A side-effect of the migraines is I keep losing words. It's worse if I talk out loud, but it def. happens in text, too.
I pretty much constantly am in a state of 'it's on the tip of my tongue.' As a writer, it fucking blows.
Uuuuuuugh. I hate that so much.
@Arkandel said in Roleplaying writing styles:
@NightAngel12 said in Roleplaying writing styles:
@Miss-Demeanor I have seen this happen many times when playing tabletop, and it isn't just dickish GM's either. A lot of storytellers tend not to take into consideration all possible avenues of exploration, so what ends up happening is that when clever players try to follow a thread... the GM panics and smacks them for not paying attention to this other thing they /have/ thought through.
Trying to preemptively think of all possible avenues a plot can take is an exercise in futility - if your players are worth a damn they'll come up with things you haven't thought of. That's basically the point of collaborative storytelling, else you might as well be writing fanfic.
Why fanfic and not... just... writing a story?
Storytelling isn't something different than roleplaying... it's an extension of it. Ideally the lines between the two should be blurry. All you are really doing is extend the scope of the environment under your creative control and shaping it to tell a cohesive story. Punishment doesn't enter the conversation.
This becomes super fucking annoyingly difficult when people are so worried about supposed "conflict of interest" and other bullshit and set up rules that don't let you have your own character in scenes you run, or come up with super defined ways an NPC can be used, limiting the stories you can tell and otherwise making what you say should be a blurry line into something very definitive.
I'm not saying the staffer who uses the NPC Prince to get virtual blowjobs from all the vampettes in the sphere shouldn't be fucking smacked until he's bleeding from the gums and then fired; I'm just saying often these sorts of rules tend to make shit difficult because game runners will overreact to avoid these situations.
@Arkandel [shrugs]
At that point it becomes a matter of your personal ST style, but I'm usually of the mind that whatever is better for the story works. The problem is deciding who has the last say on what's better for the story.
in general, though, for me, there is a difference between "perception" and "investigation" (even if the former also uses the investigation Skill, in CofD or similar systems).
What your senses garner is perception, what you INTERPRET can fall under investigation/research and should probably be a longer, more thorough roll, with nuance and variety. If the character does well, you may give them a clue (or outright tell them) that their interpretation is wrong and that they discover it's a different thing. If they don't, well, then their wrongful assumption is kind of their drawback for failing.
@Sunny said in Roleplaying writing styles:
I used to go with trying to be subtle. I felt it was fair, if I was posing whatever the same way every time, that I could expect other people to pick up on this and whatnot. Then I realized a few things.
- I am not as clever as I think I am
- I am really not as clever as I think I am
- If I can't remember the details of a scene last week clearly, how the hell do I expect anyone else to?
- Players are not characters, and stats like 'perception' and 'empathy' exist
What you think is a subtle explanation for something is likely just too obscure. They're not picking up on it because you are not actually making sense to anyone but yourself. You might think 'looking down' is a clear signal, but those two words in your entire pose have weight to you, not the people you're playing with. How do they know that they should be putting special emphasis on those words more than 'the table' or 'looks at the person who walks in' or whatever? In the example of the leaving the same way every time -- how do they know that isn't your go-to as a player for 'crap, I have to go OOC'? If you don't give the people you're playing with enough reason to suspect there is more there, they will never suspect it. It will not happen. You are entertaining yourself with how clever you are, but no one else.
I'm not actually saying you actually think you're particularly clever or anything, but it's an easy way to explain how seriously, people just don't do subtle in text very well. They don't write it well, they don't catch it well. When you try to play on subtle, you're shooting yourself in the foot. My RP has gotten so, so much more rewarding now that I straight up beat people over the head with things that might be 'subtle'.
While the character is what's important, the player has to at least understand the situation well enough to have their character react appropriately. Their character may not understand the situation as well as their player does, but for the player to be able to make that determination, they have to know that it's there for them to make.
This is essentially why I typically pepper my stuff with nice little metaphors or analogies that might help.
For example, if some guy pisses my character off, I could pose:
He gave [Guy] a look.
From this, you could interpret it is any type of look. Good luck.
However, I might choose instead:
He looked at the guy like he wanted to stick his fingers as far up his nose as possible and then wiggle them with the speed of blender blades.
If you're not sure what I mean by that, feel free to ask OOC, but I feel it's pretty clear.
Other people might choose the less graphic and more laconic:
He gave the guy a dirty look.
This is fine. Not as fun for me, but whatevs, sometimes I don't feel like typing. (RE: character voice vs. generic voice.)
@Miss-Demeanor said in Roleplaying writing styles:
@Auspice In part, you can also blame the asshole GM's of yesteryear for part of that. A lot of people that I know of, have learned to NOT chase down every little thing that seems 'out of place' or 'unusual', simply because of those sadistic fucks from the days of tabletop (and even earlier years of MUSHing) that would punish players for searching every nook and cranny for hidden clues/doorways/catches/etc. You learned quickly that if you 'wasted' the GM's time by investigating every little thing, you would suddenly incur the Wrath of Deus Ex Machina and find yourself facing some crazy shit like a Lich King in a dungeon full of kobolds and spiders.
