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Pavel

@catzilla Is your PC acting like a Fed?

Aria

@Deviant I have only ever reached out through a mutual acquaintances once and it was because something was very clearly wrong.

I’d been RPing with this person for about two months. All our scenes were great. We were chatting in pages pretty regularly. Then one night in the middle of a scene, they logged off very abruptly. Literally, it was without any warning at all. A few days later I logged in to a message from them apologizing for that and explaining that a family member had a medical emergency. They hoped to be back soon.

They did not come back soon. They did not come back after several weeks. In fact, they didn’t come back at all. So between knowing that something serious was up and some very clear signals that the game wasn’t going to last much longer, I reached out to someone I knew they were already friends with prior to joining. It felt very awkward, but I did tell that friend of theirs something that was basically: “Hey, I hope this isn’t super weird, but I know you and Player are tight. Would you mind passing my contact info on to them? It’s cool if you’d rather not. It just seems like they’re going through something rough right now and I want to make sure they’re okay.”

I got a message on Discord a couple of weeks later. The aforementioned Player was very much Not Okay because of real life things, wasn’t able to RP anywhere or with anyone for another several months, but was actually really happy I reached out. Apparently a lot of people they’d known for much longer hadn’t taken the time to check on them after they disappeared, which they weren’t feeling great about.

We’ve now been friends for three years, but I don’t attribute that to contacting them through a third party to say, “Hey! I miss your RP so much! Come back.” There was no pressure whatsoever to play there or anywhere else. I attribute it to contacting them through a third party to say, “Hey. Are you okay?”

Deviant

So, you meet someone on a MU. You hit it off. The chemistry is good, the conversation flows easily and naturally, and you start thinking about all the fun things you might do together.

And then… silence. You don’t hear from them, they stop logging in, and you aren’t sure how to reach them outside of the game.

How long do you wait before reaching out?

Is it like dating etiquette? Is three days too soon to “call”? Do you send a casual @mail after a week? Do you wait two weeks before asking mutual acquaintances if they’ve seen them? At what point does a public “Hey, I really enjoyed our time together, are you still alive?” go from potentially endearing to mildly unhinged?

Obviously, real life happens, people get busy, and nobody owes anybody their time. I can’t even throw pebbles in that house, I’m extremely guilty of it.

But sometimes you find an RP partner you really click with, and you’re left wondering whether they’re coming back or whether you’ve just experienced the MU* equivalent of a fantastic first date followed by ghosting.

So what’s the etiquette? How long do you wait before putting out a missed-connections ad for someone you really enjoyed playing with?

Asking for a friend. Who is me. And who would very much like a second ~~date~~ scene.

catzilla

@hellfrog said:

@Tez this is actually the secret. If you want people to want more rp with you, rp curiosity about their characters. That’s it, that’s literally all it takes.

This usually yields good results for my PCs over the years.

I have one character right now that is doing such and everyone is suspicious of them for some reason. There are other characters that are as nice, curious, etc. as them but for whatever reason, other PCs are suspicious of mine only.

I’ve been absolutely amused over it OOCly but my PC is just confused why they can’t make friends.

Deviant

@Gashlycrumb

Jeremy Allen White is Gene Wilder if the chocolate factory were a cartel front.

Deviant

I think one of the best ways to keep RP from getting boring is to notice what other players are putting out there, and then try to make an opening for them to showcase their particular thing. Yes-and what people are putting out into the world, and see where it goes. For me, half the fun is just finding out what happens when someone gets to really inhabit that character and turn them loose.

But: I expect the same in return. I’m not here to bask in your imagined majesty. I want to play with someone who’ll pick up what I’m throwing out there and do something with it, too.

In the last few days I’ve had a few absolutely wonderful examples of this. People picked up on little things I’d put in a pose, I got to follow up on things they’d put in theirs, and the scene went to some delightful places I absolutely didn’t imagine them going when I joined. I can’t wait to play with those people again.

I’ve also had the exact opposite. I did my level best to give someone things to pick up on, and they showed the barest interest in who my character was or why he was there. After a while it felt like the Other Character Show, and I was just there to be the audience. There’s only so much of that I’m willing to do before I give up and, frankly, avoid putting myself in that situation in the future.

Be courteous, folks. Be cooperative. Give people something to work with, and when they give you something back, take a swing at it. Bring good vibes to the whole jam.

Scenes where everyone is genuinely having fun are the best.

Scenes where it feels like pulling teeth to get even the barest acknowledgement are, in fact, torture.

somasatori

tis not, alas. At least not in the state that I would like it to be. I’ve been studying for boards, moved to a new city, and recently got a new job, my partner lost their job, then got another job – anyhow, my time has been abysmal in terms of hobbies. I had to shut down the droplets that I was using to save money, though I have the backups for them and intend to get back into it once things settle.

Though I dunno, maybe it would be usable. Someone got my old evennia Cyberpunk code working and is (or at least was last I checked many months ago) running a game set in Night City in 2077, so anything is possible with the indomitable human spirit

catzilla

I’m still going through the approval process here but I thought it was nice that the initial feedback I got was helpful.

I’m familiar with COFD but not Deviant itself so it was appreciated that I got ‘hey things mostly check out but this needs to be changed and here’s some suggestions’ rather than ‘shit’s wrong, fix it’, which is the response I’ve gotten from some games semi-recently.

Cobalt

@Testament I generally am unaffected by celebrity deaths—

But I grew up watching TNG with my father. Patrick Stewart’s passing has made me depressed.

Wizz

disclaimer: still brainstorming a character, but I figured there should be a gab thread for the game and, waaay more importantly, I woke up this morning with the revelation that, using the already existing approved rules (Automaton Form, etc) you could easily adapt and play the titular characters from Heat Vision and Jack.

this is…amazing. discuss.

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