Posts made by bored

@Arkandel said in Good TV:

even writing screenplays for this different long format as we had TV before

This is one places where the differences can easily stand out, as we saw it very clearly when GoT went from 'premium TV long form writing' back to something more traditional TV-like. So it's not necessarily a guarantee in all cases, but I would say that the 'Golden Age of TV's biggest impact is definitely these long-form stories. It's also as big of a part of the problem the movie industry is having as streaming more broadly: people have gotten used to more meaty narratives, and can actually recognize that 2 hour adaptations of massive novels are often insufficient. Heck, people invest in the MCU because it's effectively a big screen premium TV show rather than the other way around.

@Arkandel said in Good TV:

Piracy, I'm talking about piracy. While there was just Netflix and it provided a great service for around $10 a month torrents and other streams were simply not worth the inconvenience. Try to cram 4+ services down people's throats and that is going to change very quickly.

Particularly the services that obviously don't have much value or content and thus have decided to 'force' you to stay subscribed by releasing their shows with a delay rather than all at once (looking at you 'already failed and subsumed by HBO' DC Universe). Intentional inconvenience is just begging people to just pirate them. And... I do (while simultaneously having things like Netflix).

You nail it with Netflix's convenience. This is also why the Disney service is actually a viable competitor: Netflix was buoyed every bit as much by people having a convenient way to watch The Office or Friends (and may suffer seriously without them) than its fancy originals, and now Disney(Fox) has things like The Simpsons along with a huge back catalog. Most people are not going to torrent dozens of seasons, but they will sit there and watch a season at a time when it just autoplays.

There's definitely some blurry boundaries as far as terminology goes here. A system is not the same thing as code, for instance.

IE 'Free form' to me does not mean simply a lack of a coded rank structure or economy commands, it means a game with no real systems at all, even diceless ones. I think I agree that politics on those games are pretty pointless, because they tend to run afoul of consent issues or the ultimate arbitration by a single staffer (thus making it not free form in the end). This is more like 'cops and robbers' level stuff with an angry parent eventually coming out and yelling at Tommy that he has to give Johnny a chance to be police captain now, or w/e.

You step up from this to games with minimal in character structures but few or no real established methods (systems) for interacting with those structures, with instead quasi IC/OOC power ultimately invested in a few people (often staff alts) and any 'politicking' really being at their permission. This is where the old Pern games would land.The weyrleader, holder, and guildmaster positions were both IC and OOC power slots that acted as admins while the wizards were rarely involved in the day to day game, and the route to promotion was far more OOC schmoozing than IC anything.

Then you get to games with fairly hard systems for pvp, but maybe not full coded political simulation. Yet these can still have well-defined RP structures (like voting councils etc). I thinks this is where most WoD games fall, as very few really code up complicated status/resource/boon/etc type systems, but most do tend to have heavy player-to-player politicking.

And only after that do you actually start approaching full out political simulation (via code or simply via dice systems), which is very rare. I think the best recent example of this might actually be Star Crusade (did someone mention spreadsheets?!), although obviously Firan and Arx have elements of it. But even Firan was only halfway here (and often closer to the example above) since most political processes were still just RP. Leaders had coded powers, but they weren't selected via code. And we only pulled the spreadsheets out once a year to trade baskets for silk while engaging in the moosepocalypse. (edited as even I was kind of imprecise w/ 'system' vs 'code')

@Arkandel I was going to write a lot more stuff but thinking about most of this just kind of reminded me why canon games tend to be disappointing (and it's a shame, because there are some I like in theory).

Ideally? You'd want people mixing and matching their relationships, trying out new dynamics and character angles (or why else are you playing?), etc. But 9 times out of 10, you see this stuff and it's just cringe garbage. It's the online couple where you just end up with not one but two interesting characters who are never in public. Or whatever orientation/gender/race bending they do follows the worst MU stereotypes so you get a LAS version of the character rather than an Asian version, or a slash fic gay version, etc.

I think @Ghost kinda hit it, mostly.

