Robyn

Re: Gritty Vigilante \ Criminal Adventure Formulas Replenishing the character's resources. They're starving, they can't get a job, and they're morally opposed to stealing. Well. Some of them are.

Re: Heat of the Moment

Re: Heat of the Moment

Re: Heat of the Moment

Re: Heat of the Moment Interesting. They say that, in a roleplaying game, there are no winners or losers, or that everyone is a winner, or something to that effect; I wonder if one of our victory conditions is "The power to exert a control over our lives that we lack in reality." Have you ever been to an arcade and played - no, wait. Bad question. Let me rephrase: Have you ever been to an arcade and seen someone playing pinball? Someone who is really good at it? Well, in The Dying Earth, your characters are those balls. The popularity of the game, however, seems to attest to their success in observing "Hey, wow, look at how everyone can lose when the dice go against them . . . you know, I bet we could make this fun ", and making a game out of it. There's an odd freedom to be found in knowing that fortunes can depart as suddenly as they've arrived, and that your character's convictions can be reversed in the space of a moment by an adequately eloquent appeal

Re: Heat of the Moment :cringe: We have vastly different styles, then. I could not take such an approach without ending up with indistinguishable characters, all the same as me. I don't have fun playing with the people who, even if their character is a cleric, they're playing that fighter - always the same personality, just a different name - and I don't think of it as any fun to play me in the games. I get to play myself all the time, for Pete's sake. I'm boring. Let me be someone else for a change.

Re: Heat of the Moment Whereas I agree with you [Wait, what?] Being immersed, in-character, as opposed to blending (or merging) the character and the player, requires a sort of mental "shielding", or compartmentalization: you need to keep your own thoughts and feelings and desires, apart from the character's, which means "separate from the area of my mind that is handling the character". Being indistinguishable means being able to filter out the parts that are uniquely "you", not changing the character to be identical to its player. When I have successfully suppressed myself this way, and there are only two parts of my mind awake - the part emulating the character, and the part intercepting perception and action to translate what the players around me say to what my character would perceive, and vice versa so I don't act out my character's actions - I experience immersive roleplaying.

Re: Heat of the Moment

Re: Heat of the Moment Do you write in the first person? If you've ever written stories from multiple POV's (for scenes where not every character is present), you can understand the "story that all players can share" from the reader's perspective; the story that you're writing for them contains more information than is available from any one character's direct perception.

Re: Heat of the Moment

Re: Heat of the Moment Is there some setting that will let me fix how, in replies, anything inside the quote tags of the post I'm replying to are omitted? Or we could agree that it matches our desires for a realistic recreation, even if it isn't "fun". You acknowledge, then, that a smaller section of that group (the individual) would also be unable to perfectly reconstruct what once was? What you seem to be describing is the reverse of role-playing . . . where the characters act out the role of their players. I'm thinking of RP'ing as emulation to the point where we can extract their desires and emotions, house them in our imaginations and in our real bodies, then interact directly with each other as if we were the characters. I would counter that the goth types are enjoying how miserable their character is; much humor, after all, comes from bad things happening to other people. Unless you meant the characters, not their players, when you said "goth types"

Re: The Life And Death Of . . . That was why I put it in the "Dark" Champions forum I wouldn't call it random, I was here last night and then I started this thread, and about an hour later, viola, a realistic take on the Superman Creation Myth

Re: Heat of the Moment The player is describing his character's internal motivations to the other players, not just the GM (as would be applicable in cases where the PC is very secretive, and does not allow other people to have even the slightest hint as to their feelings or motivations). This can also be done through "not going off to a separate room with the GM" when you're plotting, in campaigns where the PC's play at intrigue against each other. The "collaborative play" is both a cooperative technique and a protective mechanism. The first comes from realizing that, as a single person, there's no way you can fully understand and simulate another person (your PC), so, in the same way as players might work together to build a base for the whole group, the other players are tapped as resources to provide insight and advice on how the character thinks and feels. The second comes after you wake up the morning after a game session and realize that you were so drunk last night, you totally screwed up your character's plots, mannerisms, everything. When correct emulation is the goal, and other players know your character almost as well as you do, it becomes appropriate to ask them to keep you in line if your own desires or state of mind affect your ability to accurately roleplay the character. I consider it a mark of good roleplaying that I can distinguish between ideas for what my character could do that come from my knowledge of the character, and ideas that come from my own desire to see something interesting happen in the game. I consider it a mark of good control that I can keep myself from pursuing the latter, unless in line with the latter (interesting is still good, just make sure that you can develop the appropriate connections between the character and their actions as you report them). As for a "mechanistic" kind of play, my campaign setting currently uses a melding of the modern with The Dying Earth: the philosophy of its inhabitants is that, with the sun going out any day now, little is of grand importance and they may as well live for the moment, accepting what comes. Since my campaign is set in the modern day, though, the sun is still at a healthy age, so I've come up with different reasons why everyone accepts that their fates are but twigs tossed on the wind of chance. I also use the mechanics from The Dying Earth, and their main function is to govern persuasion! The main arena of contention (or "combat") is conversation, where PC's attempt to talk each other and the NPC's into or out of their possessions, contracts, etcetera. If an NPC makes their roll, and you fail yours, you are then convinced, and must roleplay your character as if they truly believe what they were told.

