well, not necessarily a consequence, but if their inaction screwed things up for others? They shouldn't really be allowed to benefit from it, either. Know what I mean?
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I understand what you mean, but we live in a day where many of us are 40 with kids and limited time. Yep, STs waste time, it's part of being an ST. At the end of the day, ALL time in this hobby is wasted time, right? Give the hook to a player who is interested in picking up what you're putting down -- you can say 'oh, the first scene was a waste' or you can say 'yay, I get to do ANOTHER fun bit of STing with a different player who wants to be here!' I mean, perspective.
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@Sunny said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
Augh, yeah, but we're talking about people electing to not get involved with plots, not a scene. Scene consequences = ok. Consequences for not getting involved in staff plots = oh hell no.
I see your perspective, but isn't any staff-run setback plot a "consequence for not getting involved"?
On The Fifth Kingdom, I recall that the players never mobilized to address a certain threat, and that threat ended up becoming more dangerous. We scrambled afterwards to address the threat, and all was good. The threat wasn't personal, but it was "global" insofar as the player base was concerned. I don't think you'd consider that a "consequence for not getting involved," would you?
Because I agree with you that staff shouldn't make playing feel like a chore. I am 100% percent behind that. But at the same time, if the players succeed at everything then where's the risk that enhances the feeling of success? Villains sometimes prevail, and that's not a bad thing at all (see, e.g., The Empire Strikes Back).
“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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I mean, as a storyteller, if you're running a plot and literally no one is picking up what you're running with and there's no progress, sure, you can just continue the plot on to its conclusion and kill everyone...
Or you can come up with a new plot and ditch that one because obviously people aren't having fun with it.
ETA: This is not about the consequences of failure (I believe in them) or just letting people succeed. This is about knowing your audience, and not punishing people for not engaging with something they aren't interested in. Just because you CAN force it as a storyteller doesn't mean you should. If you can't get any bites on your story, then that's a you problem (general you), not your players.
If you get some but not many bites, then shift the scope, adapt, and run it for the people that are interested. It is completely possible to run a game and have major global sweeping plotlines happen without forcing an individual to directly engage in it via consequence.
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As I expected, we were always in agreement.
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@Ganymede said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
(see, e.g., The Empire Strikes Back).
no thanks, i'm good
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@faraday said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
I don't disagree with that point, but I think you're looking at it from the player perspective. Which is fine, but I'm looking at it from the staff perspective. Making things that will generate RP when many of your players just don't want to play with each other often feels at best like threading a needle, and at worst like an exercise in futility. This is demoralizing as a staff member.
I really am looking at it from both sides, but my stance as a player and a staffer tends to be the same, wherein I do what I can do and consider reasonable, and if people make the choice not to participate based on things like who else will be involved, I figure that's on them, not me. I have done the thing I said I would do. I made the opportunity, I created some activity. People can join in, or not. I definitely want to make it interesting to as many people as possible, but it's that whole 'leading a horse to water' thing, you know? At a certain point, people make their choices, and it all works out, or it doesn't.
It totally wears on staff to be groused at by players for any reason at all, definitely. The moreso when you consider them friends in any way, as is ideal, at least for me. There are some things I've just decided I'm not going to take on-board anymore. It can be more complicated than that and get into grey areas when people bring their perceptions into it, and those perceptions don't align with mine ('you're always running things that are more relevant to them than to me!') but, if I'm doing the very best I can and I know that, there's not much else to be done.
I don't disagree with anything you said, exactly. I'm 100% behind people trying to find something positive in an interaction with other people, or figuring out how to engage with people they don't get along with in a way that works for everybody -- feeling out where those limits and boundaries are and how to respect them. But, when they can't, and I figure it's inevitable that's going to be true, there seem to be less fireworks and drama if they have room to breathe and aren't forced to deal with one another, which can be draining for me in a very different way.
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@juke I think this is a very reasonable approach.
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I think the extent of which lack of reaction to a plot affects characters is something that you need to establish clearly and up front with any given game. If you've been running a laid back mostly social RP kind of game for the past 2 years and then suddenly unleash a zerg-like swarm that murders any character that doesn't evacuate, people being grouchy about is a fair reaction!
However if you've been running a game like HorrorMux, then that very same thing is completely expected and what the game is all about.
What is obvious to you may not be obvious to me and vice versa.
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@Groth I point again to the fact that 'I got blown up in my sleep when I was not even connected to the game on HorrorMUX, and both myself and the other person this happened to were both excited for what was going to happen next for us', which is not the usual reaction to something like that happening on a game. This comes from both the fact that on the game, 'death is not the end', but also the general positivity of the game culture.
It definitely can be done, and when it can be done and it done well, it's actually pretty great.
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I try REALLY HARD to kill my players, but they usually live.
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@Botulism said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
I try REALLY HARD to kill my players, but they usually live.
Your...players?
Now I know why you're named "Botulism".
Did I mention I live in Quebec? Yup, that's where you can find me. Quebec. In...Quebec City. (Yeah, that's a fake-sounding name. They'll never find me there.)
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@Botulism I will probably always take Doomed every time you offer it purely because I
you and respect your desire to some day throw my character face first into a wood chipper, nuke her, have her eaten by kaiju, etc.Plus, seriously, y'all, getting to write a death pose is fucking fun, ok?