@Arkandel I think fully organic interactions are the ideal, but maybe not very practical, especially in an aging player population that is seemingly moving away from (also organic) grid RP toward more structured and plans plots and scenes. It's also worth pointing out that policy laying out PC/NPC distinctions and boundaries doesn't necessarily require they be publicly labeled. Some might prefer this, but player advocacy and staff trust are something you have to constantly balance back and forth. Staff sets rules, but you always have to trust them to abide by and enforce them. Plus, I think the mere presence of some guidelines does tend to help (if the staff is baseline ethical, anyway).

Also, often its going to be obvious, and this goes with the kind of games we run and how we run them. Thousand year old Vampire tyrants, unassailable rulers backed by massive armies or literal divine mandates, magical beings beyond the scope of PC access (dragons, demons, etc): these things often have to (or really should) be NPCs and you may prefer the transparency to rumors of that OP character being so-and-so's PC. Some of this is unavoidable due to the thematic structures of the games we play, but if you want more organic interactions you may need to step away from this type of storytelling: obviously this is an 'ask,' since getting to play the ubergod entities (even under NPC restrictions) is a perk to staffing and you want staffing to be fun, but when every NPC is like this, its hard NOT to end up with those divides.

@reimesu I saw this today too. Very good movie!

Fair warning to anyone considering it, they tuck (as one might not be surprised given the topic) one or two real gutpunch moments in there amidst the goofy Nazi satire.

THIS TIME NOT IN THE BOARD GAME THREAD

@Tinuviel said in TS - Danger zone:

@bored said in TS - Danger zone:

You've mentioned 'I can do this and you can't stop me' stuff including out of band communication.

Uh, no? No, I haven't. I only said that I don't take No-TS policies into account in my decision making. Others brought up other venues, not I.

Apologies if I got that wrong. Then again, I think its relevant and somewhat implicit to the 'people can circumvent your policies no matter what you do' argument. Staffers can spy on all in-game communication if they choose to, so they certainly can stop all TS on their server if they choose such an approach. Your basic premise fails if you don't include the back channel stuff.

@bored said in TS - Danger zone:

Plus, again, games with kids. There's no other choice there, right?

We aren't talking about games with kids. I've already made it clear that games with kids don't exist to me in so far as TS is concerned. And arguably, "no ts because kids" isn't a policy it's a law.

Who's we? I am. And it seems relevant, because nothing else changes. Kids can and will (with perhaps even greater likelihood) break your rules to do what they want, including sex stuff. They can get stalked and harassed (and its much more of a danger for them). I think pretending this case doesn't exist is an artificial way of tweaking the argument.

But I can even do without it: what about a game that just bans rape? People have rape kinks, and can and will RP it even if it's banned. Harassment will still ensue, perhaps with even greater prevalence. Some staffers may have related RL trauma and not want to deal with that material. Are they also required to allow it because 'you can't stop it?'

I want to poke at some of your wording again, just for a moment. You repeatedly say "cheater" when talking about people that violate this hypothetical policy, and that's inaccurate. Cheaters break the rules to gain an unfair advantage, and that should always be discouraged and punished.

People that violate an innocuous policy, and are then too reticent to comment on abuses suffered because they will be punished are not cheaters.

Eh .To me any player that looks at a policy and says 'nah, I'm the exception!' is automatically in a different category, because they have established a lack of respect for the space staff has created. I will acknowledge that there are different degrees and I would look at someone who sought mechanical advantage or other forms of in-game manipulation differently, but that doesn't equate in my mind that I should not treat these violations seriously.

My argument is, if it's an argument at all, that banning something doesn't eliminate it. It drives it underground where it can become dangerous to its participants. Yes, I agree, people should abide by policy. But even those that don't, without actually cheating (in terms of its actual definition), still deserve to feel safe enough to report it. If it goes unreported, who knows how many people are abused in the same fashion?

Most of this is a re-hash, but I will comment on the very last part since you haven't engaged with this part of my argument: the people who are following policy but also deal with harassment. Most serious offenders (ie not MUers being shit at communication) are multiple offenders (this is actually supported by RL research: I recall a study that found rapists each had something like six victims), so the likelihood of them surviving unnoticed is actually pretty low, because those compliant players will feel much more empowered and can highlight violations much more easily.

