Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

All Out Of Character Conversation!

Moderator: Moderators

Message
Author
User avatar
midnightblink
Council Member
Posts: 551
Joined: Mon May 25, 2015 7:03 am
Location: Troutdale Oregon

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#91 Post by midnightblink »

Im not really sure what to do now that Transient hasn't shown up. His character was kind of important to my characters part in the story. Should I switch which general in the story my character works for?
Image
Primum Non Nocere

User avatar
y7h65
The Unpronounceable
Posts: 3608
Joined: Sat Nov 28, 2009 11:00 pm
Location: ???

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#92 Post by y7h65 »

Midnight, you might want to cut yourself from Transient. Not sure if he's going to be posting any time soon. Change to an unnamed General if you want or maybe just constantly refer to Transient's characters as being offscreen if you want.

Spero, Roleplaying is about collaborative storytelling with the constraint of being limited to your character. Unless you're the GM in which case you have the setting and NPCs as well but even then, they have to be respectful of the fact that each of those elements are not usually omnipresent and omniscient. You don't know more than your character does when writing and can't expect a character to react like you think they would simply because 'that's what I would do and what I would do if I was writing the other character'.
Local Type Moon Fanatic.
Image

User avatar
The Rookie
Grand Templar
Posts: 1332
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 3:34 am
Location: Australia

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#93 Post by The Rookie »

SperoWolf wrote:I'd prefer to get tied together with the other characters. I'm still afraid of going too far off the beaten bath, as I'm new to rp. It's oddly uncomfortable writing some aspects of a story that's also being written by other authors; I keep getting scared that I'll overstep
I totally understand that, the issue I'm having at the moment is trying to write interactions with someone else's characters without really knowing how that character would appropriately respond. I mean I'm constantly checking with the character's owner if what I've got is ok, but I'm still a bit unsure.

Anyway, would you be interested in having your character come over and discuss the trainee's fighting styles? Maybe grill into the Lost Soul about deception and espionage being dishonourable for soldiers of the Light?
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Image
Image

User avatar
MrFlyingAmoeba
Grand Templar
Posts: 2361
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 10:51 pm
Location: A place without enough coffee. Or coffee cake.

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#94 Post by MrFlyingAmoeba »

At the risk of jumping the gun, I don't see why espionage is considered bad for the Light guys. Given the huge numbers on both sides, you could probably slap on a funny hat and wander around in territories on either side for at least a few minutes without getting caught so long as you weren't in anyplace sensitive. No puppy kicking to prove your loyalty necessary. We don't actually know what the geography of this place is like, for all we know there's a huge porous border that anyone can just sneak across, or fly across.
Red Mage Statscoski wrote:That is not how we do things around here, buddy. First we have to argue incessantly over semantics.

User avatar
The Rookie
Grand Templar
Posts: 1332
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 3:34 am
Location: Australia

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#95 Post by The Rookie »

SperoWolf wrote:I'm not sure how well grilling him on espionage would fit when I just had my character conversing with a spy npc and ordering assassinations.
MrFlyingAmoeba wrote:At the risk of jumping the gun, I don't see why espionage is considered bad for the Light guys. Given the huge numbers on both sides, you could probably slap on a funny hat and wander around in territories on either side for at least a few minutes without getting caught so long as you weren't in anyplace sensitive. No puppy kicking to prove your loyalty necessary.
OK fair call, just thinking out loud.

If you want to help have the stories collide, you could probably say something along the lines of "Blah blah I'm impressed blah blah want to join a top secret mission?"
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Image
Image

User avatar
Tyendinaga
Templar Inner Circle
Posts: 3132
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 12:51 am
Location: The land of beavers and maple syrup.

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#96 Post by Tyendinaga »

My apologies, Spero.

Please read this in detail, I do not mean to come off as rough or that I am out for you as a person. If at any point it looks like that please know that that is not my intention. I merely wish to give an honest look at what you are doing and the problems they may present. I understand that you are new to things, and feel uncomfortable with how you interact with others in the RP scenarios as they are laid out. It doesn't help that many of us can be quite jaded and rough in our dealings. However, in your efforts to stop yourself from overstepping, you have already done so. I don't mean this as an insult, the lines you've crossed are ones that can be crossed quite easily and innocently without even realizing you've done so. But what is done is done and undoing what's been done would be more chaotic and troublesome and keeping with what's already happened.

