Posts made by Thenomain

@Pyrephox said:

@Thenomain said:

I need a place to find people who look more like normal people, not like actors and models. Like, "young but androgynous, very homely fae probably male but not for certain". Or, "overweight middle-aged albino white woman".

I search Google images with the key characteristics of a character in mind

Have you tried "middle-aged albino woman"? I'd rather have no image than the wrong one, though once I put down on the wiki page "no she doesn't look this beautiful but let's face it, you picked a hot played-by too".

I want to see any Fate-based game flourish. I'd log in and pretend to play for that reason alone.

@Arkandel

On TwoMoons, an ElfQuest MUSH, people just made one character per area and played where the play was. It worked out well.

@surreality said:

Drop a player from GameA onto GameB, they're either going to have to learn to have fun under the different rules and within the culture of GameB, or they're shit out of luck.

Yes, but that's true of all games. I am constantly harping on games, players, and myself for not making this transition easier. Explaining this information to newbies is hard, tho, because by the time you understand it yourself you are in the middle of it and have to unravel what they know back to what they wish they knew before they knew it. It's no easy task, but I believe it's critical.

@Ganymede said:

If you're going to run a Vampire: the Requiem game, for instance, paranoia and power-mongering are essential to the theme and setting, and, very often, players have to bend over backwards to find a reason to be inclusive.

This is a problem of Vampire being forced into an online social game without fixing this issue. In a tabletop, it is usually assumed that the coterie is going to work together against or in spite of the political machinations going on around them. Online, the player-characters often are the political machinations.

That these games or players on these games don't think of ways to be inclusive to players (not necessarily the characters) is I think a major part of a larger issue, but I boil it down to "how these games are presented to be played need to be fundamentally changed to really work on-line".

I can feel unwelcome when my attempts to find RP themselves are met with silence. After the fifth time, I'm at a complete loss.

I have a hard time believing one of the more important parts of this issue is what we name how to try and make theme consistent across players.

I need a place to find people who look more like normal people, not like actors and models. Like, "young but androgynous, very homely fae probably male but not for certain". Or, "overweight middle-aged albino white woman".

Well I do think that looking at the situations more objectively is critical, and you can't do that if you can't accept your own involvement in them. People on channel do this, I hate it when people do that. Words and terms that create distance between you and the thing that sucks.

I hate it when I offer to RP with someone and they say nothing or don't show, but why would I get upset about that? I hate it when someone wants me to run the scene for their masturbation, by why would I agree to that? I hate it when someone tries to run me off a game but maybe it's because something I did? Maybe I can page them and ask what's wrong. Such a small action that opens dialogue. Maybe they were afraid that I would explode at them with Theno-like spazztic behavior? Could I blame them? It's not my responsibility to set things right, but if I'm interested in things being right then aren't I morally obligated to try?

If I'm not interested in things being right, aren't I the passive lump you people have been complaining about? (Again, not all of you, but damn.)

How much we try is flexible, but the smallest iota of Givadamn is better than none. If everyone gave that small amount, it would feed into other people being more willing to try, and fewer people feeling lonely.

Misadventure suggested Themeslaughter. I may suggest: Bland Hole, the thematic pull from which no creativity may escape.

@VulgarKitten said:

@Thenomain said:

You are not contracted, obligated, or otherwise forced to do so, but if you include people in your character's play-space, you will become more popular and you will enhance that person's experience knowing that they will do the same for you.

This is such a lie. I cannot count how many times I have experienced/heard from others "Well I invite you to all of my stuff, but you don't invite me to yours."

One of the things I'm finding lately is that I am pulling back from my usual hyperbolic ways, only to realize why I was that way to begin with: The number of times people take what I'm saying to some theoretical logical conclusion.

Making space for people is not bending backwards for them. Nobody who asks you to be a doormat has your interests in mind, and you should take no shit from them.

If you are turning yourself into a doormat, you are trying too hard. Relax. Chill. Take no shit from yourself.

MUSHing is an inherently selfish experience, where 9 and 3/4 times out of 10, people will take what they can get while excluding others who give them RP/plot for justifications x, y, and z. Maybe they're even legit justifications. But not usually.

Which is why I think that not doing this should be a requirement. Fuck these selfish people. Fuck them right in the ear. If people cannot share their play-space, they have no right to mine.

But you have no control over them. You have control over you. The only thing you can do to help the game is make the attempt, to give other people a chance to fail on their own actions and not because of your preconceived notions.