And yes, I understand that you don't want to spend your free time wading through the crap brought about by people you don't desire on your game in the first place. But when it comes to harrassment, it's not just a game anymore. MUers, people here in fact, have had their personal details accessed and leaked, in some cases their real lives invaded, due to the actions of abusers and harrassers. I'm glad that you take harrassment seriously, but I think you're seriously underestimating the potential impact of such harrassers and abusers when they know that their victims will be punished just like them if they're reported.

You say you the out of band argument isn't yours part of yours but you're bringing it up again here, right? This stuff gets serious when it violates the game boundaries, but inside the game boundaries are the only place where a staffer can meaningfully act. So again, I empathize, but again, this stuff doesn't really factor into MU policy for me.

A clear TS policy is required, yes. But not a blanket ban. It hurts more than it helps.

Any policy is equivalent insofar as people ignoring it as they please, whether a total ban, ban of particular acts, etc.

WRONG THREAD.

@Tinuviel said in TS - Danger zone:

that there are inherent dangers with that position.

I am not convinced, in the grand scheme of things, that a game with a 'No TS' policy is more 'dangerous' than one with even a 'have all the TS you want, of literally any kind' policy. Your argument is that the former makes it more 'dangerous' (insofar as any of this stuff is dangerous to any real degree) for a class of players who are inherently dishonest because they will encounter harassment while disenfranchised as cheaters.

My counterargument here is that a game with a clear TS policy will make things safer for the other portion of players, because clearly established policy empowers them when speaking with staff about instances of harassment that occur toward them and generally makes the course of action for staff much more clear cut. This is more of the Venn diagram stuff I was getting at above. I can't prove what group is larger, but I know which group I care about more in terms of cultivating (edit: and protecting) as a playerbase (hint: the ones who aren't cheaters).

You said the words "category of player not worth the energy protecting." Perhaps, just maybe, you want to work on your phrasing. Because that just sounds like you're going to dismiss any claims of harrassment from anyone that's broken a rule.

No, if they came to me with a complaint I'd take it seriously. After dealing with that, I'd punish them for breaking the rule they admitted to breaking. I have been consistently very clear that the players who couldn't be helped were the ones who were not willing to own up to what they were doing in order to seek help. See again 'modicum of responsibility for your own well-being.'

I'm afraid I'm approaching this from a real-world perspective, rather than a MU perspective. And I think anyone falling through the cracks is a goddamn failure, even though it's inevitable. Even a murderer deserves to be treated properly when they claim someone's trying to kill them.

I think you are (esp your school example, which is different in a lot of ways), but they're very different. While I empathize with and want to help with online harassment if I reasonably can, the stakes, modes, and tools available are very different.

You've mentioned 'I can do this and you can't stop me' stuff including out of band communication. At that point 'I can't do anything to help you, either' comes along for the ride. Not out of callous indifference but out of practical reality. If they're playing via other channels my role as arbitrator is already gone. I can't intervene on discord or email or if they're parallel RPing on shang. It's just a further example of how these are not scenarios where the staff can effectively act, and so I'm not sure there's any problem in staff taking a position that prioritizes the well being of players who are both following the rules and who they can much more meaningfully assist.

Plus, again, games with kids. There's no other choice there, right?

@Tinuviel said in TS - Danger zone:

@bored said in TS - Danger zone:

The danger here is only for the niche category of player who is harassed while breaking the rules, yet finds it preferable to tolerate the harassment rather than admit to and face any consequences for their own behavior.

Which ideal world is it that you live on, and where can I get a ticket?

People break rules all of the time. People are harrassed and abused all of the time. How is it so alien an idea that those two things criss-cross far more often than we hear about?

If 'niche' gives the wrong impression, that's my fault, but I don't mean to suggest that I think this is hugely rare or alien, so much that I was trying to highlight a particular intersection of player behaviors. Whether I think it's precisely more or less common than some other combinations would be hard to comment on without it being wildly unscientific guesswork. Nonetheless, this is clearly a particular subset of all claims of harassment (and this is an important distinction).

Yes. You can do whatever you want with your game. You can make it about anything, anywhere, any time, and with any rules. I still reserve the privilege (because rights don't exist here) to call you a fuckin' moron.

