For whatever reason, Charlotte decided she doesn’t like James. That’s fine, these things happen more often than we’d like in this hobby. Just don’t RP with that person and have fun with the people you can have fun with.

But no. Charlotte can’t just leave James alone. She continuously pursues storylines that place her in conflict with James and then cries when conflict occurs. She feels the need to constantly rant and rave about how much she hates James. Everything James does or didn’t do is new evidence for how awful he is, no matter how insignificant the issue. In fact, everything awful going on right now must be because of James.

Today, my peeve is people who simply can’t take a chill pill and stay away from people who bother them.

This scenario is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

My least favourite encounter in stories/plots is the Main Character Syndrome player. The one who rushes ahead without bothering to wait for anyone’s emote and grabs the MacGuffin to take home and try to interact with the plot to the exclusion of all others. The one who gets up in front of everyone and “volunteers” to be the most important person who shall charge forth alone to solve all the problems and actually expects a pat on the back for this behavior. Basically constantly looking for a way to elevate themselves above the rest of us peons who showed up to participate.

I’m dealing with one in the current game I’m playing and I’m so fucking done with it. A decent amount of plot licking means they’re somehow constantly in the center of everything and there’s very little to do that doesn’t require going through them in some way. And they have a history of OOC aggression towards people trying to get involved in plots they’ve already licked.

Like, have friends if you want, put them first if you want, I consider this all fairly normal behaviour. But if you can’t stop acting like a monster to everyone else that’s where I draw the line. Fuck off with that shit.

If it feels like someone is constantly on a hair trigger waiting to flip out about the smallest thing, I wish them well and get the fuck out of there. Life is too short to walk on eggshells. And as already stated, the goalposts always seem to change.

The game has been running for a while now and while new games tend to fizzle out and die I’d just like to give kudos to Silent Heaven for going strong and continuing to mature.

In particular I think the gamerunner has done a lot of work addressing and removing negative influences, and the community has never been such a welcoming and chill place to be.

I found out where everyone went basically today. I wouldn’t be surprised if posting an advertisement got you banned though.

Also feeling super awkward rn because I didn’t know the name Juniper was already taken, I just used my name from MSB. This isn’t some kind of mindgame, sorry @junipersky

When the scene finally slows down enough for me to finish an emote and I post it, feeling good about myself…

Only to realise my client was scrolled up and everyone has moved on and my emote now makes no sense.

Also dealing with cool shit and / or story being gatekept by a player who is just deeply unpleasant to be around. It’s better for everyone if I’m not inflicting my presence on someone I don’t like, but damn, it still sucks.

Feta cheese.

if you’re running a writing game why would you outsource the writing lmao

Interesting but I’m sure you’d have found the same thing by googling LiberationMUSH. I can’t fathom using a tool for research when it’s wrong like… Most of the time.

@SqeakyClean What did they have to say for themselves?

Interesting but I’m sure you’d have found the same thing by googling LiberationMUSH. I can’t fathom using a tool for research when it’s wrong like… Most of the time.

@RedRocket Man, I’m a little sad I missed this game. Sounds like something I’d have tried.

The trailing off without resolution is why I don’t RP on forums anymore. At least in a MUSH people don’t start and abandon a story a week.

Is Songs of Avaria still running? It looked like an original setting.

@Pavel said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:

Is there some way to have the typical Lords and Ladies experience people desire whilst also removing the reliance on/availability of NPCs?

I guess it depends on the scope of your game and what kinds of characters are included. Like you said, NPCs are for the boring bits. If every character is nobility I think it’s probably fine to send your lackeys. If your L&L game has a population of commoners and lower nobility, people really need to think about who’s missing out when they delegate to NPCs.

In my experience the PC with the most power, or the first player to hear about it handles it using their NPC minions. It ends up as:

GM, to King: There are reports of zombie coyotes around the villages west of the city.

King, to GM: I move my personal army to go take care of it, and my best friend Danielle can go bless the land.

Abelard, Bridget, and Camille: How can we get involved?

King: Fuck off, it’s handled.

Later, some political rival: Why didn’t the City Watch Commander do anything about those zombie coyotes? They’re inactive and lazy!

This is why I’m a fan of the bottom-up version where Squire Manfred and Lady Ophelia get looped in. The scenario is more immediate and if they end up needing backup they can kick it up the chain of command. But the best way is for the GM to directly loop in as many people as possible because if you’re relying on players to involve other players… they fucking won’t.

Empathy fatigue.

To me, story hooks and avenues to distribute information is so important.

My experience with metaplots is that a big mystery will open up, a bunch of players will put together a PRP to touch the plot, it will utterly bounce off, and then the plot will go underground with the player it was always meant for and I’ll never hear about the mystery again. Then a new mystery pops up, repeat ad nauseum.

You really need to be honest with players about how they can get involved and actually be open to them doing so. And if you rely on hearsay for information to get around, a lot of the time that simply won’t happen.

UGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHJJ

That is all. I just had to get it out of my system.