Neon Protocol
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@bear_necessities said in MU Peeves Thread:
It feels weird and disingenious for game runners to have an undisclosed PC (or PCs plural, possibly) that are seemingly central to story. Like, I get on one hand that staff sometimes just want to PLAY and not have everyone climbing over themselves to play with the staff PC because they are the staff PC and they THINK they’ll get story out of it … but if your staff PC is already “the story”, why not just be clear about it?
IDK, it’s weird.
Some of them have two
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@Jenn said in MU Peeves Thread:
No one is forcing you to take the OOC offer. But at least they’re trying to be inclusive. And without inclusivity, a game dies fast.
Totally, which is why this is probably just a me thing. I love people being inclusive, but everybody has their own social quirks and habits and stuff that have to be worked around, and I think one of mine is “Please don’t try to throw plot at me until I feel I’ve established my character.”
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@catzilla said in MU Peeves Thread:
At the VERY MOST, I could see them using their PC like, ‘hey I found this spooky rock, can you guys go investigate it?’
But then again, a NPC could do that as well.
This one doesn’t bother me at all, especially if there’s a good IC reason for it – like being the head of an org. If someone leads an org, they’re running plots for the players in it, and the role of their PC in said plot is essentially The Quest Giver? They’re doing their job in character and doing extra to contribute to the game OOC. You go, Glen Coco.
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@catzilla said in MU Peeves Thread:
@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:
@bear_necessities said in MU Peeves Thread:
IDK how to explain it better, I just feel like staff should be upfront about who their PCs are.
I agree with this. I also believe that staff should not include their PCs in the scenes they are running. In my experience it often leads to Mary Sue / Gary Stu behavior.
At the VERY MOST, I could see them using their PC like, ‘hey I found this spooky rock, can you guys go investigate it?’
But then again, a NPC could do that as well.
This is the weirdest thing about the Staff at Neon Protocol. Their NPCs are the heads of every single org - not a big deal, in fact some people prefer that. But then their PCs (Margot & Punky, I believe) are like… also org heads? Second in command of the orgs? But very blatantly story-surrounded, to a point where it is a feature of the character, and it would be FINE IF IT WAS DISCLOSED. The problem is the non-disclosure, and my particular issue with it is the subterfuge, and the weirdness around it. Specifically, the character I randomly chose off the roster had a secret that centered around both of her alts, to a point where I believe that the intent was to create some sort of romantic vibe with one of them given how it was written, and very much cast Margot as a (if not THE) plot device. When I paged Margot asking her how she wanted to play the secret, she came off very “tee hee, I don’t know, I had no idea that you even had that secret about me!” and I’m just over here like what the fuck?
So. If you want a game where your character - or characterS - are the central plot, if you’re going to link every single character to your character, if you are going to have secrets centered around your characters … god damn, at least be up front about it and tell the people that it’s your character.
I’ve noped off the game, but I think everyone who plays there should be aware of what’s behind the curtain.
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@bear_necessities baking in romantic threads between staff alt and roster, and centralizing staff alt to plot, is reminiscent of that Neitherlands admin
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@helvetica what’s even worse IMO is that the staff alt will submit jobs under their alt and then they will answer themselves in said job as the staff bit. Which is just… lol crazy IMO
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@bear_necessities That’s fucking nuts.
I always side eye when game admin use new handles with no history in the community. Not a crime in itself, and I get there might be logic behind that sometimes. But def contributes to a certain level of shadiness, especially in context with stuff like this.
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@bear_necessities said in MU Peeves Thread:
@helvetica what’s even worse IMO is that the staff alt will submit jobs under their alt and then they will answer themselves in said job as the staff bit. Which is just… lol crazy IMO
okay THAT is fucking WILD. what the hell
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@bear_necessities l m a o
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
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Forked by request
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T Tez referenced this topic
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@bear_necessities said in Neon Protocol:
what’s even worse IMO is that the staff alt will submit jobs under their alt and then they will answer themselves in said job as the staff bit. Which is just… lol crazy IMO
I got invited to be staff on a game in the very early part of the 2000s. The head staff there (during the time period where we were working on the grid and systems and prepping our glorious metaplot) let staffers create their PCs during the wind up, and he created 2 for himself. A day later, but still weeks before we meant to open, he started having conversations with these two PC bits in the public channel, as though they were completely different people. The other members of staff became concerned after the conversations became really angry arguments about stuff unrelated to the game. We had a meeting with the headstaffer a day or two later, and he admitted he was starting to have some severe mental health issues after he got fired and had to move back in with his parents.
We ended up deciding to stop the game before it even started, and went our separate ways. I ended up using the plot bits I wrote up for it in my regular tabletop group at the time, to a meh reaction.
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@bear_necessities said in Neon Protocol:
@helvetica what’s even worse IMO is that the staff alt will submit jobs under their alt and then they will answer themselves in said job as the staff bit. Which is just… lol crazy IMO
OMG. This reminds me of Fort Bloodshed (I’m old old, okay leave me alone and get off my lawn) when I found out the third staffer who had a whole RL story ‘he’ would tell. Was actually just the second female staffer. This third one would even jump in to be the staff tie breaker.
Oh. This hobby.