I mean, OK? And staff reserves the right to ban you. I am not sure what you're trying to get across here. Players play by choice, staffers allow players to play by choice and no one has any power of enforcement. This is 101 stuff.

@bored said in TS - Danger zone:

this seems like a category of player not worth the energy protecting

The idea that a person being abused isn't worth the energy protecting makes you look utterly reprehensible. Who cares that they broke the rules? If you're going to ignore them, or punish them for reporting it to you, you're tacitly silencing people that need help.

Lets be clear, first off, with all the really hostile 'you' shit you're throwing around, that I would never ban TS on a game. I would probably not even ban a lot of the borderline content. But that's because I don't want to play with children, I am not sensitive to themes that other people might have valid reason to be uncomfortable with, and so on. I nonetheless support the idea that someone might want to allow kids on their game and thus need to ban it. I support that some staffer might really really not want to spend any of their leisure time dealing with sexual content, ever.

Beyond that, see above: claims of harassment. We know that in the ridiculous land of MU drama, figuring out who the actual victim is in any scenario is difficult, and just as often it's two fuckwads with 0 communication skills in an escalation loop. If I have to make choices in terms of what time I am going to put into doing how much for what players (which is always a factor, no staffer has infinite free time), I am going to prioritize believable claims by trustworthy people who take some responsibility for their own well-being. The same way I'm not going to ban someone with zero evidence because the 'victim' couldn't be arsed to log (or, you know, doesn't have one because they're lying), someone who's teeheeing sneaking around the game rules, but then is harassed, but... not seriously enough to admit that they're cheating but they still are seriously concerned about this other player? If they happen to be the one who falls through the cracks (someone always will) vs. someone who is more honest? OK.

I think it's perfectly fine to ban TS on your game (with the caveat that it might be a silly choice for certain thematic material). There are plenty of reasons, not the least of which is the underage player angle (insert hilarious reminder that Firan was an all ages game!), which people have treated like a throwaway concern but is pretty relevant. There's nothing about the medium that defaults adult, even if our sub-community is. And there is a real concern that staffers themselves may not be comfortable mediating such content.

You can declare this RP invalid on your game. You can't prevent people from sneakily doing it via whatever means, but worrying over this is a little silly: people can also sandbox being cyborg dragon ninjas on your serious history game. You'll never be able to police alternate channel RP, but you can demand that it never appear on the grid, be forced on other players as a topic they have to interact with, etc. And you can ban people who violate those rules.

I think/hope this is different than the discussion of 'stigmatizing' TS and the concerns for identifying and dealing with harassment. It's a matter of what your game is and what it is not. I would hope staffers would still address any complaint of harassment seriously. The danger here is only for the niche category of player who is harassed while breaking the rules, yet finds it preferable to tolerate the harassment rather than admit to and face any consequences for their own behavior. Given the level of crazy in our hobby vs. minimal chances of RL harm, this seems like a category of player not worth the energy protecting because they would not be trustworthy (we've established they're comfortable lying to staff) even if your policy was different.

The stigmas I have a problem with are games that allow some degree of sexuality but then refuse to fully treat it like an actual part of the game. A clear ban on behavior is much better than 'ts happens, we dont want to know about it.'

@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:

Let's go back to discussing forbidden topics.

How much do your TS habits change based on the MU*'s themes? That is, do you find your characters are more promiscuous on say, a Kushiel game than a World of Darkness one? Do you TS considerably more often? Is it easier (or harder) to find partners - and are they actually better at TS on average?

I had to think about this a second, because I think it is a factor but maybe not in precisely the straightforward way suggested. I don't think any theme is going to discourage TS if two players connect and want to do it (often through whatever weird signaling dances if they don't know each other previously). What I think it does encourage is the ability to present characters as openly promiscuous, and I think that may create more organic TS, ie situations where people simply fall into that RP naturally after whatever interactions vs. engaging in their usual quasi-OOC hunt for other people who are into it.

This is also one of those places where we're still pretty sexist, because while I've pointed out that in general I find women on MUs every bit as aggressive/stalkery/etc, we as a group are still fond of slut-shaming a concept, wiki or desc we find too overtly sexual and I think that tends to target female characters more.

