Posts made by Roz

@Glitch And sometimes babies throw a fuss at being smothered by a blanket because they're tiny monsters with like a level 9000 difficulty. Why are people so horrified by boobs?

@Ganymede said:

@ThatOneDude said:

Is this like breastfeeding in public? I mean I have kids, seen tons of boobs and yet if I'm in a coffee shop zoning out over the high levels of work I need to do and my gaze happens to fall on a breast that a baby feeds from, do I deserve the stink eye? I mean that shit isn't sexy so its not like I have my tongue sticking out and my hand down my pants, its just me zoned the fuck out. Take your breast and baby into some place private... Don't inflict the awkwardness on me >.<

I equate breast-feeding to nose-picking. It's not illegal. It's a part of nature. Just fucking do it elsewhere, and don't be a prick if I eye you like you haven't a common sense of decorum. Bitches like that are the same that complain when people are blaring music out of their car's open window while driving.

Except that, unlike picking your nose, babies require food to survive, and maybe moms are more concerned with getting them fed than your sense of awkwardness. Because babies require a fuckton of work and it shouldn't be bad decorum to feed your kid even if someone else is there.

@Derp said:

@SG said:

@Roz Hahaha, I've encountered these types too, but there's another type that I find quite puzzling. When people play hyper-abrasive assholes or complete creeps.

I was playing on shadowrun a little while back and someone poses in being a really aggressive, rude asshole. Then they got bitter on +pub when characters that were better socialized just left rather than be around that. I just don't understand why anyone would choose to socialize with a character like that unless they were trapped on an island.

Is it because I work in the service industry that I have a low tolerance for characters like this? Or have I just not seen 'edgy rp' done well?

I think that this is usually only done well when there is a lot of OOC communication. My characters can definitely be dickish sometimes, and don't hesitate to be rude, but I try my best to be pleasant and cheerful OOC, and to let people know that the player is not the character, and vice versa, and work with them OOC on how we'd like to progress. I can often find ways of resolving the conflicts.

Usually.

I totally always make that a sort of personal rule when I'm playing a character who's a total dick. I mean, I try to be nice in general OOC, but I'm a little especially nice when I'm playing a character who's mean, nasty, an asshole, etc. It helps to keep everything separate.

@ThatOneDude said:

@Sparks Well, I really appreciate the client, its so WIN compared to the other options out there. FURTHERMORE... it makes all Windows clients look like a toddler drew on your screen in crayon... JUST SAYING.

No joke, Sparks now has friends who sigh wistfully at her to write a Windows version of Atlantis. (I am not one of them because I already have a Mac.)

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:

@Arkandel said:

Loner-slash-misanthropes don't work on MU*. They can work, I suppose, if you're OOC well connected and set them up in just the right way, but why burden yourself like that?

PC connections help a lot, though I've noticed that players can be bizarrely stubborn about making them.

Ages ago, I played a PC who was a part of a fairly large, established family on the game. This gave players insta-connections as people apped in , for better or worse. A newb apped my sibling. A sibling who'd been off-camera and not really fleshed out, but who was only a couple years younger than my PC. Who my PC would've grown up with for quite a long time, until their early teens. I page this person to work out some basic relationship stuff (how did our personalities bounce off each other, how did we get along as kids, have we kept in touch over the years, etc.). It took me like a solid 15 minutes to convince this guy we would've known each other at all and spent time together on occasion during our childhood. Like, it would have been unavoidable. When he finally had to admit it was unavoidable, he said he didn't really want to establish any sort of dynamic because he'd "been gone for a a few years and hadn't stayed in touch with the family for no particular other than not wanting to make stuff up." So I gave up and just decided my relationship with my sibling was really bland and uneventful, and that's what this person was looking for, apparently.

I had a point, but I've kind of forgotten it. We are sometimes weirdly resistant to making social connections on a game that's all about social connections, I guess, and I don't understand why.

Jesus Christ that sounds annoying. Why would people even do this! PC connections are the best and make new characters so much easier! Also yes dude our siblings did hang out with each other even before yours left!

