Feelings of not being wanted...

[Arkandel]

@Miss-Demeanor said:

Devil's Advocate for a moment... I've left scenes of 5 people (myself included), not because its too busy but because it was taking too damn long for other people to pose.

Arkandel's PrP rules (which I've macro'ed and fire at the beginning of every scene) is that they operate under an one-pose rule; if someone else has posed since your last one, you can pose again. In addition to it as a ST I am not bound by that rule and can go any time I see fit.

Pace in PrPs is a precious thing and I'll protect it with my last muttered breath.

Having said that, large scenes do have their challenges (I am so sorry, people who came to the SSH council meeting - all what, 13 of you? I should have broken it down better, that was on me). But I don't think five PCs are too many on their own, it's usually just at the limit between activity and insanity.

On top of it, there usually isn't that much plot to go around and I feel bad telling anyone we're full so they just can't come. I have, but I don't like doing it, so five is a better limit than four.

[Miss Demeanor]

@Roz Oh sure, a call of boredom shouldn't be a sign that people need to offer them something to do. If I mention it these days, its generally because someone asked me how I'm doing. And its usually followed by me booting up a game and fixing the problem. XD Just trying to say that having someone offer to let you into a 5+ person event isn't always going to be the cure for boredom, and not everyone will want to or be able to deal with that kind of scene.

[Cirno]

Five people is nothing to me.

[ThatGuyThere]

I will be honest even if i was bored unless i had previously played with the GM enough that i knew he would keep things running briskly I would duck out of a five person plot scene as well. Social scenes I can handle being big because they are almost always 3pr but anything plot-y that big tends to bog down pretty quick.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I just never say 'I'm bored' on channel. Never. Because it does, to me, come off as "Entertain me, masses!", however anyone means it.

It's not that I never am bored, but I can just quietly go play a video game or go read or something.

[Arkandel]

The logistics here seem pretty obvious.

1. People are bored.

2. There aren't enough STs around on average so they can be all divided into smaller numbers than five per scene.

So something has to give, either we compromise and join a scene slightly larger than we'd like, we find/run a scene of our own, or the MUSH will not be an entertaining place for us.

Also note that when it comes to staff scenes things are worse, much worse. Because those tend to gather even more interest since they are 'official' and easily become a damned if you do/damned if you don't proposition - they either accept everyone into a big ol' scene or deny more people and risk being accused of $thing.

[Apos]

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:

I just never say 'I'm bored' on channel. Never. Because it does, to me, come off as "Entertain me, masses!", however anyone means it.

Man, I sure read it that way every time and it pisses me off disproportionately. At best, I silently decide to never, ever have anything to do with someone that says that again because I'd just feel like I'm coddling a whiner. If anyone on this board does that (who am I kidding, I've -seen- people on this board do this in games), please fucking stop.

[Thisnameistaken]

"I'm bored" doesn't really bother me. Sure, there are better ways to ask for RP, but at least they're trying in their socially awkward way. What gets me more is when people fill a channel with 'omg life sucks, <insert illness/personal tragedy>'. Often repeatedly. I understand that it sucks, and this might seem heartless, but I don't know you and I'm here to play a game, not to be a therapist, and now suddenly I feel that if I want to say 'hey, anyone want to go do <IC thing>?' I'm somehow trivializing someone's suffering, so I just don't bother. If you do this, please consider taking it to pages, rather than doing it on a major channel.

[Ghost]

This all kind of brings up an interesting point, though. I've seen multiple posts about how some mushers can be hideously self-centered in terms of roleplay, and how some mushers don't seem to care at all for others beyond what they're getting out of the deal. Hell, I've played on some games (Fifth World) that felt like playspaces where the owners really wanted to RP their game, but needed other players to participate because they couldn't do it alone, but had very little interest in players other than themselves impacting the very fabric of the game.

But it's true, right? We log into these games because we are seeking to be entertained. For some people that means sharing the rp experience like an improv acting troupe; that what we are trying to recreate on some level is a bunch of drama-interested playwrights writing stories together. For others it's I want to be entertained and if I'm not having fun, even if having fun means everything goes my way, then I walk.

But on some level, we log onto these games because we seek to be entertained.

[faraday]

@Ghost said:

How far do you think other players and staff should go to make a player feel wanted?

I don't think that anyone has an obligation to make anyone else feel wanted. These are games. Games are supposed to be fun. If it's not fun to play with someone, don't do it.

BUT... I also believe that if you want a game to have a long, happy life, then it is in your own best interests to do as much as you can to get other people involved. Activity breeds activity. Cliques get stale. New players mean new opportunities.