Your prior post crosses lines in various ways you might not realize. Again, it's better to leave what's been done than try to correct it. The main problem presenting itself is conduct that borders on meta-gaming. While meta-gaming in and of itself is impossible to avoid completely, you have to use the information presented to you in an effective and realistic manner, your use of the information you've been presented is not entirely realistic and is more likely to be obstructive. It's one thing to not chase a retreating force knowing they have an ambush in place from their post as this is a sound tactical decision regardless of whether such an ambush exists or not and can be played as such. However, reacting to small events with near perfect accuracy without a whole lot of reasonable backing is a good way to make people displeased with you.

Again, I must state, what is done is done and is best left as is. This is just a rundown of what you've done that can be construed as meta-gaming or otherwise odd.

First of all. You suddenly have a spymaster. You suddenly have that spy master and their spies watching the area we're in due to previously existing confrontations that you have suddenly written up. Had these previous confrontations happened previously (Say we killed a sandwich maker in the area, you suddenly have a decent reason to watch that area more closely). However there is no prior mention of having spies or spymasters at your disposal. This is merely something you've come up with in response to a post made, with no prior indication you would have this capability. Not in biography or in prior posts.

Secondly, a Guard disappearing is nothing to write home about. He's a guard. Probably has a family. He's unimportant. If you immediately dispatch your spies every time some guy murders a guard and buries the body you're going to need a lot of spies and spymasters. People aren't saints Spero, murders aren't uncommon and even more so during a medieval type society. Furthermore, you're automatically assuming one situation without potentially assuming other situations. A guard went missing, first reaction should be to search for him, contact his family, see if anything has happened or he has any enemies and perhaps tighten guard security, which the guards would be fully capable of doing themselves without the help of a general, guards aren't even a military entity. The first logical reaction is not to assume we want to assassinate a guy running a sandwich shop because he's retired, even if that is exactly what we are doing.

Thirdly, a group of people got sick. I understand checking for poison and the like is a reasonable thing to do. But there are also alternatives to poison, such as salmonella, food poisoning, an infectious outbreak of explosion pants [censored]. The FDA did not exist and the people of this era do not get their food from a supermarket with food coming in from fifty different countries where everything is screened and checked along the way. Everybody gets their food from the same guy, who got his food from the same farm, raised from the same animals. Any small slip up along the way results in mass contamination. Food poisoning is common enough today, I can't imagine what it'd be like back then, my outhouse would look like the swamps of dagobah.

Fourth, while you acknowledged in the final line of your post that this could all be a simple accident, the actions your character has taken do not reflect someone who has seriously given that any thought on the matter. You took the most violent and decisive options available to you without taking any additional considerations as to what could have happened. These are not the actions of a seasoned general they are the actions of someone who resorts to violence and fear campaigns as a first resort who is incapable of long term strategy, who sends large numbers of soldiers into enemy territory simply by being poked. If I knew I could get you to send me some squads each time I poked you with two or three people, I would do it over and over again just to kill the oncoming troops.

Finally, this is merely a point on how you played your character. You did not order an assassination. You ordered a mass killing of people, innocents, children, families, on some hell bent fear campaign. This isn't a way to win people to your side nor is it a way to demoralize your enemies, It's a good way to paint a nice picture of general ripper sitting on his throne, that surrender or conversion to the other side is no real option. You're more likely to encourage people to fight back. Your own actions are so vile you're likely to drive your own men to darkness. I could understand your reasoning more if you were attempting to deliberately turn your character into some sort of maniac, he already appears to be sociopathic, but baring that the reasoning isn't the most sound.

Here's a secondary bit of characterization for you, I'm going to be a little miffed about using plain clothes spies. I'm going to be rather pissed at you attacking and murdering innocents in a village that is likely under my jurisdiction when that news gets back to me. I'm NOT going to be pissed at you, Spero. I'm going to be pissed at General Ripper back there. If you have your story intersect with ours in any way shape or form, you can't expect any of us to play nice. In fact, Mine, Y7h65's, and MrFlyingAmoeba's characters would all have reasons to want you exceedingly dead. But all in all we don't know any of that yet, we don't know you just ordered a hit against innocents nor that you have spies in the area. That would be an insane leap of logic.

Again, I don't intend to mean any of this as being mean or insulting to you, nor is any of this directed at you as a person. I merely wish to state that what you're doing, even though I believe you haven't done anything maliciously, is bordering if not out right meta-gaming and that you may wish to take a different approach to your actions in the future.