This is why (referencing that Fairy Brothel discussion) I think people go so nuts for those kind of games and concepts, because they want to be able to play sexy without being judged. I think back to just how many people were drawn to playing prostitutes on Firan (which actually had rules the players had to be female, not that those didn't get broken occasionally), and that I often heard from those players that they enjoyed them as 'low stress' alts who they could do that stuff on without fear of being swept up in scandal and ruined (which was IC, yet also carried a certain brand of OOC morality and vindictiveness at times). That was clearly a major factor for those players. Or there's the crazy Western game I played for maybe a week and yet had basically 75% of the female population wanting to work for my character as a saloon girl, even people who'd apped entirely other concepts.

This is in contrast to some game themes that encourage people to keep their sexuality to themselves, ie comic games. So I think it's a factor in that sense, in terms of how comfortably and openly people engage in the topic.

Courtesy of @Auspice's advice on the xbox pass thing, I've been playing The Outer Worlds, and while I think it's a good game I can absolutely understand anyone who would have criticisms. It's pretty clear that the game benefited hugely from comparison to Fallout 76 and is being hyped in response to it. I've talked about the whole BioWare/Black Isle/Obsidian/etc lineage so these comparisons are reasonable but it does give people an agenda in wanting to love one and shit on the other, even though The Outer Worlds is... 80% Fallout in space, with a visibly smaller budget.

The writing is great. But the companion quests are really thin. Having seen the reviews and chatter, I was primed for the Parvati stuff but there's... very little to it? The idea of dealing with her sexuality being one thing you talk about was intriguing, yet it being the full extent of the character was a let down.

And compared to a game that focuses on it (I think this is relevant to @Thenomain's comparison with Borderlands) the combat is mediocre: there are all of... I want to say a dozen different enemies in the game (if you don't count variants), and RPG wise I wouldn't say the numbers and systems are well designed: armor has close to no value on 90% of enemies, plasma is almost always the right damage type, stuff tends to get one-shotted or kill you equally fast, etc.

I did like the character creation a lot, but there are still cg traps despite the 'play your way' hype. This is actually exacerbated by the respeccing, since some skills are really only useful in the between-mission sense, so that its better to respecc in and out occasionally than actually play with them (looking at you Science). Experimenting with the Flaws, they're not fun, just punishing. The drugs (and consumables in general) are underwhelming or outright terrible: why would you ever use Adrena-Time?

This isn't to say it's bad. Its a fun game with a solid story and some great characters (ADA continues the creators legacy of hilarious artificial characters) and probably worth one replay for a different playstyle and major decisions (and hardcore mode), but its definitely not the holy savior of gaming that some of the coverage is hyping it as.

@Arkandel @Jeshin

You are both making similar points (cousins to the 'hey, we RP murder all the time, why is <insert sexual crime> a big deal?' question that gets asked occasionally), so I'll answer them together.

You're right. There are and will be many forms of bias and favoritism, and advantages that can be found by players by appealing to staffers (or other players in power, as may apply to PrP runners).

There's two things to say about this. One, as has come up in some of these prior arguments, sex is different. We know this, its just a fact of being human. We know it creates drama and crazy. Pretending equivalence is a bit head-in-sand.

Two, and more importantly: is a form of bias being blatantly obvious a reason to give it a pass? That seems ridiculously backwards. If we know that TS frequently results from or engenders bias, is it not a good policy to say that staff NPCs will not engage in it, and that romantic interactions (for instance) might be limited to Seduction mechanics? It wouldn't snuff out the favoritism if Player A and Staffer B are secret online SOs, but in a more average case, might it not give some players, especially those inherently uncomfortable with TS, the feeling that they might be safer in pursuing romance or sexual quid pro quo with an NPC without the expectation that they'll need to TS. Heck, it would even make social dice meaningful.

@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:

@bored said in TS - Danger zone:

TS. Not sex. I draw a line between 'sex for story' and 'spending 4 hours engaged in mutual erotic stimulation' and I did so in my earlier post. One is purely IC, one is not. A character can be seduced with a single roll in front of five other players, FTB'ed through, and you can be right back to stabbing goblins in five minutes. TS is another thing entirely.

