MU Peeves Thread
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@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:
That said, I have met people in this hobby who purposefully write a long background so that they can sneak story elements into the game that the staff may specifically be avoiding. I guess some people choose to take advantage of the fact that staff often don’t read the whole thing.
I’ve staffed on games where we have a background MAXIMUM and people have still tried to go over and at least once the person was like “I know that it’s over the limit but it’s important” and we just went NOPE EDIT IT DOWN.
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@Roz I’ve been in the same situation. When I was staff for a game, we specifically asked for brief bullet points in character backgrounds - but players still sent us these multi-page narratives. And of course, they’d get frustrated when we rejected their applications and asked them to simplify things.
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@Roz said in MU Peeves Thread:
@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:
That said, I have met people in this hobby who purposefully write a long background so that they can sneak story elements into the game that the staff may specifically be avoiding. I guess some people choose to take advantage of the fact that staff often don’t read the whole thing.
I’ve staffed on games where we have a background MAXIMUM and people have still tried to go over and at least once the person was like “I know that it’s over the limit but it’s important” and we just went NOPE EDIT IT DOWN.
I made the background field a single line. Once you press enter, that’s it. Your background is over.
And I’ve still seen backgrounds that fill my entire screen. An entire brick of text. Even then, I do read them and enjoy the stories people come up with.
Side-tangent: I do sometimes get people who submit troll backgrounds, like someone’s dark secret is that they killed the dinosaurs, or that they accidentally crashed a car into a furry convention and swapped lives with one of the costumers. Those are less fun to read
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My problem with backgrounds is that I constantly do the thing where I put all the interesting bits of a character’s life in the background, and leave very little room for interesting stuff to happen on the game. But nobody wants my 125,000 word fan fic of a fallen Ottoman prince-turned-vampire.
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if your character has to come with a disclaimer –
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@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:
My problem with backgrounds is that I constantly do the thing where I put all the interesting bits of a character’s life in the background, and leave very little room for interesting stuff to happen on the game.
I don’t think that’s only your problem. Its a problem built into the system that you have to self correct for. You’re told to make a background and usually told that you have to justify your stats. So you come up with whatever ridiculousness you need to to justify the stats, then after approval, you’re not actually allowed to do half the interesting stuff that was approved in your background for various reasons, many of which are completely valid. So you end up in this weird twilight zone of having this very cool character who will not likely accomplish anything near as interesting as what you had in your head. As a result there’s more than a few people who have made characters they really liked, but then have done little to nothing with them before fading out completely.
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@Warma-Sheen said in MU Peeves Thread:
So you end up in this weird twilight zone of having this very cool character who will not likely accomplish anything near as interesting as what you had in your head. As a result there’s more than a few people who have made characters they really liked, but then have done little to nothing with them before fading out completely.
This is why I try to write characters who are boring as fuck in their backgrounds. I thoroughly enjoy “random nobody gets drug into a world of whatever and has to adapt” stories.
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The great thing about broad strokes backgrounds (aka Schrodinger’s BG) is that you can fill things in retroactively as they arise in story. It also makes it much easier to write in the moment.
So go as vague as you like, justify the skills loosely, and fill in gaps before approval if staff asks for them.
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@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:
This is why I try to write characters who are boring as fuck in their backgrounds. I thoroughly enjoy “random nobody gets drug into a world of whatever and has to adapt” stories.
This was why I liked playing bog standard humans in WoD MU*s. Just someone completely absent from the machinations of mages, the centuries old plots of vampires, the chicaneries of changelings, the violence of werewolves, the… bandages?.. of mummies, etc.
It was really neat to toss them into the world with these kind of characters and see what happened to them. Interestingly enough, most of the time these standard human characters ended up being quite popular with the supernatural crowd. It amused me to think that there was only, like, ten normal humans in the entirety of the WoD and I was playing one which all the other supernatural entities were trying to court.
@Hobbie said in MU Peeves Thread:
The great thing about broad strokes backgrounds (aka Schrodinger’s BG) is that you can fill things in retroactively as they arise in story. It also makes it much easier to write in the moment.
Or go the Old Man Henderson route and just make an insane background that has everything and the kitchen sink to justify any possible weirdness.
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@STD said in MU Peeves Thread:
go the Old Man Henderson route
For those unfamiliar, here is an excellent audio rendition: The Tale Of Old Man Henderson
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@Warma-Sheen I’m so sick of having to justify my stats. I shouldn’t have to write that my character was a career chef just to beg enough points to make toast. I’ve been told multiple times my character needs more experience for their build but I look at what I’m asking for and my character is in the range of “fucking useless”.
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@Juniper It’s probably pretty much impossible to be fair in judging what ‘justifies’ a stat. When you’re doing it for hundreds or scores of characters, anyway.
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@Juniper said in MU Peeves Thread:
@Warma-Sheen I’m so sick of having to justify my stats. I shouldn’t have to write that my character was a career chef just to beg enough points to make toast. I’ve been told multiple times my character needs more experience for their build but I look at what I’m asking for and my character is in the range of “fucking useless”.
somebody on a WoD game once asked me to justify why my char had Dancing 4
like
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@Prototart said in MU Peeves Thread:
somebody on a WoD game once asked me to justify why my char had Dancing 4
like
Look, don’t you know how DANGEROUS Dancing 4 is? You’ve be able to cut up the rug and defeat Antedeluvian vampires in a breakdancing contest! Your pirouettes would dizzy the minds of mages! Werewolves would howl in defeat at your disco moves! Changelings would have no choice but to bow to your Thriller! Your ballroom dancing would shake the very pillars of heaven!
Totally understandable to ask for such mind boggling power to be justified.
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person: [god i love neil gaiman], he really blows my skirt up
me: [you seem to lack certain recent information]
person: If it’s some bad thing he did IRL I’m not interested. I don’t want to hang out and have a beer with the guy.
me: [damn, that’s pretty gnarly and context blind]
person: [you are ATTACKING me take it somewhere else with your toxicity!!!]
lol, this hobby has all types, istg.
sorry, i also forgot:
person: I think if I was allergic to peanut butter I would just eat it with an epi pen in my hand.
In Occam I trust.
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We were once told on AoA that we needed knowledge:Tatooine at 50 (out of 100 max) or greater to know what a Jawa is.
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@Coin said in MU Peeves Thread:
person: [god i love neil gaiman], he really blows my skirt up
me: [you seem to lack certain recent information]
person: If it’s some bad thing he did IRL I’m not interested. I don’t want to hang out and have a beer with the guy.
me: [damn, that’s pretty gnarly and context blind]
person: [you are ATTACKING me take it somewhere else with your toxicity!!!]
lol, this hobby has all types, istg.
sorry, i also forgot:
person: I think if I was allergic to peanut butter I would just eat it with an epi pen in my hand.
they quit, lol.
or got banned. idk. but lol.
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@Coin
double post because they came back.dang.