I am baffled.

@Arkandel said:

@Roz There's a flipside to that though. It's when people make characters and as @Cobaltasaurus brought up nothing is happening in an accessible way for them yet when they bring it up someone else goes "well, I always have scenes!" like it's necessarily the first person's fault there's no RP outside closed cliques or PrPs they weren't invited to.

Yes, some folks set themselves up for failure and screw'em. We should all be responsible for finding our own fun. But the alternative is not to be told to log on and ask on a public channel for RP because 99% of the time that just means, at best, a meet-and-greet bar scene.

Unfortunately the only real fix is to generate more plots, and as a community we're not doing very well in encouraging new Storytellers to step up and run them.

Sure. In my personal experience, on games where I'm a player or, more often, I'm staff, the response of me and others on there is usually more helpful. I, too, would be freaking annoyed if someone was a flippant asshole about it like you describe. But I'm talking about people who even get other players on channel being like, "Hey, in addition to asking on public channels for RP, you can page me for stuff and we can figure out more specific things!" and the first player is usually more interested in continuing to whine about it.

@Arkandel said:

Loner-slash-misanthropes don't work on MU*. They can work, I suppose, if you're OOC well connected and set them up in just the right way, but why burden yourself like that?

My favorite is when people app characters who are TOTAL LONERS and DON'T WANT TO TALK TO ANYONE and then whine about not getting good RP.

Like, man, you made your bed. You're right that they CAN work, but they require planning and a lot of proactivity from the player. Setting up built-in PC connections with players you like helps. But nothing drives me crazier than people apping misanthropic loners and then expecting everyone else to continually make a huge effort to hook them into RP.

@TNP said:

So new alt has already been submitted (though not approved yet) but I already had his first scene. I knew halfway through it that he worked. Yay for me. But what is the magic formula that makes one work and another not? I know for one that Joseph's personality was more subdued. He wasn't a loner, I don't app loners, but he wasn't an outright extrovert either. I'll have to review my past characters and see if that's a common theme.

So do any of you have deal breakers in your characters?

I find one of the best ways to combat subdued-ness/quietness is to hang a sense of curiosity in them. Curiosity takes characters so far, because even if they're quiet and not immediately open about things, they at least have a general direction of wanting to know things -- about events, about other people, etc.

@Autumn said:

This might sound strange, but along with versatility, I like a little direction. Especially in games (cough, Mage, cough) where the number of possible options is not so much 'large' as 'overwhelming', I like having some ideas about what a good next step might be. I might still have a brainwave and decide that I don't really want to investigate the city manager's office or track down one of the mystical owls seen outside the Consilium headquarters just before the attack or bargain with the Mysterium for information stored in their secure library, and instead go off and do something completely different.

Sometimes when I'm told I can do anything at all I just freeze up and can't decide which sounds like the best right now. And while I very much appreciate a storyteller who's willing to indulge me if I decide to order something that's not on the menu, I also appreciate there being a menu if I need to ask for one.

Not strange at all, and also really important. If the players are really lost, don't just leave them to flail. Give 'em a little something to get them going again. The point isn't to make your plot a puzzle they need the exact right pieces to solve, it's to tell a story.

I totally just make maps on Google Draw. Then I make little smileys or stars for the players so they can indicate their positions. Totally changed my GMing to have a reference.

@Arkandel said:

Open question: What are the things you like the most in the PrPs you're participating? What makes a great one greater than an average one?

In other words if you looked at some of the most fun plots you've been in, what did they seem to have in common? Be specific with the elements you enjoyed or their structure if you can though, as "they were awesome because <ST X> is awesome!" is less useful than "its scenes started and finished on time and had a sympathetic villain".