This is why rolls exist in situations like those. Noticing that the newspaper is out of place requires a roll. You succeeded, so the ST pages you, "dude, that newspaper is way out of place". STs that don't do this are dicks.
@Wretched said in Roleplaying writing styles:
@Sunny said in Roleplaying writing styles:
MAN. I was so clear, the clue was so obvious, but they didn't even LOOK at the newspaper. Why would there have been a newspaper in a high tech building?! Wouldn't they have realized everyone had a computer or whatever to look at the news???
Like, what? Yeah, in this case the assumption itself was very obviously faulty, but even if it wasn't, you just do not know what knowledge/information the players are coming to the table with. They might not KNOW that in places like this, newspapers are rare, for all that you think it's common sense. It's not, and not because your players are dense, either.
I was having a conversation about jsut this thing the other night. Well clearly this thing i keep adding to my poses would be obvious to /ME/, why aren't my players getting it, i'm like beating them other the head with it.
Alternately: Describing a scene and adding detail and players latching on to the most innocuous details, and then putting in jobs and asking to roll for prophetic visionary dreams just because you described a crack in the glass of a toaster oven. I am having to learn to just tell people that no, that is a dead end.
Alternatively, you could decide that the crack in the toaster is a separate plot that they have stumbled into, which could be fun. NOT doing this doesn't make you a bad ST, though doing so does make you an involved one (with more time on your hands than many).
Black Sails is rocking pretty hard, yeah. I was surprised at some choices, but it's good surprise.
@Coin You need one of these getups! http://www.startlr.com/will-a-bike-with-spider-legs-there/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J1KVNgNruc
That looks horrible and slow. XD
@ILuvGrumpyCat said in Roleplaying writing styles:
@Coin Seriously though. Once upon a time I'd have agreed. But these days I find that end up, 80 percent of the time, sounding just generically me in pose style. No awesome. No coolness.
As for big scenes? Ugh. I've begun to hate them with a passion, which is new. I used to love them, and ran big scenes on Reach on one of my characters all the time. Now I avoid them, which limits a lot of RP. I find them to be too many people posing too big and too fast and just empty poses with nothing to RESPOND to. Just my feelings these days.
I think we all have a "generic me" style that we RP in when we're not feeling particularly passionate about whatever we're playing. Some people just straight up don't RP when that happens so you never get to see it, though.
I know that I have a very "generic me" way of posing and the only real way to avoid it is for my character to feel unique in my brain; for them to have a voice I can shout in in my poses. Every character I've had that has lasted more than, I dunno, a month, has had a voice I could discover and cultivate. If I can't find it, I chuck the character.
The problem is that if you're not really feeling MUing at all in general, you start to ignore the voice and start to just pose "generic me". And, I mean, sometimes a person's generic RP voice is fun. But sometimes it's bland as fuck, and it's important to be aware of when you're using the character's voice and when you're not, so you can understand why some people really love playing with you on one character (whose voice you're exploiting) and not another (whom you don't really feel is going anywhere).
@Miss-Demeanor once told me that I'm super fun when I'm into it, but that it's super obvious when I'm not. I think that it has to do with this.
P.S. If you ever wonder why that one friend is uninterested in playing with your one alt that you always play with them, but then when you make a "secret alt" that they don't know about, they're all about playing with you constantly? Chances are you're putting way more passion, drive, and tapping into that character's voice in that secret alt than you are in your other one, and whether consciously or not, your RP partner is registering that, and their ability to enjoy and reciprocate is immediately affected by it. This is not always the case, sometimes people are just being fucking assholes, or you are, or you both are, whatever... but sometimes, just sometimes, it just might be that you're just more fun when you're really into it.
@ILuvGrumpyCat You can. You're just lazy and most of the time there's no merit in it.
@Quibbler is my bestest short-pose buddy.
Fucking rear bike tire popped again. Fucking fuck fuck fuck fucking fuck.
Get one of these new generation airless/tubeless tires!
I doubt they're on the market here, and I doubt I could afford them if they were.
Fucking rear bike tire popped again. Fucking fuck fuck fuck fucking fuck.
@Faceless said in Roleplaying writing styles:
@Coin said in Roleplaying writing styles:
@Faceless said in Roleplaying writing styles:
@Coin said in Roleplaying writing styles:
P.P.S.
Thank you for not writing P.S.S.
Who the fuck writes P.S.S.?
It's post-script. If you do it again, it's a post-post-script...
[bashes his head in]
I saw someone do it recently. Probably why it's fresh in my mind.
Staying on track with the thread: I prefer detailed poses. Humans are more than a few words and vague actions. I provide enough details about physical actions, especially(as @Coin can probably attest with his time playing Shadow) for those characters who are fairly quiet or otherwise don't have a lot(if any) dialogue. You have to offset the lack of dialogue with well described (and potentially verbose) physical actions.
