I definitely want the risk -- but I want the risk to have been taken because the risk was significant enough to risk character death and was taken anyway, not some random stupidness over a pickle. If it's an important risk, or it's story related, or any of that? Death is totally fine.
The attitude presented is why I have absolutely no interest in playing in a high-PC-casuality game. Because 'character death' seems to be the metric that people like to use to create the appropriate tension, and equate a lack thereof to playing house or being conflict-averse. I don't mind if a character dies as part of the story, but it actually has to be part of the story. Killing player characters to show how dangerous the setting is is lazy, unimaginative, and absolutely sucks donkey balls for the people whose time, effort, and investment is pissed on just to set the tone for a game.
While I am sure there is an audience for it, I'm with @faraday on this. If character death is heavily on the table, I don't care what genre it is, I'm not interested. It's not about how easy or not it is to make a PC, but the engagement and investment that go along with a character. There are plenty of other story based things that can be done -- kill swaths of NPCs if you want, whatever -- but if the only way you can think of to create the right kind of tension is to take my character away, no thanks.
Never even heard of the property before now, but at first glance that looks like it could be a lot of fun. You totally should do it. Totally. I think you'd find there was more interest than it sounds like you think. ^^
Ah. Yeah, I think it might be the circles you're finding yourself in. While I agree that those sorts of folks are out there, I find them generally to be in the minority. That would get very old very fast.
I used to think it was lazy storytelling to do things like 'hey, you know guys, don't forget you saw X at the last crime scene, too...' as a GM, but it's not. It's really, really not.
Anyway, the sum total of this is that you can pose a character being subtle without being subtle as a player. Being subtle as a player does you absolutely no favors, because people miss it and then you just never get to explore those things. And that sucks.
Yes.
Okay, the party arrives in the high tech office building's meeting room. There's a newspaper on the table, several workstations without computers hooked up to them, and the table is clean.
Investigation happens, players decide there's nothing in this room and they move on to the next.
Later...
MAN. I was so clear, the clue was so obvious, but they didn't even LOOK at the newspaper. Why would there have been a newspaper in a high tech building?! Wouldn't they have realized everyone had a computer or whatever to look at the news???
Like, what? Yeah, in this case the assumption itself was very obviously faulty, but even if it wasn't, you just do not know what knowledge/information the players are coming to the table with. They might not KNOW that in places like this, newspapers are rare, for all that you think it's common sense. It's not, and not because your players are dense, either.
I used to go with trying to be subtle. I felt it was fair, if I was posing whatever the same way every time, that I could expect other people to pick up on this and whatnot. Then I realized a few things.
What you think is a subtle explanation for something is likely just too obscure. They're not picking up on it because you are not actually making sense to anyone but yourself. You might think 'looking down' is a clear signal, but those two words in your entire pose have weight to you, not the people you're playing with. How do they know that they should be putting special emphasis on those words more than 'the table' or 'looks at the person who walks in' or whatever? In the example of the leaving the same way every time -- how do they know that isn't your go-to as a player for 'crap, I have to go OOC'? If you don't give the people you're playing with enough reason to suspect there is more there, they will never suspect it. It will not happen. You are entertaining yourself with how clever you are, but no one else.
I'm not actually saying you actually think you're particularly clever or anything, but it's an easy way to explain how seriously, people just don't do subtle in text very well. They don't write it well, they don't catch it well. When you try to play on subtle, you're shooting yourself in the foot. My RP has gotten so, so much more rewarding now that I straight up beat people over the head with things that might be 'subtle'.
While the character is what's important, the player has to at least understand the situation well enough to have their character react appropriately. Their character may not understand the situation as well as their player does, but for the player to be able to make that determination, they have to know that it's there for them to make.
@Ganymede said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
@Faceless said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
The Wizard's First Rule.
... don't stare at the sleeve?
People are stupid.
Personally, I think the spread of information is a good thing. It means that people are getting included. If you start bringing down actual consequences on folks for sharing? They stop sharing, plots grind to a halt, blah blah blah.
We really ought to do some sort of grand PNW meetup of some sort, one of these days. And by that, I mean all the rest of y'all that live in the area. There are like a billion of us up here.
I was not commenting on anything save that lords and ladies games, as they exist, do already charge. It's not a new thing they aren't already doing.
Most lords and ladies games do actually charge for title. Or, well, everywhere I've played. Usually it's in the form of an XP bonus for a commoner, though sometimes the title itself costs. Or something associated with it does.
Many things you have suggested in this thread are things that are already in the game.
@Shincashay
I think that is not what they are doing. It wouldn't be a Kushiel game in that case.
FOUND IT. It's under the description news/help/whatever file:
"Also note that it is customary to avoid description of the character's clothing in a desc, since wearable items are obtained in game. Characters without the items are not considered nude, but simply wearing unexceptional, conventional clothing."
