Making it Easier to Nope Out (or should we?)

[Solstice]

@IoleRae

No, no, I think that was appropriate. It’s usually what we all thought/think, isn’t it? Someone yanking their modem or something because their HP is at 5 and damage is about to be handed down. Whether or not that ever actually happens.

[eye8urcake]

@IoleRae @Solstice I feel like I need to consider that perspective simply because of the number of times some of us have been involved in conversations about or adjacent to this topic and had a chorus of twits screeching about CHEEEEEETERRRRRZ more or less derail the topic.

[sao]

I HAVE seen people fake RL emergencies to get out of consequences of their IC actions, and I have seen it in recent memory, but generally speaking … it just led me not to trust that player or engage with them meaningfully. RL is obviously more important than IC. But it does happen – I don’t think it’s exactly the same as a nope for a trigger, though.

[KarmaBum]

Are we talking about FTB an uncomfortable scene?

Or are we talking about retconning an uncomfortable storyline?

If someone wants to step away from a scene for whatever reason, I am fine with that. Whether it’s because they find the content squicky or because their dog just stepped on a bee (that shit happens, trust me), people gotta go sometimes.

If we’re talking about someone asking to vacate a storyline or retcon multiple scenes, my threshold is a little higher, and it may not be what feels “easy” to some people - but that may be a necessary evil in this hobby. Sometimes, established RP cannot be undone. The person doesn’t have to continue to RP, but they may have to concede some points to wrap up the storyline, depending on how involved it is.

And that’s just never going to be easy for some people.

[mietze]

When I think of “nope out” I’m thinking of something that happens like immediately. Kind of like a mic drop? You don’t mic drop now out of a discussion you had 6 months ago (unless it’s in your own head, dang those late comebacks!) So in my comments above I’m talking about how someone leaves a scene/content in progress at that moment. It shouldn’t have a huge retroactive impact on many people outside those in that scene.

So I would consider something like total removal of an entire wing of plot across a game to be highly disruptive and I think my bar for that is a lot higher than most, tbh, especially if people can avoid RPing about it personally with no consequence. Also not a fan of people mocking people for avoiding certain content OR implying that anyone who doesn’t is a horrible person. Both of those are way out of line, but they do happen.

[sao]

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to retcon a scene because people have decided they don’t want to deal with the ICC of my character reacting thematically to things they have done or said, because I’ve literally lost count of the times it’s happened, but I definitely wasn’t thinking about those in the context of nopes; rather, it’s when playing out the ICC happens off cam, like we don’t wanna rp apology, penance, duel, interrobang, yet another rp about authority figure exercising authority over wilful subordinate–

Another example. I DON’T WANNA RP ABOUT BEING SICK. I have spent too much of my adult life sick in one way or another, I do not want it to be part of my rp. If there’s a plague plot, I either want to not get sick or to keep my character being sick entirely off camera. It doesn’t mean my character is never sick, it just means I don’t wanna.

I think I don’t wanna should always be a valid rp excuse.

[hellfrog]

@sao I agree! I think i don’t wanna should be that. If someone is I DON’T WANNA-ing in a way that is starting to really inconvenience storylines or keeps on happening, people will figure that out and can neutrally opt out of engaging.

Ok there was a whole other facet to this topic. I think it should be easier if it’s not easy somewhere. The way I see it, even if you are frustrated or disappointed or whatever at someone not wanting to play something out, there’s no way to get satisfying rp from someone if they…aren’t into it. Might as well just move on.

[Pyrephox]

I feel strongly that no player should have to ‘play through’ something on screen that makes the game unfun. You don’t have to give a reason, you just say either ‘can we skip the details’ or ‘I’m not having a good time here, so MYPC is going to fade into the background’. That doesn’t mean that what’s happening ICly stops, but no player should have to play through it if they’re not okay with it.

If you want to change events as they are unfolding IC because the consequences of those events are going to be unfun, I do believe that it’s on the player to a) tell people, and b) propose an alternative that meets the needs of all players in the scene, not just yours. I’m not a huge fan of people going “Oh, then I never said that,” when the issue isn’t that they didn’t OOC understand that was a Bad Idea, but that the Consequences ended up not being what they expected and now they want it to never have happened - usually when other people have had to Deal With Their Shit for several scenes already.

