TRPG General Chat

12:01 AM

I'm not sure those are dependent clauses.

But my English is largely osmosised, so I'm not up on the terminology.

If it is, though, here's the rule:

> Don't put a comma after the main clause when a dependent (subordinate) clause follows it (except for cases of extreme contrast).

Also:

> Do not use commas to set off essential elements of the sentence.

Personally in my professional writing I like to use as few commas as possible, instead phrasing sentences so they're unnecessary for clarity. In casual writing like chat, though, I find commas better reflect my speaking voice.

SevenSidedDie

@BESW True in that example. Most cases I've seen here are actually dependent clauses. Those example there might just look superficially like dependent clauses (“than” and “then” tend to show up with a comma before them, in Polish-ed English writing).

@BESW This is about how I do it too. The best rule of thumb might just be: if in doubt, leave the comma out.

BESW

12:18 AM

I love punctuation, and have to bushcutter it aggressively in my professional work. Brenda Ueland is my role model for that kind of thing.

SevenSidedDie

@BESW And I add another book to my “to read” list!

BESW

"If You Want To Write" is pretty inspirational in how it's written, not just in its content.

> Now this free abundant use of [William Blake's] creative power made him one of the happiest men who ever lived. He wrote copious endless poetry (without the slightest hope or concern that it would ever be published). For a time he thought that if he wrote less he would do more engraving and painting. He stopped it for a month or more. But he found on comparison that he did more painting when he let out this inspired visionary writing.

Abraham Ray

what would be the game mechanics for the hiv virus?

BESW

(And Ueland herself is a trip. Her personality comes through in her writing very clearly.)

BESW

12:38 AM

@SevenSidedDie My three primary role models for writing are Brenda Ueland, Shoghi Effendi, and Margery Allingham. They're all very different, but each demonstrates great mastery and control and their personalities shine always though without getting in the way of the needs of the particular thing they're writing.

Miniman

1:04 AM

@AbrahamRay Why would there be any?

doppelgreener

a prerequisite for this conversation should probably be the person asking studies HIV and AIDS to understnad what they are, why they are different, and what they have to do with each other.

Miniman

Well, that depends on what the goal here is - hence the question.

doppelgreener

so that the topic can be handled seriously and hopefully with appropriate gravity, and so that -- if this is not simply a serious issue being trivialised -- we can be on a common understanding beyond "virus that makes people be sick now and dead eventually"

Miniman

For example, if the goal is to discourage in-game romances, studying viruses is pointless, because that's not a good tool for that goal.

doppelgreener

@Miniman well that too. there's tons of existing diseases in the material that make you sick now and might kill you later. we don't need to reference real-world HIV/AIDS (which can be a pretty sensitive topic) to have those things available.

Miniman

1:13 AM

Hence I think "why" is the fundamental issue right now.

Adeptus

1:27 AM

Once we have the "why" (and perhaps some real-world understanding), assuming you still want to go ahead, we'd need to consider which system it's being used in.

BESW

@Adeptus D&D 5e. See also this.

Adeptus

Ah

BESW

And we've had this sort of conversation with him several times in the past: denture slots, blindsight writing systems, etc., all coming back to needing to answer "What are you trying to do with this mechanic?"

BESW

2:19 AM

Last year for Christmas my group played Great Ork Gods and fought Santa Claus.

This year, I'm looking at running an InSpectres game where we try to bust the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.

Shalvenay

@BESW haha, it's the Elves that need a chance to kick Santa's rear end ;)

BESW

2:36 AM

Anybody got experience with InSpectres? Any tips for new GM/players?

nitsua60

3:13 AM

@AbrahamRay This question, like many of yours, has me reacting with "there clearly isn't any, and you've got to know that if you've opened a PHB because 5e clearly isn't concerned with that level of detail. So why aren't you just making one up on your own, rather than asking us what it is? Then, if you're having trouble making your own, please describe that trouble and come in with a question."

Shalvenay

hey there @nitsua60

nitsua60

The questions you've posed along these lines invite answers like "1 in six chance of 1d4 max HP loss every month, with a drop in constitution by 1 point any time a 4 comes up on that roll." Which might be a great mechanic for your question (I doubt it, but it might) but almost certainly provides no useful resource for future readers.

If, instead, the question is "I'm trying to model this disease because I want to achieve effect X, but I'm having trouble because mechanic Y which I created is causing problem Z. How can I better effect X and not cause Z?" then answers are going to pull in the expertise of people who can examine the interplay of objective, mechanic, complication. And answers that address your specific situation will still exemplify a thought process that promises to hold utility for future readers.

