Posts made by Roz

Yeah, mostly what I get from this question on true comics MU*s is "I'm really glad that when I was staffing on Marvel games that they were movieverse games." Same effect as the Marvel1963: not having to wade through tons of comics canon.

@arkandel I could probably help to manage something like that. I love mindless lists.

@ganymede said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@roz said in FCs on Comic MUs:

You don't have to run PRPs to be a good fachead.

What you said here brought up two comments, not directed to or at you directly, Roz.

How dare you. You may only post in response to me!

First, this is very true. Good faction heads are hard to find. Staff should not be quick to make these fac-heads staff because this converts them to staff, which entails different duties, obligations, and responsibilities on top of usually-unwarranted extra scrutiny. Pro-tip: do not convert good fac-heads to staff unless absolutely necessary.

Good facheads are a FUCKING PRECIOUS COMMODITY. And it often tends to be a thankless job. Please support your facheads when they're doing good fachead things. And yes, it's very precious to be able to have players who are good at this and can do it who are not staff.

I think there's a pretty big difference between "running PRPs" and "being a good faction leader or approachable PC who makes active efforts to facilitate the stories of others instead of just their own." You don't have to run PRPs to be a good fachead.

I love following a connection through multiple storylines and then deciding to do something that's possibly stupidly dangerous but that will probably be wildly rewarding storywise even when the GM mentions how extra preparation might be a good idea and how, oh yeah, staff was just talking about me poking at that thing, and now I'm convinced they're all plotting my death.

@kanye-qwest said in FCs on Comic MUs:

Squirrel Girl is a joke, herself. She's a low powered character that somehow is always unbeatable. Off screen.

First of all how dare you

@apos said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@roz said in FCs on Comic MUs:

I mean, sure, obviously that's a thing that commonly happens. That's also just called bad staffing. You do need good staffing to make any sort of system like this work. There's no "this system will totally work even with lazy or conflict-averse staffers."

I think it's a little contrary to what I was trying to get at originally. While you're right, you can definitely design things systematically that makes it way way way way easier or harder. Like I would rather start from the point of, 'Well, a lot of staff are conflict-averse. What system is least bad with those people?'

Generally, you'd want to design something with the least amount of decision making, with systems that resemble what choices would be made by someone fair minded. Like if every top tier FC had a set limit for how long someone could possess the character before it had to go up for grabs, and then the metric for deciding who got it next was automatically determined based on how you quantified who made me the most rp for the widest spectrum of people among. I mean sure, any of those things can be weighted unfairly too, but frankly even in systems that have really terrible weights there tends to be way less hostility because it's a little bit emotionless and detached.

Sure. My post wasn't to discount the value of having clear, stated guidelines. It's just that I don't think @saosmash's point of "well you need to enforce rules about character squatting" is so easily dismissed with "well staffers don't like doing that." You build systems that can be best utilized by a good staff. If you have bad staffers, the problem is that you have bad staffers. I get really frustrated whenever someone turns a discussion about best practices for system and policy into "I was on a game with that policy but the staffer was terrible and did XYZ." Bad staffers are bad, and we should totally discuss bad staffing, but it's a different conversation.

Policy requires enforcement. If you don't enforce policy, you're staffing badly. That doesn't mean the policy is bad.

@arkandel said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@saosmash said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@arkandel I dunno, if you have an established rule that says no character squatting I think it's a lot easier to go "Hi there, you are barely meeting this FC's activity requirements. Please review our policy on character squatting.

Tell me if this scenario looks plausible to you.

Staff are conflict-averse; they don't want to get into the unpleasantness of reaching out to tell someone they can't have a character any more, explain why, dealing with arguments, etc. To dodge that bullet they make a rule ("you need to post at least one log every three weeks") to reduce this overhead on them since after that look guys, it's not us firing you, it's the rule! Only, of course, rules are way easier to trick than people as it's been shown very clearly in this and similar threads lately.

At that point staff have replaced a small problem with a larger one, but they still pick the easiest road for themselves - by not having to argue with people, rather than spare harm done to their game. That specific bit, this particular part is what makes them bad at their jobs. Anything before it is a mistake, and everyone makes those... ask any game runner. But at that point it's on them.

Does that make sense?

I mean, sure, obviously that's a thing that commonly happens. That's also just called bad staffing. You do need good staffing to make any sort of system like this work. There's no "this system will totally work even with lazy or conflict-averse staffers."

Let's be real, there are a lot of super shitty comics characters that have been written. There's no way for there not to be, just given the quantity of comics characters throughout the history of the medium.

Also, I have staffed on two different games (X-Men Movieverse MOO and its quasi-sequel X-Factor NYC) where FCs and OCs both existed without issue. It's not a magically impossible thing. It did probably help that both games were on the lower end of the power scale. (They were, as might be inferred from the name of the first game, grounded in the movieverse rather than the much more powerful comicsverse.)

