Posts made by Ghost

Antagonist is the right word, if only we could ensure that players would separate the character from the player.

Okay, people. It sounds like there's going to be a gameplay reveal trailer in may, but here's the current trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJLAJVmggt0

So, for those of you who have played, are you in?

I played the ASS off of this game from launch until the second expansion, but I grew tired of the repetition and the RNG grinding. Personally, I'd like to see bigger maps and a more RPG-inspired zone questing experience, and a better story. That might bring me back. The raids were some of the most rewarding gaming experiences I'd had in years.

Thoughts?

@Arkandel said in PC antagonism done right:

Unlike table-top though, where the antagonist is either the GM or at least a known face sitting at the same table, on MU* it's a bit more blurry. People expect parity and fairness - even if it can be argued a better story could be told without it - and the unfortunate part is historically we've seen this go really awry where staff blatantly favored their friends or even alts this way.

Idea: Flagged antagonists.

Staff could include some kind of incentive to agreeing to certain behavior/guidelines for antagonist characters (such as mine above) and then flag the character as an approved antagonist/antihero type character.

It's possible that, at least, a staff "stamp of approval" on the character knowing going in that they'll be playing the character that way might help. Might also make it so that people avoid RPing with the character due to OOC avoidance, which would be bullshit, but whatevs.

Competition is an issue.

In this format (MU*), for the most part, everyone understands that on some level, players are in competition with each other. The golden nugget in this hobby is relevance. Relevance equals scenes. Scenes equals roleplay. Roleplay equals not logging in and sitting on your ass for 12 hours waiting for something to happen when you could have been playing Mass Effect.

I think it's really important, that in many cases, antagonists may not always be antagonists. That the intended story of the antagonist is to upgrade to antihero. If the intended story of the antagonist is to be an antagonist, then it should be assumed that there will be an event. If the intention of the story altogether is the fight of good versus evil, then the antagonist player has to understand that it's the prerogative of the majority of the playerbase to defeat said evil.

I'm a chronic tabletop GM. I'll share with you my playbook on creating npc antagonists for my players, because I think this method should be applied to MuAntagonistPCs

1. You exist to give other people something to fight against. Expect this.
2. Other players will want to defeat you. Expect this.
3. Players will want to defeat you ASAP. Plan accordingly. There's no sense in creating an antagonist and think you have this great long-term idea in mind, then get hit with an avalanche of dice, and then have to use GM-fiat or GM-magic to keep the antagonist alive because they devoured your NPC before the good shit you had planned could be unleashed.
4. Be a bad guy and bully the characters, but not the player. Everyone wanted to see Daniel LaRusso kick Johnny's ass. High five them when they kick your ass.
5. STEAL from great examples. Darth Vader, Dark Helmet, Every Michael Wincott character he ever acted (caw caw bang fuck I'm dead). Find the things you love in villains and share that love with your players.
6. Most importantly: Understand your role in the story. Your role is to provide conflict, and conflict ultimately requires trials, tribulations, and resolution. Your antagonist could be a short-lived one or a long-term one, but if he/she is a long term antagonist, it will be your job to provide little victories against your antagonist along the way to make it worthwhile.

If you explain that this is your mindset to the players, OOCly, they will appreciate having something to fight against, so long as you're fair and appreciative of them.

Never. Ever. Ever. EVER. EVER forget to OOCly high five them for the attention they give your antagonists.

When it comes to magic, or the Force, or whatever <insert energy> is, I think that when writing it up, the most proper baseline is to try to cover some of the WHY factor.

Why does it exist?
Why can people touch it?
Why does it behave the way that it does?
Why does any of this matter to the setting at all?

All too often in homebrewed settings, the WHY is placed after the creation of some kind of PC or NPC that's important to the story. The character the writer has in mind is created and the WHY is tailored to make the ends meet to explain what the character is capable of, and not the other way around. This is an important distinction.

If you create the magic first and answer the WHY first, then you can create characters that fit into the setting based on the understood rules of your magic.

