MU Peeves Thread
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@Artemis Glad you saw the way out.
I don’t mind making small accommodations for someone for the purpose of their boundaries, but in my case? When I found myself avoiding RPing with other characters for the sake of their own insecurities that’s when I realized I was bending over backwards too far.
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The OOC TS boundary crossing(which btw, is obscenely gross nightmare nightmare nightmare) matter kind of reminds me when I first started doing YouTube a couple years ago(I’ve since left, drama commentary has become a cesspool nightmare with perpetual feud between Ethan Klien, Hasan, and Destiny and oh my god I do not care enough to go into it further than that I learned far more about those three than I wanted to and all of it was against my will), but more to the point.
One of the first YouTube dramas that I somehow got involved in was some ‘Gooning in VC’ shit. To make a very long story short(and all YouTube drama are incredibly long winded I’ve since learned), shortly before I started appearing on streams, I was a mod for another YouTuber. Two OTHER mods apparently had this thing where they would get freaky in public Discord when it just the two of them. To the point that one bought the other a Love Sense(look it up, I’m not describing it to you but I feel like you can draw your own conclusions).
Suffice to say, the YouTuber who I modded for and eventually became friends with, found this both hilarious and infuraiting, making an entire stream about a drama that happened in his own server.
And sidenote, this was not the last time those two names were mentioned.
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(Offensive nonsense)
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I have a mild peeve about people explaining a game’s lore IC in the least interesting way possible.
E.g., my character asks: ‘Yo, wtf is that? Is it going to eat us? Is it evil? What does it want? How do we make it go away, or how do we make it work for us??’
A character answers with a factual explanation of what this thing is in-lore, like it’s a dragon cursed by a specific God and they’re mostly not aggro, they will codedly try to eat 5 cows a day from nearby farms but they don’t attack people unless attacked first, and even then about 5 people should be able to handle it in combat as long as at least one has ice magic. However, no, there isn’t a way to befriend/recruit it.
Cool, thanks, but I was really just trying to come up with an excuse for our characters to interact, and this breakdown gives me absolutely nothing to work with in terms of insight into how your character thinks/feels about the game’s lore.
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@Kestrel Yes! A list of similarly immersion breaking peeves! Like when characters act extremely blasé about the setting no matter how horrific/creepy/suspenseful…nothing affects them ever. They’ve “seen it all”!
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I freaking loved when Norwood came into contact with new stuff. Him trying to keep his composure while freaking out made me happy.
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@howyadoin I’ve been struggling with this, I get that it’s sometimes hard to immerse yourself in these worlds. But buy-in? That’s sort of a requirement to run a horror D&D campaign, so I suspect it’s no less the same for an MU*.
Particularly, I’ve been struggling with how my character is supposed to react to this blasé character in question. Another difficult topic are the characters who have quippy one-liners or otherwise unserious comments in serious scenes. Big scary dragon that’s wiped out three kingdoms is now approaching its fourth along with all its brood of whelps, and a character just blurts out how they want to adopt one as they’re rampaging through the farmlands.
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Like when characters act extremely blasé about the setting no matter how horrific/creepy/suspenseful…nothing affects them ever. They’ve “seen it all”!
literally the only good version of this character is one whose player is aware of just how dumb and boring it is to play it straight and so constantly subverts it. but it seems like maybe only three people tops ever got the memo.
the most frustrating thing about it to me is that it’s essentially just an extremely selfish way to play. it’s all about fulfilling some sad power fantasy, rather than having fun with other people.
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Particularly, I’ve been struggling with how my character is supposed to react to this blasé character in question. Another difficult topic are the characters who have quippy one-liners or otherwise unserious comments in serious scenes. Big scary dragon that’s wiped out three kingdoms is now approaching its fourth along with all its brood of whelps, and a character just blurts out how they want to adopt one as they’re rampaging through the farmlands.
Yeah this gets me most when it is their entire contribution to the scene.
Who doesn’t love a great mid-action, or mid-horror, quip when it integrates well and is incorporated into an overall fitting reaction?
The stand alone quipster though who is otherwise completely unaffected by what’s going down? Big peeve as a player, but even bigger peeve if I’m the ST.
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Another difficult topic are the characters who have quippy one-liners or otherwise unserious comments in serious scenes.
It would be one thing if it were occasional, but it’s very much the MUing equivalent of having something scan as the wrong price at the check-out line and saying “Must be free!” Like, it’s great for you in that moment but that’s just one moment in five hundred thousand that cashier has had to deal with.
I partially blame the MCU, though I can’t really say whether their quip-per-scene quota is an originator or a symptom.
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Another difficult topic are the characters who have quippy one-liners or otherwise unserious comments in serious scenes.
It would be one thing if it were occasional, but it’s very much the MUing equivalent of having something scan as the wrong price at the check-out line and saying “Must be free!” Like, it’s great for you in that moment but that’s just one moment in five hundred thousand that cashier has had to deal with.
