Ravenswing

These posters are about to be banned in my house in case we rupture anything laughing.

No... well, living host anyway. Don't let the flaming skull confuse you.

(( If you're really lucky, you may get Stargazer there, or similar. It's the last day her account is active. ))

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It's a comic book world. "Dead" characters don't usually stay dead very long...

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It took them ages to ressurect Jean Gray...

Some people will put (( Roleplayer )) or (( RP )) in their bios. There was some talk of getting a badge added, but it would never have worked.

So, no, not really.

(( Proofread more, young padwan. Should be interesting to learn more about this one. Write more. ))

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So because i rolled a villain it's 'tough luck' regarding RP...great...

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I think most roleplaying in CoV takes place in SGs and on missions. Since I almost exclusively solo in CoV, I'm not really sure about that.

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My main gripe with it is okaying Railroading, for some of us Railroading is capital punishment worthy sin.

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Personal preference: no railroading. I'm also realistic enough to realise that some railroading is necessary in a setting where you cannot freely decide the outcome. As I said, you can't have a plot where the city is going to be destroyed actually succeed, so, somehow, the PCs must win.

Of course, I would also prefer it if people didn't write plots which will result in the end of the univers/world/city/zone/anything larger than a car, so that you don't have to railroad them at all.

Essentially though, I'm just trying to be realistic, and I'm just trying to get people to give their players the best RP experience they can have, even if behind the scenes they are being treated to a less than perfect world.

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Now I recognise that a lot of people here are very pro Railroading, maybe at the very least make a note that as soon as some people realise that it's happening they will certainly step away from the plot?

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I will, indeed, amend the text, though the whole point was that the players should be conned into thinking they aren't being railroaded.

Addendum: I have so ammended the text. Hope that meets your needs. Like I say there, I really don't like railroad plots, I just recognise that people intent on saving the world might need railroading to be sure they do save it.

Don't ask me, mate. I've roleplayed once in the Rogue Isles. It was a chance meeting just after CoV launch which took place around the Arbiter in Mercy Town.

Generally, I don't like the kind of RP I've seen villains get up to. If I want my villains RPing, I'll take them to Pocket D. I don't think we ever identified an entirely suitable area with the advantages GG has/had, and you have to remember that GG was a bit of a fluke.

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That's not a reason not to try. Anyway, it could always be linked into the Suggestions forum if the petition actually ended up getting a significant level of support!

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The best you can do is have someone hand in a petition at City Hall and to have City Hall issue a statement that the petition is being considered. You cannot write plot for Cryptic, you cannot change the game, and you will not hear a reply from Cryptic about any memorial in time for us all to hold a vistory party for White Vampyre at Pocket D.

If we did wait for such a victory party, keeping up this level of 'entertainment' I can guarantee that just about everyone will have quit roleplaying by the end of it.

I'm not about to argue about it anymore. As you said, I'm making the sensible choice and ignoring it. It's a shame that at least one person felt it permeated Union roleplay so much that he couldn't ignore it, and has left. I'm thankful that I found someone to roleplay with last night who found it more interesting to talk to the weird girl from the Rogue Isles than talk politics, otherwise, I'd probably be quitting too.

Post here all the things you wish to accuse me of regarding my reasons for posting the GMing Advice Thread.

This is just to avoid the problems I see coming when someone decided I'm picking on them for being a bad GM/human/entity/banana.

Hopefully, no one will actually need to use this thread.

This thread is intended as a brain dump of all the things I've seen go right and wrong with plots in CoX over the past two years. (Yes, it's being written because of the current peition plot, but that's just a trigger, the points made here should be universally valid and might help promote well constructed, community wide and smaller plots in the future.)

I'd rather keep discussion in this thread to actual advice to people trying to run plots and so I'll be creating a second thread for people to tell me why I'm a horrible person for picking on people (which I will be trying not to do).

Here goes:

Someone needs to be in charge
A plot should have an identified GM or Plotmaster, and there should be identified ways to contact them with queries about the plot. It does help to be very dictatiorial about this, not to say tyrannical. I've tried to run plots with two GMs, you can't communicate well enough and you end up with plot holes forming. You also need relatively tight control over people making things up on their own.

