Posts made by Roz

Time to @ everyone here I've TSed with, since I now have a newfound relationship with all of you!

@Wretched said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

@Sunny So you don't think that having a sexual relationship with a person in power over the community that you are invested in is a detriment to the rest of the community? That it doesn't undermine trust as an impartial staffer?

Uh, I don't have a sexual relationship with any of the players my characters have TSed with. (The one or two times I've had a flirty OOC thing with another player, it was actually in instances where no TS had ever happened between our characters.)

So my PC sexed an NPC once.

General sequence of events: the NPC was set out in a public place. There were a number of different PCs who rolled in to play with her, as you might expect! People were excited. The RP was generally pretty fun and funny as I recall. I think there were about 6-8 other PCs in and out of the scene, not including my PC or the NPC.

It was generally known (ICly and OOCly) that this NPC had access to some top-tier weapons. The NPC was there as a diplomatic envoy to reestablish ties, and a previous treaty with her people had indicated they would supply these weapons, so there was a lot of expectation that that would be a part of any reestablished treaty. My PC was a real flirty, extroverted, show pony type who totally wanted one of those weapons, so when he realized the NPC was there at his favorite bar, he set about trying to impress or charm her into promising him one of the weapons. He was generally dumb and reckless about it. In his attempts to impress her, he shared with her some secret info. It was dumb of him to share, because it was the kind of info that other people in the world might use as reason to get him killed, but it was early in his introduction to things. Why not use a dangerous secret to try and get a cool thing from someone who could kill him in an instant!! Sounds fun!! In the nature of group scenes, this was one among several other angles of conversation going on. For further context without actually revealing the entire secret, it was not 100% unique on the grid, but it would have only really been present for a few PCs.

The NPC had specific reason to be interested in what my PC shared with her. He didn't know it at the time ICly, and I didn't even really have an idea of it OOCly. Long story short, she became much more receptive to his general flirtatiousness at that point and took him to bed after several hours (as I recall) of the public scene. There was, indeed, some posing of sexual stuff before it hit a FTB point, mostly because of the late hour at that point. If it had been earlier, maybe it would have been played out? There was notable character stuff that certainly made it interesting.

In the end? He didn't actually get the weapon from her. She did intend to, but the diplomatic negotiations fell through with the actual people in charge, and she and her fellow NPC left town. However, she reconnected privately a while later with a different PC who she had also encountered in a public/open scene and who had impressed her into being quite fond of him. (In fact, I believe the PC specifically was telling off other PCs in the scene for being really rude to the diplomatic envoy NPC. Being interesting and not super rude to the NPC went a long way.) This other PC was given a number of the weapons to distribute to other PCs he felt were worthy of them and would use them in defense of the city and whatnot. He chose a variety of PCs from different factions of the game, the majority of which were commoners or lower-level nobles who he thought would have less access. My PC did end up with one of the weapons through this route. I am absolutely aware that there are players who were angry about this because they felt it was fucking his way into a cool weapon. (And, to be fair, he didn't make a secret of the fact that he'd slept with the NPC, because at that point he was particularly dumb about saying everything that popped into his head like an excitable puppy.)

So! Fast-forward...a while. There is now a kid from all of this. The kid was, in fact, the point of it for the NPC. I can't fully unpack it without revealing certain secrets that are still in play, but suffice to say there was specific reason rather than a more general desire to just get knocked up by somebody. The kid actually blew up quite a lot of my PC's IC plans, considering he was in a position where he wasn't allowed to have kids, and there was a lot of fallout before it was all settled. In the end, he had to be released from certain vows, and he gets to have the kid around half the year. (The other half, the kid goes back where his mom lives.) The kid is weird and creepy and delightful because he is growing up half his life in a very weird and creepy place with his mom's very weird and creepy people. His presence is generally limited to color in my RP for part of the IC year. There are multiple PCs who have really leaned into interacting with him when I've brought him out, so I think that's a benefit, and I try to just background him for people who aren't interested.

My PC and the NPC in question never hooked up after the one time; the limited contact they've had in the couple years has mostly just been about the kid, and at this point the NPC is largely out of play. I'd say that during that initial time, the NPCs were put into public spaces that were generally accessible for a lot of PCs to try and peek in and engage. I guess you could say that those PCs who sought out those scenes to engage had equal opportunity to flirt like idiots like mine did, and other PCs might have very well had different ways to make themselves of interest. It's true, however, that the NPC's source of interest in my PC in particular was relatively unique.

All that said, no one's really interested in hearing my inside take that I thought it generally felt reasonable, because my opinion is obviously biased and will generally have to be seen as someone who is looked to have benefitted from all of it. Most of this took place largely a couple years ago, but the effects are still continuing throughout the game.

So mostly I thought I'd share an actual story as a potential example for people to pick apart! For me it did not feel gratuitous or inappropriate, and I think I would have felt the same even if more of the sex part had been played out, but obviously this is like the very definition of YMMV. I just thought it might be interesting to toss out an actual scenario that happened. My general opinion is that healthy NPC play lies somewhere between "NPCs have no business messing around with anything sexual with PCs" and "NPCs can spend their whole day TSing the same person forever and giving them all the free loot." I do also think it's the case that players will always make assumptions about what exactly is going on behind closed doors and that our assumptions are probably more often inaccurate than the reverse.

