[ScytheKnight]

Ummm.. wow, OK so that happened.

Have to admit, gonna have to take a bit of time to process this.

@KB Really, really, sad to see you go. But yeah, I can understand why you're making the choices you are. Gilga, you're just digging a hole to China by now.

[Triskavanski]

So I'm looking to get back in, the game went so fast that missing a day ended up putting me so far behind everyone else that it began to become rather difficult to catch up, which became harder and hard to do every day. I think I'm sort of caught up nowish.

I could bring Tobbis back, or have him pad off somewhere. If I do, I'll have a new version that slightly mods him.

I've also got a number of other characters, Benny the Coward, a face who uses sly tactics in combat generally has a rather quick evasion. Geist, a Psionic MA who uses various types of force and manipulation magics. Candlekey Bookbelle - a medic centaur MA. And someone using centaur limbal body, but I'm not quite decided on that just at the moment.

[Kinkerbell]

@SK: I'm sorry to be going. There was a lot built into GN that never saw the light of day. But I dont want to drag the game down for the other players. That's not fair to you guys.

[ScytheKnight]

Well, I said last night I needed some time to process this.. and I have.

And frankly I kinda disgusted and tired.
[Rant]
I'm disgusted because although I've not been playing P&P RPGs for long, I have NEVER seen a character come into a game and be so thoroughly disrespected in their role. And yes, I AM talking about Goodnight, and I'm talking about her RP reason for being in the game without giving a shit about her stats, skills or gear. She was brought into the game to act as a guide in a dangerous area of London most of our characters know nothing about. I have a challenge for you people, how many times was Goodnight asked what our next move should be? How many times when Goodnight offered  suggestion of what should be done next was she overruled completely?

Yeah she became unstable, NO FREAKING SHIT! She's a volatile and dangerous person being paid to act as a guide and the attitude of the people she gets paid to guide is "Shut up child, the adults are talking, we know what we're doing. Now where is X?"

So Gilga yes, most days she WOULD be in better control, because most days the people she gets paid to guide give a fucking damn about her opinion.

And this is really bringing me to the crux of this post... there's a few of you. Three in fact, who are basically treating this like their own personal game. Gilga, Jack_Spade and Adamu you guys need to SLOW THE FUCK DOWN and let OTHER PEOPLE make some fucking decisions and take some action. I've said it before that this game is really fucking PUSHY mostly because you three are just running roughshod over what anyone else might want or attempt to do, no-one else can do anything about a situation because by the time they can, you three are just PUSHING right past it and onto something else.
[/rant]

If that sounds like I'm leaving, I'm bloody close too it. I'm just tired of watching everyone else getting ignored until they finally wind up leaving.

[Kinkerbell]

*Slow Clap*

Perhaps a little more blunt than I would have put it.

Because it needs to be said often and loudly:

@Aria: In no way is my leaving a reflection on you. I find your story interesting, your setting compelling, and your writing entirely delightful.

[gilga]

Well guys, I am taking a week off, I'll slow down and think about it and perhaps start my own game. Because for me the game started to be fun when KB joined and the speed became fast with multiple posts during the day - actions conversations stuff like that. That approach sort of left most of the players outside - so I don't know I do not play to ruin peoples experience.

[Jack_Spade]

And this is really bringing me to the crux of this post... there's a few of you. Three in fact, who are basically treating this like their own personal game. Gilga, Jack_Spade and Adamu you guys need to SLOW THE FUCK DOWN and let OTHER PEOPLE make some fucking decisions and take some action. I've said it before that this game is really fucking PUSHY mostly because you three are just running roughshod over what anyone else might want or attempt to do, no-one else can do anything about a situation because by the time they can, you three are just PUSHING right past it and onto something else.

Well, I surely don't want anyone leaving, because I post to much. I admit I thoroughly enjoy a game that was as fast paced as this one.
So I'll take a week of abstinence and see if that solves the problem.

Servus

[adamu]

Happy Monday morning!

Yikes - I make it a rule not to post on Sundays, and I always know with this game there'll be a lot to wake up to on Monday morning, but...

Personally, I think it would be soooo great to get all of us in a RL room for a couple of hours. With the SR talent in this bunch, combined with the addition of non-verbals (beyond those smiley face symbols) and maybe some snacks, I am confident we would all resume what would then be the greatest game in PbP history!

So much has happened with this group since the arrival of Kinkerbell and the subsequently sharp acceleration of what had already been a pretty active game - so much happening in terms of the perrenial issues with IC/OOC separation, collaborative storytelling/world-building, group dynamics, and the unique challenges of the PbP medium.

Probably we could all write a book on our opinions, but I'll try to be brief and just weigh in on the two aspects that seem to pertain to myself the most.

1. IC/OOC separation. This is always super hard when the RP strays into conflicts within the party. How many groups have a played with where we are, like, all hardened, anti-social killers, except in our IC dealings with each other, which sound like a yuppie dinner party? This game has been a refreshing break from that.
But the stakes do become high.
The point where it all went south for us, though, and I believe Kinkerbell pointed this out, was where people started telling other people how they ought to IC their characters. That's really to be avoided, I think, especially with a group this advanced, experienced, and committed to role-player/character development.
And then that escalated into talk about what so-and-so's dice could make so-and-so do, and that's a darker road. Personally, I wish the rules would clarify that social skill dice are for interactions with NPCs, and not applicable to PC vs. PC.

