Posts made by Altair

Interesting topic.

Bad:

• Passive aggression. Huge no. Guaranteed way to get me to do the opposite of what you're trying to manipulate me to do. Example:

I'm sooo bored. Maybe I should RP.
A few minutes of silence
I MIGHT AS WELL QUIT RP, IT'S NOT FATED TO BE FOR ME ANYMORE!
Ragequit, after five minutes of waiting for sympathy.

• Repeated instances of standing me up for scenes, especially without bothering to 1) let me know in advance 2) apologize after the fact, if circumstances prevent #1. What will take this from 'irritation' to 'actual anger' is if I have scheduled a scene with someone at a certain time, and they walk off to scene with someone else who happens to offer them RP prior to the scheduled start time of our scene.

• Rudeness in metaposing. If you got shit to talk, say it out loud in your dialogue. No matter how much characters might dislike each other IC, it's still perfectly possible to write the meta in a respectful way. I tend to think that people are playing a character because they love them, and so they would accordingly feel good if their character is treated with respect. Isn't the point of this for everyone to feel good/have fun?

• Related to above: people who are rude, dismissive, or powergamey even in OOC chatter. 100% guaranteed that behavior extends into RP.

• Inability to share attention/spotlight. Making everything about yourself most or all of the time.

• Pure social RP. If I find the scenes are just hangout social without anything really happening as a result of them, I will spend my time in another way.

Good:

• Probably the biggest thing here is initiative. I usually find myself doing the setting/coming up with ideas/pushing everything forward, because I am a Type A nitpicker and it bugs me when stuff sits undone without anyone dealing with it. Not being an especially creative person, this is real tiring. Someone who thinks for themselves, collaborates with me to help think of stuff, and even sometimes comes up with ideas for me, is therefore a huge relief.

• People focused more on character development as the purpose of their RP. It shows when someone is in RP to write their character's responses and personal changes, as a result of the things that happen around them, in a coherent and believable way.

• Shares attention, plot hooks, and approaches RP collaboratively with an eye towards how to ensure everyone has some fun.

• Interest in my character, related to the point above on how "people presumably play a character because they love them." I like mine. I therefore like it when people are obviously keeping my interests and the specifics of my character in mind. Being treated like an infodump NPC in someone else's RP video game turns me off very quickly.

@arkandel said in Canon/feature characters:

Power balance - can OCs be as powerful as FCs?

I tend to think OCs should start at their "origin story," or near to their origins, but with the provision that there is no cap on how far they can go so long as 1) it is fully backed up with RP 2) they don't build their character to rip off/become a wholesale replacement for an existing FC and their niche. If your OC becomes a Cap sidekick with jetpack wings, that doesn't really leave Falcon much to do.

Thematic integrity - can the Avengers be led by or consisted mostly of OCs?

While I do like to see the canon characters fulfilling their canon roles in teams, in practice games should really allow "whatever will keep the RP rolling." Mothballing the Avengers just because no one wants to app Steve Rogers and Tony Stark never leaves his TS room is a waste of a team, if there are active players on unconventional characters who are ready and willing to do stuff with it.

Character development - how much freedom should FCs have? Can Rand al'Thor find true love in the arms of Jane Sedai?

As long as it makes sense within the character's personality as written, I see no issue with going in an original direction, especially when some characters have canonical portrayals or relationships that 1) were dumb in the source material to begin with 2) love interests that no one ever apps. I don't really get on a MUSH to exactly recreate what a comic writer was already paid to write, anyway.

How does history revisionism work best? Is it okay to soft/hard reset FCs when they get a new player?

This one depends on the RP. Some characters come to you in a ruined state from the previous player, and no one should have to deal with that. I do think having a conversation with each of the people who had connections with your character previously, in order to facilitate an IC transition that makes sense for everyone is courteous, however.