Although I agree with the distinction itself, it doesn't really mean anything from an ethical point of view.

Whether my character received advantages from sleeping with the Prince or not has nothing to do with whether there was TS involved. Either way the IC bumping of uglies took place just the same.

What? I am seriously confused here, so, being generous I am going to assume that I just don't understand what you're trying to say and try and parse it out so it makes sense.

If you mean that from the IC view, TS doesn't change anything, then yes I would agree. The consequences you mentioned earlier of 'sleeping your way to the top' would apply either way. Sex has occurred ICly, benefit was accrued ICly, quid pro quo is an element that other PCs can react to, etc. Sure.

But when you say you don't see an ethical distinction I lose the thread.

In the FTB case Character A, run by Player A, has had an IC interaction with NPC B, run by Staffer B (or maybe PrP runner, but there's somewhat different dynamics here that I want to look at separately, so I'll stick to the easy case). They gained an IC benefit that presumably some Character C could also gain (or at least could have gained, if its a one-off boon) by following similar actions (ie, rolling a Seduction check, or simply offering sex to a lusty NPC with a character with Striking Looks of appropriate attracted-to gender, etc).

In the TS case, Player A was willing to cybersex with Staffer B for several hours. Player C does not TS.

Do you not see a problem? (Edit: Or I should say, potential problem. Obviously, Staffer B could pass this with flying colors and TS Player A while FTB'ing with Player C. But if they do not do so, is TS not to blame?)

@Derp said in TS - Danger zone:

@bored said in TS - Danger zone:

First, again, since no one in this thread seems to be able to keep the two terms apart

I mean, I know how annoying it can be when people refuse to stick to the definitions that you've laid out for the argument, because the argument breaks down otherwise, but I think in this case you're needlessly splitting hairs, and people aren't quite as offended by 'not-posed-out sex' and 'posed-out-sex' as you'd like them to be for purposes of making an ethical argument that people are disagreeing is an ethical problem.

Dude, it's a thread about TS. I'm not 'laying out a definition because my argument breaks down otherwise,' I'm sticking to the fucking OP topic. 'But romance is important and sex is important and people can use sex in stories!' is a straw man that I won't engage with, and I'm not going to engage further if you choose to continue to hammer on it.

Edit: Did you also call me a prude? First, fuck you. Second, I'll just add a big old LOL that anyone who's ever RP'ed with me will appreciate, I'm sure.

@Derp said in TS - Danger zone:

@bored said in TS - Danger zone:

your uber powerful NPC Vampire Prince, elf Prince, Jedi Master, etc being used to do RP that seems much more PC-like rather than being used a critical force to drive the plot.

Says who? Can those people not be seduced? Are they somehow immune?

TS. Not sex. I draw a line between 'sex for story' and 'spending 4 hours engaged in mutual erotic stimulation' and I did so in my earlier post. One is purely IC, one is not. A character can be seduced with a single roll in front of five other players, FTB'ed through, and you can be right back to stabbing goblins in five minutes. TS is another thing entirely.

@WildBaboons said in TS - Danger zone:

But is TSing the prince more viable than FTB with the prince?

I mean, this is the point I'm getting at and that people will constantly either intentionally ignore or fail to pick up in their reading. If the two are 100% equivalent for a given staffer, it probably doesn't matter if they TS all over with their NPCs. But I've seen it go the other way far too many times to trust staffers to make this distinction (or rather, to make this lack of distinction).

@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:

For one thing I see no issues with someone sleeping their way to the top as long as they can take the appropriate thematic hit for it. So if my justification for raising Status to 3 is that hey, I slept with the Primogen and she's favoring me... that sounds about right - but then I can't complain about it when next time my character struts his new title in Elysium there is snickering and rolling of eyes in response.

First, again, since no one in this thread seems to be able to keep the two terms apart, by 'sleeping their way to the top' do you mean just IC sex having happened, or TS? Because again, it's not the same thing. And I am 100% only talking about #2.

With that in mind, is it fair if the primogen is TSing X because the staffer running them really wants to fuck X's PB IRL? Why does the Primogen player's OOC sexual interest determine who gets favor? What if the staffer is quasi stalking that player and want to win them over by showing them that sleeping with them comes with a mix of IC and OOC benefits? Will that staffer let players they don't care for OOCly seduce them with equal opportunity?

