Best posts made by Misadventure

Those who can't do, teach.

Badly.

I happened across Hollie McNish last year. She has books, but a lot of her work is available in snippets online.

She writes on being a mother, on expectations of being a woman, on her body and other personal topics.

I'm still trying to find a poem she did that as I remember it was basically a mother preparing her daughter the rough path to self supporting wisdom she had, and the daughter accepting it and pushing on. Sort of a hopeful generational progress thing.

@Tinuviel you actually point out something that should be.

I have had bad professional teachers in my lifetime, mostly at the college level. However, I have had a ton of teachers who were great at teacher, taking care of students, and passing on their love of their topic. They do not deserve to be maligned. Even dorky Canadians teaching English.

However, here, well its funny to admit we aren't so great at passing on the wisdom.

@reimesu I was going to say that same, but he's been in so many films and shows. He definitely left his mark.

How would you (the generic you) carry a survivalist feel on a MU*?

I personally think it can't be done for any length of time.

@Hella I haven't seen the episodes yet, but Calliope has sexual assault as part of slavery.

Makes me think of a group/troupe approach where the core is the values and goals of the group, and how various gains and losses affect that core group identity/balance. But I like that idea of a society with values that shifts over time so maybe I see it everywhere.

@Macha I'm not that wise about such things. You should wait until you're ready.

Sometimes life will show you are more ready than you thought.

Anyone else, perhaps with a differing approach?

For my money, an alternative approach would be the very system light PrimeTime Adventures. You don't get stats. Everyone has an idea of what is possible in the given setting, and thats it. The "stats" and "game" come in when the players think someone is doing something that either shouldn't happen, or conflicts with someone else's idea.

So a completely OOC or meta-fiction game.

While it would do well to create tension between players, I suspect there would be no tension about death or loss for the players. Maybe there doesn't need to be. If the players can carry it for more than a session or two. Or perhaps agree that everyone will go through a certain number of PCs in a campaign, as a group or individually.

I was sorta fond of Strikeforce Morituri's method. They wrote action scenes and personal scenes, and threw a dart at a board to see who died next, whether they were long lived and beloved, or just introduced. That had no tension per se, but it did have unpredictable loss. But that was a group of authors writing about a group of characters, not a 1-2 characters per player setup.

Weirdly I come at this via Destiny 2, where indeed the character he voiced will be hard to replace or lose.

Wow, things got extreme and caricature-like fast.

I will say that there are definitely players who are excited about setting and its feel as a prompt for acting/writing out scenes. Being in 100% control of the results isn't an issue for those players, it does not diminish their enjoyment. I would say they are enjoying riffing off each others creativity and prompts, perhaps enjoying the actual craft of writing, and reveling in pulling off fiction like whatever the genre source is, or what potential they saw in the setting description.

There are also players don't enjoy 100% control of what happens, where crossing their sharp or vague boundaries of what the settings potentials are also limits or ends their enjoyment.

Its probably a question of how in synch you want the players to be on what the boundaries are.

For a player who does not really need dice or "consequences" etc, does it affect your enjoyment to see players living in a bubble significantly different from what you expected? From what staff expected? If so, how would you communicate more strongly what is expected? How would you make the core "what you do in this setting" more engaging, producing more variety of player actions and stories?"

Another Thread: Yeah sure. Though oddly the title "where is your RP at?" makes sense in terms of what play space are you aiming for?

@Ghost said in 2023: Dead Celebs pt 2, Electric Boogaloo.:

@Misadventure Yeah, Zavala(sp?). Wonderful voice actor.

T_T

It is terrible to in any way reduce a person down to so little, but that little thing was lots of enjoyable time (and in a vague way part of my worklife).

Unplayable.
Reasonably unplayable.

@Sunny (and anyone else who might have an opinion, she gets named cuz I know she's handled this level of stuff) Serious inquiry re the example I made up.

The example was something like in order to avoid an over matched combat or retreat from a losing conflict, the player/group opts to "flee into danger" this being the wilderness in a post apocalyptic setting.

Once there they discover either they don't have the right survival skills, or that they cannot reliably pass skill tests (if asked for them).

How far would that situation have to go to kill a character if you were the ST in charge? No grudge against the group IC or OOC, no balancing the books from prior freebie survivals, no players deciding they want a grim death for their PC, just this one situation to consider. If anyone would die, I don't mean to limit the options.

My guidelines from a tabletop I ran was:

1. warning shot - prove that danger X can hurt the PCs.

2. Draw Blood - inflict that damage or loss, but not to finality

3. characters do not withdraw if given a chance

4. harsh results still arise from the usual ways (dice, consequence trading, whatever) not from having been given some warnings

5. players can still suggest a better story path, or return from the cliffhanger or death.

There are many super RPGs that focus both on being light and quick, but also on making a different approach to what the focus IS.

I sometimes wonder if those games would suit a decent chunk of players better, or do most players need the distraction of a system to finagle and spend xp on.

Conflict.
Decisions that lead to consequences.
Characterization and character change.

That's what tends to be fun for me. If you could add in that these stories are accounted for when shifting the status of the setting, awesome.

ETA: Actually, for apply lines 2 and 3 to the setting (setting as character) and you have everything that makes me happy seeing as a player, providing as a ST.

Stakes.

You have to have them. Something to gain, something to lose , though it doesn't have to be a zero sum.

Bring some. Let players define some. Resolve the challenges, enact the gains and losses.

Be bolder than nickle and dime'ing towards success.

I thought the goal of meta plots was to spin off many different ways that things are affected, and let players run with that on their own time? Major steps in the metaplot would aggregate player effort and maybe big scenes as per usual I suppose, but overall i want things the players can do in their own neighborhood to reflect the themes and such.

Someone to contest your goals may be a better way to think about it. They aren't trying to destroy you, or even your goals, but they do want the same resources, or are otherwise not able to let you have your way and get theirs too very often.

@Rarest-Pepe If you are going to ask, or rely on others to provide for you, you may want to cut down on the insulting behaviors. Why would anyone pay attention enough to get your point and think on it, and then act on it when you make it unpleasant to do so?

Since this is a MU* forum, MU* are going to be the most likely product, so what might bea good example of breaking the rules of a typical MU* setup that would be interesting? Might need to be interesting to more than five players, and able to last more than a month too.