I like a lot about the show. What they're doing with Dorne is a travesty though - the writers' only chance for redemption in that regard is if they are aware of the fact, and they're leading things to a meltdown there. I can't tell if they think we should be fist-pumping for the Sand Snakes or what.
@deadculture said in Bump In The Night: A Chronicles of Darkness MUX:
Guy Gavriel Kay is great at both world-building and characterization. Comparing a GGK novel to a GRRM one is like comparing gold to bull crap.
I realize this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Game on.
I love GGK. The ending of The Lions of Al-Rassan, argghh. It still aches a bit.
But comparing authors doesn't work. They have different styles, tell different stories, they cannot be objectively judged. Some people think Twilight is the best, to each their own.
@Coin The idea of being anything but grateful to someone willing to come in and volunteer to run things for me makes no sense. Unless it's an absurdly bad or implausible plot there's only one valid response to that and it's "thank you".
The other reason for it is that if the scene is public anyone can come in and 'derail' it. If people want to do their thing just grab a temp or private room, sheesh.
But I'd guess the same players will still bitch the next day because nothing ever happens and they're bored.
@Coin said in Finding roleplay:
I like both styles, frankly; I think they both have their place. But it's absolutely true that one style has completely taken over the hobby, leaving the other as a rare, endangered practice we're all too old to really push forward with.
Yeah, this. For starters though anyone who'd complain because someone else threw unexpected plot - as long as it's not terribly unthematic of course - on 'their scene'? Oh no, things are happening instead of being in a barely glorified bar scene in which nothing happens!
... Anyway.
What I like about the presence of a Storyteller running a PrP is the idea there is a point to it; either self-contained or part of a series, there is an identifiable story being told. It was introduced, characters get to witness it unfold and it will hopefully have a resolution. Those are not all elements one necessarily gets to experience in organic 'normal' RP.
On the other hand of course it's always fun when stories just... happen. Sometimes I've had a blast because chemistry was just right and while surrounded by creative players we generated very high quality roleplay; I hold my days in HM's VampSphere with the Carthians very highly in that regard, for example.
It's likely criticism to either kind of plot-running can be traced back to doing it badly. Either the 'story' involved is shoved down people's throats ('you will fight orcs and you will LIKE it'), someone enriches a scene with me-me stuff that derails ongoing roleplay when it was already working just fine ('my character comes in bleeding, won't someone bring him back from the brink of death? Oh, you were busy before? too bad, now you're dealing with me'), but I think what still must be said is that even those frustrating examples are still better than idling. I'd be quite grateful to the silly ST who runs one of those self-contained PrP which is 95% combat with a 5% excuse for it than sit there stalking +who trying to find RP.
Interesting sounding TV shows for the summer:
Houdini & Doyle
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Stephen Mangan) and Harry Houdini (Michael Weston) solve mysteries while debating whether or not the supernatural is real
Preacher
Outcast
The show follows Kyle Barnes (Patrick Fugit), who is looking for answers about why he’s been the subject of possessions since he was a kid. Unsurprisingly, this search for answers could lead to disaster for all of humanity.
BrainDead
Alien spawn have eaten the brains of the people working on Capitol Hill. Comedy
Dead of Summer
A supernatural evil stalks a summer camp and the show balances that with the usual problems faced by the kids and counselors there.
Mr. Robot
Stranger Things
Another new Netflix series, this one’s set in the ‘80s and starts with the disappearance of a young girl, and ends with top secret experiments, terrifying supernatural forces, and “one very strange little girl.” A cast led by Winona Ryder
@Thenomain said in Finding roleplay:
if I go to an event I'd be expected to know what I'm doing, and by rolling stats in front of a group of strangers may expose just how little I know what I'm doing with the game system.
I can't relate to that part, I guess. You should ask @Coin how much of the game system I'm familiar with in comparison to the number of scenes full of strangers I've ran. 
... It's like being a surgeon who never went to med school. Hah-hah, I'm sure it'll all be fine! I'm almost positively certain this is where I'm supposed to cut.
@Apos But are they jarred out of it? If I responded to your disagreement with insults for example it'd have been as likely to put you on the defensive and just dismiss everything I'm saying ('Arkandel is just a fucking idiot' - you might actually have been right about that ) as to actually take what I argued under consideration.
It's very difficult to look at someone calling you names and admit they have a point at the same time, you know?
@deadculture said in RL Anger:
I think you defeat that sort of lapse in rationale with good arguments, not mockery.
Mockery only serves to infuriate and dig one's personal view further into a trench.
Yes, basically. If someone is wrong you attack the arguments, not the person.
What does mockery achieve? Sure, it makes you feel better for a couple of minutes but so what?
@mietze My idea of running a PrP 'for' someone is really to run a story involving some major themes of their characters. But in isolation it seems futile - the character grows better outside of a vacuum - and in truth I consider any given plot to be a wash if people don't roleplay about it outside the ST'ed scenes themselves.
So this brings me to the next question folks - have PrPs been good places to 'meet people' and make lasting IC relationships, or do they tend to be self-contained in your experience? Do they generate RP out of those +events?
