@Three-Eyed-Crow I think these style of games benefit more from stronger code support than other games, in that either minigames or automation can help players drum up the kind of RP that will keep them from backsliding. That's my approach to the game I'm working on now anyways, along with trying to be extremely focused on a strong narrative and episodic metaplot. I kind of hope that keeps the sandbox from being a marriage sim, or at least not only one.
@ThatGuyThere I actually don't think it's because L&L players prefer political RP over adventure-style RP, even though it seems that way from how the games develop, but more of a consequence of the way MUs tend to operate.
I think it's more of a natural progression of what happens during downtime. In between plots, on more sandbox-y games players feel a lot more freedom to run meaningful PrPs since there's more of the expectation that it doesn't really effect other people very much. In a lot of L&L games, that's not really the case, so PrPs tend to be de-emphasized and that leaves players doing political RP as one of the more consequential forms of RP they can pursue without GM assistance. Then that RP produces actions that require GM response, and you are getting in a cycle of players RPing about what they can away from adventuring stuff and GMs just responding to it, and never creating the kind of stories a lot of people would find interesting. So I think it's more of a sign of a less robust GMing approach than it's really just, 'All the players here love politics and nothing else', and I'd wager a lot of those players are just doing it to pass the time when they'd really enjoy the same things you would.
@Sunny said:
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).
Two weeks divided by number of people waiting as a maximum, rounding down. ie, a dozen people waiting I think admin should resolve it same day.
@Thenomain I think you're missing one really core point in your argument.
The way a number of MU players approach their characters is fundamentally different from one another, and there's a distinct culture clash that shows online when these groups of players are put together, and what IC/OOC means to these players is nothing alike to one another.
One group sees their characters as essentially avatars for themselves, and they care about what they accomplish and what they represent, and that group is pretty much never ever okay with sacrificing the character for a story. This group tends to have the players that go idle rather than risk losing something their characters have accomplished, even if it makes it effectively meaningless if they aren't playing. IC motivations don't really come into it nearly as much, it's decidedly secondary. They tend to be less invested in roleplay except in so much it shows the continual development of their characters. I don't think this is a bad thing or anything like that, but it's important to understand their investment there compared to the RP as a whole.
Then at the opposite of the extreme, are players very focused on the stories, and the only care about the characters they play in so much that they are critical for the stories they want to be involved in or find fun. A lot of these players are the ones that simply don't care if their characters die, provided they are getting good stories and having strong narratives around it, and will do whatever. A lot of these players will do IC actions they know are extremely self-destructive, since why would they avoid it if it makes sense for the story and contributes to an interesting story? A lot of these players are just as happy with one shot throw away characters since they don't care at all, it's just the stories attached to them. So obviously if you start thinking about IC/OOC rules about judging the attachment of players to their characters you are going to swing way wide when it comes to them.
Realizing if a player is way more invested in the stories and the roleplay surrounding them, or whether they enjoy building a character and what it represents, is a huge part of keeping a player happy. And obviously most players enjoy a good blend between the two and fall somewhere on a scale there, but IC/OOC can mean markedly different things to both. I just feel like your posts were missing this as you talked about making characters more important than the game itself, which obviously would be wildly inaccurate for large group of players... that can still cause grade A drama if they think people are pissing all over their stories even if they don't care whatsoever about their characters.
Nothing wrong with being succinct for emphasis.
One alternate suggestion would be automatically calculate what the character would have cost in experience points to generate their starting character for them, start them at negative or positive afterwards as a result of the pool. Starts players on an identical post CG advancement, doesn't effect the new player experience in CG by overloading them with confusing numbers. I'd be less concerned by twinks and more concerned with completely new players getting through CG, playing a month, then feeling 'cheated' later when they realize they could have designed their sheet a different way to save XP. In making a newbie friendly system I think that case is significantly more worrisome than random assholes (see @bored ).
@Ganymede Nah you're just being obtuse. I don't see how I'm missing anything. Both you and her said you feel that negative portrayals can harmfully reinforce stereotypes, like you listing lawyers or whatever as an example. I said that's fine. I said her way of presenting it was unhelpful and not constructive, and it was and is.
@Lithium said:
If you don't understand how the 'It is just roleplay, it is just a game' defense doesn't upset people, then I dunno what to tell you either.
My last reply on this same page said I already understood how you could be offended by a negative stereotype you saw being roleplayed poorly. Doesn't mean I agree with you at all. I think your reaction is unhelpful and coming from being offended emotionally and wanting people to stop without putting any thought into it how you could be positive or constructive.
Okay man, if you can't see how people got upset by comparing their opinions to @Sovereign, dunno what to tell you.
