Consensus on Roster vs OC vs Mix

[Gashlycrumb]

I have toyed with an idea much like the ‘echelons.’

But my thought was more about players than characters.

Say, you can set your character-type as “main” “supporting” or “extra.” Each player gets one main character. Plots center on main characters. Your other characters are supporting cast or local colour. You can switch their roles, but not all the time or often.

I often like to play those ‘supporting cast’ parts. But I hate being shoved into the background if I want and have expressed a desire for some main-character action.

And it really annoys me when there’s MU full of people pleading for GM attention and it turns out Player Bob is not only playing Snake, the BIG STAR of the Motorcycle Gang Faction, he’s also playing Kyle, the BIG STAR of the Rodeo Cowboys Faction, and Roscoe, the BIG STAR of the Cops Faction…

[MisterBoring]

I sort of want to see a game that daringly chooses to eschew both rosters and OCs and go for a new alternative: purely random generation.

The character sheet and background are generated at random. There would be some level of staff review to ensure that the sheet and background made sense, but other than that it’s push a button and off to the races.

While I have seen plenty of games with random sheet generation, I can’t say I’ve seen one do backgrounds and concepts at random.

[Gashlycrumb]

@MisterBoring I’m down with it. That would work really well for my ‘Call of Cthulhu on a Cruise Ship’ idea…

[Raistlin]

I never thought I’d be interested in playing a rostered OC character, but a little while ago, I joined a game where I wasn’t quite grasping the theme. I felt a bit nervous about creating my own character, but they had several roster slots for original characters that players could take over. These were simple, low-level, everyday-type characters that allowed me to jump right into the roleplay. It helped me immerse myself in the game, understand the theme, and build up the confidence to eventually create my own character. I thought it worked really well.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Raistlin I think a lot of games could benefit from having something like that. Grab-and-go PCs.

I dunno if it comes up now, but people used to say that an effort-intensive process to create an OC or claim a roster would improve player-retention – the player had to be invested in the game to do all that.

My experience was that in reality, people are just as likely to drop the game after doing five hours of work chargenning as those who spent twenty minutes, and the real key to getting them to connect again is to get them into a fun scene as soon as you possibly can. Ask B.F. Skinner about it.

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb said in Consensus on Roster vs OC vs Mix:

Ask B.F. Skinner about it.

He’ll just go on, and on, and on, and on about pigeons…

[Gashlycrumb]

@Pavel Naw, he’d just take three minutes to train a pigeon to kick your ass.

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb

[STD]

@Pavel said in Consensus on Roster vs OC vs Mix:

@Gashlycrumb said in Consensus on Roster vs OC vs Mix:

Ask B.F. Skinner about it.

He’ll just go on, and on, and on, and on about pigeons…

In college, my dad attended a guest lecture by Skinner in which he talked about Behaviorism. At the end he did a demonstration with one of the trained pigeons.

It didn’t perform as it was trained.

Skinner was clearly annoyed and embarrassed. My dad thought it was one of the funniest things he’d ever seen.

Even in psychology the old adage applies: never work with children or animals.

[Gashlycrumb]

@STD One of my favourite stories about this is the one where students learning about Skinner’s work in a lecture class applied it to the professor. Their reenforcer was to look attentive. It didn’t take them very long to have the professor consistently lecture from the location the students had chosen and in a pose they’d chosen. The funny bit is that the professor was enormously pissed off when they told him they’d done this, rather than delighted.

When I was young and hot I used to shape behavior in aquaintances, like the foul-tempered bus driver on the route I had to take, by smiling at them.

Edited to add: Karen Pryor is much more fun to read than Skinner. Don’t Shoot the Dog is a dumb title, but it’s a great book. The thing where you do clickerr-training on other humans as a parlour game is hilarious fun. And the whole business is good for your head, because you end up having to constatantly look for and attend to behaviors you want, you’re always focused on positive shit.

[Gashlycrumb]

@MisterBoring said in Consensus on Roster vs OC vs Mix:

I sort of want to see a game that daringly chooses to eschew both rosters and OCs and go for a new alternative: purely random generation.

I am now imagining a web-based chargen where it’s all fill-in-the-blank or pick-one,. Starts off with a concept ala’ Chaosium CoC, ‘Professor’, ‘Dilettante’ which gives you the basic sheet, you have points to customise with. But any place you didn’t pick/didn’t fill in the blanks/left points unassigned it fills in randomly.