Posts made by Sunny

It seems like an extra, unnecessary step that adds more paperwork that only accomplishes taking away some of staff's ability to react in context and situationally.

I'm really not against things being resolved. I think that when the time comes, staff needs to be the one that takes away player agency, not another player. If you can, make a choice that does not take away their agency. If you cant, get with staff. That's it. I do not believe that a player should have the right to make ooc decisions for somebody else's PC.

I'm sure as hell not advocating remaining screwed.

@faraday said:

And btw, in either case Jane could've avoided the conflict by coming up with an internal justification for Jane wanting to move on, rather than making it have anything to do with a presumed IC reason for Bob's OOC absence.

And this is what I'm advocating for at the end of the day. It's possible, and I do think people should take that little bit of effort to do it -- it causes less problems for everyone involved.

Having a mission statement is good.

Giving bad advice about bad RP is not so good.

I don't think it really belongs anywhere in an official capacity, game-wise. Here is good, it's a discussion forum and so on. Putting it on a game in any sort of official capacity makes something that is unarguably subjective and making it seem like it's fact-based instead, like these guidelines make the one true way. Putting it on a game in a non-official capacity would just make you sound like a pretentious twit telling other players how to RP.

@Ganymede

Nope. Go to staff.

@Ganymede said:

@Sunny said:

I think that players have no business taking away the agency of other players.

What of the agency of Ingrid's player to play Ingrid as she was designed? Isn't that being taken away by Sam's deliberate evasion?

Nope! Sam isn't making any decisions for Ingrid.

This is where I point out that the PC I play most heavily's IC husband pretty much doesn't play any more, and hasn't in months and months. I know that it's entirely possible to continue things along without messing up anything for the other player, because I do it. Have been doing it. If it got untenable, I'd ask Staff to step in, not just declare that the husband has decided to start avoiding her / has vanished / etc, because that's not my job.

Edited: If Sam is avoiding her OOC, that's an OOC issue, and staff needs to get involved. If he's actually avoiding her ICly, then he should say so, and that can be handled ICly. If it's an IC avoid that he won't say exists OOC, then staff needs to get involved because that too is an OOC problem.

@Ganymede

Or the person in question is being a psycho stalker that made the character against Sam's wishes. We really don't have the full story, here (I remind that the player is having OTHER PLAYERS @mail Sam about this, which is a huge red flag to me). The rest of it, well, I don't agree. I think that players have no business taking away the agency of other players.

If somebody started posing 3-4 screens worth of text at me as part of RP, I'd die.

@Misadventure said:

Yes. So what would you do that respects both players? Because one player has failed another player here, and something has to give.

No.

I said that one player has to respect the other player's agency without permission.

Staff is perfectly capable of stepping in and resolving any given situation based on their own game's policies and procedures. I did note that sane staff are not likely to make me roleplay with you.

Sometimes something does have to give, and that something is not for handling on a player level.

There is a significant difference between staff stepping in and making a decision (okay) and making the choice for the player as a player (not okay).

@Lithium

Context does not actually matter much in this point. There is no circumstance that one player should be making any decisions for another player without permission. If my character runs around telling other characters that so-and-so is avoiding her, I am interfering with the agency of the other player, because yes, it makes assumptions about what the other character is doing. It does indeed determine reality. There are actions and consequences that follow.

It doesn't matter how long. Period. When you make decisions, you get to make decisions for your own character, not other peoples'. It doesn't matter why they're gone. It doesn't matter if they're just being an asshole. Player agency should be sacrosanct.

@Lithium

The player can move on and play their character whenever they want to do so. At any time the player can make their own decision about their own PC that allows for the character to move on. It does not require that the player put the 'fault' on the other player's character. There is never a point in which there's too much that a player gets to make decisions for another player without permission and/or it being baked into the rules.

Edited to add: If the characters are so intimately, heavily connected that it is literally impossible for a creative person to come up with a story that doesn't involve making decisions for someone else's PC, then they shouldn't have applied for the character without speaking to the player in question in the first place.

Edited again to add: Does nobody else find it creepy that the player in question has had someone ELSE @mailing to nag about the RP?

This whole thing just stinks of a serious entitlement issue to me. Most folks in the hobby don't live online any more.

Making decisions for someone else's character is never okay to do as another player without permission. If someone were to start ICly saying that my character was avoiding them / not doing their job because our schedules weren't meshing, I'd be going to staff immediately -- and justifiably -- and having a stop put to that right quick, because it's NOT okay.

