Posts made by insomniac7809

It's always kinda a balancing act. The Voices thing is a really good one on Arx, picking out people who are empowered with all the Head Honcho's authority ad spreading the workload around. But I really don't agree with people who say that faction leadership should always be NPCs. I get that it can be hard to find a player who can step up, but "NPC only" except for antagonists is always a call I'm iffy on. (Easier in a roster game, so the sphere leadership doesn't change every couple weeks.)

IC relationships, that can be another tricky one. I won't try and say there's a hard and fast rule for how much someone should be able to ghost on their IC significant other before the other player decides they're done for OOC reasons. Relationship RP is a big part of the draw for a lot of people, and someone who isn't getting that from their RP partner shouldn't be expected to stick with a ghost for the sake of the PCs.

Dependent PCs... okay, I really, really rarely do those myself. I need a HUGE amount of trust if I'm going to make one of my PCs that intimately tied to another PC, if I'm not planning to ditch the character if the other PC goes. The only thing I can say is to NOT do what one modWoD storyteller did, which was slate a ghoul to be executed because her regnant was gone for so long that she declared him IC absent instead of just away doing stuff.

District Manager: You're over on hours compared to payroll matrix. Bring your schedule into compliance.

Me/Store Manager: Changes made, submitted for approval.

DM: Your coverage is light. Put people on at these times.

M/SM: Changes made, submitted for approval.

DM: You're over on hours compared to payroll matrix. Bring your schedule into compliance.

M/SM: Changes made, submitted for approval.

DM: Your coverage is light.

M/SM: THOSE ARE THE OPTIONS, YES.

My group app planning has a three stages:

1. Talk in OOC with the other players about how our characters relate and know each other. I try to keep this more toward the factual details than interpersonal dynamic, which again I try to detail in play.

2. Mention the characters in the app, and go in toward CG at the same time.

3. Make plans for what I'll do with the PC when the other players flake on me. If this doesn't happen, sacrifice an unblemished heifer in thanks.

I usually start with a base concept or archetype. Sometimes (often) that'll boil down to "basically <character> in <setting>." I like twists on archetypes, but going completely off the rails just strikes me as pointless--why would I play a Ventrue if I just wanted to play them as a Bruja?

I usually keep background as minimal as I can during CG, which is sometimes a strain on @Aria and other people who like things set out in advance. I just like to make it up in play, once I figure out what makes sense for the PC. Until I get a feel for it, I don't like nailing things down beyond a few character-defining points.

I try to keep my PCs pretty well-rounded, even when it's suboptimal from a min-max standpoint. I'd rather have a PC who can hold a conversation and read beyond a fifth grade level and whatever their deal is than someone who can do one thing better than everyone. I also tend to buy above-average intelligence, unless being kinda dim is part of the concept.

I don't have an issue with reusing character traits. Or, for that matter, remaking characters wholecloth. (FIGHT ME) If I don't have a specific concept in mind, I'll fall back on some of the same tropes more often than not. (Sarcastic, verbose, often criminal, usually an anti-authority streak.) Should note that my only current PC is pretty much the polar opposite of that in every respect... I pretty much have to Karl Urban the dialogue on every pose I make. (Possibly relevant that @saosmash made the character as a roster, I just play the guy.)

I usually do come up with one or two character flaws for a given PC, things that are just flat-out negative, but most of their 'flaws' come up in play as aspects of their personality that you can't really separate from their strengths. Like, he's either indomitabley resolute or pig-headedly stubborn, depending on the circumstances and PoV.

ETA: oh, and unless it's baked into the concept, I usually play my characters as having been at their thing a while. Doesn't mean they need to react to impending apocalypsi with "oh, it's Tuesday already?" (unless that's earned in-game), but I usually play PCs where this isn't their first rodeo. I'm making someone ex nihilo to go in this situation, and anything that makes it feel like they have a history helps my immersion.

FUCKING STOP TRYING TO CALL OUT HUNG OVER.

We all know why you feel shitty and we don't care. You're a grown man and you know when you work. Either calm the fuck down with work night drinking or suck it the fuck up.

Okay, I was going to directly quote @surreality responding to me, but the thread's moved on and it would be just chopped up anyway, so instead I'm posting a few thoughts.

-I don't think there are limits to what art should explore, if done in a considered and respectful fashion by someone who earns that trust. (If it's badly handled, the creators can and often do catch flack for it.)

-I think RP, with people I trust to be sensitive and thoughtful, should have no fewer restrictions put in place.

-I think a MU* environment, for several of the same reasons I love the MU* environment (fast, loose, messy collaborative storytelling with complete strangers) is an absolutely terrible setting to foster the sort of sensitivity and trust that it takes to bring the sort of real-world hate and slurs into the fiction.

-I think that banning in-character slurs is a reasonable restriction to foster player comfort and inclusivity, in the same way many MU*s ban in-character rape. Yes, it happens in real life; no we do not want to deal with it.

(-I don't think "son of a bitch" or "motherfucker" are in any way equitable with racial or homophobic slurs in this context.)

-I think that talking about how aspects of real-world discrimination resembles aspects of fantastical racism ignores that most of the complaints are in the vein of "hate speech against groups I'm a member of is disruptive to my fun time."