And, inevitably, are going to do this exact same thing two weeks later, either with someone different, OR with the exact same person. Protestations of ignorance only get you so far, I feel.

But, honestly? That’s an OOC player problem, and needs to be dealt with by staff telling the problem player to knock it off or be uninvited. It should not be something PCs have to handle IC.

In general, if someone says ‘hey, this isn’t fun’, then I am super open to dropping it. What I tend to push back on is ‘hey, this isn’t fun, so I need your PC to do X thing and not Y’.

[Duke Whisky]

@sao said in Making it Easier to Nope Out (or should we?):

I HAVE seen people fake RL emergencies to get out of consequences of their IC actions, and I have seen it in recent memory, but generally speaking … it just led me not to trust that player or engage with them meaningfully. RL is obviously more important than IC. But it does happen – I don’t think it’s exactly the same as a nope for a trigger, though.

Seen that one multiple times with the same player which leaves you in this horrible place as the consequences side going - am I a monster for not believing the 4th time this has happened?

---

I think that people tend to assume that the scene where the consequences are being discussed is just going to be several hours of being yelled at, rather than a cooperative roleplay scene or a growth opportunity for the character(s). From my own experience, when I’ve played a character that’s got into some trouble, it has been just that. Sit there, get yelled at for an hour, and here’s your pre-written resignation letter you are signing. Is that fun? Not really. Could do without the pomp and ceremony.

Other times these have been pretty good scenes, made me pause and think - oh how would the character react? Justify it? Would they even do that?

Do I think people should be able to avoid IC consequences? Nope

Do I think people should be able to handwave a scene where it’s 2 hours of a character yelling at another character? Yeah, probably.

Anyway that’s all about noping out over consequences rather than themes. I’ve liked games with X-Cards or a Veil-Card (very similar, a loosely described fade to black rather than a full stop) since it helps people feel comfortable in engaging with a story as widely as possible.

[Pavel]

@IoleRae said in Making it Easier to Nope Out (or should we?):

How do we avoid it being used as a get out of jail free card? Do we actually care?

This one is one of the easier ones for me to speak on.

It’s never a get out of jail free card. It is a not have to roleplay this card, and that’s all. You may not have to RP out the consequences of your actions, but your actions will have consequences.

For instance, you won’t have to RP out torture, or suffering of that sort, but your character still went through that. People will still know your character did X action that had Y consequence.

The only thing you’re getting out of is having to sit through an experience you don’t want to (for any reason) partake in. I don’t TS all that much anymore, so I don’t RP the sex but it still happens.

ETA: To continue my thought, if the only consequences for action are things that a player can’t/won’t/don’t want to participate in or even acknowledge then you need to come up with other consequences with the same kind of story impact without the problems. And if a game is oriented around problematic consequences (either generally or specifically problematic to you), you may want to reconsider your time there.

[Testament]

I need to think about this one more when I’m not at work, but the one that sticks out to me specifically was that I had a player that approached me while I was running plot asking me, “Please don’t bring in anything to do with spiders.”, as this player was extremely arachnophobic. Considering this was a dark fantasy game, yes, there is always a potential for the fantasy trope of ‘OH FUCK GIANT SPIDERS’. But in this situation, there was nothing wrong or stopping me or another GM from changing it from spiders from just…I dunno, I think I made it undead instead of giant spiders if I can recall.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

I lean towards a stance that it’s okay to nope out of anything – but noping also comes with consequences.

You shouldn’t play anything you don’t want to play. That doesn’t mean others can’t play it. It also doesn’t mean that you can, as in the example above, tell a story teller that there can’t be spiders mentioned in the game setting.

I usually check with people before doing anything that might be considered triggering – and I include warnings in scene descriptions so that people know to not sign up for graphic violence, explicit sexual imagery, gore, or whatever the issue might be.

Ultimately, though, you have to respect that sometimes, somebody will just be, nope, leaving now – and it’s not a big deal. It’s just something that they can’t or won’t do – it’s not a criticism of you or anyone else.

This is a somewhat big deal to me as I’ve been removed from one game in the past for refusing to interact with a player who made me highly uncomfortable about refusing to TS him.

[Pavel]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Making it Easier to Nope Out (or should we?):

It also doesn’t mean that you can, as in the example above, tell a story teller that there can’t be spiders mentioned in the game setting.

