Best posts made by Auspice

@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I know I'm supposed to be the descriptivist here... but fuck I hate the phrase "going forward."

Go home, you're drunk.

I will be totally honest that the Nox'alfar stuff in Alpha/early Beta was the primary reason I lost interest in playing. I finally, with Mason's story and how I got hooked in on Lou, began feeling involved (because my investigations, no matter how hard I worked, never went anywhere)... but Mason's player at the time was good about keeping me in through him. And he was an important hook at the time.

So I thought, yes, I can get involved. Going out there makes sense for Lou. Finally! My character built for adventuring gets to do a thing! She's been sitting around bored, unable to do the thing she's made to do! And then oh, no, we all decided this other character similar to Lou goes instead. Sorry!

Took the wind right out of my sails. I went from 'I am all for this place' to '...oh.' So I really do get why new people are feeling like they'll never be able to find a place to fit in. It was really, really hard even back in Alpha / early Beta if you weren't constantly active / knew the right people.

Been using Spotify (if you can get on a family plan with some folks, it's a great deal) for years now. It's been the best service for me.

People who obsessively use %t/[space(5)] are a large part of why I refuse to log.

I won't name names, but y'all know who you are. And you need to stop.

I metapose to an extent. Partly to tell story (it is a narrative!) and partly to help flesh out why my character is doing what they're doing. I can't perfectly convey expression or body language, but the metapose might help get some more of that across. So I try to balance a line. I won't ever get into the passive aggressive snarking at other peoples' characters in it (and I loathe when people do!), but I might use it to expand upon why my character is behaving a certain way. Why they're standing stiffly, why they're lounging noodle-limbed upon the sofa... because there's intricacies to form that we can pick up on IRL that may not always make sense in simplistic text without the other details.

So while I know some games of yesteryear were very draconian about NO METAPOSE, I use them because I feel they help expand upon why my character is doing what they do and I trust my fellow roleplay partner to be an adult and play to what they know (or could reasonably pick up on) and what they don't.

@arkandel said in Favorite music streaming service?:

I find it really interesting no one has voted for 'radio'. Not a single person.

Because radio has more commercials than music.

@gingerlily

Do we need to schedule an intervention?

@arkandel said in RL things I love:

@wildbaboons said in RL things I love:

He started off by asking if anyone had been to a tournament before and everyone said no except for one kid that raised his hand and proclaimed, "No, but I've watched the Karate Kid!"

Completely true story. I was watching Cobra Kai a couple of weeks ago and on my way home I was dropping a coworker friend off (he's in his late 20s) at his place so we were chatting about it.

I asked him if he had watched Karate Kid. He said, and I quote, "yeah, that's the one with the black kid."

Having a good friend / RP partner who is the sort of person you can approach with 'So I have this story I'd kinda like to see happen with our characters...' and they like it and are on board with you to make it happen.

@admiral said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@auspice I don't mind offering a ride every once in a while, if you want to save a little money. Any excuse to drive.

tbh I've thought about asking, but I'd feel weird just asking for a ride to work. Driving downtown isn't going to let you really enjoy your car.

@thatguythere said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

@quinn said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

I Some people will NEVER legwork a thing.

I think I am one of those people. I am more than happy to chase down plots through scenes but the second it becomes put in a request thing i tend to drift away. I don't mind RPing being in a library looking for things but the whole +jobs structure has always reminded me a bit too much like game homework so I tend to avoid it.
Which leads into my thing for encouraging active players eliminate bureaucracy whenever possible.

I would not mind running such a scene, but if no one ever tells me they want a research scene, I'm probably not going to just run one off the cuff... because most people don't want scenes like that. In my experience, most people don't show up to scenes like that. They show up to the big flashy action! events.

So you need to at the very least alert your plot runner to the fact that you want to do research via RP. If you never say a thing, they can only assume you don't want that thing.

I generally add OOC notes to my stuff, wrap up scenes with OOC notes, etc. for people to let me know if they want to do more. If they want to follow up on something. If they want to see more scenes. I try to make myself as available as possible (as a Staffer, a player, an ST). I know I am an available person because when I Staff, people are generally perfectly comfortable coming to me with questions (about CG, wiki help, concerns, etc...)...

...but I almost never get followup on plot. This is why I think that the vast majority of people just want to be spoon fed their plot.

@shincashay said in RL Anger:

Just don't forget that they're in there. Had some food fall out of my bra during sexy times.

It's just a bit of energy to keep the action going!

@lisse24

Most of my plots are investigative things & long-term. They're not really monster-of-the-week unless it's meant to be the kick-off for something. But I will tell people that there is more or that it is a one-off only. I've always done this.

...sadly people will ignore it both ways. I've had people take my this is a one-off, there is nothing else and insist to dig further (this was back when people were very proactive) and I've had people completely ignore things when I send them on scene one of SPOOKY INVESTIGATION TIEM!!!

Again, if I have NO IDEA WHAT THEY WANT TO DO... what am I supposed to schedule?

Do they want to go here? there? Do they want to talk to this person? That person?
Do I schedule twenty scenes to cover every possible avenue? Do I page every person and spend half an hour holding their hand and walking them through every possible outcome they could take?

Why is it so much to hope that people might actually take some initiative and go 'page storyteller=Hey, you said to let you know what we'd like to follow up on. I'd like to have a scene where we go talk to that museum curator sometime.'