User avatar
The Rookie
Grand Templar
Posts: 1332
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 3:34 am
Location: Australia

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#97 Post by The Rookie »

Tyendinaga wrote:-General ripper-
I was also under the impression that the general was just looking for an excuses to kill Lost souls. Hence why I thought he'd want to rip into Yin upon meeting him.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Image
Image

User avatar
Tyendinaga
Templar Inner Circle
Posts: 3132
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 12:51 am
Location: The land of beavers and maple syrup.

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#98 Post by Tyendinaga »

SperoWolf wrote:-snip-
I wouldn't say it was at my loss or even the loss of others, Spero. I had looked forward to playing with you; someone who I haven't had the opportunity to do so with before. I merely wished to provide some feedback so that you could grow as a writer and be more aware of the problems. However, I understand your decision, while RP can be puerile I find that this one in particular doesn't lend itself well to that. It's chock full of adult themes and dark undertones, combine that with the obvious antagonism of being on two separate sides and the recipe you're left with is one such as this. It doesn't leave a whole lot of room for certain things I'm afraid.

Again, I understand your decisions. I would have hoped you would be less rash in your decision but if you are unhappy then such a thing would perhaps be for the best.

My Apologies, for any trouble I may have caused you and by extension the other forumites in participation.

User avatar
y7h65
The Unpronounceable
Posts: 3608
Joined: Sat Nov 28, 2009 11:00 pm
Location: ???

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#99 Post by y7h65 »

OK, first of all, allow me to preface this by saying that while I did mention to Tyendinaga about how I thought someone should mention to Spero about how he was metagaming a bit and that someone should also bring up the fact that he ordered a mass killing of sorts, this was not the outcome I thought would happen. Of course, if you're going to quit then you've quit. Not going to try to stop you or change your mind. Moving from that, I still feel like I need to bring up some points.
SperoWolf wrote:Aside from never for the life of me understanding how people can enjoy it, it's hard to be one of nine-ish authors working on a story. You're limited to your character's interactions and nothing more, so I'm always tempted to up the ante and make things more entertaining.
Personally speaking? It's enjoyable because it's difficult. While roleplaying and tabletop RPGs is, commonly, referred to as collaborative storytelling, it's also easily referred to as collaborative theater. A large part of it is improvisation with the self imposed limits of being true to your character. You can't predict what another character will do or react to. It forces you to learn how to roll with the punches in writing and lets you learn how to deal with a story that's not turning out how you want it to. For me, I'm forever chasing the story that I tell with friends that will turn out more amazing than any of us thought it would be like.
SperoWolf wrote: For example, my character was sitting idly in a dining area while an assassination was being planned. I could say "The General ate a sandwich", or I could walk into a kitchen and eat my own damn sandwich. It's more than difficult to participate in something so meaninglessly droll when I could just be doing things or writing a story that's action packed; which is impossible when fighting would be virtually impossible to script while following general roleplay rule. And we're all different people, so I'm sure the very way we play will likely step on each other's toes as it goes.
I think you approached RPing the wrong way. Yes, what my group planned was a bit more action packed than what the other groups were up to but that's because I'm an assassin. Assassination was bound to come up around my character by merit of them being an assassin. In the same vein, nobody is demanding you do something boring or mundane. You could've easily scene cut your character from the dining room to him entering the training field where Rookie and Josh's characters were and started engaging them in a training fight. Or beat on some poor NPC sap.

As for RP PvP combat, yeah no, that always gets messy. It's why it's avoided except for in forums where there's a long standing tradition and well established rules for it. Now, mind you, RP Combat against NPCs is when you can let your character's combat ability really shine as, for the most part, it takes a lot of NPCs to ever be a threat to the PC; with the exception of Boss and GM-type NPCs.
SperoWolf wrote:But I think I have far better things to do with my time than wait around a week so I can describe a character doing trivial actions and hoping to somehow gain vicarious enjoyment from a fictitious person.
This line of thought is also approaching RPing from a wrong perspective. RPing isn't just about living vicariously through your character. That is a part of it, since RPing and tabletop RPGs allow you to play out scenarios and settings with others that you may have only imagined or was some thing yout never thought about before joining. But another equally large, if not larger, part of it is about telling your character's story. Develop what they want to do, what's their goal, and why your characters want to do what they do. You're trying to tell their story while partaking in a larger world at whole, developing them against and with the stories of others.
SperoWolf wrote: I've found through experience that I could either overstretch my creative license in our roleplay and clearly make it unenjoyable for someone participating, or continue stultifying myself by dredging out long and meaningless descriptions. Luckily my character has had no effect on your game thus far, so I'm going to edit out his two plot points. It was foolish of me to assume that against all assumption I would find the smallest ounce of excitement from this, and I apologize for attempting at your apparent loss.
Actually, you didn't really do any of that. None of us actually care you made a mistake. Well, at least not negatively. You're new and were trying to learn the ropes. It's completely acceptable for you to make a mistake. We've all made mistakes and will continue to do so. It's about learning that you made a mistake and then learning from that mistake. We were just a bit concerned about you ordering a mass killing but then promptly decided to make that into something that could be used to develop our characters further later. It was, and will be if we decide to actually have it happen anyways, going to be something we had yet to do and was going to be an interesting experience writing our character's reactions to that.
SperoWolf wrote: I primarily deleted my posts because the latter (as pointed out) was overstretching my boundaries and wasn't fair to the game, and the former put my character in a position where he could hardly do anything to build the story. I highly doubt I'll be participating further, but it would be unseemly given the character introduction that I chose.
Well... if you really wanted to, you could just play out your character and try to show why he's paranoid enough to call for a raid anytime something happened. Or you could take the fact that everyone sees you as a general ripper and run with it. Just take that to its logical conclusion and go. I will note that deleting your posts when you leave is never the way to go.