At least that's how I feel. If you want to give someone something to work with while playing a tight-lipped character, then you have to offset that shortcoming with plenty of detail that physically displays the fact that character is a living, breathing person with more than vacant stares and the occasional smile.
This is why Shadow was so socially aggressive despite not talking.
@Faceless said in Roleplaying writing styles:
@Coin said in Roleplaying writing styles:
P.P.S.
Thank you for not writing P.S.S.
Who the fuck writes P.S.S.?
It's post-script. If you do it again, it's a post-post-script...
[bashes his head in]
@Arkandel said in Roleplaying writing styles:
@Coin said in Roleplaying writing styles:
I do this all the time. I don't really mind if other players know my character's motivations (USUALLY) and most of the people I play with aren't assholes who will assume telepathy based on it.
Although I've used this before, I know people (excellent roleplayers, in fact) who advocate everything should be visible in your poses, and that you should only emote things others can observe and interpret.
The idea being that anything less is lazy and bad storytelling, the rough equivalent of having an actor on screen display a reaction through his facial expression and body language, and having a narrator's voiceover explain what just happened to the audience.
Yeah, well, those people may be excellent roleplayers, but they don't corner the market on excellent roleplaying, nor what people find fun to read in other people's poses. So they can shoo off to play that way with people who only play that way, I guess. Hehe.
P.S. Also, that reasoning completely ignores several kinds of theater and several schools of acting that don't work that way. Absolutism is the bane of my existence.
P.P.S. As if A Series of Unfortunate Events isn't a banakable storytelling style over several mediums (like, oh, TELEVISION). Pfft. Whatever.
@Arkandel said in Roleplaying writing styles:
@Coin said in Roleplaying writing styles:
I do the former, not the latter (unless the latter is in jest with people who know me and we're being humorous). I especially do the latter towards MYSELF. If my character is doing something particularly mean, I'll often end the pose with, for example, [character] is such a dick.
This reminds me. How do you feel about revealing things about the character through narration and not in any visible ways? For example: "Bob sits down and grows silent. Ever since he returned from the war he's been reserved in social settings with people he doesn't know well. He lifts his glass and...".
I do this all the time. I don't really mind if other players know my character's motivations (USUALLY) and most of the people I play with aren't assholes who will assume telepathy based on it.
@Cupcake I forgot cocktail waiter. added it. >.>
@Arkandel said in Roleplaying writing styles:
I'd like to remind everyone this is not the Hogpit. Please let's not insult each other here,
First of all, fuck you. I do what I want, you Grecian jerk.
@Coin, for all he's a blight on this world,
See? Jerk.
can make every word count but most people can't get away with it.
[something something thanks something]
There's also a stigma about it being a sign of distraction such as when someone's playing on multiple scenes and just churns out a quick pose once in a while.
When I was playing Hemi on Eldritch it actually took me longer to pose those very concise poses than it would have taken me to rattle off a few paragraphs, sometimes. This was because I was consciously choosing a very concise and adverb-free style of writing to ape Hemingway's, and that took some thinking sometimes. I am usually very concise, but that bit was particularly attention-keeping.
I think the key to making every word count is to make sure what you're typing has meaning in the scene and is an interaction, not a passive statement. Say something to someone that necessitates a response, touch someone, move, do something. Otherwise, just say 'skip me' and let people play. Being a voyeur is sometimes better than being a slow poser who has nothing to say and just slows everything down. (ETA: This is why I favor the 3 Pose Rule by default, and usually don't even follow pose order anyway if I have something particular to say. Slow people are slow, and if asked, I will wait. But otherwise, no one's gonna die because your two paragraph pose got interrupted by my witty amazing super awesome one-liner. >.>)
What I can't stand is too many typos or spelling errors. Come on, it's 2017, get a spellchecker!
For reals.
Anyway, there are other quirks I encounter occasionally and I wonder how others feel about it. A common one is plugging wiki tags in poses - I don't have strong feelings about that either way personally but this being MSB that might vary.
The use of linefeeds and tabs is also pretty varied.
I do this almost routinely. It's just habit now. Ease of posting is key when you're posting logs.
There are also players who plug OOC bits into their poses. I've seen it be fairly innocuous ("Bob has been silent for a few minutes. That's because his player was AFK letting his dog out. He looks up and...") and way less acceptable ("Bob sits down and stays silent. He hates that bitch Jane and hopes she dies in a fire.").
I do the former, not the latter (unless the latter is in jest with people who know me and we're being humorous). I especially do the latter towards MYSELF. If my character is doing something particularly mean, I'll often end the pose with, for example, [character] is such a dick.
So, how do you like to pose? What's your preferred style in your partners?
Don't you-pose at me. That shit is creepy and completely unnecessary. I am not going to you-pose back, I don't care how hot my PB is and what you would like them to do to you.
I have had a lot of jobs.
In no particular order...
I'm sure I'm missing something. Does Professional MU Asshole count?
