IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance

[Faraday]

@icanbeyourmuse said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

‘We want someone with good dice for X thing’ many times before or variants of it (‘You don’t have enough dice, it is hard thing’, ‘You don’t have the dice we need for this plot’, etc).

I can believe that, but that’s a bit different from the scenario described above, which was holding a single or couple bad die rolls against a player. So it’s not about needing someone with a particular level of skill (“only ace pilots need apply”) but a particular history of skill roll success… which is just nonsensical in a system where everyone is essentially using the same virtual dice.

[Pyrephox]

@icanbeyourmuse Oh gosh, I hate this so much. I was on an Ares game and had another player trying to encourage me to choose the ‘right’ characters for a plot, based on their stats, and it was so unpleasant. My sole criteria for playing with someone is is it fun to play with you and, to a lesser extent, is your thing different enough from my thing that we will have different things to do in a plot.

That’s it. I’d much rather take someone who is statted ‘poorly’ but who is fun to play with than anyone who has all top stats but is a PITA or just plain boring.

[hellfrog]

Pivoting out of nowhere, I’ll say that sometimes you might not want to get with a disruptive player and spend a lot of time hashing out what would be a fun consequence for them to rp, because you don’t want to encourage that player to keep at their behavior.

There’s a lot of awesome, valid IC character acting that can encompass being disruptive, being disbelieving, being disrespectful, taking wild risks, etc. But there’s also a point where one character flouting or disrupting is really killing the vibe of the scene/plot, and you might want their IC consequences to be something of a deterrent.

There’s also a breed of player (thankfully a fairly rare one) that will disrupt and kick up fuss habitually, because they enjoy playing some kind of iconoclast or black sheep - or worse, because they have decided they are right about some point of lore/theme, and will disrupt any and all IC around that thing in the hopes of annoying people enough that they get their way. This desire to be the squeaky wheel can become unfun for other players/staffers to interact with.

[spiriferida]

@hellfrog

At the point where it’s a repeated problem with the player’s behavior I’m more inclined to skip the IC part and just tell them to stop it OOC and we’re moving on without addressing it IC at all - they don’t get what they want wrt getting attention and other people don’t have to rp around/about the disruption. but I’ll admit my tolerance for a soft retcon is possibly higher than most, and my willingness to rp about people’s drama when it’s happening on repeat is also very low

[sao]

@spiriferida I retconned so many things that a particular player did to protect them from the consequences of their own actions/avoid playing out the natural stupid drama results of stupid drama, but they still went on MSB to tell the world that I was the meanest bully on Arx and everyone knew it, so I may be jaded on the subject of retcon for this purpose. Sometimes people are just gonna do what they’re gonna do.

[Pavel]

@MisterBoring said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

I’ve also never seen anyone get ostracized for bad luck

I’ve only seen it once or twice, but at the time I was hanging around a certain crowd where it was likely used as a convenient excuse for ostracism rather than the actual reason.

[crawfish]

@Third-Eye Fighting a male PC with a female PC:

Me, roll exceptionally well in spar combat.

DudePC: “Ugh God I thought my stats were good lol I must have shit rolls or something.”

Me, having worked hard and made good choices on my stats, silent.

Me, watching it all pay off as I stomp DudePC into the floor.

DudePC: “Ugh God my armor and weapons need an upgrade, clearly doing something wrong if a woman is beating my character hyuk hyuk smh sad face lol”

Me, done: “Or maybe I know how to play my character and I’m good at it?”

DudePC, doesn’t understand why I’m ‘suddenly being a bitch’ to him.

Me:

[mietze]

@crawfish That really sucks. I HATE seeing shit like that. Or people doing their weird I AM MASCULINE NO GET BEAT BY WOMEN shit. I don’t play on games where that’s an IC thing so I loathe it when idiots harsh my mellow by bringing it in ICly and if someone is doing that OOCly I’ll tend to avoid them after. So irritating.

And while sometimes it’s fun to have my guy say to other male PCs when shit like this comes up ICly, “What’s your problem? Why /wouldn’t/ you want to train with someone your equal or greater?” Or when female PCs are like oh nobody will like me because I’m so good at combaty things, he’s said, “Huh? Well, that’s weird. If a man says that, clearly he’s soft in the head. Is he stupid or something?” I wish I could say “Are you stupid or something?” when someone does it OOC but probably it’ll get me disciplined for rudeness (because it is rude, and I shouldn’t presume someone playing a male PC is also male!) but damn it’s hard to keep my mouth shut when that happens.

[hellfrog]

@Pavel said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

@MisterBoring said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

I’ve also never seen anyone get ostracized for bad luck

I’ve only seen it once or twice, but at the time I was hanging around a certain crowd where it was likely used as a convenient excuse for ostracism rather than the actual reason.

wow the clique strikes again

[Pavel]

@hellfrog said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

@Pavel said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

@MisterBoring said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

I’ve also never seen anyone get ostracized for bad luck

I’ve only seen it once or twice, but at the time I was hanging around a certain crowd where it was likely used as a convenient excuse for ostracism rather than the actual reason.

wow the clique strikes again

Hah, like 10-12 years ago now, but yes.