I partially blame the MCU, though I can’t really say whether their quip-per-scene quota is an originator or a symptom.
I blame Joss Whedon specifically.
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I think the “I’ve seen stuff” and unaffected character can be a great foil to allow other characters their dramatic moments. However, it needs to be done in a way that uplifts and shines the spotlight on other characters rather than say dismissing the freak outs of other people.
Quips like “First time?” Are dismissive and shitty.
“Yeah this shit is scary”, but otherwise not wigging out? Ok.
Extra points if they’re willing to allow their character to be afraid when something they havent seen comes up.
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There’s also a level of Catch-22 in it.
1:
Abelard, Bridget and Camille look out their apartment window and see a chupacabra digging through the dumpster.Abelard screams, runs for the closet and curls up in there having a panic attack.
OOC, Bridget and Camille bitch about what an attention-whore Abelard is and how his reaction derailed the scene, as if it’s 1994 and he walked into their wedding scene, smelled a peanut, and went into anaphylactic shock.
2:
Abelard, Bridget and Camille look out their apartment window and see a chupacabra digging through the dumpster.Abelard says, “Huh. It’s so ugly it’s cute,” and helps investigate.
OOC, Bridget and Camille bitch about how Abelard ought to be freaking the fuck out, he’s only a mortal after all.
3:
Identical to 2, except Abelard says, “HOLY FUCKING BALLS!” instead.Not that the fearless, blase, too-cool-for-anything quipper PC isn’t a real thing and a tedious drag, but it’s also not bad to examine your reaction, see if really there’s just no pleasing you, or no pleasing you if you’re Abelard, and entertain the notion that maybe Abelard is playing his PC correctly. I’ve definitely seen both ways.
“This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!”
– A. Bertram Chandler -
There does also need to be room for a character who, due to experiences in the game, has earned the ability to be a little blase or otherwise confident around weird shit. If your character has been around for a good long while and they’re still as overwhelmingly frightened by their fifteenth grue encounter as their first that’s just as tiresome, in my view.
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@Pavel Agreed, so long as that character’s well-earned no-sell of the incident doesn’t take away from the reaction of other characters and isn’t used (ICly or OOCly) to make the person who hasn’t seen a grue 15 times seem lesser.
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a character who, due to experiences in the game, has earned the ability to be a little blase or otherwise confident around weird shit.
this is, to be fair, not really the peeve. I don’t mind a confident, competent character who can reassure others because they’re an experienced demon hunter or whatever, but there is a line (not always super clear but definitely there) between that and just no-selling everything. like has been mentioned, it’s very much about their reaction to other characters’ reactions too.
blasé and dismissive has just never been fun to play off of in my experience. probably doesn’t help that the kind of player who picks that combo is also usually kind of a dick OOC on top of it.
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@Wizz True! I was mostly using the previous peeve to highlight my own peeve.
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There’s also a level of Catch-22 in it.
1:
Abelard, Bridget and Camille look out their apartment window and see a chupacabra digging through the dumpster.Abelard screams, runs for the closet and curls up in there having a panic attack.
OOC, Bridget and Camille bitch about what an attention-whore Abelard is and how his reaction derailed the scene, as if it’s 1994 and he walked into their wedding scene, smelled a peanut, and went into anaphylactic shock.
2:
Abelard, Bridget and Camille look out their apartment window and see a chupacabra digging through the dumpster.Abelard says, “Huh. It’s so ugly it’s cute,” and helps investigate.
OOC, Bridget and Camille bitch about how Abelard ought to be freaking the fuck out, he’s only a mortal after all.
3:
Identical to 2, except Abelard says, “HOLY FUCKING BALLS!” instead.Not that the fearless, blase, too-cool-for-anything quipper PC isn’t a real thing and a tedious drag, but it’s also not bad to examine your reaction, see if really there’s just no pleasing you, or no pleasing you if you’re Abelard, and entertain the notion that maybe Abelard is playing his PC correctly. I’ve definitely seen both ways.
I feel like this is why we have Willpower checks.
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catzilla said:
@ham said in MU Peeves Thread:
I’m very sure this has been posted here before, but it has come up again in my RP life and it continues to frustrate me.
If someone is setting a scene for you, YOU then need to engage THEM. Don’t pose yourself doing your own thing and make them basically set twice. DEFINITELY don’t pose AVOIDING them and make them chase you.
It’s obnoxious.
I always ask people ‘do you want to set or you want me to set?’
So when they tell me to set, and I do, then they do their OWN set…
I’ve started responding to this by continuing to pose by myself until they do their part on the scene. I’ve gone through a handful of scenes now where I’ll set, roam around, then leave because they refuse to do anything. It’s interesting!
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@catzilla “Be my prop/audience so I can me,” is one of the most dispiriting behaviors possible in a co-op improv environment.
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