Why do I need to +event/create <museum followup/library followup/brainstorm session/investigation scene/clue chat/other followup/witness investigation>, page person a=what do you want to do?, page person b=what do you want to do?, page person c=what do you want to do?

If you all honestly feel the entire weight is on the storyteller to hold everyone's hand and show them the way and walk them through every option their character has, every idea their character might have, every path their character might consider to take, every question their character might ask...

... I don't want to ST anymore. Why are you ever roleplaying if I'm just going to be playing your character for you?

@insomnia

I killed a guy and later it caused me to succeed a mission as soon as I got it!

Ha ha!

@darinelle said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

From my perspective, "Encouraging Proactive Players" boils down to one thing: Take the idea that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, set it on fire, throw it out the window and let it burn down the neighborhood.

Now you have time to find the people who are consistently making plot for other people, sharing the love, spreading information, and doing things that make a RP sphere great - and you can do something nice for them. Whether that's spending a little extra time writing some lore for them, or creating a horrible character that spends months terrorizing them at random (cough) or taking them on an adventure plot or just giving them a chance to shine - spend time to do things for people who are already willing to use at least part of their time to do nice things for others.

Sadly, on most games, those running plot rarely get to participate in plot and because there's so few plot runners left, they often get overwhelmed until they burn out for a while.

It'd be amazing if there was an ST's ST out there.

@insomnia said in Vampyr:

@auspice ORLY? Who?

...asking for a friend.

Cadogan.
I needed blood and he seemed useless anyway. >.>

@mietze said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

Wow, thanks for keeping everyone organized and enforcing timeliness,

I can actually recall a scene where I thanked a player for this specifically. I gave the PCs two directions they could choose to go in. I had options planned out for each. And all but one person spend two rounds just figuratively sitting on their hands. Even the PC 'in charge' ... wouldn't make a decision. No one would OOCly make a call. No one would ICly make a call.

Despite me asking. Despite me nudging. Despite me giving them all the details and hints and going hey, this is for you guys. This is for your fun. Either direction works, just pick one; each has fun stuff to do!

Until one player finally went 'Guys, let's just go this way. We can't keep just sitting around wasting time.'

I thanked them profusely after.

Seriously, be the person who takes initiative, even OOCly. Take a poll. Nudge people. Be the helper to page the person that's still learning to help them out. Your ST will love you for it. They are juggling story and NPC/monster sheets and dice and...

@arkandel said in RL Anger:

S1 was good. S2... I felt it stretched things a bit too thin to squeeze another series out.

That's because S1 covered the whole book. S2 is crafted wholesale and it's clear they were just desperate to keep making it.

@tinuviel said in RL Anger:

@surreality It's also fuckin' terrible. Allegedly they went against every piece of advice from psychologists and therapists when making said series.

I will say their warnings, as someone who has struggled with depression (often severely) make me roll my eyes. They felt like they were very much written by someone who has zero idea what depression really is.

@wildbaboons said in Creative Outlets:

@arkandel said in Creative Outlets:

I've never gotten a character right in my head until I played him in at least 5-6 scenes with different people. It just takes me that long to stretch him out, see what makes him tick and experiment with different voices until one just feels like him.

This is why i hate writing backgrounds more than a couple sentences long. I don't know how they are, how they were shaped, until I get a chance to play them a bit

I love that more games are letting me write bullet point backgrounds. Let me write the high notes and fill things in as I play the character.

@tinuviel said in RL Anger:

@auspice You guys got warnings?

We didn't.

The ones before the episodes in season 2. It has the actors all "if you suffer from depression, talk to a parent or teacher or counselor. Talking about it makes it easier!"

And it's like.

Okay a, your entire show is teaching kids that adults can't be trusted. B, talking does not make it easier for many people.

@peasoupling said in Creative Outlets:

@lithium said in Creative Outlets:

@peasoupling said in Creative Outlets:

@lithium said in Creative Outlets:

See I love posing /actions/ people can respond to, not stuff that is a barrier to entry to RP. They can easily look at my character and read what I look like, or if they know me, they have already done so and posing it over and over again can be... intrusive.

I feel like people respond to what people look like all the time, though. Moreso if it's something that's likely to stand out for some reason, whether because it just does, or because of context. Maybe you're in leopard print, hot pink, and wearing gold mirrored aviators indoors. Or maybe you're wearing a vintage Dior dress with pockets, which is always relevant.

Either way, I don't tend to have a description for every single outfit my characters might wear. The closest is on Arx, but even then people kinda skim and assume all kinds of things.

Yes people respond to what people look like, but there are /so many/ multi-descers out there that are /easy/ to use and manipulate on the fly. There's absolutely no reason to need to pose it every single time rather than set a multidescer up.

Well, generally my descriptions include the character's general sense of style and fashion, the kinds of clothes you'll likely see them in, not specifics. They don't wear the same clothes every day, but I'm probably not going to multidesc the entirety of their wardrobe in advance. I did once, but the character was a street rat, literally.

Double-post since this came in while I was writing. This, yes. This is why I write the single-line in my entrance pose. Because my main desc includes the general sense of style, so my main pose can be like 'Today s/he is wearing...' and a simple <blah> of what it is.