@Arkandel Sophie Turner and Emilia Clarke. They've already made their ways into some major franchises and, frankly, they are young and beautiful in a very Hollywood-approved way. (That is not meant to insult their abilities as actresses, because I think they're both very talented: just acknowledging that success in Hollywood is UNFORTUNATELY not just about that. For instance, Maisie Williams is also great, but I could foresee her not quite finding big Hollywood success the same way because she doesn't FIT THE MOLD quite as well for a young actress.)

I generally think that PCs should have generally equitable routes to pursue engagement with NPCs, but the idea that NPCs should always be required to provide the same types of scenes to any PC is odd to me. I wouldn't agree that's a necessary part of a game.

Some staffers really go above and beyond to keep the playerbase satisfied. <double rimshot>

@Killer-Klown said in Game of Thrones:

So, yeah. I've been considering a few things - some of which have already been mentioned:
***=Stuff and things and whatnot***

click to show

2- Arya. Arya's ending was not great, but at least it felt more earned than Brans. After Ned's death, she became somewhat rootless and bounced from thing to thing; first in Essos, then Westeros. She started with a list, ammended that list, then eventually just dropped that list. She's a character in progress, so her moving on made more sense than not.

***thar be spoilers ofc***

@Lotherio Oh, sorry, I wasn't clear to me that you were specifically looking for non-XP incentives. I just thought that you'd seen some passing mention of the @randomscene system on Arx via MSB and had gotten the impression that the overall feeling regarding it was that it was just gamed and not useful, so I only meant to present that despite gaming I thought most people still found it useful and effective in case people were considering something similar. I didn't think you were bashing Arx by any means!

@Lotherio said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Lisse24 said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

I do think that you can create a game culture where these extra tools are not needed. I think Arx is an excellent example of this. Arx created a game where players are reliant on each other. They've also pushed activity back to the grid, meaning that spontaneous/pick-up RP is easier to find. They've changed the game culture. However, most of the times when we have these conversations, game creators are very resistant to making the changes that Arx made.

I do believe there are some fundamental design philosophies that very between Ares and Arx. I for one would not want to see Ares adapt the level of in game tools/etc used on Arx. I think both are good at what they're aiming to provide. ETA Both have different goals/outcomes, and this is good and I support the variance.

Arx and Ares aren't equivalent concepts: Arx is a game and Ares is a codebase. It would be the difference between Evennia and Ares, and Evennia doesn't come with the amount of Arx tools coded in. Ares and Evennia definitely have different starter codebase philosophies, but there's little reason why a specific Ares game couldn't decide to build a lot of code tools if that's what worked for that specific game. I don't really imagine that Faraday has an overall goal of "don't have extensive custom coding for any game using the Ares codebase." As more games utilize Ares, I think we'll see a growing variety of custom work for it that will continue to diversify games. We're at the very beginning of seeing what fun people come up with for Ares.

@Lotherio said in Incentives for RP:

Having followed some of the Arx Peeve threads (2 active, 3+ total?), I have seen folks complain how some players do try to game the system of incentives for RP'ing with new players. Is making the incentive to RP a bonus to XP or character development the right incentive?

FWIW, while some people might sometimes be annoying about the system and require reminders from staff to utilize it properly, I'd still say that by and large it's VERY much worth it in practice.

@Seraphim73 The writing might have faltered, but damn. All the other departments sure did NOT flag. It's still a fucking beautifully produced show, right to the very end.

***=Spoilerinos***

click to show

@Roz said in Game of Thrones:

If anyone even LOOKS at Sansa the wrong way I will get my murder on.

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I GOT THIS I will be happy with that, at least.

@Testament Sansa has been literally the only smart person in the entire show this season. Idk what you're on about.

If anyone even LOOKS at Sansa the wrong way I will get my murder on.

I don't think this thread had any dogpiling. Or even real hostility. Staff did make some comments here about the reason for their actions, and I've mostly seen people just being like "Yikes, that just doesn't look great and makes me feel kind of uncomfortable." But it's not dogpiling to just have multiple people express that feeling (in remarkably civil fashion for MSB). I don't think I've seen anyone villifying the staff here.

As things come a close tomorrow, this Twitter thread has a collection of some of the most magnificent moments of this series. It's really nice to look back to see how many remarkable things they did manage to deliver, even if they're faltering at the end.

@Sparks Omg Pax it was not Neal McDonough in the tweet it was Michael Keaton AKA Batman from the Tim Burton movies for the most awesome parallels ever I am so ashamed of you right now

ETA: Here is the tweet in question tho for everyone else's enjoyment.

@Sparks I'm sad about that one, too. I'm also not an architecture nerd, but my alma mater had a really beautiful building built by him back in the 60s or 70s, and I always thought that was so cool.

@Steven-Universe said in Game of Thrones:

@Thenomain said in Game of Thrones:

This was posted by @Tat on the Ares Discord, and I think it's a strong, good, nuanced outsider non-spoiler breakdown of this season of Game of Thrones.

https://twitter.com/dsilvermint/status/1125856091261136896?s=21

Or: D&D plots, GRRM pants.

While the points are all good, I feel like that's an abuse of Twitter. I blame Trump for making it cool to post giant stories on Twitter.

That was an evolution of Twitter entirely independent of Trump. It's been common for years.