"My Guy Syndrome"
-
I agree with both @Ashkuri’s list of problems, and @Faraday’s perspective that they aren’t always problems. I think that @chorus and @SockMonkey have an important point to bridge that attitude gap that Faraday mentioned: sure, there are some things that your character wouldn’t normally do… but we don’t play this game to play “normally” do we? I often like to think, “No, normally my character wouldn’t be caught dead in that biker bar where the RP is happening, so why is my character there?”
Formerly known as Seraphim73 (he/him)
-
There’s nothing inherently wrong about playing your character the way you wrote your character. It’s when you use the “My Guy” excuse to be a dick or a roadblock to other people that it becomes an issue.
That being said your characters “don’t just write themselves” and I do think you have to be consciously aware if your decisions would make for good RP. Likewise I think we have to do a better job as a community of just saying no sometimes. If you’re a game runner and you’ve made your spaceship game and want all the characters on the spaceship game to leave the spaceship and explore, it’s OK to say no to the character that’s being chargen’d to avoid exploring.
-
@Roadspike Exactly. Sometimes the ‘why IS my char here?’ makes the best memories. It’s fun and a chance to step outside their comfort zone with no rl consequences.
We don’t have to play normally at all or stick with certain ‘would and would nots’ because it’s ic. OOC sure don’t disrespect a boundary and don’t let people push you past a comfort zone (in MUSH, friendships, life, etc.) It’s MUSH though. By pushing my char’s comfort zones I’ve actually ended up growing my own confidence irl and used fiction to help encourage ooc growth.
-
@bear_necessities It’s also ok to remove yourself from a situation if your no isn’t respected. Whether that’s the person dealing with the My Guy or the My Guy themselves. If it doesn’t bring you joy? Marie Kondo it. I don’t know, but life is too short.
While it’s not our job to point out what seems to be obvious negative traits in rp, I also will say sometimes all it does take is one person being willing to not complain behind the scene and instead go “Hey…I’ve noticed this trend. I think you might get more positive results and interaction if you try meeting people halfway.”
They might be ‘My Guy’ but that doesn’t mean they are ‘My Guy’…or something >.>
-
@Roadspike said in "My Guy Syndrome":
I often like to think, “No, normally my character wouldn’t be caught dead in that biker bar where the RP is happening, so why is my character there?”
I’m going to push back a little here. I generally am the kind of person who will always come up with a reason why my character is in XYZ place even if they don’t “belong”, but I also do my very best to know my place and try and decide if my presence in that scene is going to add to it. So if in your example the RP is happening in the biker bar, and the RP is happening because a gang of bikers is having a scene for their faction, and you are not in the faction, does your character add value to the scene? I have seen so many faction events have some random person inserted into it and they suddenly become the Main Character of all the events even though they don’t belong in the faction and have many other factions they can be part of. It’s frustrating as person IN that faction that gets sidelined.
So just … I guess, it’s okay to join the biker scene even if you aren’t a biker, but maybe just ask yourself if you add value by being there.
-
@chorus said in "My Guy Syndrome":
Just in general, MUSH RP is a “yes, and” medium.
It’s totally fine if a game sets that as an expectation, but that has NOT been my experience with MUSH RP in general. And as a staffer, I’ve seen entirely too many nonsensical, theme-breaking, logic-breaking requests for me to ever approach a game that way.
Collaboration doesn’t mean always saying “yes” to everything. It means trying your best to find a mutually-fun solution, but also recognizing that sometimes people want opposite things and someone’s not going to get their idea of fun.
@Roadspike said in "My Guy Syndrome":
I often like to think, “No, normally my character wouldn’t be caught dead in that biker bar where the RP is happening, so why is my character there?”
Yeah, that can be fun - but I still think there’s nothing wrong with politely bowing out of a scene where your character just doesn’t fit.
