Flame suits on - On IC "fairness"

[SP Ziph]

As a StoryPlotter, one of my goals is to attempt to treat all players as fairly as I can. This is good.

No such consideration applies IC.

Let me repeat that:

I am under no obligation to ensure your character feels fairly treated.

Let me put it in the postitive:

The best stories are those of how a character undergoes pain, suffering and injustices and emerges changed (and improved) from the experience.

What this means is that I am willing (even eager) to deliberately thwart your character, in order to allow your character to participate in a more interesting story.

Having said that, I recognise that there are times where everything seems to be going wrong for your character. Sometimes, it helps to mail an SP and ask "Nothing seems to be going right. X, Y, and Z have all gone belly up. Can you give me some direction?" And yes, SPs are willing to grease wheels.

But we're not interested in having characters succeed for the sake of success.
* "I want to be an Honored Guest" - that's nice, take it IC.
* "I want to be an Honoured Guest because I need to be HG to tell this story which will benefit other people in the castle like so." - now you might get some serious interest.
But in either case, we'll point you to the IC channels to achieve this. We'll just make more effort at kicking sleepy VPs in the latter.

Too many plot ideas I get involve "I want to be the hero in a 'plot' that will take lots of SP or SC time." Occasionally, these happen, because we think the idea is creative enough and we trust the player to involve lots of other people.

Much fewer are the plots "I need some minor SP assistance to make happen something that will bring lots of fun to lots of other players." And by "lots of fun", I don't mean they get to watch you, but that you take the back seat to them. These plots usually get fast-tracked.

Finally, remember that fairness thing. My goal is to provide you with opportunity to tell stories, not to acquire skills / stuff / rank. If a twist comes to mind, expect that I'll use it. You might gain rank and favour, but earn the emnity of a powerful foe. Or discover that the item you desired costs more than you bargained for. Or ...

Which would you rather: "Hey, I got rank. The End." or to be humiliated, shocked, scared, troubled and desperately excited to find out "What happens next?"
[/rant]

[John]

Which would you rather: "Hey, I got rank. The End." or to be humiliated, shocked, scared, troubled and desperately excited to find out "What happens next?"

Good question, and that depends on what point of my story I am in at that time. In some cases "I got rank. the end "becoumes "I got rank (charicter rolls up sleaves) Now the real work begins.

The best stories are those of how a character undergoes pain, suffering and injustices and emerges changed (and improved) from the experience.

The best storys mayhap, but as many point out, a perticuler charicter may not be the focus of the best story, but mayhap a little short story, or even a comedy. Some players want to be a part of a sweeping adventure, some a struggle for power. Others a search into themself and who they are, some want nothing more than to be better that anyone else at X. And a few people, just want to be someone else, and to react that way, to relax from the day to day matters.
What I am saying is not everyone is here for the best storys, but simply a story.
That said, I do agree with what you said, just want you, and others to know that not everone is here for the grand or the short. Some people have years long plans, and may even have humble goals.. (Not me.. not really..)

[Lance]

The best stories are those of how a character undergoes pain, suffering and injustices and emerges changed (and improved) from the experience.


At the same time, you can have too much of a 'good' thing. Moderation is key.

[Tyr Gunn]

WORD! Constant pain, suffering, and conflict is just too much.

Lets all remember that, eh?

~M

[Sir Lorenz]

Tell Lorenz's wife that.

No really. Tell her. Please?

[Gareth]

There are 'suffering/peril junkies' as much as there are 'promotion junkies'. I guess you could call it Castle Masochism.

For my tastes, there's a little bit of too much relentless suffering going on. There's only so much gasp-factor and woe-is-me you can wring out of an RPG before it gets tired.

This isn't just physical pain. It is also emotional pain. Being in the same tea party with someone who just trashes you every time they open their mouth is actually worse than getting in a duel and getting wounded. Even dying could be a relief!

It just drives you away. Why bother?

What about those true intrigues and peril, not just petty smarminess? I know a lot of people who were given opportunities to go through peril, pain and suffering and... turned it down. Left. Quit. Just deleted that character and played with others instead. Quit guilds that exposed them to such plots. Or just ignored the plot clues flying around them in a magic wave of obliviousness.

(sigh)

I keep on hearing things like, "He died permanently" or "She retired to her room in heartbreak," or what have you. Basically, people who just hit the shrug-factor red-line. And it often happened when the plots the character was working in were just reaching nadirs or crucial turn-around points. The player decided, "It's not worth my time."

Unless it's sort of clear the stakes you are playing for, and you have a clear motivation to succeed, you might not stick it through your trials and tribulations.

Gareth himself used to have a dream he was living for, but was ordered by the Queen to put that idea down. Um. Hokay. So...

