Posts made by Arkandel

@Coin said in Finding roleplay:

@Ninjakitten said in Finding roleplay:

@Coin
I absolutely agree on that point. (Sorry, @Arkandel!)

Don't apologize to him. He's a monster. Look at what he did to that poor syntax. Just horrible.

Your mom didn't complain.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/04/27/fit-of-rage-father-charged-with-suffocating-2-year-old-for-interrupting-computer-game/

@Pyrephox said in Finding roleplay:

@Arkandel Just the phrase "Babylonian nazi gold" hints at epic. Were these time-traveling Nazis who had taken over Babylon?

Oh, I'll type this out. It might as well be somewhere on MSB.

So on HM several years ago the VampSphere was very busy, the MU* was at its most popular and sphere staff were constantly rotating and essentially non-existent. We had to take care of our own st

I started a plot involving a mysterious torpid Elder, the Babylonian, whose tomb was discovered when PCs tracked some Brood down to an underground complex of caverns where they were conducting some unholy ritual on him for their own purposes.

Now, before I started I did speak with staff and got the go-ahead on it. I started a +job to which they were CCed, and for the first couple of sessions they were responsive. Keep this in mind since it'll become important later.

Things got rolling - there was a lot of creative talent in the VampSphere active at the time, in fact several of those people went ahead and ran or staffed games of their own later on - and since we were starved for story the plot got pretty busy. The arc lasted for something like 10-12 scenes over a period of a couple of months, involving most of the Covenants, then it reached its conclusion (of what I was planning to be the first chapter) in a huge scene with something like 18 PCs in it. I had a blast, and other players seemed to as well.

Through those two-some months I was posting updates on that thread constantly. I documented every scene,complete with posted logs on the wiki, but I was also including my intentions, thoughts for future instalments etc... yet no one was answering any more evne though the +job was getting huge. I also paged staff several times during this period to get their attention to it but they seemed idle and never got back to me. It might be useful to also note several staff alts were present for the entire arc with their PCs; this was hardly a covert operation, OOC or IC.

Anyway, at the end of all this the victorious Kindred laid siege on the caverns and destroyed the Brood there, disrupting the ritual. They recovered the slumbering Elder's coffin (still without any real idea about what they were actually dealing with) and in the chamber they also discovered assorted WW2-era German artifacts, uniforms, and a small chest full of gold bars marked with swastikas. All of this had been in the +job weeks ahead of the encounter, still without any comments of any kind. As far as I know no one bothered reading it until well after the fact.

Well, after the fact I was bitched out by some members of staff about those Nazi gold bars. It's not authorized! Who told me I had permission to introduce them to the game?

At first I actually thought it was an actual joke - no one blinked an eye at an army of PCs waging war on the Brood (which I had actually been permitted to use, which on HM was very rare) conducting dark rituals on the carcass of an ancient vampire but that's where they drew the line? But as I paged and finally got responses from sphere I realized they were quite serious; they were pissed off about it.

I was very disappointed given my prior investment juggling people's schedules, running PrPs, answering +comm jobs there so I made a short response apologizing if I overstepped, informed the involved players the PrPs were over effective immediately, took my ball and went home. The whole thing exploded on WORA when those players got upset about it but by then it was too late anyway, I had lost my appetite for plot-running on HM.

And that's the Nazi gold story.

@Ganymede Pffft. http://prairieweather.typepad.com/big_blue_stem/2014/12/beloved-disgusting-food.html

Okay, I laughed hard.

@Ganymede Poutine is disgusting.

@Pyrephox said in Finding roleplay:

I don't ever recall staff coming down on me for running a PrP...

It only ever happened once to me, but it was epic.

The Babylonian nazi gold plot on HM - I don't often remember things that happened years ago but that one stands out.

@Coin said in Finding roleplay:

@Arkandel said in Finding roleplay:

Rules aren't needed because everyone knows each other and/or can be trusted to possess common sense but because that is not true.