[Ghost]

@faraday There really is this unspoken contract, though, isn't there?

I come here for fun, but need other players to roleplay with. Therefore, to BE entertained, I have to be ENTERTAINING in hopes that I will accrue another scene. If I run out of roleplay partners, then I run out of roleplay.

I've always felt this underlying, invisible social contract when mushing that cannot be ignored. I think maybe this above concept is half of the reason I began this topic. At what point is entertaining others required to become entertained yourself, because if we don't work hard and/or try to keep a game populated, we have to hit this RESET button on our fun and start someplace else.

It's just unwieldy for me, this concept. It's where 90% of my burnout comes from, this feeling that I've worked hard to entertain others, but because of X reason (interest in other mushes, multimushing, cliques, selfishness, boredom) I end up being that guy that's going what the fuck happened to this game??? when it inevitably dies out.

[Roz]

@Ghost said:

But it's true, right? We log into these games because we are seeking to be entertained. For some people that means sharing the rp experience like an improv acting troupe; that what we are trying to recreate on some level is a bunch of drama-interested playwrights writing stories together. For others it's I want to be entertained and if I'm not having fun, even if having fun means everything goes my way, then I walk.

I'd argue that people who come onto games without any sense of cooperative entertainment aren't really looking to roleplay; they're looking for other people to help them write a book.

Roleplaying is a team sport, not a solo one.

[Ghost]

@Roz Agreed 100%. The best roleplayers view any given scene as a team effort towards the game/plot/story.

[surreality]

There actually are players who simply expect you to do all the work of a scene. I'm not talking about as a ST here, either. It seems to happen most often on Shang, but I've seen it in less intensive incarnations elsewhere.

Essentially, these people will cheerfully tell you in detail what they want and expect you to make it happen in floridly excruciating detail, at length, and you end up getting little more than half a grunt back by comparison in terms of their response poses, which almost never include anything you can work with.

It is essentially, "Write a short story about my character for me in which I get to do X."

[Ganymede]

You know, one of the many things that RfK did right was create an environment where there was always something to do.

That's a good place to start, to feel included. I got fucking sucked into the game within a couple of weeks after being invited to play a political ally for some players that I didn't know too well, but with whom I enjoyed playing.

If you can build that into your system, great.

[SG]

@surreality I've also had people do the opposite to me. They'll post a sprawling five paragraph pose with tonnes of irrelevant information, like twenty actions and background characters that I have no ties to, and little interest, asking a million different questions on a thousand different topics and then complain when I do my best to answer the first question and react to something with a genuine reaction, rather than a roller coaster of emotions and reactions to the plethora of things.

Like slow the fuck down.

[faraday]

@Ghost said:

At what point is entertaining others required to become entertained yourself, because if we don't work hard and/or try to keep a game populated, we have to hit this RESET button on our fun and start someplace else.

I think that's the same thing I was trying to say with it being in your own best interests to involve as many people as possible. But I don't see that as a "contract" or "obligation" so much as a mutually-beneficial compromise.

But at the end of the day, if RPing with those people is such drudgery that it just isn't fun, then it's probably better to hit that RESET button than to go on torturing yourself playing with people you don't enjoy playing with.

Edit to add: Also it's not always black and white. There's a big difference between "OMG I hate playing with this person" and "Well, they're not one of my bestest buds but they're okay, and it'll be better for the game if I step out of my clique for a night and play with them..."

[Arkandel]

"Hey, anyone want to do something?"
"Sure! You wanna meet at $place?"
<silence>
...

"I'm so bored, someone run something for me."
"Alright, what would you like ran?"
"I dunno."
"How about $thing?"
"No, it doesn't fit me exactly right."
...

"Hey, I noticed you guys were playing, want one more?"
"Sure, come over!"
<comes over and starts chatting OOC about their day, poses once every half hour>
...

And so on.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@Roz said:

Roleplaying is a team sport, not a solo one.

Yep, this. The back-and-forth/improv aspect of MU* RP is why I enjoy it, and why I could never get into journal or forum RP. I've known lots of really good writers who aren't at all good RPers, even if they were sometimes interesting to read. If I just want to read, I have plenty of books.

[hedgehog]

@Thenomain

The Original Dreaming MUSH had an approval questionnaire. Granted, it was easy to cheat (I did, getting really specific answers from Turner/Demosthenes because I didn't have the books yet), but at least it was there. And, no, it didn't totally weed out abominations like Peri and Ranger, but I think it was at least somewhat successful.