(Whistles a tune, wondering what Fate has in store for him. Keeps his hopes up. Keeps plugging away. Recieves weekly looming-death reports.)

Fortunately, Gareth is sitting on a buttload of knowledge and reasons and plots that he's involved in. But I'm one of the *cough* -- "lucky ones."

I guess it gets back to motivation.

-Pete.

[Gareth]

The best stories are those of how a character undergoes pain, suffering and injustices and emerges changed (and improved) from the experience.

Yes, I agree with the quote.

What I was getting at was the disconnect here.

There are many CM stories about people who undergo pain, suffering, and injustices.

They often are not changed by the experience.

They are often not improved by the experience.

They just sort of... survived or witnessed it... or got fucked.

They glance around, blink and guess at what just happened to them.

So, it goes back to motivation.

Why do you want to beat the crap out of me? And... if I let you, will I get a sword?



-Pete.

[Arian]

Define interesting story. Generally, the typical story line, exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion is pretty good to satisfy people. However, we're a bit more sophisticated, I believe. I think we're too used to the typical plot twists to be rather interested by it, regardless if the resolution is for the better of the character or not.

A Suggestion. One thing it seems of late we haven't had in terms of plots are plots that are defined by a choice. Most plots of late seem to be of the unmovable force versus the immobile object kind of plots where characters seem to constantly backstab and thwart each other until somehow there some sort of final resolution. The Skout plot comes to mind.

Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books series? It was a pretty simple premise, you followed the directions of the book, flipping through pages and making choices based on the selection, and then turning to the corresponding page number. Every once in a while you would come to a point where a really big choice had to be made, say for example, which group are you going to trust to lead the rebellion? You might flip through a few pages back or forth to help you decide which decision would be better.

Now, what would be cool if a plot came down to one or a few selected person's decision on something that would definately change the whole Marrach situation. For example, say for instance, that stemming from the Elea-being-freed-and-now-time-has-slowed-down plot that it turns out the only way to free Serista is for someone of "pure heart" to walk into the doorway, not knowing what exactly will happen. Clearly this would narrow down the selection to a very select group of people. This is a pretty big decision that definately would take some time for the characters to decide. That to me would be interesting. I'm sure other would disagree.

This didn't involve the usual twist of a plot, since there really isn't one. The ending hasn't been revealed, so there's nothing to really "twist."

In other words, what we really need is the drama of a sorcerory binding, but on a castle-wide scale. It comes down to one person, they have to make the decision for themselves, and they could milk the drama out more by wondering if they've made the right decision or not. And if they've made it, they can look with some slight regret, but if they did not make it, everyone else will have to sigh and wonder what if?

And just thought: who said a plot had to end with the main character being in a better or worse position than what he/she started with?

Who are you trying to entertain? For all the comments and criticism I've read, this is the one thing everyone seems to fail to mention. If we all agree we're telling a story, perhaps the question that everyone has forgotten is this: who are we telling the story to? Who are we trying to entertain? Ourselves? Yes, definately. You want to be entertained when you are doing something. What about others? Who is this story for? Is it for a select group of people, or are you wanting to let everyone know what are you trying to do? You know, it wouldn't hurt if while you're working on a plot you could go around and ask a few of the players ooc-wise what they'd like to see out of a particular plot you're working on.

I think this is the heart of a lot of the problems with the current plots. I don't know if plotters know what people are wanting to see happen. We shouldn't be force-fed the same kinds of plots over and over again. Like Gareth mentioned, there are way too many plots that have plot-twists, that have resolutions that do not leave the character better for it. And unless the plot-makers, whether it be a player, a vp, or an sp doesn't check and see what the expectations are, how are you as a storyteller going to know if everyone will be entertained?

And it's not like you have to giving away what you are working on to the players, either. You can simply just ask about past plots, what you'd like, what you'd dislike, what kinds of cliches are you tired with seeing, etc. It's about feedback. Feedback is what keeps us from having stale, seen-this-motif-before kinds of plots, and also allows us to creatively branch off into ideas for plots that are stemmed from the reponses from players.

[John]

a small bump for those who were away.

[Darren Brimhall]

For me, it's a matter of what I do InCharacter that'll effect my characters InGame.
Or, for every action, there is a reaction.
What that reaction is depends upon the action that generated it.
You do something wonderfully heroic, you get rewarded tremendiously. You do something utterly nasty, well..you are going to get punished....If you get caught, that is.

All I say is keep a open mind, and do so try to not get your hopes up too high for something that has a chance at not going your way.
Not everything will go your way. You are going to loose out on things, promotions, whatever--just as you are going to have success in getting those things.
It's all just a matter of time as to when.

And if you are feeling frustrated by constantly loosing out (which personally isn't fair at all, and can lead to people leaving the game in frustration) contact a SP to see if the trend can be reversed.


Darren