-
MUs are improvisational writing. “Yes, and” is a commonly cited improv principle, and people sometimes fail to remember “No, but” is its equally important partner. The important thing is to find a way to proceed that is interesting and fun for the other people participating and yourself.
-
@Faraday said in "My Guy Syndrome":
Yeah, that can be fun - but I still think there’s nothing wrong with politely bowing out of a scene where your character just doesn’t fit.
I agree. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of instances of this causing disruption just comes out of people not understanding how to bow out politely. In cases where I do it, and this might be a tiny bit shady, I simply say something along the lines of “My RL responsibilities require me to hop offline for a while.” and then I just log off.
-
@Faraday said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@chorus said in "My Guy Syndrome":
Just in general, MUSH RP is a “yes, and” medium.
Collaboration doesn’t mean always saying “yes” to everything. It means trying your best to find a mutually-fun solution, but also recognizing that sometimes people want opposite things and someone’s not going to get their idea of fun.i really don’t think anyone was likely intending citing this to mean they think everyone should literally be saying yes to everything every single time
-
@bear_necessities said in "My Guy Syndrome":
That being said your characters “don’t just write themselves” and I do think you have to be consciously aware if your decisions would make for good RP.
Agreed. When I say that my characters write themselves I typically mean that I’ve set up internal consistency and logic that would be difficult to reasonably violate, but it’s my responsibility therefore to set up that logic and consistency in a way that produces positive outcomes for the other players.
It’s a collaborative writing exercise, as has been stated already, but collaboration requires compromise on occasion as well as acceptance that not everything is for me. My high-powered executive wouldn’t be at the biker bar, but if I want to play with the bikers, then we can discuss and compromise to come up with an alternative location at a different time.
As for how to deal with it on a game, when it becomes exceedingly disruptive or problematic? Execution. Guillotines optional.
@Roz said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@Faraday said in "My Guy Syndrome":
Collaboration doesn’t mean always saying “yes” to everything. It means trying your best to find a mutually-fun solution, but also recognizing that sometimes people want opposite things and someone’s not going to get their idea of fun.
i really don’t think anyone was likely intending citing this to mean they think everyone should literally be saying yes to everything every single time
Here? Maybe not. Elsewhere? It’s absolutely been a thing.
-
@Pavel said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@Roz said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@Faraday said in "My Guy Syndrome":
Collaboration doesn’t mean always saying “yes” to everything. It means trying your best to find a mutually-fun solution, but also recognizing that sometimes people want opposite things and someone’s not going to get their idea of fun.
i really don’t think anyone was likely intending citing this to mean they think everyone should literally be saying yes to everything every single time
Here? Maybe not. Elsewhere? It’s absolutely been a thing.
it’s useless to try and account for every extremist view of a given perspective; they exist for every opinion. i was indeed talking about the conversation happening here
she/her | playlist
-
@Roz said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@Pavel said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@Roz said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@Faraday said in "My Guy Syndrome":
Collaboration doesn’t mean always saying “yes” to everything. It means trying your best to find a mutually-fun solution, but also recognizing that sometimes people want opposite things and someone’s not going to get their idea of fun.
i really don’t think anyone was likely intending citing this to mean they think everyone should literally be saying yes to everything every single time
Here? Maybe not. Elsewhere? It’s absolutely been a thing.
it’s useless to try and account for every extremist view of a given perspective; they exist for every opinion. i was indeed talking about the conversation happening here
Yes, let us simply discount and ignore any experience that doesn’t fit within our own.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Pavel said in "My Guy Syndrome":
Yes, let us simply discount and ignore any experience that doesn’t fit within our own.
Yes, AND let us simply discount and ignore any experience that doesn’t fit within our own.
