I remember a time when everyone who was into musical theater at all loved Memories because it's such a damn fine song.
Now it's like this scrabble to find the most obscure song from a lesser-known show.
In short: the hipster disease has infected musical theater and any critics engaging in it.
"...it absorbs all the bad energy and reduces radio waves"
WAT.
@Sunny said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
I am so cold! All the damn time! Aaaaaargh.
bUt CoLd Is BeTtEr ThAn HeAt
(a small part of me wills the same sort of deep, terrible body pains I feel when cold onto everyone who says this)
@Derp said in Engaging the Whole Scene:
Even in systems without init orders, though, pose orders are a thing. I don't think I've ever played on a game without one,. If there is NOT an order of some kind -- then the ST should probably enforce one anyway, for the sake of sanity.
But we come around again to 'whoever can type fastest, wins.' I enforce a 3PR pose order outside of initiative. Because it means everyone has a chance as opposed to Mike Speedyfingers tossing out a 2 line entrance pose to secure his spot as 'first' so that every round, he's still 'first.'
3PR means, a) there's a slowdown in effect (the 3 poses between), and b) other people will have a chance to step up and pose things.
There's no perfect method and it does come back to the ST, but that's why I'm asking here: what methods do people use to organically encourage people to share? How do you ensure everyone is involved?
If you're relying on a set, strict pose order, how do you make sure the people who are last in the order get to remain involved and not feel steamrolled every round?
@Killer-Klown said in Engaging the Whole Scene:
To my mind, there is a reason why Initiative has both a physical and mental aspect, at least in terms of WoD games. It's not just how fast you move, it's how fast you react and focus. As such, I tend to keep to Init orders even if there's no combat involved - it factors into pose orders, and it factors into what people can do before someone else gets a go. When your init comes up, you get your action. Then you have to wait until the ST goes down the list and comes back to you before you can act again. People can always pass their turn, or they might not even notice <fail a perception check before the issue becomes obvious> but it still keeps things organized.
A lot of systems, however, don't have an init order. Or you may be in the part of the scene where you're not in initiative (it's brought out during combat, largely).
I wouldn't want to force a plot scene into initiatives from the get-go for the entire scene: it'd slow things down way too much.
@Ganymede said in Good or New Movies Review:
I don’t see why it is a joke. It is one of the highest grossing and longest running shows in Broadway history.
And yet, it is. I don't agree with it, but it gets mocked regularly and these days, a lot of people seem afraid to admit they like it.
Could blame furry culture. Could blame the 'lack' of story (I mean it was inspired by a book of poems, c'mon). But either way, that's the truth of it.
If you go into the movie expecting dance and song same as the Broadway show, you'll be fine. My theory is that a lot of people went in hoping for a full story (classic movie-going experience) with some songs added in.
@Ganymede said in Good or New Movies Review:
Would love to know if they liked the original production.
Still, I’m probably going to enjoy it.
I like Cats.
I read another article on how it's being panned and they said a lot of it comes down to, a) poor marketing, b) that Cats has been, for a long while now, a joke in pop culture.
People don't want to admit they like even the broadway show, so it forms a sort of... kneejerk of HA HA NO I DON'T LIKE THAT GARBAGE ISN'T IT GARBAGE WE ALL THINK SO YEAH TOTALLY as people refuse to listen to it, etc...
It was surreal at first, but the soundtrack is def. solid.
@Arkandel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
@Auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
My dumb ass wore the wrong glasses today.
I think the issue is you put glasses on wrong.
My dumb ass wore the wrong glasses today. I was so out of it I didn't realize during my commute... only when a coworker commented that they like them.
So my being unable to see for shit this morning wasn't being tired: it was because I was wearing my computer glasses out and about.
Makes dealing with work difficult because I can't look down hallways without eye strain. Bah.
@Arkandel said in Engaging the Whole Scene:
I've had people explicitly take themselves out of plotlines because they couldn't be the stars in it.
At that point, it's probably for the best that they do.
We all want to be stars. It's human nature. Even the shy people- perhaps especially the shy people since it's easier to bear the attention online than IRL.
The point is to learn to share. You can't be the star all the time, but if you're willing to share and support other peoples' moments of stardom, you'll often find that you get it in return.
I dunno who did it, but someone brought in Starbucks and Krispy Kreme for the whole floor this morning.
I love when I start typing out an email to someone to get their thoughts/input on an issue and as soon as I get into describing it, I figure out how I wanna handle it.
This is why I need a duck.
@AeriaNyx said in Engaging the Whole Scene:
and it can end up meandering if I am not careful,
This is a different issue, but it's one that I think is vital for people wanting to ST to learn.