Honestly with this scenario I have to disagree with you. It doesn’t have to be spiders, so it’s perfectly okay for someone to say “hey, spiders make me uncomfortable, can we fight giant rats instead?”

But for things that are essential to your game’s theme, for whatever reason, then yeah it’s alright to be more “sorry, this is something we feel is vital to the game we’re trying to run.”

It’s definitely a case-by-case thing, and everyone’s going to have different points at which they put their foot down and say “I’m not changing this.” There’s a balance that has to be made.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Pavel It’s definitely a case-by-case thing. And it’s definitely alright to ask if the spiders can be skeletons instead if it makes no big difference. You just also have to accept that if it does in fact make a big difference, then maybe this is simply not a scene you should be in.

And that’s okay. You’re allowed to nope out without it being a statement. Sometimes, stuff just doesn’t work for you.

[Pavel]

@L-B-Heuschkel We definitely need to get comfortable with, as staff and players, the idea that not all games are for all people.

Games are gonna exist with themes and concepts that I cannot abide, and that’s just going to have to be okay with me. Even if I’ve invested hours in making a character and playing, and it turns out I misunderstood something. I can’t sunk-cost my way into forcing a change onto the game.

[Duke Whisky]

I guess in that specific example it is about reasonable adjustments. Could you reasonably adjust a cave diving scene to not include spiders? Yeah, with ease.

Could you reasonably adjust a class in Spider Hugging 101? Nope, kinda needed.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Pavel said in Making it Easier to Nope Out (or should we?):

@L-B-Heuschkel We definitely need to get comfortable with, as staff and players, the idea that not all games are for all people.

Games are gonna exist with themes and concepts that I cannot abide, and that’s just going to have to be okay with me.

Agreed. From what I’ve seen over time, the most successful games are the ones that don’t try to be for everyone and don’t try to do everything.

Turns out that to please everyone you have to compromise so much that the storyline suffers – and to do everything and cover everything, you need so many active hands and warm bodies that burn-out becomes a very real issue.

I’ve often thought that the notion that we have to cater to everyone’s needs is misunderstood inclusivity. We want to make a place where everyone feels welcome. But that does not equate making a place where everyone want to be. It ‘only’ means that our doors are open to anyone who’s interested in the specific thing we made.

[Testament]

I won’t lie, my game has very dark and borderline depressing themes. It’s meant to be dark fantasy and horror for a reason(and not at all because it’s partially an outlet for my more depressive feelings that I can express in a healthy way). It’s meant to be a struggle, but it’s meant to be a struggle in good way to show that there are things worth struggling against. And yes, there’s some RL analogues here to try and inspire players that if your character can struggle for a better tomorrow in apocalyptic situation, then so can you. To imply it’s the mush version of Dark Souls is a large stretch, but elements and themes of struggle in Dark Souls is what I’m inspired by. And I want my players so too to feel inspired.

But I’m not going to make anyone play in something that they just want to “Nope, I just can’t.” and I’ll do my damnedest to try and make it so you don’t have to. Everyone has limits and I do my best to respect what those limits are. Obviously there are themes that are not touched on that go without saying(SA, anything to do with children, etc).

I know it’s not going to please everyone, and if you try to please everyone you’ll end up pleasing no one. So I try for something different. If I can’t please everyone, then I will try my best to accommodate everyone.

[GF]

@IoleRae said in Making it Easier to Nope Out (or should we?):

To be fair, the only reason I even mentioned ‘using it to get around IC consequences’ is because trying to have this discussion almost always results in a ‘but somebody could CHEAT IT by PRETENDING to be upset’ derail. I haven’t seen somebody attempt to dodge consequences this way in a really, really, really long time.

In my TT game, I have adopted a policy of not bothering to check my players’ math any more, because if you* have so little going on in your life you need to cheat at pretending to be Gandalf, then I feel so sorry for you I’m inclined to let you have it.

I have similar feelings about cheating in MUing these days. If you’re so desperate to feel like you’ve won that you need to lie your way out of the consequences of your actions, then take your stolen win, and I hope it soothes whatever problems in your life led you to this point.

*general ‘you,’ not you personally

[Pavel]

@GF Unless and until it impacts the fun of other people, that’s basically where I’m at too.