@Shalvenay hiya

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 how're things going?

nitsua60

@Shalvenay Good. Submitted thesis today. Defense is the last hurdle to clear.

BESW

@nitsua60 Grats!

nitsua60

3:19 AM

And the best defense is a good offense, so I'm going in swinging!

@BESW ty =)

Shalvenay

@nitsua60 cool!

nitsua60

@BESW At least 51% of that congratulations redounds to my wife, so I'll pass it along =)

BESW

That seems reasonable.

nitsua60

Also, played Microscope for the second time tonight.

BESW

How'd that go?

nitsua60

3:20 AM

New group to it.

Setting the palette and initial events/periods went well.

First scene required Dr. Mortens and a cat-person (uplift, not just a fancier of cats) as characters.

One player chose cat-person, another chose Dr. Morten's goldfish.

Reveal thoughts: cat-person player: I think from years around humans I understand language, but still haven't developed vocalization.

Miniman

@nitsua60 I hope you get a snake that is both small and non-venomous!

3

nitsua60

So, yes, in this group's first Microscope scene there was exactly one character with the power of speech.

Shalvenay

@Miniman o.O

nitsua60

@Miniman I... assume this is what passes for well-wishes during Greater Summer?

Miniman

mcsweeneys.net/articles/…

BESW

3:25 AM

@Miniman And this was his reference.

nitsua60

Oh, wow.

@BESW Actually, I'd forgotten that was a thing. I was just thinking that with Festivus coming up I should start things off by letting the committee know what I really think of them =)

Miniman

In case you've ever wondered, this is how Harry Potter was able to graduate despite not completing his final year. His defeat of the basilisk was considered to be sufficient to earn a Ph.D in lieu of writing anything.

BESW

TIL there are three Zorro films in planning/early development, and plans for a sequel to one of them that crosses over with Django Unchained.

The one with Django in its future is based on the novel by Isabelle Allende. Yey! It's produced by Sony. Erm.

Magician

...what. why.

trogdor

@nitsua60 I actually have a cousin who submitted her dissertation (I think that's what it was anyway) recently, and she said the same thing XD

Magician

3:32 AM

I suppose Zorro is at an intersection of superhero and swashbuckler.

BESW

So far as I can tell, Batman and Zorro have never teamed up.

Magician

There was a Django/Zorro official comics.

BESW

Dracula vs Zorro was a good two-issue story.

Magician

@BESW It's canon that the Waynes were returning home from a Zorro movie when they were killed. So Batman is inspired in part by Zorro.

BESW

@Magician And IRL, Batman's creators took inspiration from Zorro too--that's why it's a Zorro film in his backstory.

So I'd love to see Bruce's reaction to Zorro himself.

Magician

3:39 AM

There's neat fanart ^

BESW

Nice.

Magician

Wanted: Zorro vs zombies movie called 'Z'.

BESW

One of the planned Zorro films is going to be called Z, apparently.

But no hint of zombies yet.

Magician

Universal is trying to make a monster movie universe, right. I want to see a bitten at the end of Z Zorro be "saved" by Dr Frankenstein, which would let him be a brooding undead masked avenger in modern times.

Basically, a League of Extraordinary Monsters.

Shalvenay

4:57 AM

hey there @daze413

daze413

@Shalvenay ohai! just dropping by during my lunch break.

Shalvenay

@daze413 aah

daze413

Gonna play out of the abyss tonight with the group, still trying to decide on what to do with the rogue that's still tagging along ever since the player left the game

28

Q: My 5e character isn't very fun. How do I kill them off?

I'm playing an 8th level Valor bard, and she's basically The Load (warning: TVTropes link) at this point- high-combat campaign, so not a lot of charisma stuff to do, and really doesn't have any casting function that the others can't do better. Her motivation is to find and defeat challenges, and ...

Miniman

5:49 AM

So, this is a character whose player left?

Cos in OotA, it's pretty easy to lose people.

For example, if spoiler, hover for text is still with the party, he could spoiler.

Alternatively, the character could just spoiler.

daze413

6:32 AM

@Miniman yeah, he left because of real-life problems, though we secretly think he left because of this

also, how do you spoiler chat?

@Miniman the player that left was the macho guy who almost cried in that scene (I love DnD)

>! testing

BESW

[visible text](http://hyperlink_text "mouseover text")

daze413

@Miniman Spoiler is dead, they killed him in the place

@Miniman his character is remarkably the only one that hasn't ailment

I'm not even mad, that's amazing

@BESW Thank you!