It is usually best if you do not run plots for your own characters.

This is an Open RP Environment
In a regular PnP game, there are fixed rules, a limited group of players, and the GM has complete control over their powers/skills/resources. If you are running a plot which will operate at GG, or Pocket D, or any other public location you have absolutely no certainty over how much control you have.

Even setting aside God Modders and the really uber, over-powered heroes, heroes with powers most people are comfortable with (and even those that exist in game) can blow a steaming great hole in your plot.

It's really difficult to develop suspense regarding someone getting mortally wounded when you have an Empath handy who can have that person back on their feet in seconds, or even bring them back from the dead.

The moral of the story is as follows: you need to be prepared for anything. (And that leads on to most people's response.)

Uber-villains are usually bad
It's lazy. Almost every end-game system in MMOs, just about all computer games, and a rather major number of published PnP scenarios do it. Writer 1: "Oh my gosh, these players are powerful and have amazing skills, how can we possibly have a challenge for them." Writer 2: "Oh, that's easy, we'll have them face a giant protoplasmic blob which they can't damage and they have no defense against."

There are several things wrong with this:
* Lower end characters are instantly written out of the plot, no matter how they might wish to be involved.
* Everyone feels impotent against the god character, which means no one actually wants to play, plus it tends to result in a lot of OOC animosity.
* The plot will almost certainly end up railroaded since someone has to find out how to get rid of the thing and being a good God Character GM, you have probably already decided exactly who that is.
* As FloatingFatMan has found out, you will take vast amounts of stick for the rest of your life regarding your god characters.

Generally, if a GM is running a plot for their own toon, and that plot involves a god character, it's an ego thing. Basically: "my toon is better than yours because my toon has this totally uber arch-enemy." GMs need to check their ego at the door, and this is another good reason to avoid running your own plots.

Try to avoid running plots in major public locations
One reason Galaxy Girl was picked for roleplay is that it's quiet and no one much goes there. You could stage just about anything there and not worry about non-roleplayers butting in and making a hash of it. Pocket D is not going to be like that, and attempting to run anything significant there is going to be difficult.

Generally, if you want to run something plot related, it's usually a good idea to find some quiet location, on a rooftop perhaps, and pull aside the people involved.

Zortel can tell you the tale of a plot she ran with Wordmaker which culminated in a big scene on Friday night in the Paragon Dance Party. A lot of people learned a lot of things that night, but one of them is that it's real tough to run a complex scene while several dozen non-roleplayers are standing around filling the chat channel with rubbish.

By limiting your player base, you also gain greater control over what powers might happen along to ruin things.

Don't run your own plots
Okay, run them, but recognise that you're doing this for yourself and not for other people. Plots you run about your characters tend to be railroaded, and since the plot is about your character, and you are running all the NPCs, you would really be better of writing the whole thing down as a piece of fiction.

How to railroad a plot properly
Railroad plots are fine, says Ravenswing, as long as the players don't realise they are being railroaded. The more control you have over the plot, the easier this is.

Obviously, if you can run a plot which really is open to any little change the players might make, that's great, but unfortunately you will need to railroad any plots you run to some degree. To take the extreme example, if your plot involves a plan to blow up Paragon City, then it must fail. However, it would be nice if every character involved has a chance of figuring out how to stop the bomb, and I know of at least one major plot run recently in which the GM decided exactly who was going to do what at the start of the plot.

To pull off railroading well, you need to be flexible. You need to adapt your plot so that player actions appear to affect what is happening, but actually have no effect. It's the perception that counts.

Edit: WARNING! I don't like railroading, I recognise it as a necessity in some circumstances. 'Purer' roleplayers may well quit a plot if they recognise they are being railroaded. It is ALWAYS better to write plots so that they don't NEED to be railroaded.

Dealing with God Modders, Attention Seekers, and Plot Breakers
Some people like to think their character can do anything, some people want their character to be the centre of attention, some people have good intentions, but are going to break the plot if they keep going the way they are going.

