The Waiting Game

[Sunny]

@Lithium

The player can move on and play their character whenever they want to do so. At any time the player can make their own decision about their own PC that allows for the character to move on. It does not require that the player put the 'fault' on the other player's character. There is never a point in which there's too much that a player gets to make decisions for another player without permission and/or it being baked into the rules.

Edited to add: If the characters are so intimately, heavily connected that it is literally impossible for a creative person to come up with a story that doesn't involve making decisions for someone else's PC, then they shouldn't have applied for the character without speaking to the player in question in the first place.

Edited again to add: Does nobody else find it creepy that the player in question has had someone ELSE @mailing to nag about the RP?

[Lithium]

@Sunny I think you're misconstruing what I meant, or maybe I didn't convey my point properly.

People talk about their opinions of things all the time. If a character is trying to reach another character, and has done everything in their power to reach them, but cannot, it is not unreasonable for a person to think they are being avoided. There is nothing wrong with RP'ing that the character thinks they are being avoided, because it is just the characters opinion.

At no time does whatever my character says actually determine reality for another person's character. It's just my characters opinion.

There are reasonable reasons for not being able to meet up, but people also behave unreasonably all the time.

If Sam Spade actually weren't around, weren't RP'ing with tons of other people, weren't ignoring my @mails, and weren't giving me vague answers that they never act upon, I'd be more inclined to be patient.

I'm not saying just because someone isn't around, or RL intrudes, that you write them in a negative fashion, or say what has happened to someone else.

[Sunny]

@Lithium

Context does not actually matter much in this point. There is no circumstance that one player should be making any decisions for another player without permission. If my character runs around telling other characters that so-and-so is avoiding her, I am interfering with the agency of the other player, because yes, it makes assumptions about what the other character is doing. It does indeed determine reality. There are actions and consequences that follow.

It doesn't matter how long. Period. When you make decisions, you get to make decisions for your own character, not other peoples'. It doesn't matter why they're gone. It doesn't matter if they're just being an asshole. Player agency should be sacrosanct.

[Roz]

@Lithium said:

@Sunny I think you're misconstruing what I meant, or maybe I didn't convey my point properly.

People talk about their opinions of things all the time. If a character is trying to reach another character, and has done everything in their power to reach them, but cannot, it is not unreasonable for a person to think they are being avoided. There is nothing wrong with RP'ing that the character thinks they are being avoided, because it is just the characters opinion.

Except the character isn't being avoided. The player is.

[ThatGuyThere]

My question to the OP is how much did you talk to the Sam player before making Igrid. Now most places with FCs don't have a requirement to do so but it is generally scene as polite.
In one place I play a character with a canon ex-wife, that char was recently apped by a new player. Even though no requirement was there to do so, she reached out to be and we discussed things like their current relationship and how we saw it, past on screen IC events and tweaked a few bits from the past to better suit the new player. It is a give and take thing.
Now yeah if you and Sam Player don't clink then right him out of your story, not in an He's avoiding me way for the reasons mentioned above, but if PC X asks you about Sam just say we haven't talked in a while. That way instead of ascribing a motive ICly to another char that is not yours you simply describe the facts and most players will be smart enough to let the topic drop at that.

[Apos]

@Sunny said:

@Lithium

Context does not actually matter much in this point. There is no circumstance that one player should be making any decisions for another player without permission. If my character runs around telling other characters that so-and-so is avoiding her, I am interfering with the agency of the other player, because yes, it makes assumptions about what the other character is doing. It does indeed determine reality. There are actions and consequences that follow.

It doesn't matter how long. Period. When you make decisions, you get to make decisions for your own character, not other peoples'. It doesn't matter why they're gone. It doesn't matter if they're just being an asshole. Player agency should be sacrosanct.

I agree with you like 90% of the way. Most stories can usually be rewritten around someone else and aren't really that dependent on them, so there's no need to mess with someone else's agency if they aren't feeling it.

But then there's ones where the games are specifically putting responsibility on players to the point where it's impossible for others to progress their stories without a partner's consent, so there comes a point where you can say either that a player's agency is sacrosanct... and the story is over, it's frozen for good, tough luck, or you can you interfere with their agency and make the call for them. I think that players should be given every opportunity to exercise their own agency, but I think it creates too many unfortunate circumstances if you treat it as completely sacrosanct in every circumstance, since it's basically the situation of full consent games that if two people disagree the story is just done and over with.

I think players can and should be given a great deal of respect and a heck of a lot of latitude, but if there's no circumstances where it's permissible to move past a character, it's almost impossible to run games with interdependent story lines since they collapse too easily.