BESW

You'll notice that miniman doesn't use mouseover text, he just changes up the hyperlink text.

daze413

6:53 AM

hmm.. they are going to an area tonight. Might be a good chance to inflict the ailment on his character as he steps in a trap

BESW

Hypertext still has to follow all the hypertext rules. That means no quotation marks.

daze413

missplaced a spacebar there

Miniman

10:41 AM

@BESW Because I'm lazy.

DForck42

2:39 PM

ohla

Anaphory

Eyup

DForck42

@Anaphory yuuuuuuuuup

Anaphory

How's life!

DForck42

@Anaphory not bad, excited for DND tonight

I'm like "we'll see if my bard survives another session!"

cause my bard has managed to survive, but we've had 2 pc deaths out of the last 3/4 sessions

Anaphory

I played Firefly yesterday, and now I need to think of what the party would have fun with.

DForck42

2:49 PM

@Anaphory neat

Anaphory

@DForck42 How big is the group?

I might have the chance to play D&D tonight, but I don't think I want much more D&D, in particular not organized play, in my life right now.

DForck42

@Anaphory dm, me - bard, vel - fighter/eldrict knight?, nix - rogue, ugh - barbarian, blah - ranger(with pet)

we have another fighter, but his life is in the blender right now so not sure if he'll show up

Anaphory

So two deaths out of five characters?

DForck42

@Anaphory yup

the barbarian player used to have a cleric, the rogue was a sorcerer

Anaphory

What edition are you playing? 5?

DForck42

2:58 PM

@Anaphory yes, 5e

Anaphory

3:11 PM

Maybe I should dive into and read 5e rules, to be more justifiably opinionated about D&D (or maybe change my opinion about it). But to start with, there is SO MUCH rules…

DForck42

@Anaphory the thing is, yes there are a lot of rules, but quite a large chunk of it is more about edge cases and handling when people want to do certain things

Anaphory

I know, it's just yet another thing putting me off reading them.

DForck42

also, a rather significant portion of the PHB is just for races, classes, and spells

nitsua60

@Anaphory What's your comparison? (I don't deny that D&D has lots of rules, and especially don't deny that they're horribly presented, just curious to what you're comparing it.)

DForck42

@nitsua60 they're not even REMOTELY as terrible as NWoD...

nitsua60

3:15 PM

never experienced it, though I've heard tell...

Anaphory

Fate/FAE, DW/AW, Mouse Guard, Inspectres are my go-to average-weight. Torchbearer, Firefly my heavy-weights. Midgard (German) and Hârnmaster the hugely crunchy ones I have seen in the past.

I've seen some WoD and related (mostly Scion) and yes, they are huge and badly structured and hardly balanced. But they are even less something I have an interest in than D&D, so they don't qualify for comparison.

nitsua60

@Anaphory Cool, thanks.

Anaphory

And I wasn't even talking about the content, just the impression that a 100-pg starter box, a 320pg GM rulebook and an equally long PHB make on me.

I should probably see whether someone will have a DMG flying around tonight and have a look inside, to see what it says it wants to achieve and what the rules suggest it does.

nitsua60

3:30 PM

@Anaphory Oh, sure. When D&D and its ilk were the only games in town, another game with 300pp. of rules was nothing. Now you've got to weigh it against games with 100pp., 30pp, 10pp, 3pp, and 200 words =)

Anaphory

I know, Midgard – with which I started – isn't that lightweight either!

nitsua60

@Anaphory As is true of all the D&D core products (I believe), I think the DMG is a better reference work than it is an instruction guide.

Anaphory

It's more that that's the way I usually go for judging an RPG. What does it say it wants to do, in particular what does it ask the GM to do, and what tools does it seem to provide that help or hinder that aim.

nitsua60

I think D&D's going to suffer adverse judgment: it doesn't really say what it wants to do.

(Branding itself "the world's greatest roleplaying game," <sarc>it's obviously your fault if you don't already know what it's trying to do.</sarc>)

Anaphory

@nitsua60 That's my prejudice. Let me see whether I can at least salvage some goodwill from reading what it actually asks the GM to do.

nitsua60

3:37 PM

@Anaphory There is a bunch of stuff I like in there--I don't want to dissuade you.

Anaphory

And if not, I'll at least have a well-founded, arguable opinion of why I don't (or hardly do) play D&D for the next time the topic comes up.

nitsua60

For instance, p.237's a must-read =)

Anaphory

@nitsua60 That's very specific, I hope I remember!

What are the other good bits?

nitsua60

@Anaphory It's just the one page I've cited enough that I don't look it up anymore!