Mulled this over with folks on one of my games, most of which I've been RPing with and GMing with for years and years now. A few things stood out:

1. Pacing. This applies both to the plot as a whole and the individual scenes. GMs who manage to run a tight ship and actually contain a plot scene to two hours deserve your undying love. Two to three is also pretty great. This requires people to keep posing promptly, and it sometimes requires a GM to speak up and ask people to cut down their poses for the sake of keeping things rolling. Nothing kills a scene more than those lulls when suddenly everyone stops posing for fifteen minutes and the GM is left to be like, "Do you guys -- need something else from me to keep posing?" We have this really great, enthusiastic player GM on one of my games, and one thing she's like epically good at is pacing her scenes and keeping them at a totally reasonable length. It helps that she happens to get home a bit late and has to start up her scenes later than we'd generally start a GMed scene.

2. Preparation. This applies to both GMs and players. From the GM standpoint, have all your shit together before the plot and/or scene starts. Do you need to flesh out your NPCs? Make sure you've got your guide ahead of time. Need a quick map for players? Have it done with plenty of time before the scene starts. For players, figure out the player plan before the scene starts for instances where you're in more of the player-driven part of the plot. (We have all this info and background, now as a team we're going to do X and Z and that's our general plan for tonight!) It's so frustrating when the scene time rolls around and the players knew before what that evening was going to be focused on, but they've given no thought about how they want to do anything.

3. Flexibility. Everyone always says this one, but they say it because it's so important. You should totally make plans and preparations for your plot and should know the background of your happenings, but also know that GM plans never survive first contact with the players. This can frustrate GMs, but things can really take off when GMs learn to embrace this and learn how to flex and redirect their plot to embrace the actions of the players. Never give players a hard improv "no." Wherever possible, give them a "yes." If you have to give them a no, make it a "no, but." That is -- even where players misstep or get things wrong, let that still shape and inform the course of the plot. Identify your players who are doing awesome things, who are really hooking in, and reward them with more cool plot stuff.

4. Personalization. My co-staffers and I like to sort of keep potential hooks for our PCs in the backs of our heads, and we actually did forum posts where we invited players to volunteer potential hooks of their characters that might be incorporated into plots, either staff or PRPs. Especially when it's something players have knowingly volunteered for this general purpose, they tend to really appreciate it. And just in a plot to plot basis, look for ways to develop different hurdles that are customized to the PCs. Someone brought a master lockpicker? Give them some fancy lock to break into. Stuff like that. If you have a bunch of brawlers, probably give them a brawl. Think of ways to shape the plot to the strength of the PCs.

Really the big thing is this: the best plots happen when the GM goes in with the attitude that the plot is for the players. I've had so many bad plots where I swear to God the GM just wanted to crush the players underneath their mighty boot. Fuck that. Make plots about the players.

@Arkandel said:

I'm an one-alt-at-a-time guy. If I have more than one, the second is nearly never played. That means I'm pretty dependent on being well connected on an IC (and possibly OOC) level to find RP, since I can't simply switch to my vampire if nothing's happening around my werewolf.

On the other hand the same thing has made me really proactive. I cultivate relationships with other PCs, I make sure my character is on their speed-dial if shit happens and I try to include them in anything I'm involved with whenever possible.

Being sociable pays off in multiplayer games, who knew.

I think that's what things come down to, really. Sometimes I hear players complain about not fitting in or not hooking into RP, but I've literally only seen them RP in two or three scenes. To a certain extent, I totally believe you just have to put in a certain amount of time. Some of it's not going to end up being super exciting, but just putting in work into cultivating new relationships tends to always be necessary.

I have a friend who literally spits characters out fully formed -- she instantly has their history, their personality, their voice, etc. It is her talent, and she always kind of hilariously shrughands in a helpless manner when OOC chatter turns to the process of building characters, because it's not just not how her head works. But even then, she still has to go in and do the hooking work. You gotta be proactive. At the same time, you have to recognize that sometimes you will be proactive, you'll do all the things you should, but a character just doesn't hook. And that's okay!

@Autumn said:

@Arkandel said:

For instance playing a survivor of vast supernatural phenomena, a veteran mystic who's seen too much, can easily make it bland to actually hit the grid and find not much is happening. Those aspects of his personality won't be easy to come out while mixing it up with the random ghoul from next door whose interests include pop music and Call of Duty.