Summation: Al is going to be Al. I am happy to be more careful about explaining the reasoning of the things he does OOC if that will help everyone to be cool. But neither I nor anyone should ever feel pressure to have their PC act out of character for themselves to make other players happy, and what is in character for them has to be their decision alone.

2. Post rate
My philosophy on this has always been "No matter how much I post, it does not in any way prevent other players from posting as much as they want to post."
But I do see SK's point.
My rule I think is fine for IC conversations, flashbacks, internal monologues, whatever. But with regard to actions that push the story along, then I can see how things did get pushed along quite rapidly by a minority. (Although constant consensus-building will kill a game just as fast as overly-aggressive posting.)
I think some of us were (well I was) overjoyed to have a game that was moving so quickly and provided so many fun opportunities for action and interaction - such a breath of fresh air from the plodding rate of a lot of PbP games - that we got swept up in it.
There are a number of countermeasures - we should discuss them, but this is getting longer than I wanted already.

Summation: Not sure I am ready to take a self-imposed one-week exile. But as an initial measure, I am happy to slow down on posting actions that drive events forward.
It seems we are now in motion towards the spot where we are going to jump off for the virtual meet, and making that meet is all that Al has his mind set on right now.

FINAL:
This is a GREAT game. And I think all the players in it are great.
ScytheKnight, I really hope you don't go.
Triskavanski, same dude, I hope you will stick with.
And Kinkerbell, now that everyone is airing a lot of this out, I really hope you'll reconsider.

This game suffered from its own awesomeness - I say we don't throw it away, we just concentrate on adjusting it to be more awesome for ALL the players.

Sorry about length.

[ScytheKnight]

The problem wasn't so much that things where pushing head, it's that it was the same three characters all the time forging way ahead of everyone else without even a cursory "So what's our next move?" between us.

[adamu]

Sure, I get that.

It's hard to get the right level of that with each group.

If you wait for everyone to agree, nothing will ever get done at all.

If no one steps up and takes charge once in a while, nothing will ever get done, and IC we will feel like a bunch of sensitivity-trained bureaucrats. And nothing will ever get done at all.

But yeah, if the initiative concentrates in just a few people, then things can easily get less fun for some of the players.

There are a lot of tricky variables to consider in keeping a PbP game going - varying RL post rates, differing play styles/world views, which characters are present in a scene and which have removed themselves for personal business, and then your mix of personalities - some players (and some characters, the way they are written) are management types, while others really don't want the headache and are glad when someone steps up.

What I think is that this is a great game, and I hope that by talking about all this, we can keep it going, even better than before!

[Jack_Spade]

Yeah, if you ask a question IP and receive an answer IP your first instinct is not to wait until everyone else also had their say. Especially with such a large rooster of players.
It's a bit of a negative feedback loop: Those who don't post that frequently aren't those you ask IP for their opinion since it will most likely get lost/never answered in the progressing game. That diminishes their chances to interact and leads to even less posts.

On the other hand, if you wait for everyone to have their say, the game dies quickly (In my experience, the optimal number of players lies around two to four for a somewhat dynamic game)


As I said, I'll abstain from posting for a week. That should be enough time for those who want to catch up on the action and hopefully give me and the others some prompts to reply to, so we can break the above mentioned cycle.

[Aria]

Ummm.. wow, OK so that happened.

Have to admit, gonna have to take a bit of time to process this.

@KB Really, really, sad to see you go. But yeah, I can understand why you're making the choices you are. Gilga, you're just digging a hole to China by now.

Wow indeed… I’ve just about digested everything that went on over the weekend and I’m sorry that there is some bad feeling flying about.  I hope we will be able to resolve it without folding up the game, which I believe is the best one I’ve run so far in my last 5+ years of pbp’ing.  Most of that is down to the players and the efforts you lot have put in to characterisation, plot driving and so on, which I hope will carry on.  We’ve already seen a few drop out because of the posting rate and it is intimidating compared with some pbp games but if we can avoid the action being completely dominated by a few vocal PCs then I think we can still maintain the flashbacks and character driven stuff without overriding what is going on…?!?

Rather than completely cold turkying yourselves I don’t think a couple of posts will hurt and avoid the chance of this game imploding…??

[pistolgrip]

Doesn't anyone care about my unqualified and somewhat self-righteous opinion on everything?  *sigh*

Seriously though, I'll still be here in a week. In fact, I may take advantage of all the not-posting to put Jackhammer in charge of the whole party... mwahahaha!

[Jack_Spade]

@Aria
Well, I'll amend that to: I'll post either next week again or until all (supposedly) active players used their chance to post. After that I'll at least know who I'll have to be mindful of.

@pistolgrip
Good luck, if you manage to do that without causing a mutiny you have my support 

[ScytheKnight]

*nods*

A unanimous approval is quite probably impossible, nor likely desirable. But if the question is asked it includes more people. And for pity's sake if you ask someone else to do something, wait for them to actually do it.