If you create the setting around a character or a pair of characters (and the powers/things you want them to be able to do), then you're doctoring the entire world to wrap around ways to explain the character.

The world itself should take precedence in front of the characters. Always. After all, characters are many and tiny in comparison to the universe they inhabit.

@Arkandel said in PC antagonism done right:

Now... Here's a more overall question for y'all.
If a game allowed players to pick their own level of required consent then, in the context of this thread, would you also adjust characters' IC advancement accordingly? For instance would you give someone who picks PvE engagements only fewer resources per week (since they risk less) than someone who's opened the door to conflict? Assume PC death is out of the question here to make things more clear.

I see nothing wrong with a risk-based model.

I've been on games where people didn't want to bother with the war, the combat, and in some cases the central theme to focus on roleplay around things like horse breeding and tinkering with mechanics, but never wanted to be involved in anything violent or risky at all.

It's fair to the players who risk their characters, take risks, and reach for the golden ring to get better rewards than the players that just want a social playspace to RP out whatever; boyfriends, horse breeding, coffee talk.

I don't think that providing these rewards to the players who take risks requires any psychotic policy or system, either. It's simple:

• Event #24 involves risk
• Event #24 has an XP bonus for completion and potential gear
• If you don't attend Event #24, you don't get it.

@Seraphim73 said in PC antagonism done right:

Keep it IC. Always.

Let me rephrase this.

• Keep the antagonism IC. Always. Being an IC antagonist doesn't work well when you're an OOC bag of dicks.

@Tinuviel said in What do you WANT to play most?:

@Ghost That has been done before...

I want to play a Vulcan educator who has to teach sex-ed to a bunch of Ferengi children.

Has this been done before? Because I kind of feel like it needs to happen.

Edit:

"We will now discuss what the Ferengi refer to as oo-mox, which is spelled Oh-Oh-"
OH OH DONT STOP.

The class erupts in laughter. The Vulcan sighs.

EDIT2:
"I believe there is a human phrase made popular in 20th century North America that comes to mind. I believe it is said," Slight heard turn. Raised eyebrow. "Jesus fucking Christ?"

@Auspice said in What do you WANT to play most?:

Anyway, I think a Trek game now would have to focus on a single place

...Like a single ship?

WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA

Before anyone jumps on my ass about reinventing the wheel or suggesting something that Star Trek has never done, I just want to say that I love you all dearly and please take it easy on me.

@Tinuviel I wish I could upvote that twice.

I'd be down for some Trek.

@Lisse24 said in PC antagonism done right:

I disagree with your basic premise that people need to 'play an antagonist.' I think in many games factions are in natural conflict with each other. Players from opposing factions can easily play the antagonist for each other while both being the 'good guy' in their own mind. The role of staff should be to reinforce this

I don't think that you're wrong. I'm speaking more about the people who choose to roll up a character with that edgy, mouthy, punchy badass series of tropes. Faction based games provide built in antagonism monitored by staff. On a more granular level, though, you get characters designed to be difficult to get a long with, perhaps even in their own faction. It was those antagonists that I was more pointing my thoughts towards.

IMO, many antagonist MU players play it like a trope. They put on a goatee and an eyepatch, say ya cunts! a lot, and antagonize other characters, but still assume this weird stance that they shouldn't suffer any ICC for their behavior unless it's a consequence they approve of. Players of antagonist characters tend to get upset when socially or politically they become uninvited, avoided, etc.

To make matters a little worse, some of the my story society tends to avoid difficult characters on an OOC level, which bleeds into IC.

Here's my playbook for playing antagonists:

• Keep it IC. Always.
• Disclaim. If someone pages you to ask, explain that it's all part of the show.
• FOR FUCKS SAKE, BE WILLING TO ICLY SUFFER NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES. The whole point to playing an antagonist is to adopt the role of devil's advocate, a low level villain, a pain in the ass, a bad guy, etc. If you're making a character designed to generate conflict, it is a MUST that you are willing to give the people you're antagonizing a victory.

