Posts made by Devrex

@misadventure I go in with zero requirements. Just a situation.

Here, players, is your situation. There's a 40 story building, a bunch of gunmen, some hostages.

Mixed movie metaphor:

"What do you do? What do you do?"

I don't have any clue how or whether they'll solve it. They tell me what interests them and what they'll try and which if their skills they bring to bear. It's only my job to narrate the consequences of their attempts and to make sure that it's interesting. Sometimes knowing the general shape of what's there makes this predictable to me, but I don't go in married to anything.

@faraday Well I think the idea is that nobody would go to a movie where the main character wins every interaction. So what I think we're grasping for is "how can we tell better stories," how can we do a lot more "yes, but" and "no, and" and "no, but" when what many players mostly want is "yes, and also yes."

The question may be less about failure and more about "how can we get players to feel safe enough to engage in the ups and downs that will allow us to tell richer stories."

But not everyone is there for the same thing. I was shocked to realize a whole swath of players don't really give a fig about telling stories, they're after something else. So you're just not going to create a universal solution here. You can offer tools, you can set an example, you can find your people who like telling the same sorts of stories you like telling, but you're not going to get a pure wish fulfillment player to enjoy taking the beat down or to want to, you're not going to get the pure relationship-RP player to even want to go disarm the bomb in the first place or pay attention to it.

It's sort of like...uh...well the best analogy I can come up with is running a daycare. You can set up a bunch of stations and put a bunch of toys on the floor and the kids are going to run and go play with what suits them. You might love coaching kids through art projects, but there is no art-project method you can employ to make the kid who only wants to play with the fake food day in and day out come over and try out the tempura paint, and if you try to make that kid do that the kid is going to complain bitterly the entire time that they're being made to do something that's not fun. You might as well just let that kid enjoy their fake food bliss, keep an eye on them, and then go right on running the art lesson.

@lotherio Yeah, I often don't call for a roll unless the PCs are crunched for time.

Can the thief pick the lock? He's got the skills. Probably. Inevitably, if there's nobody shooting at him, if he doesn't need to get into the door in this round to avoid getting caught, if he isn't trying to escape a prison cell before the next guard rotation.

If he is? Then yeah, need a roll to find out if he's got the chops to get out of there clean and smooth or if he's on to his next problem; having his back to this super locked door when three armed men show up to say, "Well, well, what have we here."

I don't know, I am not sure you can "systemize" the incentivization. To a degree you can...I have found I am happy to take my beat in exchange for critical failures on a CoD game...but...my trust for the GM or player across from me and how they will handle that failure makes a huge difference in how happy I am to take the licks. When I'm playing with people I trust making a better story is usually enough regardless of what it does to the numbers. And when I'm not, no amount of number finagling or XP award makes a huge difference. There's a lot that is actually packed into the "trust" bit, but I won't write that essay here. The primary point here is that the incentivization is ultimately a matter of building and growing relationships. Which is hard to do. It's impossible to quantify. And there's no guaranteed system you can implement to build a culture that will foster it. You can lead by example, but that's about all you can do.

@alicat A+ analogy!

@arkandel It's frustrating that folks would do that, especially given that killing a PC is the most boring thing a person can do. There's a lot more mileage out of making lives complicated. The thug just...proves his dice are badass? Yay for him? The mindset of people who do this has never made sense to me.

@bored Just to clarify...I wasn't assuming cooperative play, it was very much an if the play is cooperative then it can be fun, not a "Oh sure, it can always be fun thing." It really would be miserable if you're with a bunch of people who don't care about anyone other than themselves having a good time.

@macha He is so fun to play too!

I play Coulson a lot on comic games, which means a lot of shrugging and finding ways to contribute while hanging out with Superman and Thor at the same time. If the players are good and interested in selling each other's strength, then there's always some sneaky/spy/gadget-based thing I can do...or the players let me get mileage out of being the Dad/Leader type and letting me come up with plans to best use all their strengths. I imagine it would be miserable where nobody cared about "sell" or including people at every power level, but in the right environment balance doesn't tend to matter for me one whit. I like to watch the characters interact and to see what new stories can develop. And...admittedly...when playing FCs I also sort of get a kick of finding a comic or a podcast or a short story where I find the writing ended up pretty close to what me and the other MU*ers did. I'm kind of burnt out on comics right now but I admit the first thing I do check is "are any of the characters I could play still available," OCs are risky. I like playing with them as they're key to making new stories, but I don't like taking them on a comic game cause a lot of people don't feel the same way and avoid them. I admit that I would find Coulson working with the Thundercats kind of hilarious so...super broad doesn't bother me if I can find RPers who like generating the kinds of stories I also like.

@tooters It's not about thinking they're real. Any more than I think a movie character is real when a movie hits me right in the feels. It can be a lot of things. A story that just genuinely made you happy for awhile is now over. The uphill battle of having to establish the contacts and social momentum all over again and going through a bunch of torturous new getting-to-know you scenes with people who already had to do that with you once. Losing an experience you enjoyed that isn't coming back. You might have a cool new experience, but the old one's gone and can't be replaced and that was an experience you liked and you don't know if you'll like this new experience. Lots of reasons, and I mean you know...people's feelings are their feelings.

@hella I'm a little self-conscious posting this but...a) I second @Juniper and b) I think letting yourself cry, if you haven't. You are losing something: experiences, a creation that had a part of you in them, certain dynamics that can't be replaced, a story you invested in or followed.

@hella Fair, and often me too, but I'm just observing kind of what seems to be pulling people in and the games that seem to be doing well. I think it's cause with modern world games people can choose to engage with the heavier world plot...or they can just say eff it and go RP getting a cup of coffee or hitting the climbing wall to have a deep conversation or something.

@ganymede Given how brain-fried everyone is...modern settings often seem the best bet. Less heavy lifting on "what do? What RP? How does world work?"

@paradox @raeras Man. City of Mists; talk about a MUSH I'd love but won't make!

@zombiegenesis But then, are the people who are going to flip a table because you changed a House Rule to make the game more MUSH-playable, did all the work of making a game in a landscape where there are precious-few of them, and presented it to them really the people you want to play with in the first place? There's nothing wrong with adjusting things to fit the medium.

@kk I'm envious! My garden still lives in the realm of "maybe one of these days I'll...".

This looks like it took so much hard work!

@too-old-for-this Doing dishes and ensuring the camp house/apartment doesn't get attacked by bears burglars. Multitasking!

@tooters Yeah it's CoD.

@sfire Yes. The game is absolutely excellent, the staff is friendly, the vibe is laid back, the RP is good and the playerbase is, so far, pretty much a joy to work with. They've made some story and design decisions which are just plain smart, and they truly seem to care about the player experience. Been there a...week? Week and a half? And the RP has been freaking stellar. Highly recommended.

@hella Oooh, thanks for these. I'm super burnt out on writing fiction (other than MUing) right now but I didn't know about any of these and will want them when my heart and brain and mind stop shying away from such things.