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 the user:me in there refers back to my ID when i click that link

nitsua60

3:39 PM

@Anaphory I like their bits on encounter/locale/adventure building. To me it strikes a nice balance between beginner's-intro and give-a-guy-some-tables-to-roll-up-a-village-when-I-need-an-idea.

@doppelgreener Crap. Too late to edit it with user:23970.

this would be a working link, if you really care.

@Anaphory In the "workshop" sections they nicely sprinkle in some of the thinking behind things, not just presenting methods. (I.e. "here, let's create a subrace. We want it to do this, but not trample on that. We'll achieve those goals by using X.")

Which might seem like a minimal amount of "guiding," but that's a lot for D&D (in my experience).

Anaphory

Thanks for the input, I'll see how my belief changes. See you soon, off to cook and play now!

nitsua60

@Anaphory ciao/chow!

doppelgreener

@Anaphory i have similar perspective and D&D is pretty enormous. it has a vested interest in printing as much rules and material as possible, because it makes people buy the manuals. if they produced a reliable generic framework that enabled the players to resolve every situation on their own with confidence... well, they wouldn't sell enormous amounts of supplementary material and extra rules, like Fate doesn't.

DForck42

@doppelgreener meh, there's the SRD for both 3.5 and 5e

which are enough to let you do 90% of dnd without the extra fluff

one of the bigger premises of 5e was to make it known that it's ok to modify the game, you don't have to strickly stick with what's in the books

there's a section in the dmg that talks about just that

doppelgreener

3:56 PM

@DForck42 this doesn't change much about what i said. there's a zone where players have enough confidence in their own system mastery to solve arbitrary situations themselves; the amount of Q&A on here dedicated to D&D speaks to the fact it is not in that zone.

DForck42

and WOTC has made good by not printing splat books like they did in the past, rather focusing on story-driven content

doppelgreener

@Anaphory i'd break D&D down into this to simplify it: it's a game fundamentally about combat, which involves moving and attacking for a number of turns until there's no fighting left to be done. understand the combat rules. there's races and classes, which you combine into a single character, which participate in combat. they also have skills, which are worth breezing over to get the gist of.

If you've got a class they probably introduce a subsystem (like the magic system), read about it in the class description and the relevant chapter. If you want to figure out multiple subsystems, read about those.

Various editions of D&D have a frankly intimidating amount of building options in the core materials alone, many of which just suck (but you won't be able to know what's what). I know D&D 3.5e was one of those editions. D&D 4e was not, I would imagine D&D 5e is not so much.

DForck42

@doppelgreener I don't think that's a fair assessment. dnd is one of the most widely known and adopted games, and new people learn all of the time. THAT is what generates a lot of questions on here. those that have mastered the system are the ones that answer those questions with good answers

doppelgreener

@DForck42 it's a function of both popularity and the sheer amount of confusion D&D can create. i have played many games for which there were slim to no questions i could ask even when i went hunting about them, and the questions we do have are mastery-level questions, not basics of "i have no idea how this thing in the game even works".

DForck42

@doppelgreener I still dont' quite understand how fate works... the Dresden files rpg books were so terrible...

doppelgreener

4:07 PM

@DForck42 the dresden files are one of the most enormously crunchy versions of Fate and I am sure BESW -- who's read it -- would have plenty to say about its problems. (of which it has a lot.)

DForck42

@doppelgreener I think THE BIGGEST issue, is that you literally had to read every side bar between characters to get important information

doppelgreener

Fate Core is the first release in over a decade that presents the rules system without fluff, and it comes with a minimalised version called Fate Accelerated, the printed book of which is around 30 pages. Both Core & Accelerated have been adapted into further settings like Masters of Umdaar or Atomic Robo from there, which is Fate's version of splat I guess -- "here's a specialised set of rules to emulate this specific kind of story."

@DForck42 Yeah there are some way important things tucked away in small spaces in the DFRPG books IIRC.

DForck42

I think dnd's biggest issue is that people want it to do semi-realistic combat without all the super number-crunching and tape measuring that comes with actual wargaming, like warhammer. so they abstracted and simplified a lot of physics, which causes a lot of weird peculiarities between how the real world works vs what the rules say

and a lot of people, for fear of being wrong, HAVE to either look up the rules for each context, or ask for clarification on websites, rather than just roll with it

THAT is one of the reasons why Chris Perkins is an amazing DM, he just rolls with whatever his players throw at him and doesn't get bogged down in the rules

doppelgreener

4:24 PM

@DForck42 what you described is definitely a thing, but i feel like people feel that pressure because they see D&D as a very well-built well-balanced system in which everything is made very deliberately the way it is, and there's a lot of small changes that can create small or large power differences, and players may not feel confident calling those shots because they weren't educated in how the process works, which in earlier editions was just the designer doing whatever.