-I think that, say, a cowboy MU* is less likely to be a thoughtful expression of American race relations in the 1870s and more an excuse for people to pretend to be awesome gunslingers in cowboy outfits, and setting a "you must be this white/male/straight to be awesome" bar is not a good look for inclusivity in the hobby.

-I think that, while some degree of historical accuracy is a concern, the activities of one in-character month in our hypothetical cowboy MU* have a good chance of overshadowing the collected lifetime achievements of any real western gunfighter, and I also think that people would object if TS in the cowboy MU was required to focus on a cowboy's saddle sores, BO, and dickcheese, historically accurate or not. I think allowances can be made.

-I think that, with what I see across the hobby of the people arguing that it's beneficial to use slurs in-character versus the people who express discomfort toward their use in-scene, it starts to feel like a bunch of us white straight folk talking about how real we keep it while alienating minority players from the hobby.

That's just my thoughts.

@arkandel said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

@rebekahse said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

I'm confused why we seem to have decided that's self-evident but a character being a sexist or a racist is legitimate cause for OOC concern.
It's way easier to be triggered by something that has actually happened to you or someone you know. But how does that relate to gaming when that's just an IC point of view not shared by players? Well, that's what this thread is about.

Well, ideally it's an IC view not shared by players. But we've all seen people who play creepers, who use the IC screen to try to legitimize creeping on women across the screen. Right?

There are some people who don't want to see hateful, hurtful, ugly words targeting people like them used during their pretendy funtimes. There are some people who want to use those words and use the character as a shield. There are some people who just think the barrier for proving they aren't in the second group needs to be higher than logging in from the other side of the planet and apping a character.

I do see a pretty big gap between hating shav'arvani or the goddamn metahumans vs. insisting that using the n-word as a comma is just historically accurate, guys.

@autumn said in Questionably viable character types and tropes (tangent from staff ethics convo):

@packrat said in Questionably viable character types and tropes (tangent from staff ethics convo):

Just being a huge jerk to people is unpleasant, being say, a huge jerk to commoners as a noble in a manner that makes it obvious you as the player think your character is a tool? That can work really well.

I feel like this is a really important thing. If other players understand that you think your own character is a jerk, you can get away with a lot. ...

On the other hand, it's not a get out of jail free card. I met a guy once who openly acknowledged that his character was a jerk, and, sure enough, when I RP'd with him the character was so jerkish that I had no desire to interact with him again.

Yeah, that's the thing with antisocial PCs. Whether they're the silent type, a wallflower, or just a prolapsed asshole of a human being. (I've had a whole lot of fun with all three, mind.)

First, you need to accept that you might not get the same degree of RP as a friendlier, more social PC. It's a cool thing to for other people to flex a bit to include you, it's cool if you flex a bit to be available, but you're deliberately cutting yourself off from some RP.

The other question is why your asocial skin is going to get any attention. Does the wallflower come out of their shell over certain topics? Is the asshole entertaining to be around for people who can take the odd dig at their own expense? Can the silent type carry their half of the scene without being overly wordy? How will your PC engage with other players, other than digging their heels in and refusing to interact?

As far as I'm concerned, wallflower and/or lone wolf PCs are well and good, if the players are ready and willing to take on what that means--which is, less interactivity in a game of interpersonal interaction.

And don't put it on other players to jump that gap. I've been on way too many games where Darksoulle Blakk sits in the corner all broody, gives hostile one-word responses to anyone who tries to include them, and quits in a huff because there's nothing for them to do. Nobody actually gives a shit about the dark torment of your character's dark tormented soul, guy. Not without a reason beyond "he's so silent and brooding and unresponsive, I must know what happens behind the mirrorshades."

People who want to play Gregory House/Rick Sanchez also need to be aware that they're not the protagonist of a collaborative game, and like in the real world, there's probably someone else who can do what they can without being an insufferable assbucket about it. If you drive off everybody, it probably won't be them crawling back to you when it shakes out.

Aside from "the game wraps," "the game death spirals," and "just not feeling it"...

Staff dramaz is a big one. People who lord over their online rp domain and surround themselves with kissass sycophants is way more common than I would have thought in the realm of chat rooms where grown-ass people pretend to be samurai and vampires who have sex with each other. (The LordElf effect.)

Player drama, about the same. I mean, there's the odd person I can't stand on an OOC level, but when the RP dries up because I'm subjected to a smear campaign because my PC ruffled someone's feathers? Can't be bothered.

Excessive staff inactivity. I can entertain myself for a long time, but when nothing can be done that would contextualize endless coffee shop RP? It eventually gets old. (Still bitter over when the biggest player-driven effort I've seen, on any game, collapsed because the sub-sphere staffer went radio silent, and the general sphere staffer was declaring it not his problem. We didn't even need scenes run! Just someone to fill out the goddamn paperwork!)

Complete unrestrained freedom. Maybe it's a weird complaint to have, but if the setting is a small town, and it contains nine nightclubs, thirteen of the richest people in the USA, and has had seven unrelated incursions by extradimensional horrors in the last month and a half, I just can't buy into it enough to give a shit.

Activity cycles. This is on me, but my hours are awful. I work on swing shifts when I'm employed, and I didn't pick up my user tag out of a hat. Plenty of times I've given up on games just because the player base and I were on different enough hours that I couldn't find the RP there.

Any of the above in doses that wouldn't have been dealbreakers to me, but were driving off friends or RP partners of mine to the point that I didn't have my partner base.