Posts made by il-volpe

@ganymede It is. Shutting people out to do so is not cool. If your circumstances are such that you feel you must do so, so be it, but it's a pity.

@derp "not cool" != "you can't"

@mietze Haha, yeah, screw committees. The last time I did something like that I just said, "I will do it all, give me the money," because that was easier.

@ganymede Not sure why you think I meant you. I wasn't thinking that.

Also, saying, "Bringing only four sandwiches and giving them only to the same four people every time is not cool," is not the same as telling you who you must give your sandwiches to. You can only bring as much as you can bring to the pot luck, nobody expects you to make it a hardship on yourself to bring something, nobody is saying your having only four sandwiches reflects badly on you.

@Devrex You're describing a situation where sandwich clubs are invisible and harmless. There are a lot of dishes at this potluck. At one where there are fewer dishes and a lot of sandwich club members it goes:

Abelard brings four sandwiches. He gives them to Brigid, Camille, Darius, and Euphonia.

Brigid brings three brownies. She gives them to Abelard, Camille, and Darius.

Camille brings a box of wine, and shares it between the lot, and still has one or two glasses for whoever pounces at the right moment.

Darius brings five sandwiches and gives them to A, B, C and E, and sometimes gives out the fifth but just as often wraps it up and goes home for a nap. Euphonia brings chocolate-covered strawberries and hand-feeds 'em to Brigid.

Zane brought a big bowl of potato salad that's pretty good, but most people are full up on brownies and sandwiches and don't want any. Zane sucks the dregs out of the wine box and staggers around hoping Darius is gonna hand out that fifth sandwich this month. Yvonne, Xavier, Wendell, and Violet turn up, but individually, and each decides that a slosh of wine and a giant serving of potato salad do not a potluck make and leave, wondering why Zane is there and why Abelard and Brigid posted ads for the place.

@faraday Because, as @mietze points out and has been demonstrated in the thread, "just suck less" and "If you were fun, people would play with you," tends to be what people actually say.

@devrex Names on the WHO stop working that way if/when people figure out that they correspond to characters unavailable for RP. Remember OOC-bits?

@derp Nobody here has said anyone expects anyone to play with absolutely everyone.

"Small closed playgroups suck" != "play with everyone."

"I had a crap time playing with you, go away until you learn to suck less," != "I don't know you and don't have the time/energy/inclination to see if you really suck or not, but go away until you suck less."

@faraday If you're fine with that, cool. I was fine with it, running a game.

I'm not sure I agree with your reasoning -- I want the overall story of the game to be ours.

They don't have to be actively being obnoxious jerks to be insulting. It's like, eh. Sure, I invite you to a party, I am not gonna tell you it's wrong of you to spend the whole time chatting with your friends. However, it is rude, in the Miss Manners Would Not Approve sense, to give other party-goers the silent treatment or tell them, "Private conversation!" every time they approach. (Yes, yes, sometimes you just miss something so you don't answer a person, and sometimes you really are in a private conversation and it's okay to do that, but when somebody does that all the time it isn't a mistake or a special circumstance, and if people take it for what it looks and feels like, an insult, a snub, who can blame them?)

@mietze This.

"Damn it's hard to get a scene."
"If you are fun, people will play with you."

Gee, thanks.

ETA: If the game is big, yeah, nobody notices them in the corner, so it's no problem. On a small or middlin' size game, the sandwich club can be very very noticeable. When staff PCs are members of said club and non-club-members are standing around staring at condiments, well. You prolly remember that game.

@faraday said in The Desired Experience:

This just literally makes no sense to me. If Gany consistently logs onto my game and plays with their four friends and only their four friends, they're still playing my game.

But they're not. They are playing on your game. Or rather, at your game venue. But they are playing their game. Nobody else gets to play. They are showing up at your pot luck, availing themselves of your tables and napkins and comfy heated rooms, using your water and toilet paper, drinking out of your margarita pitcher, and insulting your other guests by replying to "Hey, that looks good, can I have some?" with "Nope, I only have enough for just us," and "Want some of the potato salad I brought?" with "Naw, I'm too full from eatin' this delicious sandwich that you can never try."