i gather from older players that in the AD&D days people felt confident to just do whatever, and in D&D 3e that sort of changed?

nitsua60

@doppelgreener Certainly in my experience of the "old" days (B/X, BECMI, 1e, even early 2e) everyone I knew was cool with just winging it.

doppelgreener

right.

nitsua60

@doppelgreener Don't forget there's also a selection bias at play: we're seeing the people who have those questions, and those who enjoy them. We're blind to whatever proportion of the D&D play-population either doesn't have such questions--"wings it" and has fun doing so--or don't want to discuss them online =)

DForck42

@nitsua60 exactly. I'm probably the only person sitting at my table that even knows rpg.se exists

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 I am sure there's an awful lot of it. Nevertheless we do have information on what people ask about.

DForck42

4:31 PM

some of them MIGHT go on reddit, or other forums, but not rpg.se

doppelgreener

We're not a census of the population, but we are a statistical sample.

nitsua60

@doppelgreener oh yeah. And no question that the game creates the space for the questions we see, where some games just don't.

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 yeah. D&D is not The Worst Game Ever (it's certainly not my thing though), but it does have flaws and that space it creates is one of them.

DForck42

@doppelgreener still better than NWoD...

doppelgreener

@DForck42 i don't have much knowledge of nWoD, myself

DForck42

4:47 PM

@doppelgreener so, to give you an idea, the roll to do anything is 1d10 + additional stuff. the number of successes is then that number, - 5, then / 3 rounded down. so you get 1 success at 8, another at 11, another at 14, etc. this is typically compared to a contested roll, and the difference of successors determines the winner

while I was able to spell that out for you, the main nWoD book takes about 10 pages in an unreadable font

doppelgreener

ouch, that sounds unpleasant

DForck42

@doppelgreener yup, and that was just for general conflicts. trying to get anything magic based was just painful

have you played yugioh? cause essentially yugioh has individual ruling for specific card interations, rather than magic: tg that has a core system in place for handling interactions

nWoD is like yugioh, where DnD would be more comparable to Magic

doppelgreener

also i want to clarify i'm not trying to say, myself, that D&D is better or worse than any particular game. Anaphory was concerned by certain parts of the game, which exist and are tied to flaws the game has. Games might have the same flaws in better or worse extents, but different games are generally about different things, and my understanding is nWoD is generally about different themes than D&D.

DForck42

@doppelgreener ahh, yeah I may have misinterpreted that you were generally arguing that dnd is the worst

but, frankly, nWoD IS the worst...

doppelgreener

5:07 PM

@DForck42 that title is hotly contested

@DForck42 i am definitely not of the opinion it's the worst, and i enjoyed D&D 4e in particular very much.

DForck42

@doppelgreener lol

cant see it at work, what do they have at the top currently?

diego

@DForck42 F.A.T.A.L., RaHoWa, and HYBRID are currently tied for 'first'

DForck42

@diego never even heard of them

diego

From that site:
"The list of the worst RPGs of all time is consistently topped by an unholy trinity: F.A.T.A.L., Racial Holy War (RaHoWa), and HYBRID. Two of these are notorious for their sheer offensiveness, regardless of their poor design: F.A.T.A.L., which has been called "the date rape RPG, without dating" and has a stat for a character's "anal circumference"; and the white supremacist RaHoWa set in a post-apocalyptic world where the PCs hunt down and kill racial minorities. HYBRID, while also given to racist and sexist ranting, is more noted for its utter incomprehensibility and is app…

DForck42

@diego weird

diego

5:19 PM

@DForck42 Very, the only one of those I had previously heard of was FATAL, and I really could have done without learning about the rest of those...

DForck42

@diego yup

imho, I wouldn't count any of the three, they all sounded like they were made with the intention fo being weird, rather than actually being played

that's like scraping the bottom of the bottom on steam's free games

diego

I think FATAL would count since it has actually been played, the others I would agree probably shouldn't

DForck42

heh

what'd I'd really like, is a site that does extensive reviews of rpg's and rank them on some metrics

doppelgreener

@DForck42 you would be surprised; all signs point to they were intended for play.

they're not merely esoteric rules structures made for kicks but exercises writers genuinely saw as good games for people to play in.

we actually had questions from someone here who was playing a similarly offensive game to RaHoWa - MYFAROG

DForck42

like: complexity, material needs, time investment, "crunchiness", etc.

doppelgreener

5:25 PM

myfarog is not on that list but is essentially a white nationalist RPG intended to indoctrinate people into norse white nationalism ideals, and it is extremely racist

DForck42

@doppelgreener oh my...