@olsson said in RL Anger:

Been a new "trend" at my University recently on the party scene where there are a group of guys are going around forcing other men into making out with/kissing them. People call it something which would translate as "forceout" and find it hilarious and/or just accept it and it bothers me a little.

Wow, yeah, that bothers me a lot. As @Apos said, that is indeed sexual assault.

@Ghost said in RL Anger:

@Cupcake said in RL Anger:

@Ghost said in RL Anger:

@Cupcake said in RL Anger:

So someone - a woman - on my Facebook posted this video of a woman being held down in a chair by a handful of men while they rubbed her lips with lime and then force-fed her a shot of tequila. According to my friend this "how the family plays" and that it was because she'd agreed to do the shot but then backed out.

She could not understand why I had such a horrified and angry reaction to the video.

...was it expensive tequila?

I'm glad you can find the humor in women being physically assaulted! There's not enough of that kind of humor these days.

Right, because I was clearly joking about the abuse as being something hilarious.

Don't start with the high horse thing.

I don't think that you think abuse is actually funny, but you did opt for a joking response to a post about an abusive event. It's not that weird for people to be put off by that.

@Arkandel said in How much plot do people want?:

@Sparks said in How much plot do people want?:

Focusing on a specific goal is always great for character motivation, but it's particularly useful on games with multiple plots running like Arx.

I mean to each their own, but I avoid playing characters that focused on that one thing, not because I find it's limiting to my roleplay but because it doesn't lend itself to three-dimensional characters. If I had PC obsessive to that degree I would need to go in fully aware I'm actually playing someone who has issues, and although that can be rewarding on its own, it isn't something I would choose to do as a general principle.

I think there's a difference between having a very clear focus and having a PC obsessed with one thing and one thing only.

@Arkandel said in How much plot do people want?:

@Lisse24 I think that does belong in this thread anyhow. How much plot do you want before you're overwhelmed by clues/followups, for example? I knew people on Arx as well who just couldn't keep up.

There's a definite reaction where people think they need to be keeping up with any and all plot threads just because of the presence of those threads where they can see. It all becomes a lot more manageable when you internally say "Okay but I'm only going to actually pay attention to X and Y and let other people play with A and B."

Aftermath RP is SACRED as far as I'm concerned and one of the best things ever.

@Kanye-Qwest said in MU Things I Love:

Also, I love it when you can take multiple NPCs to a PC event and not steal the entire focus and everyone just hums along in conversation and about the event and things flow well and it's wonderful.

I was going to come to this thread to talk about that event anyways because honestly it went so well and I was just so delighted by it. WHO KNEW A RP ART SHOW COULD BE SO FUN. Look at all the pretend money we've raised to free pretend slaves!

@Gingerlily said in Eliminating social stats:

@ThatGuyThere said in Eliminating social stats:

@Gingerlily
I love rolling composure to see how my character handles (ICly) unexpected situations, though I have noticed the people I RP being fairly split n the issue, some love it because it takes the scene to unpredictable places (which is my main motivation for doing it as well) some are take it or leave it, some complain the ooc message ruins their immersion, and than one who I rarely play these days, would get actively upset and that is one of the reason I think we play less is that our styles in regard to that did not mesh at all.

I can see that. It does break into immersion, it gives you sudden OOC knowledge of a thing your character does not know if a roll happens and works and thus no composure is broken. It's enticing to know someone was rping feeling or thinking a thing and sometimes not knowing the thing can be kind of torturous with it's curiosity creation. I get super curious too, but excited because 'there is some kind of a FEELING about a THING' going on that neither my character nor I know, and I just stay excited and keep wanting to know what it is which can motivate more play.

I get that it can also be frustrating because of those exact same reasons, I get frustrated sometimes too if I feel like I am so close to something tantalizing but do not get to play about it. Usually though the prospect of eventually getting to play about it makes it more enticing than frustrating for me.

Would rolling the check privately appease both sides of this issue? The player rolling would have that chance to take the scene somewhere unexpected, which the group of players who already liked that aspect would continue to benefit from. But players who don't like the immersion break wouldn't see the fact that maybe there was something about the scene that secretly did have a chance to move things in another direction. I tend to roll composure most often for reactions that aren't necessarily about secret things, so I've never actually come across someone who complained about it or asked me not to do it, but I can also see the point about immersion.

@Pyrephox said in The Metaplot:

• Oriented towards shaping the future, not uncovering/discovering the past. Metaplots about 'uncovering the past' inevitably, in my experience, depress player interest. Because the past is always filled with larger than life characters who did AMAZING AND COOL THINGS...that current PCs are (perceived) to never, ever be able to do. Uncovering the past is reading someone else's story - what tends to get players excited is the chance to write their own story.

I think you can get a lot of interest in discovering the past if it's directly related to shaping the future and PC stories.