If you can't be bothered, even with the smallest amount of effort, to try to include people who are in your scenes, then you're part of the problem. It's these people who need a punch in the cloaca with a dagger and tossed out the airlock.

--

This is an extension of a discussion that began long, long ago on Swofa, I believe by TNP or PsyJack that was this: We are the source of many of the problems we complain about.

If this is true, then we need to think differently about what we do, change how we do it. I don't admit to massive failure because I'm trying to score humility brownie points with anyone, I'm doing it because we all need to take a more adult view of the problems.

Having a place to vent is nice, but who is trying to solve the problems? (Yes, several of you are. Cookies to each of you.)

I do like "theme drift", but I think it goes further. "Theme normalization," perhaps, where the players as an entity drag the theme toward an unspoken expectation that is at odds with the theme from the source material that they apparently wanted to play.

@surreality

I tried to be careful about explaining what I meant, and didn't use "include" on purpose. I think the only reasonable rule would be that you make space for others in a scene. You can't make anyone feel included any more than you can make them feel wanted.

Which is, by the way, my main problem with the premise of this thread. Feelings come from interpretations of situations. Since it's not reasonable to ask strangers to play to your personal sense of "feeling wanted", then what we have left is changing the environment.

And really, even then all you can do is try, which is all I'm saying that everyone is required to do. I've laid down solid requirements of what "trying" means, so that someone can't come by and start with the inevitable, "Well, it depends..."

@surreality said:

I suppose it depends

Yeah, like that. Everything "depends", but everything has to start with an idea as the foundation.

@surreality said:

Be observant. Create openings.

You are arguing with me ... why? You even quoted me saying:

@Thenomain said:

which means playing off their character and poses and making space for them to add to things

Sometimes I wonder about you.

@Thenomain said:

Not to turn this thread into What's Wrong With Changeling Players, but Winnie the Pooh and Hedge Bars are from people who are unfamiliar with the source material. Once things like this get approved, staff would have to take a break from their otherwise very busy day and find a good resolution to make this stuff not happen. The discussion might start with something like, "I think you may have read the wrong book."

I had a point here that I forgot to conclude with: Once a character is approved, it's very hard to correct borderline non thematic actions, which breeds more, and more, as the border moves to accepted and the less accepted thematic violations become borderline and then, later, the norm.

This needs a name. It's why all WoD settings become Bland By Night.

@Insomnia said:

Consortium is free this weekend on steam and "Anyone who gets the game this weekend will keep the game in their library forever."

This is a fun game for free or even $5. It is a mystery that is designed for replay, so I suspect depth over breath. Joe-Bob says check it out.

@Ganymede

I meant more the innocent reading of Alice and the fucked-up one. Or: Can you make an Alice game where the players are not fishmalks, without it being Just Another Faerie Tale Land.

There is a post-Forge indie RPG philosophy that goes like this:

Play for other people.

You are not contracted, obligated, or otherwise forced to do so, but if you include people in your character's play-space, you will become more popular and you will enhance that person's experience knowing that they will do the same for you.

I kind of do think that you are social-contract obligated to involve everyone in your scene, which means playing off their character and poses and making space for them to add to things. If they don't take it, if they don't want it, if they don't engage then hey, you did your part to create that upward feedback spiral of awesome that is an engaging situation.

So I would like to say it's everyone's responsibility to be engaging, and the level of engaging is enough to allow others a space to be engaged. Once two players are engaged, crazy fun shit happens, and it's such an easy thing to start.

Staff have a much deeper requirement, but this is going to mull around in my head a lot.

@Ganymede said:

@Ghost said:

Aha! But what about the element of Grimm's Fairy Tales?

Perhaps we are working with different versions of Changeling: the Lost, or coming from a different perspective, but in my opinion, the player's character is the sweet little old lady. She just doesn't know it yet.

My favorite kind of horror is the one where normal things take on sinister meaning, drawing questions about ones own understanding of the world, having to corrupt oneself to survive it. It's not strictly horror, but it does start to give the idea of what is acceptable for a game.

--

Alice in Wonderland can be read without the satire element, for example, and legitimately so, so how would you enforce the satire and fucked-up nature of a theoretical AiW game?

Not a theoretical question. How would you enforce a certain reading of Alice to get that kind of game?

Not to turn this thread into What's Wrong With Changeling Players, but Winnie the Pooh and Hedge Bars are from people who are unfamiliar with the source material. Once things like this get approved, staff would have to take a break from their otherwise very busy day and find a good resolution to make this stuff not happen. The discussion might start with something like, "I think you may have read the wrong book."