@doppelgreener O_O

doppelgreener

we had a meta question about whether we should even allow questions about MYFAROG

DForck42

5:45 PM

@doppelgreener interesting

I appreciate the approach @SevenSidedDie took

doppelgreener

me too

Baskakov_Dmitriy

9:22 PM

Reading about "My Guy" syndrom

Still can't get why people say it's bad.

Pretty much any situation where it is blamed could probably be fixed if some player would think a bit of OOC and instead of roleplaying allow his team to RP, but the actual problem is in GM setting things up wrongly.

BESW

9:41 PM

@Baskakov_Dmitriy That wouldn't be My Guy Syndrome, then, would it? MGS is when a player attempts to abdicate responsibility for their actions by blaming the fictional character they control.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Let's say, I have a character with Individualist Nature (speaking about World Of Darkness). My guy wouldn't like to collaborate

If others want me to help them, and I as a player clearly understand that, as I do not consider myselft to be an individualist in my real life.

...I would still do as my character would.

BESW

If collaboration is necessary for the game, you either need to figure out how he's going to collaborate in spite of himself (and if you can't, ask the group for help) or recognise that you've designed a character that's incompatible with the game the group wants to play and either change the character or talk to the group about changing the game.

You created a character who is reluctant to help in a game that needs him to help.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Would you change character mid-session?

BESW

(This is a problem specifically in many White Wolf games, I've noticed, where teamwork often has to be imposed externally by forces under the GM's control.)

@Baskakov_Dmitriy If it was crashing the game? Yes.

The first responsibility is to play a game everyone can enjoy.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

As mentioned above -- the player can probably help the situation

Any player may bring up such a suggestion (to change character)

But it's GM's fault in the first place not to make incompatible characters/adventures

BESW

9:46 PM

MGS is when a player is making choices which detract from the enjoyment of the game and blaming their character.

A GM can reasonably ask players to create characters that will work together for the story the group wants to tell.

MGS is about a player claiming they don't have control over their character and so game-disrupting behaviour by the character is out of the player's control.

What you're describing is not MSG if the player is taking responsibility for the actions of the character.

And frankly, blaming the GM for not catering to a player's maverick concept which doesn't mesh with the kind of game everyone's agreed to play (like not being a team player in a teamwork game) is silly.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

So if I say "Yes, I behaved like an asshole because my character is an asshole, and I was roleplaying", no MGS?

BESW

If that statement allows for challenges to the player's choice, yes. If it's a deflection onto the character, no.

MGS is used to shut down conversations and criticisms with a false appeal to authority.

You may find abused gamer syndrome useful.

Making the Tough Decisions speaks to it a bit also--in particular, "Decide to react differently" is the counterpoint to MGS.

MGS is usually characterised by a player insisting that there's only one possible choice their character could make in a situation. It becomes a problem when that choice is making the game not be fun for people, but the player can't see around it to any other option.

Miniman

10:44 PM

@Baskakov_Dmitriy There's other factors that determine whether something is MGS or not, but that certainly sounds exactly like MGS. A textbook case, even.

BESW

Yeah. If in-game verisimilitude is a justification to be a jerk to IRL meatspace friends, that's probably MGS or something similar.

It's about ruining things for everyone else and then claiming some kind of moral high ground because of Roleplaying.

If that's not happening (other people at the table aren't upset, or characterisation/RP isn't being invoked as a defense to justify upsetting them), it's not MSG.

That is, there are groups for whom MSG is an alien concept because they value characterisation and "immersive" roleplaying over thematic coherence, plot arcs, and other table-level considerations about the way the game is played.

And there are players who make upsetting choices because of their characters' traits, but don't try to defend or justify those choices by claiming the character forced them to do it.

Miniman

10:59 PM

Psst...MSG is a different (although arguably equally bad) thing.

BESW

Hm?

I feel like it spent so much time saying what it's not that I'm kind of unsure what it is in some places--especially on the GM side of things.

Miniman

@BESW Monosodium glutamate.

BESW

@Miniman Ah, yes. Another artificial flavouring.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

11:30 PM

@Miniman OK, let's say my character in Vampire: The Masquerade LARP frenzies near his friends. They said something wrong.

What would my character do? He would pull whatever melee he has and charge

Miniman

@Baskakov_Dmitriy I don't really know what that means.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

As I like to play Gangrel characters, long story short, he might actually kill some PC

OK. To make it simple, there is a situation where the "inner beast" of your character comes out and your character starts attacking everyone

In tabletop it may mean that GM controls it

Miniman

So, you're saying your character can be triggered by saying specific things to attack anyone in the vicinity?