To give an example of something that I think is really bad and should be avoided, but demonstrates this: how would you resolve a situation of a time stopped duel to the death between several characters when one of the players never logs in again? Specifically, how long would you wait before resolving it, especially if none of the characters involved could justifiably rp in the mean time? (This is why I hate time stops and think they should never be used).

[Arkandel]

@Sunny said:

Edited to add: If the characters are so intimately, heavily connected that it is literally impossible for a creative person to come up with a story that doesn't involve making decisions for someone else's PC, then they shouldn't have applied for the character without speaking to the player in question in the first place.

Quite true. It's like me rolling a bodyguard or guardsman for Eisande without talking to you first about it - or maybe I did and the conversation was more like "hey, is it okay if I make this?" and you said yeah, sure? - then suddenly insisting you need to play with me often because that's what a bodyguard does, and without you I can't play my character. You have the rank, you better pony up some scenes!

In fact even explicit rather than implied responsibilities aren't supposed to be long-term. Your character (for example) wasn't given a rank out of the box, she had to earn it by playing for a while - in a way you had undertaken the 'work' part of the position before you had it. In fact that's a good benchmark staff ought to use to determine if someone should be promoted, assuming it's up to them.

Edited again to add: Does nobody else find it creepy that the player in question has had someone ELSE @mailing to nag about the RP?

Yup. But I gave it a pass because ... well, I kinda hope all this was actually well meaning. Not creepystalky but more like someone who wants to do a concept justice by playing with someone else and that someone else hasn't noticed the impact his absence had on her RP.

But this is MSB, and those aren't the happy endings we usually get.

[Misadventure]

What are we supposed to say about someone else who just never makes time to RP with you that you are linked to @sunny?

How do I explain that I haven't seen or spoken to my spouse about anything of import in IC weeks or months, without making a decision for them? Do I have to invent a plot by which despite my being present in the setting, I was somehow not available either?

I agree that you should really try to avoid making up events or motivations for someone else without express permission.

However, the assumed regular interaction suddenly has to be removed with a reason, and that reason will involve the other person. Unless there is a really convenient way to remove the relationship, such as it was never revealed to anyone.

A player has a responsibility to another player they have linked themselves to, and just saying no you can't make decisions for me while you actively make decisions to avoid having scenes or giving a way out is plain being rude and immature.

The question is how do these players best respect one another's "rights" and prior commitment if they have decided to end/alter it?

[Sunny]

There is a significant difference between staff stepping in and making a decision (okay) and making the choice for the player as a player (not okay).

[Misadventure]

Yes. So what would you do that respects both players? Because one player has failed another player here, and something has to give.

[Sunny]

@Misadventure said:

Yes. So what would you do that respects both players? Because one player has failed another player here, and something has to give.

No.

I said that one player has to respect the other player's agency without permission.

Staff is perfectly capable of stepping in and resolving any given situation based on their own game's policies and procedures. I did note that sane staff are not likely to make me roleplay with you.

Sometimes something does have to give, and that something is not for handling on a player level.

[Arkandel]

At the point it gets to this something has already gone wrong. Why is someone another's spouse if one of them never wants to play for the other? I'd start there (in the hypothetical @Misadventure brought up).

And the resolution is also problematic. If a player is active with a character and otherwise things are working other than the fact they won't play with someone specific - for whatever reason - then even staff forcing the issue doesn't fix it; either it will be the kind of chore where that player just wants to get through as soon as possible to meet their quota (and what enjoyable scenes those would likely be) or they might even stop playing that character altogether so that instead of creating *more *RP staff just managed to do the opposite.

If pre-approval at the CGen stage didn't catch that sort of malfunction and communication between players doesn't work after the fact there are no good other options.

[faraday]

@Arkandel said:

At the point it gets to this something has already gone wrong. Why is someone another's spouse if one of them never wants to play for the other? I'd start there (in the hypothetical @Misadventure brought up).

Maybe the players had a falling out. Maybe the spouse has gotten bored with that particular character. Maybe the spouse got burned with one of their other characters and is now in a funk where they don't want to RP anybody but still log in just enough to avoid the idle timer. Maybe the character was re-cast and they want to go in another direction. I have seen all of these situations and a dozen more, both first-hand and as staff. Crap happens.

So yes, I agree that by the time it gets to this point something has gone awry. If the players can't work it out themselves, then like @Sunny says, that's what staff is for.

[Lithium]

I want to point out, that I said they should contact staff. I never once said they should remove player agency from someone else. Just find a way to RP their own story that isn't reliant on someone RP'ing with them who seems to be going out of their way /not/ to.

If that means RP'ing that someone is avoiding them, then you are RP'ing what your character is feeling. It may or may not be true. If RP'ing that the world is keeping them apart, that may or may not be true. The key here is to find a way to play the character that isn't reliant upon someone else.