But like I said, if you decide to quite then that's that. It's disappointing but I won't stip you. I'm of the belief that once someone's mind is made, then I should not force them to change their mind.
Local Type Moon Fanatic.
Image

User avatar
Tyendinaga
Templar Inner Circle
Posts: 3132
Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 12:51 am
Location: The land of beavers and maple syrup.

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#100 Post by Tyendinaga »

Well now.

Are we still on track to keep playing? If so it's Midnight's turn at bat.

User avatar
midnightblink
Council Member
Posts: 551
Joined: Mon May 25, 2015 7:03 am
Location: Troutdale Oregon

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#101 Post by midnightblink »

Guys, I'm really not sure what to do at this point. I've removed Transient's character from my CS and my IC post, but I'm not sure where he can go from here story wise. He's coming back to the camp to report to the generals, but they have all left on an assassination mission. I don't feel my character has the authority or a reason to find or join the generals on their mission, and I feel it will be boring if I just say "I arrived at the camp, they weren't there, I'll wait for them to come back".
Image
Primum Non Nocere

User avatar
The Rookie
Grand Templar
Posts: 1332
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 3:34 am
Location: Australia

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#102 Post by The Rookie »

Maybe you could run into a NPC when you get back ? Something along the lines of "The generals have already left, but they told me to give this to you" *Hands overs map details*

Considering how fast you can move it wouldn't be super outlandish if you met up with them within a few hours. Especially if you write something in about having started returning as they were leaving. Meaning you'd been travelling the whole time the last post was happening/

Edit: Ok so my English skills are meagre at best. So much so that I honestly have no idea when this symbol is supposed to be used -> ; or how to form proper paragraphs. I sort of just wing it and hope for the best. If anyone has trouble reading my work, could they let me know so that I can fix my writing structure. Thanks,
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Image
Image

User avatar
MrFlyingAmoeba
Grand Templar
Posts: 2361
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 10:51 pm
Location: A place without enough coffee. Or coffee cake.

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#103 Post by MrFlyingAmoeba »

MidnightBlink and I are compiling a post to get him into the thick of things with everyone else, at least if only so he isn't alone.
Red Mage Statscoski wrote:That is not how we do things around here, buddy. First we have to argue incessantly over semantics.

User avatar
Twippit
Grand Templar
Posts: 1258
Joined: Wed Apr 13, 2011 4:22 pm
Location: At a table top in a remote part of WA playing a high-stakes game of strip DnD

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#104 Post by Twippit »

The Rookie wrote:Edit: Ok so my English skills are meager at best. So much so that I honestly have no idea when this symbol is supposed to be used -> ; or how to form proper paragraphs. I sort of just wing it and hope for the best. If anyone has trouble reading my work, could they let me know so that I can fix my writing structure. Thanks,
Most native English speakers son't know how to use the semicolon. Basically, it's used at the end of a sentence to connect a related sentence.

"Using a semicolon isn't hard; I once saw a party gorilla use it."

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon
Hey. Been a while. I'm on discord at Twippit#9645. See ya around sometime, maybe.

User avatar
JoshtheOverlander
Newbie
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Aug 19, 2015 5:39 am

Re: Inverted OOC (Sign-up, Rules, and Discussion)

#105 Post by JoshtheOverlander »

I hate to be making assumptions, but this forum seems to be dying.
Chicken Curry is the best thing EVER!!!

Post Reply