@somasatori Only games that will never make it as a MU. Like Unknown Armies and pretty much any PBTA game.
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Posts
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RE: Should You Play Your Own Game?
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RE: RL Peeves
@Gashlycrumb their potato wedges travel pretty well in my experience!
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RE: RL Peeves
@Gashlycrumb donāt be ridiculous, they obviously got dinner from the theatre news site and forum BroadwayWorld
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RE: Should You Play Your Own Game?
Playing their own game makes a good gamerunner better and a bad gamerunner so much worse.
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RE: Should You Play Your Own Game?
@Jumpscare Iāve run into similar situations. I started a) having my character be wrong more often, and b) making it clear in meta-commentary when my character was blatantly, obviously wrong (not all the time they were wrong, because then it would āconfirmā when they were right, but often).
This was things like, āGrey scowls about, āYouāre all going to get in so much trouble with the Guard for this.ā They arenāt.ā
People started taking what my characters said so seriously when I did thisā¦ I do it now even when Iām not staffing, and I find it amusing to do.
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RE: Should You Play Your Own Game?
Iāve tried multiple times to be a player in Silent Heaven. I donāt want any special treatment or plot attention, so Iāve gone incognito. But inevitably Iāve been found out, whether itās due to my writing style or a mistake on my part. And then my character gets treated differently. In my experience, it causes a behavioral amplification effect of sorts. Some people cling to my characterās words in a way that feels like theyāre hoping to get in on a plot, and others suddenly disregard my character.
Iām not sure what to do to get an organic experience, or even if one is possible, haha. Iāve never been someone who craves the spotlight. Iām perfectly happy playing NPCs in support of other charactersā stories. But it also means I miss out on the day-to-day interactions.
Iām open to suggestions!
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RE: Should You Play Your Own Game?
@Faraday Very much appreciate the compliment, but it wasnāt always this way. Iāve been accused of spotlighting my own characters and sheās been accused of running scenes just for my characters. Itās been a learning process to get to the point where we feel comfortable running scenes that we have (or our partner has) a character in again.
I agree fully that staff should play their own game (as long as they want to) and that itās a net benefit for them to do so. However, staff need to be careful not just about the actuality of improprieties when playing their own game, but also the appearance of improprieties.
Itās very easy for it to seem like a staffer is running scenes for their own character (or anyone elseās) if that character does particularly well in a scene, has an expertise that suits the scene (even if itās just because the staffer is running a scene of a type they like playing in, which is why they play that type of character), or the character is connected to the scene in some way (even if other characters are too).
Thatās another reason to be active and approachable and engaged on your own game, because even if no one will tell you directly if youāve overstepped the bounds of reasonableness (but get yourself some friends who will tell you this), you can get a feel for the game by playing it and often recognize when youāve stepped outside of the perceived realms of good behavior in running your own scenes. This does take some self-awareness that some donāt have, of course.
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RE: Should You Play Your Own Game?
On a good game with a decent staff, you can trust staffers to remain fair even for their own characters.
Funnily enough, I donāt suggest this based on fairness, though thatās an additional benefit of it. I suggest this because playing a PC in a scene at the same time as one is staffing a scene can add to burnout at a faster pace. While fairness is one part of it, I have noticed that staff who run scenes theyāre PCing in seem to, in my experience, burn out faster than those that keep a separation between the two activities.
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RE: Should You Play Your Own Game?
Ideally, every staff member should also be a player. However, not everyone is very active RP-wise, and thatās okay. Whatās really important is that theyāre active in the community, that theyāre visible. Whether they RP, or prefer to hang out on chat, or are always around for questions ā thatās not so important which one it is. What really moves things is that players see them, hear them, and get to know them.
Staff that is essentially faceless authority figures invite abuse and fuckery from players who donāt identify with them as fellow hobby nerds. Staff that have faces and are the next guy over ā not so much. At least not from the ordinary types ā thereās always the occasional malignant creep, and no amount of good PR fixes those.