This sentence doesn't scan.

This is a rare time when you're right. You should cherish the occasion. Just like your mom.

... I'm tired. Basically I meant to say rules are needed because either staff isn't great (and thus they hide behind a myriad rules) or players aren't that good at employing common sense. If your PrP will cause half the city to collapse you may want to run it through staff first no matter how much leeway they're allowing.

My personal opinion is the harder staff squeezes their fist around PrP running the least I want to play their game. But to each their own.

These sentences don't answer @EmmahSue's question.

Not all I type here is meant to answer ES' questions!

Rules aren't needed because everyone knows each other and/or can be trusted to possess common sense but because that is not true.

My personal opinion is the harder staff squeezes their fist around PrP running the least I want to play their game. But to each their own.

@somasatori Take care of them like 'take care of them' or... y'know, TAKE CARE of them?

@Coin It's me. It's always me.

@Coin said in Finding roleplay:

It's a lot of silly nit-picking over vocabulary used.

If there were universally acceptable terms for different kinds of 'storytelling' I'd use them in a heartbeat. I've seen so many variations which translate to "PrP" in assorted games, based on whether it's staff or a player, if it's a participant or a disconnected person without a character running it, if it's sanctioned or not, etc.

Does anyone have a suggestion for such universal terminology?

http://mashable.com/2016/04/26/doctor-strange-ancient-one-celtic/#rLZQ.iHUFSqs

@lordbelh said in Good TV:

@Arkandel, @Three-Eyed-Crow , I haven't read the comics. I'm not a comics guy. But just from who is making it and starring in it, and what I've heard from people who've seen the first episode, apparently there are reasons to be excited.

The comic was excellent. But I'll read anything Garth Ennis has written.

@Derp said in Finding roleplay:

So no, unfortunately, there exist many places where you still can't drop random plots, or specific types of plots, etc, without prior staff approval and screening, etc.

There are more MU* tugging on sleeves for Storytellers to come run things than Storytellers looking for a game to play. I'll take my chances.

If I feel nostalgic about something was player-ran spheres. The need to go out and recruit others to your political cause or bend them toward your agenda is such a potent roleplaying-creation tool. When the more established characters have to get out of their rooms to influence hearts and minds and every new character is an unharvested vote for the next meeting what you end up with is a perpetual scene making machine.

Unfortunately such environments certainly have their issues. Rank-chasing turns mostly reasonable people into frothing idiots, over-active players can dominate things simply on the merit of being online 24/7, it encourages the creation of insular cliques and it often devolves into OOC drama if left unmanaged.

But damn, when it works it works really well.

@Derp said in Finding roleplay:

@Thenomain said in Finding roleplay:

@faraday

Coin got it. Where I play, a PrP has become systemized. There is an expectation that it have a point, an ending, or at the very least a risk/reward setup. Some people are good at winging it, but the last five years in the realms of WoD that's been discouraged.

I think we're seeing a reversal of that, but I still see the letters "PrP" and cringe.

I kind of hate it too, really. I'd much rather just do something organically in the moment than have to plan every little detail of something out, make it open to everyone who wants to come, try and work on scheduling and crap. It's terrible.

The flipside of it is people whose schedules, socialization skills or plain newbie status prevents them from being organically part of interesting scenes which grow to be more. Organized +events give them an in, and from then on they can cultivate IC relationships, show off their RP chops to people and gain hooks into the game's theme. Sometimes a STed PrP let me grow my still generic 'grumpy cop' into a legitimate more three dimensional character.

@lordbelh I seriously don't know if they have the go-ahead to put some of the more controversial elements of the comic book's plot in place. But Arseface is in, so that's something.

@Pandora I've read complaints on assorted places on the interwebs who wanted more lawyer stuff on Daredevil.

... Daredevil isn't The Good Wife. It's not a legal show. The emphasis will always be elsewhere.

@Derp Else you'd be trespassing and @Ganymede would have to prove damages in a civil action.