There's two sides to every fight. If one player refuses to roleplay their character as having lost at all (I.e. despite being fuck-pummeled in a fistfight, the loser laughs and walks it off), then not only is it poor rp, but it's cheesy and shows a lack of ethics. Ethics is important to playing an antagonist, and when the other players know that you're ethical and fair about it, they're far more likely to get in on the fun.

Oh, and also?

• Be realistic. No one is 100% antagonist. Somewhere deep inside is a reason for said antagonism. Antagonists need allies, friends, people they confide in. Antagonist players need to leave the option open for some level of being tamed. Logan started fighting for mutant rights after being a raging dick to Cyclops. The angry beast can make friends, love them, protect them, even if it's in this big ugly shell of a guy who says ya cunts! a lot.

@Chime said in What do you WANT to play most?:

We don't need more song of ice&fire clones.

When I say dark fantasy, I'm saying as grimdark as Bill Nighy and Nick Cave drinking motor oil atop a pile of bones while listening to the audiobook version of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar
I'm thinking more akin to the middle ages scenes from Underworld, where there is the darkest, blackest, foulest magic out there in the night. Where piles of stripped bones line the entrance to the unsurvivable forest. Where the Midnight Queen awakens for the first time in a thousand years and marches with her army of the undead, adding to her ranks with every mortal they kill.

Or some shit like that. I dunno.

Public Service Announcement: I would rather stab myself in the eyes than play another Lords and Ladies game where I'm all: "Hi! I'm Lord McImportant Pants! Hang out with me while I polish the McImportant armor with McImportant polish to show my McImportant Squire the importance of being an important McImportant! Cheer for me at tourney #23. I'm banging my sister but we don't log it so shhhhhhhh." That shit is boring as hell and for the most part, it's all predetermined outcomes by characters apped in to be important people whom you can't Red Wedding without their permission.

To add to my opinion: I feel like the 40s era would really take away from the modern, less repressed, free to explore feel that is central to the source material.

@Seraphim73 if I got a vote, I'd vote modern era. There's already a Hogwarts game set in that era, and there's something I like about the mix of modern technology and magic in the show that would be lost in the 40s setting. Further yet, the pop culture references wouldn't be as snappy.

It's just harder for me to get invested in older settings when the source material shows how neatly it ties into modern setting.

@Cupcake I love how you copy the contents of a book.

You put two books in a box together, wait while the books bang each other, then when they're done, you collect the new copy of the book from the box.

HOW IN GODS NAME DO WE NOT HAVE A GAME IN THIS UNIVERSE YET?

Sorry to double post but I'm kind of amazed that the MU community hasn't jumped all over a MU based on the Magicians TV/Book series.

With so many WoD/Dresden/Hogwarts games pretty much leaning in the direction of stories about 20-somethings boning, getting drunk, dealing with monsters, and then breaking up to bone other people, THE MAGICIANS IS PRETTY MUCH THAT (with some steeper ramifications for Maverick behavior)

• College.
• Beer.
  Magic.
• Boning.
• Getting your eyes exploded.
• Drinking a jar of God semen to save your friends.
• Being treated like a dumb, 20-something college student who bones too much, studies too little, drinks too much, has a friend with exploded eyes, drank God semen to save their friends, made things worse, then has to have a monster burn itself into their back to protect them from the angry God whose semen you stole for the power necessary to save your friend without exploring due to taking on too much power at once you dumb, dumb, sexy co-ed MOTHERFUCKER!!!

Seriously. It's got everything the community wants.

@Thenomain said in What do you WANT to play most?:

WoD isn't horror most of the time anyway. Sadly.

WoD is more closely related to superheroes, in many cases.

Existing IPs
Matrix
Farscape
Into the Badlands
Magicians
Valerian
Cthulhu Tech
Spycraft
Conan
Street Fighter

More Vague
Space opera
Homebrew Cpunk/SciFi
Horror that isn't WoD
Dark, original fantasy theme

By the way, for those of you who weren't around to figure out what happened to the trash bin fire plot...