There are two basic ways to deal with this, IC and OOC. Try IC first.

IC, stonewall them, present counters to their uber powers, mess them about. You are the GM and have access to a bigger fearsome arsenal of horrors than any player.

Example: I ran a detective plot about a theft at a hospital. One of the players had a character able to talk to spirits, who wanted to talk to the spirit of the hospital to find out what had happened. It was well intentioned, but it would have broken the plot and wrecked a lot of other people's fun, so instead of getting information, she got a headache and spent a day in a coma from trying to contact the cesspit that was the mind of King's Row hospital.

The OOC way of dealing with that would have been to tell her outright that she was being selfish and spoiling other people's fun. The usual answer to a request like that is "but my character wouldn't stand by and let this happen." Which is why it's usually better to use IC mechanisms. Roleplayers find it difficult to argue when you out roleplay them. (The player concerned 'got her own back' later and the plot died because no one wanted to play anymore.)

Be ready to paper over plot holes
You will make mistakes. The hospital plot had a gaping hole in its timeline, due to a communication problem, which had to be fixed up. If you can fix this IC, then fix it IC, but if the only way you'll resolve a problem with a plot which people are enjoying is to sit everyone down and retcon things a bit OOC, then don't be afraid to do it.

Keep people informed
Make sure everyone knows what they should know. I have actually enlisted the help of someone outside of the plot to give someone else information they needed. Do whatever you need to to keep those involved knowing what's required.

Communication is key.

Try to envolve everyone
You should limit who is involved in a plot, but if someone wants to be in there and you can think of any valid reason why they could help, make sure they get their spot in the sun. This has to be the most difficult thing for a GM to do. You will make mistakes and people will feel left out. Hopefully, those people will tell you and you can do something about it, but it's best if you can just review what people are doing and make sure they are getting the returns the deserve.

I'm sure there's more than this to write, but I think that's the really big pitfalls covered. GMing plots in an environment like City of X is hard work, but it can be very rewarding. Get out there and have fun, people!

I suggest this thread stops now. If this continues, I'll email Bridger to have it locked.

This is getting totally out of hand.

Ye gods! I return to this? I think I'll go back to just beating things up until this blows over.

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((Please sign below as any character that would support this petition, and feel free to direct other players to the thread if your character would be helping get signatures on the petition))

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This paragraph is the only original source for who is 'organising' the petition. It actually says nothing about how this is being organised, who is handling it, any lines of communication. People just ran with it.

The initial response was people simply 'signing' the signature. I felt that my character War Crow would not sign it, and that that required some explanation which the straight signatories did not, so I invented an NPC to ask for a signature and be rebuffed. I felt that was reasonable since the original post does state that others may be involved in collecting signatures. (It does indicate that by asking for people to post if they wish to help.) The person meets Crow in his office and that's fine because he's the COO of a public company which uses him in its TV advertising. (Think the adverts from Ghosbusters 2 originally, though they started employing professional directors and things after a while and he looks less like a total moron in the more recent ads. )

So, once again, I think I'm responsible for starting all these NPCs running around collecting signatures. However, I think my assumptions were reasonable, and I can't be held responsible for anything anyone else might have done after that.

I think the small amount of released information regarding this storyline has resulted in people improvising. I think that is causing confusion and too many plot problems. I think that some of the 'attacks' on Ammon have been badly informed and a little too active, but then the informing that's going in has been fairly poor. I think Ammon is being a bit defensive about his idea, which is resulting in people defending things which should have been just sorted out.

Mostly, I think that no one is in control of this 'plot' anymore and it's fallen into chaos and bickering, and it needs to be shut down.

As I've said, this plot cannot result in anything actually happening. If we get a memorial park in I10, we can look back and say that "that damn petition did some good at least." But we aren't going to get a reply from Cryptic about that anytime soon, and we cannot change the world our characters live in, except on a personal level.