I try to stick to the principle that RIGHT NOW should be the most interesting period of my character's life, and make their backgrounds and thematic ties work toward that end. That doesn't mean they can't have been an international superspy or a world-famous fashion model-slash-actress or a member of the SEAL team that shot bin Laden, just that I have to come up with some reason why their life today is not just a series of wistful glances back toward when cool stuff was happening to them.

This this this. I've gotten a lot of appers talking through their character worrying about not having enough interesting things in their history. But really, what makes characters hook into the game and have interesting RP so rarely (in my experience) has to do with crazy stuff in their history. It has to do with them really hitting the grid and working to make connections and get involved in things.

I also totally agree with the previous sentiments that, a lot of the time, you really can't predict what's going to make a character hook and become awesome and what won't.

@il-volpe said:

@Roz said:

I believe strongly that the appearance of fairness is just as important as fairness in practice.

Is this even possible? I had someone, very courteously and with the best intention of helping me not to suck, inform me that I shouldn't make policies to benefit my friends. In response to a change that everyone hated short-term, because it spread out stat points and effectively weakened all characters. And which my friend, whom they believed I was benefiting with the change, bitched about more than anyone. (Likely because, being my friend, he felt safe to bitch.)

I had somebody post on WORA about how I refused to ban someone because I 'wanted her to like' me while I was willing to ban others. The actual difference was not that I cared especially if non-banned player liked me, but that she actually corrected her irritating behaviors, and then produced other ones due to an inability to generalize, while those I banned refused to accept and comply with my rulings.

The whole balance of transparency vs privacy seems to lead to people accusing one of unfairness. Either that or one has to make any discussion one has with a player about any unwelcome behavior some sort of ugly free-for-all town-hall-meeting thing, which I am not about to do.

It's never possible to for every player to think you're behaving fairly and ethically, even if you are. Some players just hate you. Some players will insist you are running a 100% railroaded plot even when almost all aspects of the plot were developed in the midst in reaction to player direction.

My point is moreso doing everything to be above the board in a public way. It's not giving people ammunition, while also knowing there will always be players who think you suck. You can't do anything about those players, but there's definitely satisfaction in not giving them anything legitimate to accuse you of.

@JaySherman said:

@7Wonders This does bring up another salient point to ask while I have everyone's proverbial ear: Stuff that is not on game but involves the game. Does this warrant action? I've always tried to keep things like off-game chats separate from what is punishable behavior on a game, all the way back to the days of ICQ and Livejournal, but with social media far, far more present and influential, there's a potential bleed-over.

Case in point: I've had a group of players come to me and ask me if they were going to be fired, out of seemingly nowhere. They had done absolutely nothing wrong; a few questions later, it was determined that one player on Skype had worked them all into a frenzy because she thought she was going to be punished for something (she wasn't, she'd just jumped to conclusions). Is there any good way to buffer against this sort of off-game rumor-mongering, and is it worth enacting disciplinary measures on the game, especially when it directly involves the game and players on it?

As always, it depends. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily think that freaking out over thinking you were going to get into trouble in front of other people would necessarily warrant action even if it happened on the game. It involves stuff about the game, yes, but it sounds more like a paranoid player than malicious circle-jerking. And malicious circle-jerking really doesn't require stepping off the game. (To clarify what I mean by this, it's those players -- we've all had them -- who love to cultivate an Us vs. Them mentality with a group of followers, who basically create a circle of deepening complaints that fester into anger at staff because the circle jerk does not allow for issues to be aired directly to staff. The kind of ringleader of these absolutely does so maliciously to manipulate. It's nasty business, but once again it's something that's best combatted with open lines of communication as a staffer.)

Was this player just overreacting in front of other people, or were they overreacting and also maliciously poisoning other people against you and your game? There's a big difference. The first is an aggravation -- even a major one; I get all kinds of frustrated when players react to me like I'm a terrible, abusive staffer from their past when nothing in our relationship has warranted it -- but it's not something that I'd necessarily take action on. (If it was someone I was friendly with generally, I might say something more casual like, "Dude, please don't cause a huge ruckus without just talking to me next time.")