Also, my experience with this is that it really looks as if the people who can "only bring four" are bringing four to a group where three out of the four, if not all of them, are doing the same, and they are having a feast. If it really would and truly just ruin your fun to make sliders instead of foot-longs from time to time, welll.

@devrex I hear ya re: the detail, but naw. It's not a basic truth. The basic truth is "If you aren't fun, people won't play with you," which doesn't imply that a bunch of other shit like time and energy and character concepts and platforms-for-interaction don't play a big role, you just either suck or you're fun.

I have totally had times when I felt wanted on a game or two and quite sure of myself in that people wanted to play with me about as often as I wanted to play and wouldn't ghost me 'cause an IC argument turned boring or something, and freely admitted to having fun with me.

@devrex I know, more or less, re: Derp in particular.

I'm more objecting to the "If you're fun, people will RP with you" line from people who seldom have the time, energy and/or inclination to find out if somebody's fun.

And heck, now I'm feeling the "OMG maybe I shouldn't play unless I know I am at the top of my game" feels you described earlier, since if getting a chance is hard a second one is not a reasonable hope.

What @tinuviel said.

Do I expect anybody to RP with everybody? No.

Do I think anybody has an obligation to play with everybody? No.

Do I expect you to ignore your friends to RP with rando when your time is limited? No.

Do I think RPing exclusively with four other people is cool? No. I think it's equivalent to showing up at the pot luck with four sandwiches to hand to your friends. If it's a sandboxy game, okay, its maybe more like a park where people are meant to do that, but probably you're using plates and napkins and drinking from the host's margarita pitcher.

Do I think this should not be allowed? I'd say it's up to the host, seeing as some games are built as venues for it, and on large games where it's not what many people do it's an invisible non-issue.

@faraday said in The Desired Experience:

But that's a very different argument than saying I'm "responsible" for it.

Probably a differing value of 'responsible'. "It's your job," responsible? No. "Having a measure of control" responsible, yes. People's fun does, in fact, depend on others looping them in. Not having the time, energy, or desire to do that is legitimate, but 'tis still true.

@Juniper Yes. People want to spend their time in a way that is most fulfilling.

However, the more people behave as Derp in statement two, the less possible it is for statement one to be true. Unless only the four or five people Derp plays with are fun.

@derp said in The Desired Experience:

As Arkandel said: If you're fun to play with, people will play with you. And if you aren't, then staff can't help you with interpersonal skills.

@derp said in The Desired Experience:

I just wanna do things with the four or five people I trust, and maybe put a few new feelers out every once in awhile if the mood strikes.

@devrex said in The Desired Experience:

In my experience what is wanted is to feel wanted

This.

@ganymede I do it because many of my favourite and most fun characters came about that way. More often I end up alone on Mars, but it may be worth it.

@faraday You're quite correct. But I think what @tmr and I are talking about is encouraging people to make characters on Mars, followed by doing less for them than for other characters on the game, ostensibly because there are only 1d8 -1 of them and it's more efficient to amuse the larger group on the space station.

ETA: You kinda have to 'cause this started when you told the player, "Make a Martian, we're trying to grow that area of the game."

And, y'know, can do and are obliged to do are not the same, and leading a horse to water doesn't mean it won't drink.

@derp Rubbish. You can't make people RP with someone they actively wish to avoid, but you can make them play with someone they'd otherwise ignore, by dropping plot points over there.

@tmr said in The Desired Experience:

they wanted to expand on the town-side RP so thought suggesting a townie was a way to do that. Only it wasn't because smart people (or at least people familiar with the game) knew that the town was Deadville

This is classic, and I've fallen for it a good handful of times.

I will even notice that the area is deadsville and yet be extra naive about it, assuming that staff's attempt to grow that area will include making it attractive. Later, if I bother to inquire, I'll learn that staff feel there aren't enough players for them to bother giving the ones who exist something to do, and are mystified that players walk instead of waiting indefinitely.