Has anyone ever tried to actually stat any of the main characters? I can't see anything less than a VPP for the Maze abilities, but one of the things Simon has remarked upon in interviews is how he had seen powerful characters always done badly in that they got out of hand, or something, and he wanted to keep his own balanced by limiting what they could do, with how much energy they had. So, it seems that they would need an "Only for VPP" END reserve, and each power would have to be paid for from that reserve based on Active Points, no reduction from this (i.e., no taking Advantages or Limitations that affect the Endurance cost of the power).

Re: Heat of the Moment If you mean, forcing it on all the PC's - no. I'm thinking more of something like random weather determination; does the rain cause a delay in anyone's schedule? Just a little something that would, occasionally, strike at all characters; not all at once, of course, but adding a mechanic of Global scope to reflect how, sometimes, human emotion can overwhelm all rationality. It wouldn't be just Berzerk/Enraged, either; in the Heat of the Moment, you could become overtaken by Passion and do something with that lady (villain) which, umm, you really shouldn't have

Spring of 1934: "Oh look, Jonathan - it's a shooting star!" Martha exclaimed, pointing out the side windowframe of their battered old truck (the glass windows having long since been lost). Jonathan quickly braked the vehicle, not bothering to park it. The few travellers to pass through their corner of nowhere never used the long road going to their farm, and in any case there was hardly room for one vehicle to fit through. Stepping out of their truck, the middle-aged couple watched in awe as the bright speck moved downward across the evening horizon. "Naw, I reckon it's a meteor." ventured Jonathan after several moments. "It looks like it's heading awfully close," fretted Martha, but "Don't worry," her husband of thirty years reassured her "we haven't done anything bad enough to make God want to hit us with a meteor." Getting closer, the speck became a streak of light, that arrowed over their shoulders a moment before a low rumble went through the earth where they were standing. Turning around, Jonathan yelled in consternation "Dawgonit! That's our corn field on fire!", and ran for the truck, his wife right behind him. They both knew that if the fire was serious, they had to control the spread before it ruined this year's crops. Pulling in close, they saw only a few small fires, already dying, and a large mysterious object still ablaze. "Watch out, Martha." he warned, stepping close to investigate. Carefully, she disembarked from the vehicle and began to explore around the side of the object. "It must be the meteor," Jonathan commented, looking the object up and down, "but I've never seen one so smooth." Martha called out from the other side of the meteor "Oh, be honest, Jonathan Kent - when have you ever seen a meteor in your - oh! My goodness, there's a baby in there!". "What?!" Jonathan cried out, alarmed. He was worried for his wife; they'd both been wanting a child of their own so badly for the last few decades, but the Lord had never seen fit to grace them with one. If Martha was hallucinating that she saw a baby in the meteor, she might burn herself trying to save it! Rushing around the perimeter as fast as his tired old legs could take him, he was startled to see Martha emerging from an opening in the other side of the object, carrying what appeared to be an honest-to-God human child in her arms. "Oh, the poor baby!" Martha exclaimed, "Let me take him back to the truck." Jonathan helped set the baby safely in the truck where it couldn't wander off, and then sternly took Martha aside. "Now, you know we have to give this boy to the orphanage . . . " he began. Martha interrupted him, pleadingly "Oh, Jonathan? Couldn't we keep him, please? We've been trying for ever so long, and I just feel that the Lord has granted him to us out of His kindness, to raise as our very own . . . even if he isn't." Jonathan glanced about, thinking about it. Suddenly a creaking noise from the truck interrupted their discussion. Glancing back, they saw the most miraculous sight: the baby had stepped out of their vehicle, and was lifting the back end overhead with one hand! He gurgled and giggled happily at