Posts made by Coin

@Groth said:

@Coin said:

I don't really see this being very difficult to do in two lines. Writers do it all the time. They can even do it in one line. It's just that we're conditioned to expect more from our fellow roleplayers; we're used to everyone writing as if they were the protagonist. Sometimes I don't write characters from their point of view and instead write them as divorced from themselves as possible. I give a reaction, then an action, and that's it.

This is the writing style I try to use. Instead of writing that my character feels angry, I try to show that they're angry by their eyebrows narrowing, posture tensing etc. Idea being of trying to show the other player what my character is feeling rather then telling them.

Yes, this is what I do generally.

I ran into a guy on RFK once who really impressed me in terms of response time. His technique was rather different from mine, instead of waiting until the other person posed to write his own pose. He'd write his pose while waiting for the other person, then just modify it according to that the other persons pose was. This made him able to post reasonably sized poses after just 1-2 minutes. Obvious downside of that technique is that it won't work well if the other person does anything unexpected.

Yes, but if they do something unexpected, it's as easy as CTRL+A, DEL, and you're back at square one and take about as long as anyone else. Not a downside, per se.

JFC.

@Entropy said:

The biggest conundrum, really, that I see is the Atlantis issue, with Namor and Aquaman. I've been talking to some people, and there are some ideas about how to resolve it, but it can still be a bit tricksy to work around in a feasible manner.

This is only an issue if people are marrtied to terminology. Otherwise, you can easily give Namor a kingdom called "Lemuria" and he can be Prince Namor of Lemuria. Lemurians can be an off-shoot of Atlanteans that are all blue-skinned, etc., etc., and the Atlanteans can maintain their DC origins and background.

You can also do the inverse (give Lemuria to Aquaman) but Atlantis is much more developed as a setting in DC.

Also, Exiles was a fantastic book. I loved it. I wouldn't want to base an entire game around it, simply because of mass appeal, but I'd certainly be happy to incorporate it as a group/theme that exists within the game, because a lot of really fun stories could be told through that premise.

Exiles would arguably make for the best kind of sandbox MU where a storyteller could have absolute control over an entire world where the PCs can have adventures and never have to run anything by staff because who cares if Doctor Doom is a flower-twirling pony in Earth 4328532--it's Exiles, anything is possible. Not to mention how easy it would be for people to app in different versions one after the other without worrying about continuity (or people apping versions of characters that are gross departures from canon versions without it being "omg unthematics/untrue to the source material!!!!").

@tragedyjones said:

@Coin said:

@tragedyjones, do it.

That settles it: the idea was shit.

Fine, don't do it.

@tragedyjones, do it.

Unbreakable was awesome.

@tragedyjones and I are eagerly awaiting the new Aberrant/Scion system.

I met him as Hans Gruber, laughed with him as Metatron, and found him the most compelling bit of all the Harry Potter movies.

If someone dies in my scene it's typically because they saw danger, identified it as danger, and then ran right into it--or deliberately near it--with little to no preparation.

Or ignored me saying: guys, this course of action could end super badly for you.

Or both.

God fucking dammit. RIP, Alan Rickman.

I think most people have a point. But I do get annoyed at people who face combat situations with a knowledge that they likely won't be killed by the storyteller and thus do the absolute dumbest shit, and then get upset when the one-in-one-hundred storyteller kills them off. PC invulnerability is a problem when you're trying to create tension, because a lot of people won't acknowledge it. Saying "But I do" doesn't really change anything for those of us who have to suffer the idiots.

@Apos said:

Related on the subject of posing speed, but probably an unpopular opinion here: I think pose orders are god awful and inherently destructive to the tempo of any scene. I was horrified by them on the Reach. They were an unholy abomination unto the lord. Any scene with a few strangers was so very excruciating and pointless and arduous that I was like, 'Oh. So that's why everyone here hates social RP. MAKES SENSE NOW.' Holy shit they made things so damned slow and tedious. I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER play on any game where that's an accepted part of the culture again. No fucking way, I'd rather have a root canal without pain killers.

Fuck 4 hours for a 1 page long log. Jesus christ.

i love the "3 Pose Rule" where you can pose again if three other people have posed regardless of amount of people in the scene. People ask if "3PR" is okay--I don't, I just assume that unless we're going by Initiative, 3PR is in play. And if I'm playing with people I know? I'll skip you. Repeatedly. I give zero shits. If whatever you're posing is important enough you can ask me to wait.

So, yeah. I agree.

@Arkandel said:

Short pose or long, if they give you nothing to work with then that's a frustration completely independent from their prose's length.

Except, like I said above, it's not when the length of the wait and the length of the pose are both very long and the pose is worthless. If it's a worthless pose I can read in two seconds, it's less annoying than one I have to slog through.

It's not completely independent if one of them makes the other more annoying.

My point is that it's the quality of the pose that matters in the end, when deciding whether the wait is justified, not the length. You may find value in them at least trying, but I find value in them not wasting my time.

And while I may seem to be arguing this very passionately, it's actually not that big of a deal. I typically just don't play with those people very much. But then, I play less and less lately.

The only time this really annoys me is when people insist on typing long poses in big group scenes. I don't care how well you pose, if there's more than a few people in the scene, fucking trim it down.

@Cirno said:

@Coin said:

@Cirno said:

@Coin said:

I get just as annoyed with people who make me wait fifteen minutes for a very long pose that I have to actually read and which contains absolutely nothing of note.

Just page-roleplay with other people during the 15 minutes. Or keep a book handy. Or watch something on YouTube. Or vape some weed. I do all of the above.

These people don't bother me at all. I enjoy having lots of time to consider what I'm going to do next, as well.

