No ERP? What in the fuck is the point then?
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Posts
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RE: Non-toxic PvPposted in Game Gab
@bear_necessities In games where I’ve experienced it, it works something like this:
- Staff are open with players regarding upcoming plots and players are open with staff as to how their character would respond to those situations.
- Players regularly debrief with each other (and staff) before and after scenes to work together on crafting a narrative all can enjoy and ensure that bleed is handled in a healthy fashion.
- PVP Conflict scenes are heavily discussed by the players before the IC interactions begin. Staff is on hand through all of this to ensure all parties are being heard in the OOC discussion and to make sure all of the games various rules are being followed fairly. Doubly so for any scene resulting in the final resolution of a PC’s storyline (aka death or other permanent change to the character that renders them unplayable).
In one LARP I’ve participated in, a particularly brutal PVP scene ended in the players of the two conflicting PCs having a big happy cry and many tales being told at dinner after the game that night because debriefing techniques were used for the whole game.
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RE: Non-toxic PvPposted in Game Gab
You can design a near perfect character-conflict system and it will be ruined by an influx of extremely sensitive slice-of-life RPers who devolve into sobbing fits whenever they witness so much as an invitation to participate in conflict.
So lately I’m thinking I’d just kick out those people. Not everyone is capable of the kind of introspection required to choose a game that suits their playstyle, sometimes you have to do it for them.
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RE: Non-toxic PvPposted in Game Gab
What does “100% OOC transparency” look like in this kind of game?
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RE: Non-toxic PvPposted in Game Gab
@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:
So, if you were designing a game where PvP is meant to be part and parcel (it doesn’t have to involve actual combat or risk of character death), how do you go about mitigating any risk of OOC toxicity?
100% OOC Transparency across the board is the common factor among the few games (mostly LARPs) I’ve played in where PVP didn’t cause resentment at all. In any given game, the players and staff are working together to collaboratively tell a story for the enjoyment of all. The moment the players are OOCly obfuscating their plans and actions, then resentment can creep in.
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Non-toxic PvPposted in Game Gab
So I am someone who generally enjoys PvP in my text-based roleplaying games. I tend not to care very much about combat, but I like political systems, ideological debates about the ethics of magic or what-have-you, mysteries where there are some stakes to being the one to solve a puzzle, and an intelligent, player-controlled opponent.
The problem I find is that it’s very hard to have any system of this kind that doesn’t devolve into player resentment and envy. Even if it doesn’t involve character loss or anyone being beaten up or bullied, if the game features some sort of prize that only one player can get, then no matter how fairly it’s earned, it seems inevitable that those who lose out will grumble about how unfair it is that player one got it and they didn’t. Likewise, if you have Team Magic is Cool and Team Magic is Evil, as fun as it is to design characters with ideologies that can participate in an IC debate club about it, inevitably players on Team Cool start projecting assumptions about Team Evil’s OOC ideologies and comparing fictional themes to sensitive RL politics.
Naturally a lot of games choose to sidestep this entirely by just not having PvP, and putting all players on the same team. But this puts a lot more onus on the DM to provide challenges and conflict, and I think it’s impossible to have truly three-dimensional villains in this kind of setting. It also lowers the stakes considerably, because you know that the NPC team isn’t supposed to have an equally fair shot at winning as the PC team.
So, if you were designing a game where PvP is meant to be part and parcel (it doesn’t have to involve actual combat or risk of character death), how do you go about mitigating any risk of OOC toxicity?
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RE: Celebrities We've Lost 2026 Editionposted in No Escape from Reality
@Gashlycrumb said in Celebrities We've Lost 2026 Edition:
Desmond Morris zoologist, ethologist, sociobiologist.
One of the most influential and underrated thinkers of our time.
I always link this short opinion piece of his from +20 years ago, still relevant today as we continue to learn more about animal sentience and linguistics. RIP naked ape, your understanding of how unspecial we are as a species made you special among our kind. -
RE: LFRP: Light and support character acceptable places?posted in Comments & Feedback
@MisterBoring said in LFRP: Light and support character acceptable places?:
Brain meats failing happens.
More and more frequently, as the decades continue their inexorable march…
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RE: LFRP: Light and support character acceptable places?posted in Comments & Feedback
@sao I’ve done that very thing myself.
Brain meats failing happens.
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RE: LFRP: Light and support character acceptable places?posted in Comments & Feedback
@MisterBoring This was me at one point. Did the prep, did RP about the thing in advance, did the request. I was excited to play it!
Completely flaked on the event. Why? Forgot about it. Completely spaced the time and date until after it had passed.
I was so embarrassed by myself I ended up vanishing off the whole game after that.
SOMETIMES THERE’S NO REASON AT ALL.