Baskakov_Dmitriy

In LARP you have to attack your allies yourself

Yes, like most characters in this world

(World of Darkness, vampires in particular)

BESW

@Baskakov_Dmitriy It has nothing to do with what your character does. It has everything to do with how your choice interacts with the group's goals and how you justify it.

MGS is a table-level thing about how you interact with your fellows.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

11:33 PM

My choice may be to really attack everything in my vicinity, possibly actually wiping my group away

Miniman

If that's the case, in groups I've played in, the appropriate thing to do would be to inform everyone what will cause a frenzy so that they only trigger one when it would be a fun thing.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Or to to roleplay weakly

Miniman

But if you're looking at TPKing your party, you should probably find another option.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

@Miniman It's a common thing. But sometimes shit happens, and you are somehow triggered into frenzy

Then, if you are a combat-oriented character, a very real situation is TPKing my party.

That's what my character would really do.

BESW

If that's an expectation of the game going in, then it's something everyone agreed to play.

MGS need not apply.

Miniman

11:35 PM

It might just mean saying "Hey guys, if you do this, I'm liable to try to kill you. Is that ok, or should we back up a little?"

Baskakov_Dmitriy

During LARP?

When you are supposed to just mark that you are in frenzy and actually start the TPK?

Of course, it would piss off your friends

doppelgreener

dude

Miniman

shrug I know very little about LARP, but my understanding is that it allows for out-of-character communication.

doppelgreener

hold up a moment

you are not listening

BESW

If you're in a LARP where that's the standard behaviour, it's not MGS to do that thing people expect.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

11:37 PM

OK, rereading things from the start

doppelgreener

my guy syndrome is about justifying yourself as being out of control of your actions because it's what your character would do

that is all

that is it, that is the whole extent of my guy syndrome

there is no "but my character did this"; MGS doesn't care. there is no "what if I handle it like this"; MGS doesn't care. MGS cares about one and only one thing: you are suggesting you have zero control over your character's disruptive actions because it's the kind of thing they'd do, and absolving responsibility to choose any other course of action.

MGS does not propose subtleties of interaction; MGS does not propose anything regarding how the player or other players handle it outside that scope.

whether someone berserks or not may be MGS or may not be. MGS has no opinion on the matter until we get their justification of why they would berserk or, alternately, why they would not.

MGS is a "syndrome" because of the occasions when it is disruptive and decreases peoples' enjoyment of the game and makes everyone have a bad time, but the players in control have no choice in the matter because it's what their guys would do. It is completely legitimate to do what your guy would do when it is not a problem and is, in fact, un-fun for everybody plus yourself. MGS tackles the scenario where it becomes not fun for yourrself or anyone and you are absolving character control.

damn, i missed an edit iwndow on that. I mean: It is completely legitimate to do what your guy would do when it is not a problem and is, in fact, fun for everybody plus yourself. Not "un-fun".

Shalvenay

@BESW -- one thing I've noted though is that your language around MGS says "the story" and "the group". While this is true when operating at table-scale, how do you manage in a large-scale situation where there are many story-threads and many possibly-overlapping groups? ISTM not invoking MGS in such an environment strongly risks turning your character into well...a blob of character-bits, any of which may or may not mesh with any other to form any sort of coherent vision.

doppelgreener

My Guy Syndrome is interested in identifying an exact particular scenario where nobody is having fun due to in-character interactions and people are absolving themselves of the responsibility to have their characters act any differently "because it's what my guy would do".

BESW

→ 15 messages moved to Not a bar, but plays one on TV

@Shalvenay See Greener's statements if mine are unclear. MGS is about absolving responsibility for causing a problem.

doppelgreener

You're asking us about subtleties like "that dude rages" and "it's unpleasant for everybody" but MGS doesn't care. MGS is interested in a particular cause of that happening and is a useful way to analyse and deconstruct that particular cause. MGS does not deal with end-results until someone absolves responsibility over their character doing something un-fun with the justification "it's what my guy would do".

BESW

11:45 PM

Anything which looks like MGS but is not absolving responsibility for causing a problem is not MGS.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

@doppelgreener OK. Let's say, a situation appears in the game, when rules tell me to berserk and try to kill everyone I see. I can behave strictly by the rules, 100% pissing my mates off if I succeed in TPK (and I have good chances to succeed). I may (on purpose) fight in a bad way (don't actively spam attacks etc.), but it would be obvious, and as a GM I would call it on the border of breaking the rules.