Start in media res for example. Spending an hour or two just posing preparation! planning! walking to the place! is tedious and largely unfun. I'm sure there's people who enjoy it, but in my experience: most people mentally check out if it drags on. Put players into the thick of things ("After a day's travel, the PCs find themselves...") and if any rolls are needed to decide how things in that day go, have people roll them beforehand and fold the results into the set.
But where this has overlap is in that 'taking the reins' concept. If people are kicking their heels in one spot too long, force them to continue on. Tell them they get one more round of poses/actions before moving on.
@Pyrephox said in Engaging the Whole Scene:
Smaller scenes are, I think, very important when it comes to really engaging everyone. Even the best GM and players can struggle with giving everyone something meaningful when there are 10 PCs, and several of them overlap specialties.
The only place I'll run scenes with more than 6 people are FS3 combat. And I make it clear from the outset that it's a combat scene. Because the combat code helps give people those shining moments. Maybe they treat someone mid-fight, maybe they throw the grenade that turns the tide...
But that's exception to the rule. Smaller groups means being better able to focus on everyone.
@L-B-Heuschkel said in Engaging the Whole Scene:
and you let them, and then you wait for the other guys to get their words in,
So the reason this doesn't work on a MU, often, is that if Mr. Mike Speedyfingers rushes out his action (be it in a pose or OOCly declared), someone else may change their mind on what they're doing because 'oh, he got there first.'
It'd require such a change in mentality across the spectrum for people to be willing to voice their plans even if they match or override someone else's. I've seen it on every type of game I've been on: FS3, D&D, nWoD, statted superhero games, Arx, Star Wars, Star Trek.....
Some people might say 'hey can Mike and I both do that,' but in my experience: most people, in the interests of sharing the fun, will step back and change their mind. An initial plan to bumrush the thug because it fits their PC becomes 'I hold my turn' because Mike Speedyfingers said he was gonna shoot a taser at the thug and they don't want to get in his way, even if he's been front and center the whole time (either out of shyness, a true desire to share, or just not wanting to cause a headache/conflict for the ST: all are valid reasons why someone might not).
That's why it's so much on the ST to control things.
@Tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
I have an RL peeve that doesn't involve food or linguistics!
Don't use your work email for personal correspondence.
Don't use your work email for personal relationship-based correspondence.
Don't use your work email to discuss your evening with your colleague's sister.
Don't use your work email to send that discussion, including intimate particulars, to the 'all-staff' mailing list.
no, please do.
then make sure screenshots end up here.
On SGM, Paradox and I took a stance of forcing a 'share the spotlight' mentality. We both have slightly different approaches to it, but we actively ST with an eye out for who has and hasn't had their moment in the light.
If one PC 'dominates' (either by their own actions or because it's necessary; such as in translator scenarios) a scene, we would structure the next to give them a smaller role (or even ask if they'd be willing to sit out so another PC that can perform the duties could attend). It may hurt someone's feelings short-term to be sidelined, but my hope was that people would see that we were paying attention enough to make sure that it came back around to them.
That's easier when you're running 1-2 scenes a week.
When you ST less often, a few things I find help:
On SGM, the only roll that would frequently be 'everyone roll this' would be Alertness. Which leads me into something else I do (and love when other STs do the same!):
Custom responses. If everyone rolls a Great Success (in FS3 terms) on Alertness and you page them all the same info, it comes down to whoever hits enter fastest. It also assumes that, IC, everyone is looking in the same direction and has the same 'kind' of Alertness.
When I'm preparing for an Alertness roll, I type out a few options to hand out based on result. And then I issue them out. So if I have the following rolls:
I know who is gonna receive what. I wrote custom responses for each scale of success, so I can hand those right out to Henry and Mike (while coming up with something for Sally's failure that she can play off of). Then I take my custom for the Success and give part to Bob (maybe he was a forward scout so he'd see more while Jane hears more!) and part to Jane (maybe Jane was staring at some sort of data collection device, so she can get pertinent details off of it).
Along this vein, I find when an ST poses and includes the results in their pose it almost always leads to PCs that aren't named reacting.
Example: As the party approaches the mouth of the cave, Bob sees signs of a bear's passage in the form of a big print in the mud just outside the yawning hole in the rock face. At the back of the party, Jane sees a bit of bear fur on a tree.
Mike, your super quick poser, then comes in with: Mike raises the alert as he sees sign of bear, calling for everyone to halt.
So: give people their own private thing to react to and make sure they get to pose it out.
I'll post more as I think of it.
