Posts made by mietze

You can Four Paragraph me any time you want to, Gany.

@ide If it helps there was also a discussion about how a poser that's way mismatched for others (in a scene of 1-2 paragraph posers, they are hammering others with 3-4 of fluff and thinking it makes them a better RPer/writer/what have you) can be tiresome and rude?

I think people do tend to tune out BBoards though. i think it's an excellent thing for a wiki. Putting it on a board for some reason feels pompous to me be I can't put my finger on why. Or why I would feel that way on a board but not the wiki, where I'd enjoy reading it. Hmm.

I'd like to participate too. I don't mind whatever format, if it's a newfangled one then it might be a learning curve but I can deal with it. I think gdocs is easy. Not sure if something like Trello would work for this (I suspect not? Thought I've never tried it with long bits of writing--I think you can pin docs to it though?).

Croup is so nasty, just horrible to listen to as a parent. hope they're on the mend soon!

I have met plenty of great writers who were absolutely craptacular RPers.

I think they are very different skills. Though I do think that great RPers always have excellent writing, the reverse is not true.

I did my undergraduate practicums in CPS and public health, I have been a therapeutic foster care parent, and then professionally moved into street outreach in nonprofit orgs, mostly centered on teens and women. Along with a stint in women's corrections. Maybe when surprise toddler is school age I'll finally go for my MSW, I would really love to be back at CPS or public health. I needed a long break though.

@Coin

Licensed Massage Practitioner/Therapist.

However, there is cause for basic knowledge to be known. You should know that probably your grunt soldier would not disobey orders and leave active battle line and endanger their unit to--go rescue a kitten they saw across the way (actually happened). Or maybe you would! But you can't cry about consequences then.

As a trainee or rookie cop, when your supervisor gives you a direct order in the field, probably you should respond to it instead of doing the exact opposite because your player couldn't be assed to read anything anyone else was posing (actually happened) and thus exposed the team to a greater degree of risk. Or at least, not if you're not willing to face the consequences (in that case, there was a redo once it was pointed out).

But for all details being correct all the time or others attacking people, I have a low view of folks that ream folks out. If I can bite my tongue at the degree of inaccuracy I've seen at what CPS and social workers do, or the people who make these PCs with tortured pasts of neglect and sex trafficking with absolutely NO evidence of adaptive behaviors in their RP at all ever, just bouncy happy sex freak, then dammit, RL cops can deal with people getting call signs on, and with occasional annoying TJ Hooker types.

I think you're more responding to Faraday!

But I agree with you--I think most people are pretty cool when their professions are "fictionalized" (I get twitchy about LMPs and social workers, though there ARE sex worker LMPs no doubt and crappy social workers, but the stereotypes really bug me, but I keep my mouth shut unless someone happens to /ask/), but people who snottily correct or clog up a scene with excessive detail inappropriate to what other folks are doing are annoying.

One thing I do not do is leave a player hanging when I ask them for an explanation of their approach. Especially with non cut and dried actions like investigations and the like. I do not ask professional PCs to roll for basic competancy in a crime scene investigation, for example, unless for some reason there's a strong chance they might miss something (active interference, a professional cover up, they've been affected by something else that might impair them). Yes, I respect when people have social skills that they've purchased rather than just bullshitting through them. I favor those PCs myself!

However, if they want to check for /more/ than their level of competency, or outside of the box thinking (and certain PCs want to do that all the time, because they may not fit the stereotypical mold but would still like to take a chance to find something), if they want a check of "I have this nuts idea, could I make it work," and it's something that I wouldn't usually think would occur but it's not totally impossible, but unusual--then I feel that they should be allowed to roll.

Also, and this is usually something that happens in group scenes, there will be someone who says "I can't do anything" because they don't have the precise Investigation skill. Will they be able to uncover the same kind or perhaps quality info as the person who does? No--but they can retrieve different info, depending upon the scene and if the investigator shares that info within the party, or clarify it, with occult, empathy, science, medicine, ect.