-
@Pavel said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@Roz said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@Pavel said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@Roz said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@Faraday said in "My Guy Syndrome":
Collaboration doesn’t mean always saying “yes” to everything. It means trying your best to find a mutually-fun solution, but also recognizing that sometimes people want opposite things and someone’s not going to get their idea of fun.
i really don’t think anyone was likely intending citing this to mean they think everyone should literally be saying yes to everything every single time
Here? Maybe not. Elsewhere? It’s absolutely been a thing.
it’s useless to try and account for every extremist view of a given perspective; they exist for every opinion. i was indeed talking about the conversation happening here
Yes, let us simply discount and ignore any experience that doesn’t fit within our own.
that literally wasn’t my point??? i wasn’t saying that that extreme take could never exist in the world. just that i don’t think anyone here in this conversation was expressing it, because it would be nonsensical. and that it would be exhausting trying to defend every single position from the angle of “i must always acknowledge the possibility for someone to take this to the absolute extreme,” because there’s an absolute extreme for everything, but it’s okay to approach conversations with a certain expectation of common sense.
because i do think it’s common sense that a game could not reasonably survive “everyone says yes to every single other player” and if someone came in her seriously positing that idea, we’d all just call it ridiculous and unsustainable. it wouldn’t be worth wasting time on
-
“Yes, And” doesn’t mean you agree to do things, it means you agree with the narrative as presented so far AND are moving forward with it in this way. It’s about not negating the story people have already told.
A character can totally encounter something that results in them beating feet or whatever to get out of the scene. Scene exits are fine in improv (which is where “Yes, And” was originally given an identity as a concept), and they can be in RP. The RP can indicate that the PCs are going to the stable to defend the horses from the giant mutant wolf, and a player can “Yes, And” by totally posing, “Ser Gobles suddenly gasps at the mention of giant mutant wolves, his armor chattering in fear, ‘I… I am not yet ready to face the menace of the mutant wolves, I must away. You have my support in this task, but I cannot face them myself.’ He quickly runs away, not wanting to be confronted by the source of his phobia.” In that case, you’re not denying anything that’s already happened, you’re just exiting the narrative without derailing it.
-
@Roz Then maybe it’s also common sense to understand hyperbole as well, especially when that hyperbole immediately follows from “your generalisation hasn’t been my experience, and people are entitled prats.”
-
@Pavel once again, my point was only that i didn’t think the people in the conversation bringing up the “yes, and” tenet were meaning a version that was devoid of common sense and reasonable guidelines. just as a general effective philosophy of MU* RP being by nature a collaborative multiplayer improvisation
she/her | playlist
-
@Roz said in "My Guy Syndrome":
i really don’t think anyone was likely intending citing this to mean they think everyone should literally be saying yes to everything every single time
I was challenging it even as a general rule / starting point. “Yes, and…” is a perfectly valid improv technique, but that’s not the framework that most TTRPGs (and by proxy many MUs, which have one foot in their TTRPG roots) operate within.
It’s not: “My character wants to shoot the Cylon.” “Yes, and…”
More often it’s “roll for it” or even “no that isn’t going to work.”
Again, I’m not saying you can’t approach things that way, I just don’t think most MUSHers do.
That aside, I think @Trashcan raises an important point that “No, but…” is an equally valid improv response.
-
@Faraday said in "My Guy Syndrome":
@Roz said in "My Guy Syndrome":
i really don’t think anyone was likely intending citing this to mean they think everyone should literally be saying yes to everything every single time
I was challenging it even as a general rule / starting point. “Yes, and…” is a perfectly valid improv technique, but that’s not the framework that most TTRPGs (and by proxy many MUs, which have one foot in their TTRPG roots) operate within.
we’re not talking about TTRPGs, though; we’re talking about MU*s. they may take systems from TTRPGs, stats and dice and such, but the social structure of how players have to persistently interact is entirely different from a tabletop experience.
That aside, I think @Trashcan raises an important point that “No, but…” is an equally valid improv response.
yes, i do agree there. i think that’s really just an expansion of the same philosophy. it’s about the collaborative building on what the other player is offering.
-
Glad to see we’ve squared away that Yes, And & No, But are the same fundamental concepts.