@Lithium Like I get that the RP being done comes across as reinforcing abusive and negative stereotypes that you find problematic, and I can even understand being offended by that, but since it's consensual adults having fun then I'd would just make a point of trying to show positive versions that you like that are illustrative of how are things done right in your opinion.
I honestly don't have a strong opinion about this since I know nothing about D/s and that is probably never going to change, but if I see character concepts or RP I find distasteful I just avoid it or see if people would be down for RP from another angle that might reinforce positive things that they'd find fun. If it's really from a position of not knowing at all about something, they might even appreciate it as long as it's done in a respectful and entertaining way. Just can't come across as elitist or condemning even if it's something I don't much care for.
Uh, the difference is that @Sovereign's victims were really, really, really not fucking okay with what he was doing. What you are talking about is consensual, and both people are very much okay with it.
From the far outside looking in, of someone that knows basically nothing about D/s and has basically zero interest in it, it seems very weirdly puritanical to be upset at people for, well, doing it wrong. Like, 'yeah, okay, do whatever you like, I won't judge you guys' and then have someone off to the side telling me that I actually should be judging them. Dunno about that.
@Arkandel said:
It's rare to see it as a Storyteller. I bring in NPCs the characters have every reason to fear but they don't show it. They'll give lip, stand defiant, try to negotiate... but they won't ever lose their composure, back down or be intimidated. Sometimes I'd like that as well, to see the hopelessness sink in. Everyone conquers their fears, it seems.
Man. This depends really, really heavily on MU culture. In a game where characters die often on plots and there's not full trust in the ST, you get to see some hysterical degrees of cowardice that are a full 180 from your experiences by players who are very attached to their characters but still feel obligated to go on plots.
One of my most memorable scenes was a plot involving characters going behind enemy lines, and an extremely well-liked player character got crippled as enemy forces were closing in. The other player characters had one of the most heated IC arguments I've ever seen about whether to have a last stand or abandon him until the officer in charge ordered us to abandon him, so that player lost his character. One of the most intense scenes I've done, and had very powerful elements that got to showcase heroism vs pragmatism in the face of hopelessness. Great RP.
@Arkandel I dunno, downvoting feels petty to me. I probably would use downvote if it wasn't anonymous, since then it would feel more like 'No I disagree but I don't have time to post why' rather than 'I just hate your stupid face.' I'm not sure that's great for a forum though, since hearing the reasons why someone disagrees is what drives conversations after all and I'd rather see replies than someone leaving it as a click and moving on.
@Alzie Huh, I'm honestly not sure what you mean, or maybe I just don't really notice it. The only pop up I can think of is the daily list, since it changes each day and it displays on the first character on a new day login. I mean I know of the other things but I have to bring them up, they don't come up by default so I'm not sure if that is a setting difference or something. That's striking to me since I think of gw2 as much more sandboxy than WoW or swtor (in that you largely can just run off wherever), and kind of more simplified than those 2, rifts, eq2, aion, etc. I think the one game that I can remember having like an obnoxious amount of log in spam pop up things was everquest 2, where I felt like I was closing 4-5 screens when I popped on, I can't really recall that for other games.
Maybe I'm forgetting some, 'first time login, here's a tutorial to X' type things that's been eons since I've seen, now that I think about it. Those might be pretty annoying.
@Alzie Huh, what all features and functions are you talking about? I'm confused since that's almost the opposite of my take on the game compared to other MMOs.
apostatecd.6139 - I'm pretty casual these days, but I've been a commander leading WvW runs, I lead up dungeon runs, guild hall claiming missions, and sometimes those map sweep of HoT zones for hero points. If I'm on I'm probably free to help with whatever.
@Three-Eyed-Crow said:
@lavit2099 said:
People enjoy political RP too much to say no.
Do they really?
I've seen maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe five players, in my life, who are actually, truly interested in feudal politics. The rest want to be knights and lords and princesses without actually doing anything. Which I honestly think is fine, but it's not political RP, and I honestly do think it should be minimized in my ideal D&D game. My ideal game is not others' ideal game, though.
I definitely have met a number of players extremely interested in the dynamics of political groups interacting and the RP that comes from it, and I've seen it done well. But I think they are a small minority compared to individuals who enjoy the trappings of power/control but have no interest whatsoever in ever RPing the responsibility that would come with it, particularly when it comes to generating RP for people below them.
@Cirno said:
Sadly this will never happen, because nobody will want to join. The nonblack people won't be interested in shedding blood for black people, and the Black people would be upset that I'm letting nonblacks in.
This comment reminded me of the story a bit ago about the ultra right wing white militia guys that sided with the Black Lives Matter protesters and wanted to arm them. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-oath-keeper-who-wants-to-arm-black-lives-matter-20160103