You're missing the point, though (or you're trolling). Let me be even more explicit:

I get just as annoyed with people who make me wait fifteen minutes for a very long pose that I have to actually read and which contains absolutely nothing of note.

It's not the wait, it's that the wait is worthless. At least in @Arkandel's case, his wait finalizes in a short pose he can read in a few seconds. If I have to read two paragraphs of nothing of note, then it's considerably more annoying.

No, I don't even care about that. Because, like I said, I'm usually doing other things while MU* ing, or, at least, I did when I used to MU* .

I am actually more annoyed with people who harass me nonstop with rapid-fire poses, to be honest.

You mean we have different preferences and your solution and attitudes to things are not always applicable to things I experience and vice-versa? Gasp, it's almost like this very same thing has happened with you involved in this very same thread..!

If you don't care about something that someone else finds annoying, then solutions you think work for you are probably not going to address their problem.

@Cirno said:

@Coin said:

I get just as annoyed with people who make me wait fifteen minutes for a very long pose that I have to actually read and which contains absolutely nothing of note.

Just page-roleplay with other people during the 15 minutes. Or keep a book handy. Or watch something on YouTube. Or vape some weed. I do all of the above.

These people don't bother me at all. I enjoy having lots of time to consider what I'm going to do next, as well.

You're missing the point, though (or you're trolling). Let me be even more explicit:

I get just as annoyed with people who make me wait fifteen minutes for a very long pose that I have to actually read and which contains absolutely nothing of note.

It's not the wait, it's that the wait is worthless. At least in @Arkandel's case, his wait finalizes in a short pose he can read in a few seconds. If I have to read two paragraphs of nothing of note, then it's considerably more annoying.

@Arkandel said:

@Coin As do I.

At the risk of repeating myself though, the point here isn't that it's possible to do as much with less, but that while it's far from uncommon to see smaller poses rather obviously come in the name of convenience, with less effort or focus put into them.

I can't expect brilliance from all my fellow roleplayers, that'd be unrealistic and unfair. Just that - well, spend a little time on this thing, don't be doing six things at once out of which one is the scene I'm putting my own time into. So even though not all long poses are excellent - that's fine - at the very least they often show the other player tried.

Well, my point, which I am trying to make implicitly but might as well make explicitly, is that I've found just as many worthless, reactionless, pointless poses that number 10-15 lines, as I have those which are much, much shorter.

If a person is going to give you something to react to, and going to react to you, and going to add to the scene, they are going to do it regardless of the length of their pose, in my experience. Do lazy people tend to go with short poses? Sure. But the pose itself is not more or less valuable--by the merits we've decided to adjudicate in this thread; i.e. "does it add to the scene and acknowledge it"--by length.

I get just as annoyed with people who make me wait fifteen minutes for a very long pose that I have to actually read and which contains absolutely nothing of note. I'd much rather, if you're not going to add something, that the pose at least be short and quick to read--or better yet, just leave.

@Lithium said:

I don't care about length, I care about adding to the scene and the story. This does not always require a huge pose, but it does require at least two things: A characters reaction to what just transpired, and their reaction to it (Or them instigating an action). It is a lot more difficult to do this with a short two line pose, at least in any way that meaningfully propels the story and gives the person (or people) you are RP'ing with anything to work with to further the story.

It's collaborative, if you do not collaborate, then you're simply taking up space and wasting people's time.

Note: This is not directed at anyone. I don't know who all I've RP'd with here really but I am sure I have, so not pointing fingers, just stating my opinion.

I don't really see this being very difficult to do in two lines. Writers do it all the time. They can even do it in one line. It's just that we're conditioned to expect more from our fellow roleplayers; we're used to everyone writing as if they were the protagonist. Sometimes I don't write characters from their point of view and instead write them as divorced from themselves as possible. I give a reaction, then an action, and that's it.

I just discovered Kirby Krackle and it's awesome.

@Arkandel
Yes, but I was replying specifically to the bit where you mention "some people might say their two lines are better than..." and then stated you prefer the latter.

Yes, some people will claim their two sentences are better than "a paragraph's worth of flowery stuff" - well, different tastes and all.

@Arkandel said:

@Warma-Sheen said:

A lot of time you wait for someone else to pose and they crap out some rushed line because like the younger people their attention had been elsewhere and a 20 minute wait was spent with 19 minutes of it focused elsewhere and 1 minute to bang out a pose.

This bugs me so much. I honestly don't mind waiting because someone's got a RL emergency (or if they state in advance they're slow due to RL reasons). Fine. I don't mind waiting 15 minutes for a great pose, although my arbitrary threshold is around 10.

But waiting for more than that for a 2-liner is going to deplete my interest real fast because obviously you're distracted between three windows and five chats.

Yes, some people will claim their two sentences are better than "a paragraph's worth of flowery stuff" - well, different tastes and all. Give me more detail, facial expressions, set up the atmosphere and make the scene come alive with your pose and I will return the favor to the best of my ability. Don't... and well, more power to you, but we won't be playing much.

</elitistrant>

Sometimes I do spend those ten or fifteen minutes on those two sentences. Sometimes I sit there and wonder about the right adjective to use; is it a rictus or is it a moue? Is my character showing contempt or not? How do I inject immediacy into this scene as bruskly and sharply as possible? Often, it takes me longer to write something concise and poignant than it does to write something long and full of adjectives that I vaguely recall meaning the things I want them to mean within certain contexts that may or may not be the one I'm currently using them in.

TL;DR: Sometimes my writing is important to me, and when it's good, it takes me a while, even if it takes you half a second to read it.

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