IMO, best thing to do is to hold some press conferences, calm down the press, let it blow over as these things do in real life. (PS. Should have started this in summer. The papers will print any rubbish to increase circulation in summer, they usually have real stories to print outside the holiday season.)

I think that really is enough from me. I personally wish I'd never got involved. This has reminded me why I stopped roleplaying on Union six or eight months ago.

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Maybe Brit should post something like that in the ideas section for inclusion in I10.

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Already sort of did it in the New RP/Community Meeting Places Thread and even linked the little story piece with Rachel's to the suggestion thread.

Memorial Garden Suggestion

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Good, but put it somewhere clear and open in its own thread. Embedded in another thread it can easily get missed and it's a good idea. So put it in its own thread.

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"Sprechen sie Deutsch?" asked Feuer Frau.

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I nearly choked to death laughing. Thank you. That was a good one to start the morning with. ))

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It was posted as a petition, so naturally (although you seem to have trouble grasping that cause and effect thing) we replied to it as being an organized petition

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Ammon might well point out here that the organiser of the petition has since vanished. That would be a convenient way of getting round that particular plot hole.

Unfortunately, since Brit and Rachel have now heavily identified themselves with the petition in front of the press and (I think) TV cameras, we could also assume that signed petition forms are likely to start being handed to them by gushing fans. (I see about five dozen giggling girls gathered around Brit while Rachel looks on with a cheesy grin on her face, but I'm only working on the personalities portayed in the micro-story.)

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To say it negates the petition is god-modding.

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As does saying it doesn't negate the petition. Unfortunately we have no 'higher authority' to look to to determine how this would be played out in the media, who are, afterall, likely to the ones to decide how such things would play out.

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Do we also now say that any power not available as an in-game powerset one is non-existant because the machinery doesn't support it?

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Nope. Though it would have solved so many problems if we had.

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You may be aware of a 'criminal' put away for over two decades who's support for the Anti-apartheid movement was critical, and whom is held in very high regard. Perhaps the name Nelson Mandella rings a bell?

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Wince, I'm not sure comparing Mandella with someone who knocks over banks in Atlas Park is entirely reasonable.

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Admittedly, escaped prisoners are another matter. However, do you know for a fact that none of the villains signing were not just visiting, or even only on remand?

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Um anything coming over from CoV has been broken out of the Zig by Arachnos...

Yeah, I think it would be a great idea, but I can see them putting it in Galaxy, or Founders' instead of King's Row.

I do actually think it's a beautiful idea. Maybe Brit should post something like that in the ideas section for inclusion in I10. If the Rikti are coming back in force (maybe) it would be cool if the city had just put up a huge memorial to those who fell in the last war.

Oh yeah.

I'd argue that she hates her own powers, and by extension hates the powers of others, but even that may not amount to seeing the results of her actions turn upon themselves as they have. Which could be why she's vanished, but again, we don't know.

Fun, isn't it.

I was thinking of doing a bit on Velvet based around Ammon's petition plot and was wondering whether to bother putting it here or in Roleplaying. I guess it's going in Roleplaying.

Doc, all I'll say is that 'secretly' and 'unconciously' don't mean exactly the same thing. We can draw our own conclusions about her unconcious reasons, and we must since all we have are our own views. However, you said 'secretly' and I think Ammon has pretty much come clean on any secret intentions she may have had, i.e. none.

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For me, a "Plot" has a predefined beginning, middle and resolution.

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It can have, but it need not. What do you call something which someone has carefully crafted to create an effect, but where they don't intend to influence they outcome? I still call it a plot.

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If people are expecting this to have a resolution which they can be informed about ahead of time, then I don't think there is one.

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If we could be informed of the end results at the start, what would be the point of doing the bit in the middle?

Besides, having fixed end results to a plot is called railroading, and is generally considered bad form.

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I can't wait to see where it ends up!

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Damp squib would seem most likely. I'd suspect that Britanic's press conference and the 'compromise petition' will quiet things down (or Statesman gives a press conference) and things will gradually revert to normal with no real changes.

Unfortunately, we have to deal with the reality of an MMO. Nothing can really change.