#1: Summoning the Shadows

[Consuela]

I thought I'd point out an incongruity in your article, Prometheus. On the one hand you point out as a strength of the online text approach to RPGs the fact that you can get involved in player plots to get around some of the "reset" problems. On the other hand you refer to them as "tinyplots" which kind of undermines them as a feature in favour of online text games.

Which is it? Are they an important part of the online text game experience or are they tiny and insignificant stop-gaps used to patch things over while we wait for the real plots to actually show up?

(Personally, I've found most of the player-driven plots to be pretty hollow since there is absolutely zero support for them from the actual system. It doesn't help to have been drawn into one player plot that was reasonably intriguing only to have its very premise changed out from under its participants by CE in mid-stream. This experience -- still unfolding -- has made me doubly wary of bothering with any player plots.)

[SamW]

Originally posted by Consuela:
On the other hand you refer to them as "tinyplots" which kind of undermines them as a feature in favour of online text games.


I think Prometheus is not using 'tinyplots' as a diminutive, but rather as a carryover from the slang of TinyMUSH. Used this way, it just means plots that take place in an environment like Marrach.

Sam
ps - Don't get me started on the whole three-fold model, we'll have blood in the streets. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif

[Consuela]

Originally posted by SamW:
I think Prometheus is not using 'tinyplots' as a diminutive, but rather as a carryover from the slang of TinyMUSH. Used this way, it just means plots that take place in an environment like Marrach.

But he distinguishes them from CE-driven plots -- or at least strongly implies that he does.

[Prometheus]

Oops...caught me out. And here I thought I'd gotten rid of all that slang. (there's another column idea....definitions of common terms in the MMRPG world).

By 'tinyplot' I was indeed referring to 'plots run in text-based online RPGs as a whole'. Doesn't matter who's running them, staff or not. The only reference to tinyplots I make is in my blurb on future columns, so I'll define things better when I write Casting Call.


Which is it? Are they an important part of the online text game experience or are they tiny and insignificant stop-gaps used to patch things over while we wait for the real plots to actually show up?


Player-run plots (PRPs) are important parts of the online text-game universe. Using Marrach as an example, with its socialization model, /most/ of the important plots should be player-run...after all, the most important people in the universe are the players. The column I'll be writing regarding such things will contain some observations on how to make such a plot /work/...including, as I've alluded to, how to make such a thing not interfere with plots run by StoryPlotters or staff.

Ultimately, the economics of scale make player-run plots the one truly /reliable/ source of entertainment on MMRPG prose games. With game population of players increasing and staff members being few and far between (since more people want to play than staff) the ability to count on staff-run plots for entertainment is not something that people who play these sorts of games should bank on.

[Atama]

This experience -- still unfolding -- has made me doubly wary of bothering with any player plots.

You're gonna get bored pretty quick then.

[Consuela]

Originally posted by Prometheus:
Oops...caught me out. And here I thought I'd gotten rid of all that slang. (there's another column idea....definitions of common terms in the MMRPG world).

What's wrong with just using English? http://www.skotos.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

By 'tinyplot' I was indeed referring to 'plots run in text-based online RPGs as a whole'. Doesn't matter who's running them, staff or not. The only reference to tinyplots I make is in my blurb on future columns, so I'll define things better when I write Casting Call.

That's appreciated. I've never been big on the MUD/MUSH/whatever scene until CM. I don't have the patois down, and until your article I've never needed to know it. (And even there it was only one minor misunderstanding.)

Player-run plots (PRPs) are important parts of the online text-game universe.

...

With game population of players increasing and staff members being few and far between (since more people want to play than staff) the ability to count on staff-run plots for entertainment is not something that people who play these sorts of games should bank on.

On the other hand, many of the problems we currently face in PRPs come about because the system doesn't support anything coming from PRPs. Let's say my character is wounded. What indications are there of this? None (unless you go to an SP and persuade them that they want to support this). You typically instead have the conversations like this going on:

ooc "I've got bruises all over my face."

ooc "No you don't!"

And then things go downhill.

[Consuela]

Originally posted by Atama:
> This experience -- still unfolding -- has made me doubly wary of bothering with
> any player plots.

You're gonna get bored pretty quick then.

I've found most of the player plots I've stumbled across so far to be quite dull already. There is only so many times that I can take Yet Another Illness/Injury Plot or Yet Another Animal Person Plot -- both usually without any in-game context outside of "I want <character> to get some attention" -- before I change channels.

Of course not all Illness/Injury plots are this way. Edanya, for example, RPed her injuries as a result of the thing with Lucas very well. But what made it interesting was the context: an in-game conflict (based on CE-provided setups, I might add). There were social repercussions all around over that -- the injury portion was just an indicator of things happening deep behind the scenes.

Unfortunately this calibre of planning and RP in player plots is rare.