I find a ST who just says "tell me how" to be just as annoying as the ones that say "gimme a roll. Oh, you don't have the exact stat+skill I am looking for/used to? Nah sorry, you're out of luck." I have a gut-level aversion to making people play "guess what the ST is thinking to solve things" games. Not fun for me. Though if someone does enjoy that type of scene (which there's nothing wrong with), then probably our styles aren't going to mesh. If someone was struggling with that, I'd adapt for them. That's part of the role of a GM, IMO, you're responsible for the group enjoyment but also the /individual/ enjoyment of the players (unless they are being Brat Princesses Me First ME ME ME Only people). This may also be why for real STing scenes I prefer groups of 5 or less, so that I can give adequate personal attention to each person and keep things moving in a timely manner.

I think the discomfort for a lot of people comes from the intrusion (in their own mind) of OOC knowledge that makes them feel uncomfortable.

I think it's safe to assume that a lot of MUSHing folks are partnered. (Hopefully we've moved beyond the stereotype of weird can't make real friends people living in their relative's basement by now) So yes, in a sense if you are TSing someone you are very likely TSing someone else's partner. But most people don't think about that that much (Except if they engage in casual friendly OOC chatting with people, so you might hear about something neat that happened or an anniversary or something like that, occasionally) because they know there's some separation there.

If it's on the same game, I think for a lot of people there may be a bit of worry that crops up. Not because they think horrible thoughts about the two people, but my god have we not all seen the craziness and destruction that can happen with jealousy over play partners that are online only. I do think it's not unnatural to worry a little about having to deal with more ooc drama as well if things go south, or to be used in the event of OOC drama between them, ect. It's another layer of discomfort to deal with, potentially. Reaching out just in the context of online play partners is often pretty hard to get started (I've never had an unfriendly or unapproving response to it, only positive though, and it's still hard for whatever reason to take that 'risk' but it's important for me to do so). I think there would be a greater degree of awkward in approaching someone because you worry about the OOC relationship, because that might make them feel weird or seem intrusive.

I have never experienced it, but I can empathize with that angle. Not sure if that's what @flahgenstow and @Warma-Sheen necessarily find odd. Whenever I get involved in any kind of IC household with someone (which does not necessarily have romantic aspects to it) I prefer to talk to everyone else in the household so that I can be sure of my welcome and also to let them know I'm looking forward to playing with the whole group, not just a specific individual and am just tolerating the rest. I'm not sure if I would feel the same need to OOCly check in with a spouse I knew about, as I don't know that I've ever come across a partnered pair RL that I wasn't playing with both or they weren't both very open about the fact they were cool with things or I didn't know them RL or from other games.

The only thing that makes me feel uncomfortable in regards to RL marriage and MUSHers is when someone badmouths their partner to me inappropriately. Especially if it's clear they're trying to connect with me OOCly using that. It squicks me when people do that with their online play partners, too, though.

Risk is a really really broad and slippery category. I think it is assumed to mean only chance of death or some other physical removal from play. But I think it's more of a nebulous thing than that. I have had people who bragged and bragged that they love risk totally flip their shit when they were involved in something where a choice they made or were presented with forced a clarity/morality/what have you roll because of the chance their PC might have to change some and have impact beyond the all or nothing of death/life. Or similar situations where maybe they lost a prop important to them or where they couldn't save the day, ect.

I share an enjoyment of risk--all kinds--with an awesome st and opportunity for reward too (not a fan of railroading) but when I'm STing I'm careful now to ask people about risk enjoyment and specifically what kind.

Next time react in your pose as if they'd had a visible orgasm in front of you.

I'm a flowery poser, myself. But if I'm constantly shoving it down people's throats when they don't like it because it's my "style"--honestly, I think that means I'm a horrible RPer, no matter how awesome of a writer I am. There's a very distinct difference. I've learned to adjust myself to the enjoyment/time expectations of my companions as I can, and to attempt to not be super selfish. There's a happy medium to be found. Terse posers who like to contribute to everyone in the group enjoying themselves should do the same.

And hopefully everyone can agree that psychic poses are very dicey, and pretty much almost always a hallmark of a shitty RPer (note, I did not say writer) when they're used to provide negative/snide commentary that the other PC can't possibly react to except to do it back. That's not present in the example given though.

Maybe "A good RPer can turn either a long or a short pose into something that the others in the scene can interact with, it's the involvement with the other PCs and paying attention to what's going on as well as the others in the scene that can make or break it." Or somesuch.