Bad RP may actually cause many problems itself by breaking the spirit of the game. So how should one behave?

BESW

In a way which is supportive of the group's well-being.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Break the rules, ruin the spirit of World of Darkness?

Miniman

We can't tell you how you "should" behave. It depends what's important to your group.

BESW

MGS is a description of one narrow case of poor behaviour. You're changing the subject now.

doppelgreener

11:48 PM

@Baskakov_Dmitriy MGS doesn't care. MGS would have input on the situation if you had the option to behave any differently but said "well, my character would do this, and I can't change what my character would do". That is nowhere in your description of that scenario -- you are describing it as if your character could not do anything else. That is not MGS. That is rules creating an un-fun scenario.

As you've described it, nothing in that scenario has any ties to MGS at all whatsoever.

Shalvenay

@BESW what I'm saying is that the classical solution fails to scale -- in a large scale environment, the choice between maintaining a coherent character even in the face of "this isn't fun at the moment" and trying to please every group you're involved in at the price of having your character devolve into a pile of incoherency (i.e. you have a plot-meat-puppet not a character) becomes more and more Hobsonian as time goes on and scale increases

doppelgreener

MGS is a lens for a particular kind of problem. There are ten thousand potential problems in RPGs; MGS is a way to identify one of them. Not every problem that has traits in common with MGS is MGS. (e.g. your character does a thing that is unfun)

BESW

@Shalvenay Then perhaps you're applying the wrong tool to the problem. Not all descriptions of RPG phenomenon, or advice for good RPG behaviour, are applicable to all RPG contexts.

doppelgreener

MGS is a lens that helps us name, identify, and deconstruct one particular pattern of behaviour. It may assist us with identifying other patterns of behaviour by mere fact we are more knowledgeable about problem behaviours, but it only exists as a lens for identifying one of them.

Miniman

@Shalvenay Also, btw, that's not a Hobson's choice. That's a choice between two options, a Hobson's choice is between something and nothing.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

11:51 PM

MGS is behaving in a way that actively harms fun of other players just because your character would do something like that. Yes?

As Shalvenay noted, if you often decide to do otherwise, you actually slowly deconstruct your character.

(And if I got him right)

Shalvenay

@BESW perhaps. ISTM that the prime solution at scale is to simply accept that at large scale, we can't please everyone all the time, and the "un-fun" parts have important roles to play in the game as well

Baskakov_Dmitriy

Sometimes even one action in the "otherwise" way is enough.

Miniman

@Baskakov_Dmitriy If this is coming up often, your character is probably not well-suited to your game.

Baskakov_Dmitriy

So again -- I think it's pure GM's fault if he allowed incompatible characters. Because players don't know which situations will they see

doppelgreener

@Baskakov_Dmitriy No. Incorrect.

Shalvenay

11:54 PM

@Baskakov_Dmitriy what I"m describing is peculiar to large-scale environments where you are interacting with many different groups of players and many different stories while utilizing the same character and world-context for all these interactions. At pen-and-paper TTRPG scale, it's not a problem

doppelgreener

MGS is behaving in a way that actively harms fun of other players because your character would do something like that... and the player asserts they have no control over the character's behaviour and can do nothing to change it because it is what their character would do and they cannot change that. This is a false notion to operate under beacuse the player is the absolute controller of their character's actions, and can always choose to have them act differently.

2

BESW

@doppelgreener Note again for clarity: this is uniquely different from a rule dictating an action.

Shalvenay

@doppelgreener the ultimate answer to that is "You can always reformulate your character"

doppelgreener

@BESW Yes. "My character behaves this un-fun way because the rules say so" is not MGS. "My character behaves this un-fun way because it's what they'd do and I'm just making them do their thing and that's all I can do" is MGS, but the difference is all of why it is MGS.

@Shalvenay You don't even need to reformulate them. Real life people make apparently inconsistent decisions all the time. (Because it's still consistent with what's inside them, and human beings are additonally masters of having self-contradictory internal motivations.)

BESW

Creativity is a watchword when combating MGS on a personal level. Everybody has choices, and finding ways for a PC to make fun choices is an important part of play. Again, Making the Tough Decisions talks about that.

doppelgreener

11:58 PM

I say that interpeting "reformulate" as "make your character wholly again from the ground up." Which is an option! I have done that with my own characters multiple times to re-arrive at results that are consistent with behaviours they have taken so far but enabled them to take more fun actions for the game.

Miniman

@Baskakov_Dmitriy Sorry, no. If it's your character and you control their actions, you have responsibility for anything and everything they do.

Transcript for