[sao]

@crawfish on the other hand you kicked my male PC’s butt too and he just thought it was hot

[mietze]

@sao hahaha that’s how to win my male pc’s hots and heart too.

[Pyrephox]

@spiriferida said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

@hellfrog

At the point where it’s a repeated problem with the player’s behavior I’m more inclined to skip the IC part and just tell them to stop it OOC and we’re moving on without addressing it IC at all - they don’t get what they want wrt getting attention and other people don’t have to rp around/about the disruption. but I’ll admit my tolerance for a soft retcon is possibly higher than most, and my willingness to rp about people’s drama when it’s happening on repeat is also very low

Soft retcons build up and become very frustrating, especially when a) the problem player learns nothing, and b) the problem player feeds a whole bunch of other players a load of misinformation about things, IC and OOC to the point that the entire community understanding of a situation can shift for the worse.

That said, I absolutely agree that you can’t fix an OOC problem with IC solutions - IC consequences for a character should at least try to be fun for the player (because it’s a game and the ideal is that everyone is having fun even if their character is in a rough spot), but when you realize that a player is deliberately exploiting other players’ attempts to build a healthy and congenial environment? Remove the player. Don’t try to ‘teach them IC’ because, in every case I’ve ever seen, the problem was never a lack of IC or OOC knowledge. It was that they did not agree with the IC reality and so simply chose to do their own thing and fuck anyone who’s attempt to play the actual game was impacted.

Boot, lock door behind, move on.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Faraday said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

It’s interesting to see the various experiences. I’ve never seen folks deliberately exclude someone for sucking at dice rolls. What I do see is the player with the crappy rolls getting bent out of shape

I’ve seen it a small handful of times. Certainly much less often than the unlucky-roller getting bent out of shape.

And yeah, it’s associated with certain crowds.

The time this happened with me, I go to investigate The Thing with another PC. Other PC ignores my PC saying, “we won’t be able to communicate once we’re inside, so we need to make a plan to reconn” and just goes in. My PC is ICly concerned, and I OOCly don’t want to spend the scene standing around while Other PC does All The Things. So I also try to get in, and botch. With seven or eight dice. The result was pretty hilarious and a lot of fun, and the scene an OOC and IC success by my count. But thereafter, Other PC ICly thinks mine a fuck-up, somebody to avoid working with.

'Course, opportunities for PCs in that faction to do anything were few and far between, and I can’t be sure that I was ever thus excluded from anything that actually happened. I later learned I was target of a smear campaign, but at the time it came across as being disinvited based on a single roll, which I rolled with very happily.

[Faraday]

@Gashlycrumb said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

But thereafter, Other PC ICly thinks mine a fuck-up, somebody to avoid working with.

I mean…unpopular opinion maybe but I think that’s a perfectly reasonable IC reaction to the situation you described.

But OOCly, I wouldn’t let that stand in the way of RP. It could be a fun storyline, even, where Skeptic is forced to go on missions with PerceivedScrewup, only to have their perceptions challenged when PerceivedScrewup doesn’t screw up again. Or PerceivedScrewup has a crisis of confidence because they screwed up in a clutch moment and must work to regain their mojo.

[crawfish]

@sao it was hot

[Gashlycrumb]

@Faraday Yep. It would have been fun if it was an element to RP with, rather than a reason to be removed from RP.

Pretty much like any IC failure.

[Kassien]

A little late to the discussion and likely this may is already been contributed. There is a saying that I will likely miss quote and I do not know who to contribute it too, but it my mind this whole subject hinges on it.

That is - what is the difference between reality and science fiction? Science Fiction has to make sense.

I think as long as the GM is open and transparent with players, both on an OOC and IC level, so they don’t feel like the GM is after one particular out come, and the player has some ‘force’ seeking them out most players will accept that.

But if you just pull it out of the blue that x happened, and as the GM there was no way communicated. And that it was because your player did or didnt actions y and z, and as a GM I never made it clear IC or OOC that those actions were unwise or options. I think that’s when players get flustered.

It comes down leaving bread crumbs. Don’t assume a player thinks about the things that the GM thinks about. GM sets a stage, gives direction, and advises (IC and OOC) along the way.

As an after thought edit - I do believe some players will get upset no matter what you do as a GM as well

[Smile]

I have at times as a GM been heavy handed in explaining consequences to people IC before they happen. It still gets lost over time and takes people by surprise. Going forward I think I’m just going to keep reiterating every scene consequences may crop up.

[Pavel]

@Kassien said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

what is the difference between reality and science fiction? Science Fiction has to make sense.

For your, hopefully, edification:
The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense. Attributed to Tom Clancy, though there are similar quotes from Mark Twain: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, truth isn’t” and G.K. Chesterton: “Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.”