Especially when the other player is not helping.

Staff should always be involved at this point, or at least kept abreast of things so they can help one way or the other.

[faraday]

@Lithium said:

If that means RP'ing that someone is avoiding them, then you are RP'ing what your character is feeling. It may or may not be true.

It wasn't clear to me at what point you would involve staff in all this, so if I've misunderstood you I apologize in advance.

The trouble with RPing what your character is "feeling" is that ICly there is really no middle ground. Either the other char avoiding you or they aren't, and that should be their choice (or staff's), not yours.

I mean, it's kind of weird to be RPing feeling like someone is avoiding you when ICly you see them frequently.

Here's an example: A character was gone for awhile. I made the assumption that our characters hadn't interacted ICly and RPed accordingly, but I neither attempted to confirm this with him through OOC channels, nor asked staff to intervene. I thought the other player would be okay with my assumption. Turned out, he wasn't. (My bad.)

So then we were in an awkward position where he's either forced to accept my assumption about how his char acted (removing his agency), or I'm forced to retcon scenes where I had RPed not having seen him in awhile (impacting other players).

[surreality]

@faraday In the situation you're describing, there are sometimes no way around it. Yes, in these circumstances, you could attempt to confirm or check in with the other player, and ideally should -- but sometimes this isn't possible, they don't respond, you don't have means of contacting them, etc.

In such a case, unless they've left instructions that 'all proceeds as normal' in case of their absence? They kinda have to suck it up.

That said, people can leave instructions like that. Not many people think to even if they know they will be gone for a while, but it can and does help. It is especially helpful since often people don't know if and when circumstances may take them away for a while, so if things going a certain way in their absence is important to them? Yeah, there is some responsibility they need to take to make that known, even if it is just 'in case of absence'.

Which, in itself, is a good conversation to have with players that are in some way key to whatever you're playing. It opens up the opportunity for you to essentially say, "Fine," "Fuck that," or "I can go along with that for a while, but if it goes on too long, or IC circumstances arise that change things for my character considerably, I'm going to go where the activity is," and so on.

[faraday]

@surreality said:

In such a case, unless they've left instructions that 'all proceeds as normal' in case of their absence? They kinda have to suck it up.

Well, as @Sunny indicated - not everyone is cool with that. Rather than sucking it up, they could appeal to staff, who might turn around and say that you had no right to assume their character's actions and force you to retcon.

So yeah - working things out with the player in advance is great. But if you don't, it's probably safer to involve staff up front rather than making assumptions that might lead to a sticky situation.

[surreality]

@faraday There are reasonable, and unreasonable, permutations of that, though -- from both ends.

Unreasonable: "Oh, Bob? He's been gone a while now, haven't seen him, I feel horribly abandoned and the world is ending, I don't know how he could do this to me! So, no! I'm not going to be able to pass along your 'hello'! Not while I'm grieving!"

Reasonable: "Nope, haven't run into Bob today, but I'll pass along the message when I next see him." <OOC> You say, "Bob's player hasn't been able to be online in a few weeks, so I am not sure what's going on with that."

At which point any sane, non-asshole will change the subject and not pursue that further.

Most anything else, you're being expected to take up the slack for another player to their specific preferences (which you may not even be aware of) -- which is absolutely not OK to simply expect of someone without some kind of pre-existing arrangement or understanding to that end.

[faraday]

@surreality Absolutely. I’m not advocating taking things to unreasonable extremes, or running to staff with every little thing. Common sense must prevail. But I do think things are not always so cut and dried - particularly when your characters have closer ties. Here are some more actual examples of more subtle situations - all assuming Bob has vanished for a moderate period of time with no word and no prior instructions:

Bob just started teaching your character something, but you haven’t seen him for awhile. Jane asks, “How are those lessons with Bob going?”

You’re a doctor and Bob is your patient. Last time you RPed with him, he was critically injured. Jane asks, “How’s Bob doing? Has he been discharged yet?”

Bob is your IC boyfriend. Your last scene involved them having a big fight and you cried on Jane’s shoulder about it. Jane asks, “How are things with Bob? Did you patch things up?”

Now you can try to do some RP gymnastics with vague or evasive answers. You can just beg Jane OOCly, “Please for the love of all that’s holy stop asking about Bob!” But sometimes neither of those things makes sense and you’re forced to make an assumption about what’s going on with Bob.

A considerate BobPlayer will just go with whatever you decided because they’re the ones who left you in the lurch. But sadly, not all players are considerate. Or, as @Sunny mentioned, the avoidance was for OOC reasons and they’re not comfortable with you making assumptions about them. So that’s when having staff backing for your assumption can come in handy.

[Arkandel]

So how is Bob, @faraday? Where the hell is Bob, huh? Where is he?