his accomplishment, looking at the Kents with a delighted smile on his cherubic face. Martha screamed and burst into tears, burying her face in her hands. "Monster!" she shrieked through her fingers, sobbing, "Oh dear Lord, God has sent us a monster!". Jonathan was pale, but he took her by the shoulders and said "Now, Martha - you know that isn't true. Why, God would never send us anything like that for all our faith. No, it's plain to me that this is something special." he finished. "Wha-what could that be?" asked his wife, glancing up, sniffling. "Why, it's obvious;" Jonathan replied confidently, "Satan himself sent the little devil!", and, striding forward, he set about to rid the world of the greatest conceivable menace. Martha stayed back and watched him, shivering. My, but he was so brave to go into danger like that! One blow, two - Jonathan grunted in pain and stepped back, surreptitiously rubbing his toes. Then he kneeled in close and reached out to wring the young creature's neck. At first it seemed like nothing would happen, then the baby's face twisted up in pain, and he flung out one arm, sending Jonathan flying 20 feet to land on some flattened cornstalks. Shrieking in pain and grief again, Martha hurried to her husband's side. Lying on the cornstalks, his body looked broken. Weeping, Martha tried to straighten out his body for the final rest, while behind her the baby continued playing Lift the Truck. As she cleared out the rocks underneath, she gasped in amazement to find a glowing green stone. Lifting it higher to examine it, she suddenly heard a crash behind her as their truck hit the ground. Looking back, she saw the baby lying on the ground, apparently helpless. Though she realized it might be a trick to lure her closer, guard down, she was too consumed with rage and sorrow to care, so she charged at the baby with the stone still in her hands, and, raising it overhead, brought it smashing down. Again. And again. Until there was just a bloody smear on the ground, where once lay a small child. Summer of 1934: Jerry Siegel paced the floor restlessly. He needed to come up with an exciting character if he and his friend, Joe Schuster, were to find publication in more than their school paper. Sighing, he decided to retreat to his favorite reading, science fiction. Picking up his purchases of the day, something fell out . . . "Tabloids." Jerry thought in disgust, but his eyes were caught by the front headlines: Alien spaceship lands on farmers' cornfield to deliver Anti-Christ! Martha Kent (53) is being hailed as a hero by local farmers, after she heroically took it upon herself to slay the Anti-Christ, sent to their cornfield by the Devil in the form of a small baby. Her husband, Jonathan Kent (55) died battling the Anti-Christ; Martha is collecting signatures for a petition to the Vatican to have him nominated for sainthood. Of her own accomplishments, Martha is remarkably humble; "I only hope," she says, "That any God-abiding person, in my situation, would do the same." Full story on page 3. Excited at first, Jerry's spirits quickly fell. The story contained exactly the kind of heroism that people liked to read during the Depression, and he felt inspired by it - as if he could use it to breathe new life into his current project - but it would only be good for a single panel . . . unless . . . his hopes rose again. What if it was the baby that was the hero? It couldn't be a baby, exactly, but what if it grew up and became . . . Jerry Siegel paused, struck by a vision. A vision that would become legendary. A vision of . . . Superman.

It's all very well and good to fantasize about how you're going to go up to the villain, force him to his knees, cuff him, and drag him off to jail amid the cheers of a joyous city; but, after a long fight that you barely live through, come face to face at least with the nemesis you've chased for so long, that has visited atrocity after barbarous atrocity on your friends and the innocent citizens . . . all you really want is to smash his face in. The question I've come here to ask is, do you? I want to put in a campaign mechanic that will threaten, at inconvenient times, to overwhelm a PC with emotion. How strong of a (NND, I'm assuming, since it is, after all, the character's own desires) Mental/Presence attack should this be, for various influential factors?