@Kanye-Qwest said in RL Anger:
@Kanye-Qwest said in RL Anger:
Seriously, @mietze, you need to lighten up and learn to take a compliment. Maybe if you ask nicely (or just state your own perspective) Derp will tell you how should react to things.
You make me facepalm even when I'm agreeing with you. You do the cause you're trying to defend more damage than good by defending it the way you do.
Wait. Which cause am I damaging (instead of defending), here?
You are too eager to jump down people's throats and throw sarcastic, hostile comments around when you disagree with them; it seems important to you that there are sides, that there is a conflict, and that someone is out to get you so you're hitting back as hard as possible.
This makes it hard to hold a dialogue. Other people aren't the enemy, every argument doesn't need to be turned into a personal attack.
@EmmahSue said in Finding roleplay:
But in the end, I'm not a fan of being the center of a story.
Does a PrP ran for you need to have a story revolving around your PC?
Also, you are a monster. You probably don't even like Tolkien.
@mietze Sometimes I feel out of place in unstructured scenes. Getting 5+ people in a room, other than the spam generated (which on its own is unpleasant, it's something to be dealt with rather than a good thing) without something concrete to keep them there makes me lose interest. I've enjoyed roleplay in that vein in the past but it was always when the characters already knew each other to some degree and they were there to get shit done - either a PrP, leading to one, or conspiring to bring down a Prince or such.
But otherwise those food get-togethers. Argh.
Speaking of PrPs though, I've found running them is a mixed bag. Even on BITM where people seemed to have fun I couldn't quite translate that into roleplay for my character - since, after all, he wasn't actually present for those scenes. In that way it's an inefficient way of playing, I suppose, since you spend hours playing with others but get out with no more ways of hooking into their stuff than you did walking in.
Still, RP is RP I suppose, whether my PC is present or not.
@mietze said in Finding roleplay:
Or I put myself in a public location and broadcast I'm doing so with an open invite to anyone who wants to stop by, as long as I'm in there, is welcome to join me at any time. I've actually found /that/ gets more shy nibbles/show ups than asking on chan. I'm not sure why. Has anyone else found this to be the case?
I have, but I won't deny it's bitten me in the ass before. For example a common issue was when too many people showed up (after all if you extend an open invitation you can't turn anyone down) to the point where the scene was impossible to enjoy.
Oh, which reminds me!
Have you folks ever found meet-and-greet to be a way to be conductive to finding long-term RP? Those scenes are everywhere in every MU* I've ever played and I've hated the vast majority or was indifferent about the rest, but I can't tell if it's the large scene hater in me being peeved or if it's a genuinely not great idea. The way I see it, it allows people who've already hooked their characters' backgrounds and/or already know each other to be buddies while the rest pose about hanging near the food.
@ThatOneDude Well, it is a game about monsters.
@ThatOneDude That's easier, I can trap it in a spawn window of its own. I can't do that with OOC room stuff.
@Kanye-Qwest said in Finding roleplay:
Wikis seem to be a much bigger deal in WoD games - but then, I've only ever played Firan and a couple of WoD games. I much, much preferred Firan's grid because it had no ooc lounge room for people to just hang out in, and public places were public places.
If you ask me, hanging out in the OOC room is too high a price to pay for finding RP. No matter how great the RP ends up being.
@HorrorHound said in RL Anger:
So, do you guys normally froth and bark at each other like this?
Sure, but for the most part it's well natured. I habitually disagree with people (who're wrong all the time, obviously) I have a lot of respect for.
@Arkandel - At least you don't quite jump on the hate-wagon. I even said that it's probably a legit reaction, several times over, but that it's simply not the reaction that I would have personally chosen to apply, because I tend to think in a different way, and that -potentially- there is another valid way to look at it. Why is that so wrong?
I don't waste my time hating people on forums. It's not even that entertaining on a Monday, when my hatred pool is nearly full.
The error in your reasoning is in thinking like a recipient. You're assuming what your reaction would be if what happened to @mietze happened to you - which is of course different since most of us react in different ways to the same thing. So you'd have been cool about it, there's nothing wrong with that part.
I was attempting to point out that, as someone to whom such a thought might occur ("this is a person I literally haven't seen iRL in 30 years ever since she was a child, so let's look hard enough to track her down then drop in at her job and try to speak with her with notions of kindling some sort of romanticism between us") there are many layers of warning bells that should have prevented that from ever actually being realized. Entire parts of those plans should be giving off red flags as being social inappropriate - which is what makes it creepy.
Because the kind of person who ignored every single one of those bells and actually went through with it probably has some issues. Do you see where I'm coming from? The very act of going ahead with it is telling.
Also to be clear: this person is not an ex. We met when I was 12, at a week long summer camp, and he was 17. I exchanged 2 or 3 letters with him--and then had no contact written or otherwise for..30 years.
This sounds like this guy is having one hell of a mid-life crisis. I wonder if you're even the only girl from his past (?) he's tried to reach this way.