Do you honestly not see the potential danger here? Come on.

Similarly the requirement can't be that you need ro run a PrP in general to be allowed to raise your Gnosis from 2 to 3 but that somehow the PrP can explain why your character learned from it. If the RP itself involved sleeping with my PC's mentor that'd be insufficient, but if we were both shapeshifted at the time... it could make more sense.

I mean, this sounds like a busywork example. If the PrP requirement is bullshit to begin with, then people gaming the system in return is going to happen. Shitty game all around. Still, it would kind of suck for someone in, say, a small sphere if they couldn't find someone to run that PrP for them because they didn't want to TS for it, or they weren't attractive to any of those players, etc, right? 'Sorry, no other gay werewolves in this sphere, so no advancement PrPs for you.' (Edit to add: I don't play nWoD werewolf so I have no idea if there's an actual thematic reason for them to be homophobes, that wasn't my point: replace it for a different preference, sphere, etc)

@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:

@bored Hm, I wonder if the problem is in the terminology then.

My idea of a PrP (and I'm not saying it's the correct one) is that it's a scene in which someone - who doesn't need to but could be staff - controls the NPCs and the environment, and everyone else is playing their PCs.

No benefit or inherent advantage is given in that context for participation.

I don't think your definition is much different than mine. But you're missing that there's already an advantage there: the NPCs you get to run usually violate PC restrictions. This is a big part of the staffside problem that people seem much more on board with: your uber powerful NPC Vampire Prince, elf Prince, Jedi Master, etc being used to do RP that seems much more PC-like rather than being used a critical force to drive the plot.

On top of that, XP rewards, stat increases, items, faction improvements, etc are pretty often PrP rewards. Many games will demand you run a PrP to justify any kind of larger impact on the world. So again, benefit.

To be clear: I don't care if the story two people really want to tell involves them fucking each other nine ways to Sunday. My concern here isn't that TS is happening. But in my mind, PrP runners are acting as storytellers and thus mini-staffers for the game. When TS seems the purpose, the motivation and ethics comes into question. Does it seriously matter? It probably depends on the game. I think most people would be upset if they found out, for instance, that PC X became the controller/leader of a new org/fief/resource/whatever based on having been granted a boon by fucking an influential NPC run by their usual PC TS partner. Right?

@Tinuviel said in TS - Danger zone:

@bored said in TS - Danger zone:

Your "one on one PRP" case is a weird one, because that's essentially not a PRP and just two people sandboxing, which may violate game rules and be a concern for reasons beyond TS.

Wait, what? How would a one-on-one PRP be against any policy?

Sorry, I don't mean any one-on-one PRP. I meant in the context of @Arkandel's question, ie a one-on-one PRP that includes TS. In the same way I don't really trust that a staffer using an NPC for TS is really using the NPC to further story, I don't trust that two players playing in total isolation and TSing are really furthering the game's story even if they label what they're doing as a PrP.

Edit further: Also with the caveat that 'PrP' is a game defined term whereby you are getting some form of benefit greater than any one on one private RP would generate.

@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:

( @bored was kinda right when he said this feels like I'm running a survey here)

TS with NPCs or during PrPs. Where do you stand on this? What I'm thinking is PrPs involving one ST and one player but y'all might surprise me.

We had part of this in one in that prior thread (and boy was the response from certain folks telling). I'm going to repeat what I said there:

Talking staff-established NPCs, 100%, at the point you're TSing on it (and that means detailed erotic posing, not just 'some sex happened') this is no longer fully an NPC and you've strayed into GMPC territory and serious a ethical (wait for it) danger zone.

Your "one on one PRP" case is a weird one, because that's essentially not a PRP and just two people sandboxing, which may violate game rules and be a concern for reasons beyond TS. Beyond that, if you've designed PRPs to be an avenue of player-driven narrative development on your game (ie, if you've empowered players to direct the story to some degree), you probably don't want your overall story being skewed by the drama that accompanies the OOC aspect of TS, which again I separate from 'these characters are having sex, that counts as story.'