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

Re: WWYCD: Omelas That's assuming you're given the choice . . . And really, that's what sort of crisis stories like this are really designed to make us confront: that, sure, while we would never enter into such a situation by choice, we aren't always able to avoid unpleasant situations. Informed of such a possibility, some of us react by saying "Well, 99.9% of us will never need to, so I won't worry about this.", and going on with their lives. And some of us react by thinking "Gee, that 0.1% has to be someone, it might turn out to be me.", and take responsibility for that potential.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER I am not reading this thread. And this shall be my only post on it. Ever. __________________ Robyn, who has just read through 2,500 posts, and does not care to repeat that times 5

Re: WWYCD: Omelas I think the problem may not be quite so much "different tolerance levels", as that some of us have already exhausted our "suspension of disbelief" reserves bringing about a change that serves our own convenience more than any "devotion to reality" ideal.

Re: WWYCD: Omelas Sorry about the misunderstanding, then. From the quote you used, and the way you placed that part in the same sentence as the justification of your criticism of the story, every clue of context was pointing towards it as another part of your argument. If you'd put it in a separate paragraph or even just a different sentence (all for itself), I would have assumed you meant it as a stand-alone statement. The scenario for Omelas is starting to form in my mind . . . no, not the city, the creation of the city. The quest for a perfectly innocent child, and, at the end, the devil laughing at the hero, asking him if he can truly give up after he's come all this way, and it will have all been for nothing . . . when all he needs to do, now, to finally achieve his Quest, is to sacrifice that child. Stories like this exaggerate the scale of the "moral conflict", to try enhancing visibility, but it's also interesting to try them alongside a more commonplace tale, in case people's responses are based more off their own Ideal of themselves (and how they'd like to behave, or to think/believe they'd behave) due to the awareness of how their reputation may be affected by their choices. I think the Vorlons sent JTR to test Sheridan & Delenn this way, once. Such a story, with weak and short-term consequences and benefits both ways, could be; you are stopping by the mini-mart on your way home to pick up some pills for your headache. Spend the last of your money on medicine, or give it to the homeless man sitting outside so he can go buy some food?

Re: WWYCD: Omelas If only you'd do the same thing to life itself, and not just stories about life. Or is that why you game? Escapism? I notice, BTW, that you haven't answered any of the variations I posted.

Re: WWYCD: Omelas No argument is foolproof. (I don't like the comparisons that this invites about fools, but my first choice would have been "invulnerable", and we've all seen that this means something different than the dictionary definition to most people on these boards. But, anyway, I digress . . . ) Given any situation, real or imagined, you can always "tear to pieces" the description of it, no matter how detailed or specific, once it is isolated from the original author; you can invent hypotheticals, and come up with reasons why the story "as is" just doesn't make sense; but, considering that real life often doesn't make sense (as they say, "Truth is stranger than fiction."), how can the made-up stories be criticized for not making sense either? In any real crisis, do we approach the situation as something that, because it just isn't acceptable or convenient or easy, must be reshaped? Do we say "Well, maybe we can't save all those people, but by all that's holy I refuse to accept reality, and will drown myself in delusion until I'm relying on factors that only exist in my imagination to keep this manageable."? No. We grow up and fscking well deal with it. What you and others have, for the most part, presented so far haven't been answers - they've been cop-outs. They've been the moral equivalent of saying "I don't like being in situations that force me to make such unpleasant choices, so I'm going to make little changes here and there until I can say that it's an entirely different situation, one that by that time will be of my making, one that I can handle without facing such a challenging decision." Here's another "situation" that you'll no doubt be able to twist around again until any reader will naturally see that one answer is all right and one answer is all wrong (whether my argument above will convince you to not repeat such actions remains to be seen), you and another crewmember are rising from the depths of the ocean in a lifepod. The submarine is taking on water and long-range communications were destroyed (not just disabled - dead), but before you left, you were able to get the computer started just enough to calculate how many of you could fit onto lifepods, at your depth, and still rise safely to the surface. The answer was two people, but after you are both in the lifepod and have departed the doomed vessel, you receive a short-range communication from the submarine reporting that the computer was more damaged than it thought and may have made a slight error in the previous calculations. The damaged part can be replaced (allowing for accurate calculations), but this will take an hour, and the intact portions of its equations and sensor data indicates that the other answer would be "one person and change" - enough to still enable the lifepod to reach the surface (or, at least, depths at which a normal human can survive), if one of you jettisons within the next 15 minutes. You are now trapped in a rising lifepod with no communications, no way out, and a fellow crewmember who, keep in mind, will also be thinking about what to do. WWYCD?

Re: Duplication Squared