Because yes, there are people who can spew 3 paragraphs about the wind rippling their hair and their eyes gazing into the distance and all that stuff (seen it) while totally ignoring most everyone else in the scene. They kind of suck. However, you can also have people who are needing to info dump and must spam because there's no way around it or they're a bit on the flowery side but do very obviously care about/pay attention in the scene even beyond themselves. They're kinda awesome.

I suspect that people may be wincing at something listed in the "Rules of good RPing" that seems to indicate the longer the better. I do think that a two word pose being your only contribution ever indicates poor RPing, but the converse is really not very true.

Also I hope that if the report of "my partner doesn't like you doing that" is taken with...hmmm. A little bit of salt. I've seen a lot of people fall for the "you are my escape from this awful controlling man/woman". I do know one person who'd ask her partner to please put a lid on certain interactions, and he would court/cultivate them in response. (I've seen that in online partnerships plenty though too). I've found it best to stay away from people engaging in unhealthy power play like that. I don't want to be the source of some ass getting off on poking at their partner.

@skew said:

I also can't stand the OOC angst, anger, snide comments, etc, that I've seen an OCC/RL partner pull, when the other partner's IC persona is flirted with!

I don't know. I've seen that far more strong/toxic from online-only people than I ever have with MUing couples (though of course there are exceptions). But all the most crazy ass attacking people for messing with their "wo/man" and +where stalking and all that? Almost exclusively online only people.

I don't fudge rolls or ignore them--but I do require when people make them that they include how they're going about doing something (unless it's just a straight up thing). Sometimes this gets me fussing from some players "What? I've never had to tell anyone how I'm going about investigating, I just want to make my roll and then I get information," or "I don't know how I'm going to persuade/intimidate does it matter? I just want to roll and be done with it." Not very often though. Most folks are happy to do that, because it means the response is personal. Creativity is rewarded--if someone can sell me on what they want to try, I'll let them, even if that means that none of my plots ever goes quite to plan.

If I'm having issues with the bad guys being too weak (I've never had the opposite occur) against the PCs, I will throw in other compounding circumstances. There's an unexpected hostage situation. One of the mundanes goes through an unexpected change under the stress. Things are booby trapped on the next floor. There are bystanders that hit in the feels. There's a new or several shinies that are discovered, so it's a matter of focusing/picking. A new layer on the presenting situation.

My ST notes are never linear (I don't think hardly anyone's are), they're more like a cloud map. There is a base story that the PCs know, I have my goals/aspirations/projected outcome for the scene listed in a box to the side (with lots of room for additional notes/changes). If something is a hard goal (like it's a becoming scene) then that is underlined and not waivered on--but that's always something agreed upon in advance with the person who's asked me to run the scene, and my own personally-generated PrPs /never/ have hard unchangable "forced" goals, ever. I will have personalities and motivations for all of the NPCs ran across as well as several otehrs on hand for crowd/on the fly ones. I will have stats for them as necessary. I have a pretty good cheat sheet (that I modify according to the players in the scene) so that I can handle pc thinking out of the box and just being able to roll with it instead of "you can't do that." However, if PC ends up in my scene that I'm totally not familiar with their splat (like Mage or some of the more fringe ones) then I will chat with that player ahead of time and let them know that some of their stuff may be unavailable if it would end things for everyone in 5 minutes, so I ask for their help in helping to avoid that, or I understand if they'd like to opt out. Since most of my PrPs are not really combat things (they may involve it but it's not the focus) and I have been given feedback that the quality tends to be on the good side, most folks seem to be okay with it. Even people with mages, if they didn't choose to drop out, and those folks have always been willing to walk me through some of their cool stuff so that we can figure out how they CAN use some of their neatokeen abilities without squishing everyone else. I've met far more people willing to do that if it means getting to have fun and contribute to fun than not.

Having done leadership with volunteer orgs for a long time, I do think he's correct with the mandatory aspect not being followed, though. IME it rarely is, unless it's something that will result in removal from the organization, and even then you will have people need to be chased down/think it doesn't apply to them/scream and cry once action is taken. You will never have 100 percent participation in a information survey, sadly.

But this request isn't mandatory, it's just a request. It seems kind of reasonable, and isn't asking anyone to dig deep, nor is it busywork.

It's not mandatory? Where are people getting this idea from?