@Misadventure said:

How would you feel about @mail that said that hey we can have met IC, the new PC is fairly reasonable etc, and unless there are very specific questions that must be addressed, nothing is urgent?

Handling things via @mail or the like isn't a particular issue I have. I definitely don't mind doing that when schedules don't work or the like. If the question is more about somebody coming in knowing my PC without talking to me FIRST?

Light it on fire.

@skew

I believe, again, that if we agree to the obligation then we are obligated. Instead of RPing with someone, you might be able to pass off the duty/responsibility/scene. You might be able to work with staff to find a solution. You might be able to work with the individual player to answer questions (or approve a story) without actually having to do the scene. But, ya know, if someone steps up and says "I'll take X duty" they ought to do it, or handle not doing it.

I can agree to a general obligation without agreeing to specific pieces of it. When I signed up to play a Duchesse, I didn't sign up to play with my stalker, who is using my position as a Duchesse to try and force it. I do not have any specific obligation to that player to play with them.

@Ganymede I laughed.

Seriously, though.

I play a character in a position of responsibility on a place now, though the requirements aren't super heavy or anything. I also have a somewhat limited schedule right now. My turn-around is about two weeks for getting "second level" important scenes done (things that aren't completely holding up someone else's RP) -- this stretches out longer if I have to, say, get someone else involved first. My to-do list is currently about 15 things long. I do not mind this, it keeps me busy, though it's really frustrating to log in with free time and oh of course, nobody I need to be working with is around. I totally signed up for this and all, and I do think that two weeks is reasonably fair.

If someone were to app into my characters' family without speaking to me about it and then got mad because I hadn't gotten to them in a time-frame that they felt reasonable? The scene we had after staff made me do it (if they did; I'm pretty sure they'd just laugh at the request) would be brief. Very brief.

Now, let's say that this person has a habit of making characters trying to find one that will make me play with them...or they've been stalking me...or they're already somebody I know I don't get along with...or they're a well known whiny bitch with a serious entitlement problem. Not that any of these things are necessarily the case here, but this is the sort of red flag that goes up for me in this type of circumstance.

From her post, I did not get the impression that Ingrid app'd in with Sam's cooperation; it sounded to me like the characters are linked in history/the source material, rather than something agreed on, and given it's NOT a situation like a leadership role (just playing an FC on a comic game doesn't qualify unless there are specific rules pertaining to this), I'm with @Arkandel on this one. Sam's player doesn't owe her anything, and to be honest if I were Sam and I read this about her considering asking staff to MAKE me play with her? That would not make me want to play with her more.

@Halicron said:

@faraday said:

But this: "A good RPer can turn a nod into a six-line pose."

Really? That I'd like to see

The question was a difficult one to answer, and it clearly vexes Bill in a way that's troubling the stout fellow. He pauses, pursing his lips, but checks himself before uttering a word. Dusky grey eyes the color of graveyard granite flicker across the street, to a gaggle of children and tolerant mothers watching like mother hens. Remembering the cigarette in his fingers he brings it to his lips and inhales, ash crackling in the silent wake of inquisition. He holds for a count and then like a smouldering dragon exudes twin plumes of smoke through his nostrils. The late winter's winds pick the ash up and carry it off and away, into the crisp sky overhead. He turns back to Denise, finally, and a tight smile crosses his face. His head dips a fractional amount-- the thinnest of concessions-- and then the smile disappears, and his cool gaze returns to unreadable speculation of passing pedestrians.

This pose would make me stab someone. It's a ton of words to say nothing, there's pretty much no content, and there is very little given for me to actually respond to. If more than a handful of these sorts of poses happened in a scene, I would not enjoy playing with the person.

@Arkandel Mmhmm.

I will say that online I do fudge the dice pools themselves sometimes, or massage modifiers or the like, based on the challenge I was looking to present to the PCs and what actually ends up happening. I won't fudge rolls, so I am very active in making sure the rolls themselves are of an appropriate level for the group. I generally have all the encounters written out beforehand, and it'll include one sort of test subject early on. Based on how that goes, I might redo the rest of it. I'll also modify numbers of enemies up or down if I'm doing them in waves (I usually do) on the fly. So I do on-the-fly adjust difficulty, just not with the dice.

I will absolutely fudge rolls in tabletop when I'm running a game. Never ever ever ever ever online. There, I have the benefit of being able to judge peoples' reactions and when it would and would not be appropriate. Online, I have none of the cues and trust is a hell of a problem from square one.