Posts made by Arkandel

I mean it's your funtime, but those... are about the opposite choices I'm making in my gaming. You seem to prioritize peeves a lot more than I would.

To each their own.

@Ghost said:

Assign a GM/ST to each region, so each region has their own disconnected stories, different housing, and different wants/needs that could cause them to unite or fight amongst each other as they saw fit.

Generally speaking, systems which depend on an abundance of STs don't prosper.

@Usekh said:

Tennis. In general I vaguely dislike most sports, but Tennis and the moaning and grunting and shrieking when they are hitting a ball....wtf? I keep checking to see if it has turned into some kind of combative orgy, but nope just fuckwits who seem to want to sound like they are giving birth to tennis balls.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunting_in_tennis

@Sovereign said:

@Arkandel

I was unaware the word's meaning was arcane. Is there something wrong with the dictionary definition?

I think so -but @Roz's post covers my answer as well.

I've seen (and sometimes but not always have been part of) groups doing their own thing on the side. It's usually when they have at least one active ST with a story to tell for them so they have a strong internal theme running.

So there are different layers of exclusion to consider. In this case 'outsiders' aren't going to be necessarily invited in, even though I don't think I've ever seen that happen - sooner or later there are crossovers, new romantic interests, etc to blend the lines of who's part of the group or not. But then again that doesn't mean the group isn't interacting with the game in general, participating in its metaplot, diversifying its interests by reaching out to make connections outside of itself.

So it's up to you (the generic 'you' that is) to decide if that's a clique, and if so, whether it's detrimental to the game due to its internal insider-only access to certain resources and plot devices. In other words if being a clique is an undesired formation or if it's a building block of like-minded individuals with a strong identity.

@Sovereign said:

@Thenomain

Yeah, no. Not everyone is an influence and cliques are fine.

I want someone to define for me what a 'clique' is in the context of either a MUSH or this conversation (or both).

Please.

@tragedyjones said:

D-d-double post!

When I want to watch something legally, but it is a hassle, prohibitively expensive, or just not an option to stream. I don't want to buy a digital copy of a movie I am going to watch once for $12.99, Amazon.

The flipside of that: Movies I can literally download for free with just a click of the mouse and I still don't. All that money into these properties and they're not worth a twitch of my right hand's index finger.

@Coin said:

You know, perspective.

There are also characters - not people - who would simply change a scene by their inclusion, and that's not the scene those there are looking to run.

Obvious examples: A non-supernatural (or 'wrong' supernatural) type in a scene full of people who're doing IC Masquerade-breaching things, sometimes it's annoying to have to talk cryptically and around what you actually want to be talking about. Or ... the scene's participants want to keep focus where it belongs - yes, it'd be awesome to get to witness a First Change and pose losing your shit but it's the other guy's only First Change ever and the roleplay should be about them. Unless they're okay about sharing the spotlight, let them have it.

... In retrospect we've come up with plenty of reasons why universal inclusion isn't always a black and white issue, heh.

No, I agree, that's a more annoying phenomenon. I don't always mind (and often want) new people to come in and give the scene a jolt but not always, and it's impolite to assume - especially when the setting is kinda public but not a lot. I mean I get it, people are bored in a room waiting for something - anything - to happen and then something is so they just want to be part of it, but when a bunch do so the original scene is buried under walls of text from all these newcomers. That's not fair.

Asking first is never a bad idea, and please be prepared to take 'no' for an answer. It's not personal if there are already 4 people there and your inclusion would swell the numbers further.

@faraday said:

@Arkandel said:

But it is. I mean it's still considerate to ask before joining but if you're in an actual public place - I'm not talking the back room of a bookstore but a busy restaurant or something - then being annoyed if someone walks in is unreasonable.

Being annoyed if they walk in is unreasonable, but so is being annoyed if you walk in, ask to join and they tell you 'no'.

But that's what I'm saying, it depends on the context.

For starters and before I say anything else, I'm not staying for a scene where I'm not wanted. That'd be ... well, it wouldn't happen.

Otherwise if the scene is about people talking on their own then yes, trying to butt in - especially if they're not particularly welcoming, let alone actively adverse to the idea - is a douche move. But if it's about something else that specifically draws attention and invites intervention fuck that. If my character pulls a gun in a downtown restaurant at lunch time I don't get to tell people they can't be there because they might call the cops or try to stop him and that 'ruins it for me'. It's not cool.

If the setting is some seedy watering hole in a bad part of town at 1 am then there's an argument to be made.

It's all context dependent.

@Apos said:

That would be terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE advice on some games. I've played on MUs where any public grid RP is used as a specific invitation for anyone to join in as long as they can someone justify their character being there. Making it exclusionary would contrast dramatically with the culture of the game and be an incredible insult to pretty much the entire player base and be seen as directly incompatible with the non-sandbox environment they are trying to foster. I would absolutely not permit it ever on mine. There could only ever be IC reasons to not have someone enter a scene, never, ever OOC.

But it is. I mean it's still considerate to ask before joining but if you're in an actual public place - I'm not talking the back room of a bookstore but a busy restaurant or something - then being annoyed if someone walks in is unreasonable.