@Yamazaki said:

@GentlemanJack said:

The way I did it was by suffering that stupid-ass "I don't want to hurt my friend's feelings" delusionalness. I did not have the common sense to realize that if you don't want to take corrective action on a staffer because "they're my friend," pick up your nutsack and do it the fuck anyway.

Jack and I yell at each other about game all the time. It's cathartic. And it helps.

My co-staffers and I have freely told players that we have pretty much all been brought in by each other over the years for staff chats. (This is usually to attempt to reassure paranoid players that it's not the end of the world if we have to spend ten minutes chatting to them about a minor issue.) If you can't smack your friend or your co-staffer for acting like a jerk, you're right, you shouldn't be staffing.

As has been said, there's no point in trying to legislate each and every thing that's not allowed on your game. People generally know when they're being an asshole, whether you made a rule against that particular kind of behavior or not. I believe strongly in more general "don't be an asshole" rules when it comes to general behavior. (I know there are also more specific rules when it comes to stats, sheets, etc. This is different.) The more specific your rules in regards to behavior, the more you'll get asshole players who will toe the line just shy of crossing it while laughing at you on the other side. I've staffed on games where we've been reluctant to bring in people acting like assholes for a staff chat just because they aren't explicitly breaking rules, and it sucks. A lot. Everyone ends up frustrated, because you feel impotent as a staffer.

Here's what I feel like you owe players: a general sense and appearance of transparency, even-handedness, and fairness. I believe strongly that the appearance of fairness is just as important as fairness in practice. Here's what you don't owe players: constant negotiation, an ear for every complaint, to staff exactly how they want you to staff, or constant satisfaction or happiness. It's much more important that you and whomever you choose to staff with are in agreement about what game you're running and how you run it than to try and make your game fit what every single player wants your game to be. Stick to a vision and a general philosophy, and the players who like your idea will stick around, the players who don't like it will leave.

My parents used to describe their parenting style with me and my three brothers as "we don't negotiate with terrorists." I think it's pretty relevant to staffing, too. You owe it to players to be reasonable and forthright. You don't owe players constant negotiation. You make the rules for your own game. It's not about not listening to players, it's about being able to recognize workable issues versus whining. There are people who just need to whine, but you don't have to sit there and be their receptacle for it. I like to think of staffing as a benevolent dictatorship. I want to cultivate the kind of game where people feel comfortable and chill and have a good time, but at the end of the day, I'm in charge and you're not.

I definitely agree with the previously-stated sentiments of praise in public/chastise in private. I believe super strongly in staff confidentiality. I don't think that general complaints of "this guy's being an asshole a lot" mean that those players lodging complaints should necessarily be privy to the details of how staff handled the issue. This is different for more serious cases of abuse or harassment, but for me that's a more immediate bannable offensive, and I do feel that when it comes to bans, going public with certain information is appropriate. I mean, for me, you have to be a real shit to warrant a ban, and the game deserves to know what kind of behavior warrants such a reaction from staff, IMO. (Full disclosure, I've never actually had to ban a player or been a part of a staff that banned someone during my tenure. I did staff on a game that had a major banning of a very involved player a year or two prior to my joining the game.)

I totally get being sensitive about feeling like you have complaints from all angles. I don't know how to teach someone to reduce their number of fucks, because I've always just had a certain talent for it when it comes to stuff like this. Like, in some ways I totally believe that my job is not about pleasing players; it's about creating a good game. I feel like that maybe makes me sound like a total tyrant, but it's more about recognizing which complaints are actionable and which are whining.

You will never, ever, ever please all players. Some players are just not meant to be pleased. Empower yourself with that knowledge!

@Coin said:

@HelloRaptor said:

@Roz

I find that having a general game philosophy for larger scenes that becomes part of the culture.

