Objective physical improvement. When I was started riding a bicycle to work again at the beginning of spring some uphills were pretty hard. I could do them but I was feeling the burn and was out of breath for a few minutes afterwards. This morning I didn't realize I was doing it until I was past the hill since I was thinking of other things at the time; that challenge got turned into just another regular stretch of road.
@FiranSurvivor AFAIK non-full Supernatural templates aren't capped in any way. You could always even make a Wolfblooded character (for example) and have an in-game First Change when the sphere has room.
@Roz There's a flipside to that though. It's when people make characters and as @Cobaltasaurus brought up nothing is happening in an accessible way for them yet when they bring it up someone else goes "well, I always have scenes!" like it's necessarily the first person's fault there's no RP outside closed cliques or PrPs they weren't invited to.
Yes, some folks set themselves up for failure and screw'em. We should all be responsible for finding our own fun. But the alternative is not to be told to log on and ask on a public channel for RP because 99% of the time that just means, at best, a meet-and-greet bar scene.
Unfortunately the only real fix is to generate more plots, and as a community we're not doing very well in encouraging new Storytellers to step up and run them.
Loner-slash-misanthropes don't work on MU*. They can work, I suppose, if you're OOC well connected and set them up in just the right way, but why burden yourself like that?
@Miss-Demeanor said:
Yeah. If you're going to go to the trouble of killing a fuckton of dudes, you want to be SURE they aren't going to get back up.
Also works very well for zombies. If you have to train to kill you might as well do it right the first time, just in case.
@Silver Air is the worst. It's a drug, you start taking it and then you, like, can't stop. And if you do stop? You DIE. Horrible stuff. Would not recommend again.
If you lost all of your weight you wouldn't have to use it!
@thebird said:
Edit: Also, the new Mad Max movie? I want to go spend my entire pay check seeing that absolutely ridiculous film. Love it.
@HelloRaptor Right. What I (think I) meant was that I can't see rhyme or reason in why one character becomes a favorite and another not even a memory. I put the same amount of thought in them then factors outside of my control seem to determine the outcome.
It's about good timing, having game/sphere stability (I won't have much fun if everyone around me is knee-deep in high drama), finding a good cast of people having available time and feeling like investing it and of course those people actually liking my PC.
Most of those aren't things I can do much about. So when it does happen, it's a kind of a fluke.
@SG said:
Seriously, pen and paper, then take it to the library to scan it.
Maybe @2mspris doesn't have access to a library, you insensitive clod.
@Thisnameistaken said:
- STer versatility. I've been known to catch STers off guard at times (Sorry about your gryphon @arkandel). I've been caught off guard by players, myself. The bests prps are when the STer, be it myself or others, can roll with it, even play off of it.
I don't enjoy it as much while I ST if a plot goes exactly as I planned it. It's not because it feels boring but because I wonder if I've managed to engage my players, and not knowing for sure if they feel they're being railroaded into the story. Which is very difficult to find a balance with since giving too much freedom can catch some players like deers in the headlights and they stall without me prodding them.
So yeah, smash your cars into those damn gryphons. At least then I know for sure there's some interaction.
- Smaller. After 4-5 people, things start to get too chaotic to focus on properly. A 16 person combat scene is a nightmare waiting to happen.
Only combat? Even social scenes when they are large enough are a pain. On SHH I let the scale get out of my control though, the plot became too large and pulled in too many people to the point where some were alienated (understandable...) and one lashed out at me OOC for not answering their +jobs fast enough (... less so). On Eldritch I'm trying a smaller model which is based on a smaller group of players across spheres.
@ThatGuyThere said:
The plots I remember most are those that are relevant to the character. I understand not every plot will be like this and also I don't tend to go to open call type prps most of the ones I am in are run my someone I know who also knows the character I am playing.
That's another tough issue to set up as a ST.
For starters there's a risk in taking over someone's toys - using NPCs from your PC's background but giving them a different voice than you had for them, for example, or altering/doing things to them you might not like if you were planning on utilizing them elsewhere in the future.
There's also the fact you mention in that a ST won't always know people's characters, and the ones I'm familiar with are (naturally) ones played by friends - but unless I'm content with running plot exclusively for my immediate circle of buddies I risk crafting stories which revolve around those specific people.
Open question: What are the things you like the most in the PrPs you're participating? What makes a great one greater than an average one?
In other words if you looked at some of the most fun plots you've been in, what did they seem to have in common? Be specific with the elements you enjoyed or their structure if you can though, as "they were awesome because <ST X> is awesome!" is less useful than "its scenes started and finished on time and had a sympathetic villain".
I'm an one-alt-at-a-time guy. If I have more than one, the second is nearly never played. That means I'm pretty dependent on being well connected on an IC (and possibly OOC) level to find RP, since I can't simply switch to my vampire if nothing's happening around my werewolf.
On the other hand the same thing has made me really proactive. I cultivate relationships with other PCs, I make sure my character is on their speed-dial if shit happens and I try to include them in anything I'm involved with whenever possible.
Being sociable pays off in multiplayer games, who knew.
It's often not in your hands. In fact creating an interesting character (which for some people means someone with a rich background, specific thematic ties to complicated concepts, a quirky enough personality, etc) can make him a lot harder to play when on the grid.
For instance playing a survivor of vast supernatural phenomena, a veteran mystic who's seen too much, can easily make it bland to actually hit the grid and find not much is happening. Those aspects of his personality won't be easy to come out while mixing it up with the random ghoul from next door whose interests include pop music and Call of Duty.
My favorite characters have always been flukes. I started playing them and something clicked because of what other people I happened to run into who had room in their IC lives for mine, and I don't think I had poured more or less effort or creativity into them than others whose names I couldn't even remember any more. That's how how it works.
Has he been in any actual plots? Interesting ones, relevant to the character's nature in any way?
When I first start playing a PC it's a struggle until I find his voice no matter what he's about. This process is not at all made easier (and in fact is probably turned harder) by generic vanilla bar scenes in which he has to find something to talk about when there's nothing happening.
Get him in hot waters, see what he sweats out.
@Ganymede said:
I hope you can admit that appearances are not always indicative of behavior. If so, I think you'll see why some of us are struggling with what you originally wrote.
I suppose I do. Perhaps I assumed my reasoning for picking PBs is more universal - pick them to emphasize some aspect of the PCs' demeanor rather than 'this is what he'd look like without clothes' if being unclothed wasn't an important part of the overall character - but I'm certainly not offended by what people pick. Perhaps puzzled, though.
@Coin Or good looks. Watching british TV series sometimes reminds me of that fact. That secretary #2 isn't a softly lit person with great teeth and glowing skin.
@thebird said:
Edit: Also, the new Mad Max movie? I want to go spend my entire pay check seeing that absolutely ridiculous film. Love it.
I haven't seen it but it sounds like a very much love-it-or-hate-it film. Some people on my FB feed were in the latter camp, some reviewers really dig it.