A while ago I was staff overseeing the gripe of someone who was in exactly that setting, and he had a gun out when a cop PC entered the room. He was butthurt because 'his' scene was disrupted - no. If someone wants it to be just their scene set in a public room without the possibility of being interrupted then they can use a RP room for it.

@Thenomain said:

I'm going to half-agree with @Arkandel here when he says that "all you can do is enjoy yourself"; I still think it's critical that people allow others to enjoy themselves in what is going on.

That's only half of it though - maybe it's how I perceive the game, but I only really enjoy it when I'm feeling the chemistry between my PC and others'. My best, favorite scenes just flow, I don't have to sit there staring at the screen trying to set things in motion, they are already moving and all I have to do is flesh out my character's part in them. It does very little for me to pose if there's nothing clicking even if there's nothing wrong with the poses themselves. Good chemistry is what I treasure above all other qualities in RP.

I could be wrong, and there are those here who have played with me to dispel my illusion, but generally speaking I'm fairly confident when I'm having a blast in a scene I'm not the only person there enjoying themselves.

@Sovereign said:

The best counter, I've always found, is creating your own clique.

The best counter, I've always found, is creating your own fun.

Don't worry about what other people are doing, you're not able to control or responsible for them, only for your stuff. Play the game (if you want to) or go (if you don't).

If you are fun enough to be around other people will come join in. I don't know if that's a clique in MSB terms any more, that word has been polluted and loaded with preconceptions by now until I can't tell what it's supposed to mean outside of a very specific context.

But I've yet to enjoy myself on a game and not look around to find others in my PC's periphery not being entertained, and if that happens I honestly can't find myself giving half a shit what someone else may be perhaps saying. Which they are usually not (I'm not the centre of their world, they don't spend every waking hour discussing me), it's just an imaginary situation that can poison my time when I could be having fun instead if I start treating it as a reality.

@SG said:

How much of the campaign do you foreshadow?

Foreshadowing is fine, telegraphing everything is not. You can be coy and a certain amount of that can work great to build anticipation, but let it sit for too long and it gets stale. Your players will just want to get to the part where the payoff's at.

To give an example.

A while ago I ran a plot in a fantasy game where Warder trainees were being taken around the Borderlands (a hard place next to the Blight where hordes of monsters resided) to show them how people there survived under such a constant threat. So I took them to an old fort, made sure to drop hints - it was under disrepair, it hadn't seen active duty in decades, the only soldiers manning it were old veterans and disfavoured grunts - so it was pretty obvious to the players a siege was coming, it was just a matter of time.

So allowing the upcoming fight to generate tension is a good thing. But if I let it stay at that over a certain point the same people I'm counting on to be excited and nervous will get complacent and bored - the more time passes without the other shoe dropping the more annoying it gets as they get into conversations about the state of the world (yawn, they can do that outside a plot) and generic tactical chats ('this is how I'd defend that ancient iron gate') when they could be struggling to stay and keep each alive under wave after wave of flesh-eating monsters.

Then I can (and should) give them time to have those exact conversations between waves, which carries far more value. Now they're bonding in the face of death, not having a bar conversation.

Foreshadowing is one tool you have as a Storyteller but so is pacing. They both need to be engaged for either to work.

Make lunch. Leave in a rush because I'm late. Forget lunch on the counter.

Grr.

To me the unsolvable problem with GoT as a MU* (same as many fantasy worlds) is always population fragmentation.

Unless you're willing to handwave the logistics of getting from A to B (which is doable but it'd destroy my suspension of disbelief in the long run) or to sacrifice entire chunks of cool places people can play at, you're going to end up with some of your players in King's Landing, others at the Wall, etc.

And that sucks.

@Apos I've had someone tell me my RP style was close to someone who had stalked them, and although it wasn't likely I was that person, they couldn't take the chance I might be.

So yeah, I guess it happens.

P.S. I wasn't!

Oh! Double post.

In the past I've balked at picking PBs which 'match' someone else's if they were in a movie or something together. So for example if I was using Keeanu Reeves and someone I was planning on playing with a lot was using Carrie-Anne Moss it'd strike me as weird. Is it just me?

Also I don't much like using A-listers. But that's an overshadowing choice, I feel people would be thinking 'Harrison Ford' or 'George Clooney' not 'Cadric Drowkiller' when they looked at the page.

My thing, which Some People have given me lip about, is storing up interesting-looking PBs when I run into an image I like just in case I decide to use it in the future for a character I haven't even considered yet. But I do the same with character names (obviously the hardest part of character creation).

I do know if I'll decide on the PB before writing the description as trying to do it the other way around is utter madness.

Other than sources on which to find a PB, a few questions from me:

1. How important is the part where you find a PB for your character? As in, if it takes you X minutes to figure out what's allowed, write the BG, etc... what percentage of that do you spend searching for the right one?

2. Does it matter to you what other people choose? For example if someone has picked the same PB as you, if it's a beefcake/hot model or a regular joe... and do you think the choice means something about their character or even player?

3. Do you find it odd these days if someone does things differently? Say... has no PB. Or chooses artwork over a real picture (for a realistic MU*, obviously it'd be different for a superhero MU* for example if you're playing a comic book character and used a drawing).

@Glitch said:

Typing game.

(@^&$* damn you.