I feel like maybe somebody mugged this sentence on the way to the board, maybe rifled through its pockets and stole a word or two. Is it just me?

No.

Wow, what WAS I typing. It probably meant to continue with something "makes a dramatic difference in how large scenes go." As in -- making certain things game culture helps even more than just doing certain things player by player.

@Bobotron said:

I am one of those weird ones though that, I feel like the social component is important before the infodump. For example, when I run Vampire court as our NPC Prince for the LARP, I have the time set of 'court will start at X, be there some time before' to allow for the social element; it's usually going to be social element tied to what the meeting will be about anyway (Clan and individual territory requests, reports on what you've been doing with city-wide issues, etc.).

I think that socializing before big scenes can be great; I've often been a part of it on my games. The difference is that it usually happens BEFORE the scheduled time, people sort of getting in the swing of things before the main event. I think something like that is great, because it's up-front about what everyone can expect. My objection was a GM saying 'okay this important NPC leader is going to be talking to his crew/hanging with them/etc.' and then didn't bring him out until like an hour after the scheduled scene time.

@Thisnameistaken said:

• If it's a info drop get what you have to say out as quick as possible. Those interested will seek you out, even after you leave. Make the first couple poses count.

Oh my God thiiiiiiiiiis. I was in a scene once where the GM had indicated that it was going to be a major NPC talking to their faction. But then the GM decided that would happen -- at the end? We were supposed to socialize before? Idk it made NO SENSE and the GM was so confused about why people weren't getting into it. It was such backwards logic.

• Do something unexpected. Don't take over the scene but don't be afraid to shake it up a bit. Those are the scenes that will be remembered, and will find RP later (but be prepared to stick around a bit to deal with repercussions or questions).

This is also a good one. It can be hard sometimes to note the balance between unexpected fun and scene hogging, but 1) you can usually tell when YOU feel bored in a big scene, and 2) it's a bit harder to hog a big scene, just given the volume of stuff. It's usually reasonable to allow yourself one unexpected thing in a big scene and then see if people roll with it. Sometimes it'll just stick to that one thing, sometimes it'll take the scene in a fun new direction. Just important to note how people respond.

I find that having a general game philosophy for larger scenes that becomes part of the culture. An old game I staffed on had a great forum post about surviving large scenes (although it was focused a bit more on GMed scenes/plot scenes than general social scenes) that tried to basically make recommendations to encourage certain beneficial behaviors to become game culture. Things like

1. Always always always tag your pose.
2. Always tag the names of the characters you are talking to/posing at. Big scenes are not the time to use descriptor shorthands. Always use names.
3. Highlight your character name client-side. That way, it's easier to pick out when people are posing at/about you.
4. Keep your poses brief, specific, and to the point. Big scenes are the time to toss out the paragraphs.
5. Use the rule of 3 for pose order. Don't ever try to keep a strict pose order for big scenes (which we defined as 4+ people). If three other people have posed after you, you're probably good to go. That said, be sensible and keep an eye out. That said (again):
6. If you're in a GMed scene, do NOT pose a second time until the GM has responded to your pose.

Of course, all of those are things that only work if you can try to instill them into the game at large. From a more personal approach to what helps me survive big scenes:

1. Don't try to respond to everything. Find a cluster, something of interest, and engage those characters directly. Think of it like a big party; you're not responding to every person there, or even AWARE of every person there. You're probably finding a smaller clump of people within the mass and interacting with them before moving on to another clump.
2. Don't do the thing where you pose at another character and they don't respond in their pose and then you pose about how rude they are for not responding/how they must hate your character/etc. Most of the time, people just missed your pose. It drives me crazy when someone takes it personally that I didn't see them pose at me in a scene with like ten different people. Just let me know I missed you!

In general, I prefer smaller scenes. There is a sort of art and magic to big scenes that work, especially social scenes. (Plot scenes have a sort of common purpose and focus that provide an easy driver.) I've had some fantastic group social scenes over the years, but they're a bit of a blue moon event. A ton of fun when it works out just right, though.