And, like I said, it doesn't help to have an interesting plot I was getting involved in get radically changed -- at the insistence of staff -- into a hackneyed, cliched, boring plot instead. I'm still not sure how I'm going to deal with this. I may have a chat with an SP and the principles involved to have me retroactively written out of the plot as it stands because what it was turned into is not what I signed up for.

[Seidl]

Consuela, while you may be better at this than other people I talk to in game, there are a number of plots that I've had many people talk to me OOC about that they thought were CE plots, and were really just well run player plots. Some ended up getting SP or CE help for conclusions, but thats what they are there for in part.

Some things are easy to tell apart. Animal people, some of the multiple personality plots, etc. But not every CE or SP plot has big NPCs in them, and not ever player plot doesn't. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif

-=- Matt

[Consuela]

Originally posted by Seidl:
Consuela, while you may be better at this than other people I talk to in game, there are a number of plots that I've had many people talk to me OOC about that they thought were CE plots, and were really just well run player plots. Some ended up getting SP or CE help for conclusions, but thats what they are there for in part.

Some things are easy to tell apart. Animal people, some of the multiple personality plots, etc. But not every CE or SP plot has big NPCs in them, and not ever player plot doesn't. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif

I'm aware of this. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif BTW, don't you find it frightening that we're talking in the plural with some of these? Animal PEOPLE, not an animal person. Multiple-personality PLOTS, not a multiple-personality plot. I suspect that this little observations is what started making me jaded on the subject of player-created plots.

I think that another part of the problem is that Connie's an Awakener. She's on the front line of the Newlies trying out player plots. (Guess how many of them bother asking for OOC consent to involve you....) Almost all she ever gets is the incompetent player plots. (Of the ones I've spotted as PRPs, of course.) This has probably coloured my opinions of them.

Anyway, the problem plot that I spoke of above got resolved with a little help from SP Corvis. (A little help? Corvis must have RL training as a hostage negotiator! He did an awesome job as an intermediary.) I will still be gun-shy from obviously player-created plots as I did not, overall, enjoy this one even with Corvis' help. (What Corvis accomplished last night was having me not walk away from CM permanently. I don't think that even he could have turned this into something I enjoyed.)

As I said, much of this mistrust of PRPs is likely because of the position Connie is in right now: on the front line of Newly abuse. Unfortunately there's really no way for me to have Connie take an IC break from her Awakener duties. So I think, until I can find a good IC reason for it, I'm just going to follow my instincts and dodge the PRPs that I spot -- perhaps with a brief OOC explanation of why I just can't do it right now so I don't offend people.

[Seidl]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If you find that by staying IC you are OOC unhappy, DON'T STAY IC. Play an alt, take a game break, or just work find any reason to do the things that make you OOC happy. People are really pretty random. We've all done things that we look back at and say ... Why the heck did I do that? Or look at intellegent, upstanding people who've made uncharacteristic choices. Keep yourself happy. If you aren't happy, your characters will suffer more. You could have, for example, Connie get more involved with a project with Ermengarde, and simply not be as active an awakener for a while. Not that you don't help when asked, but that you don't hunt down newly awakened like they were lost sheep that needed returning to the fold.

If you see players coming up with rehashed plots again and again, maybe politely talking to them OOC about it would help? Heck, even put up a web site with the "10 most hackned player plots". I've seen most of these bits done well, and other times done poorly. The problem is helping the players who want to do things poorly to understand what they can do better.

Maybe a SP lecture (like the villian lecture, or hopefully the hero lecture) about good ways to run player plots? Or a couple of case studies about well run and not so well run player plots?

-=- Matt

[KathyN]

Good intro article. Please please address the topic re: players who 'act out' (my phrase) in order to gain attention. The ones who persist in being overly hostile, amorous, un-human, unclothed etc. are bogging down the story-lines that actually are there.
Thanks,
Kathy N

[Ra'Dorcha]

I agree with Kathy. Good intro. Not much new info in it, but gives us an idea on your style and frankly I think this is a much needed subject to be covered.

I think in six weeks with the 'King of pain' article we will see more of what KathyN was asking to see. I haven't played for too long, but I admit I'm getting a little tired (IC & OOC) of seeing a woman come into the room crying because the ser who was courting her left her for another sera.

In terms of Player-Plots. I don't consider someone who is an "animal person" or multiple-personalities to be doing a plot. That is their character. If all you are doing is pretending to be a cat all the time (love you Cim http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif ), that is simply your character. To call it a plot is like saying Gareth is running a plot when he uses words like gramercy. Plots should be much more than just the character. You need to have involved other people, have a purpose you are heading for.

Just my thoughts, and again Thanks for starting a series of articles on us players. I'm only sorry the people who could profit the most from them still don't even read the forums. But the rest of us appreciate the help.