Blending, Dueling Skills, and Dueling

[Bailey Raptis]

I sat on this post overnight, because I wanted to give myself some time to think about it and not respond in blind anger on this. If, after all this time, it still comes across as ranting and raving, I apologize. I’m only human. That said…

I was not very happy to see a character in play last night during last night’s Tower challenge comment, in thoughts, that they felt a challenge fight wasn’t very well fought. I fully realize that there’s nothing in our rules that states you can’t play or write this way, but, in my opinion, it’s not a very cool or nice thing to do.

Look, it already feels pretty bad when you lose in dueling. Whether it’s getting shutout, getting shutout in five rounds, losing in less than five rounds in Magic, or one of those epic matches that goes up into double-digit points or 20+ rounds, or both. Losing is never fun. And while some characters are IC, more gracious than others about their losses, OOC, it behooves us all to think about what it feels like for the other person on the other side of the keyboard. I hope that I have always been gracious in victory and in defeat, and if I have not always done that, then I apologize and promise to try my best moving forward. Again, I’m only human, and, to beat a dead horse, losing sucks.

What sucks more is seeing someone else’s character think in a public room that a challenge wasn’t very well fought. People can read this, our public rooms are logged, and it’s just generally not cool. It’s just needless salt on a wound.

I mean, what this all comes down to is the idea of blending. It’s a conversation that’s probably been held countless times on countless forums related to RP, and I’m not sure how productive it is to argue whether or not this was blending, thought-sniping, or whatever. If we were discussing non-dueling RP, it would be a moot point. We all have the freedom there to play into or not play into whatever is going on in a room at the time. It’s collaborative, yes, but there is still plenty of space to step back if we want to.

Dueling is obviously collaborative too, but there’s some obvious differences because it’s a game. There’s rules, ranks, the matrices, all that, but, because it’s a game that (most of the time) has clear winners and losers, it shifts things a bit. There’s obviously an assumption people are going to follow rules, but it goes beyond that. Good dueling etiquette (which, I’m sure I’ve fallen short of at times and I apologize if I’ve done this to you) means you don’t call shots when your move succeeds and you don’t dictate how much damage it does when it succeeds.

More importantly and perhaps more philosophically, dueling requires trust and good faith. Not everybody is going to get along IC, and perhaps not even OOC. There are plenty of characters who will not IC duel certain other characters -- my character Jay for instance refuses to duel against children or anybody that he feels might cause him grievous bodily harm -- but I’d like to think I have an OOC understanding with players of kid characters or dangerous characters that it’s nothing personal. And if it comes down to a tournament or a challenge where those matchups might happen, I have IC RP solutions for that. We have a vast variety of play styles in the duels -- some people write short, quick sends, some people write longer and more detailed ones, some people fall somewhere in between -- and people who are doing this for different reasons. Some people love the challenge of it, some people love the way it enhances their RP, some people fall somewhere in between. But, because we love these sports and because we assume best intentions for the people we duel against, we’re able to make it work, even when we have vastly different play styles, vastly different characters, and vastly different goals.

It’s very hard for me to assume someone has the best intentions in mind, though, when a character’s thought about a duel not being very well fought is put out into the world. It’s not something that can be reacted to in play -- it only serves to cut down. There’s no hook to bring anyone in to play. And one might say “Hey, just don’t read it” or “Hey, you’re blending just as badly if you take this IC thought negatively OOC”, but you know what? No. Intent can be argued all we want, but impact is more important. This is harmful, toxic behavior, and it’s the sort of stuff that has really soured me on dueling in recent weeks.

[Pharlen]

THIS. ALL OF THIS.

We got rid of this thought sniping before and here it is again, and it is annoying as fuck.

Why did this suddenly pop up?

Well, I wish I could say it did just suddenly pop up, but it didn’t. It was a bad habit that it took a long time to shake off. Expositional nonsense was a slippery slope. It started off as harmless and silly in-jokes between the players and slid into a nasty, blendy, mean play style.

So on noticing some very distinct ‘thought sniping’, well, I went back to the old Players Assisting/Helping Players articles to pull out some of the writings on it from then. But this is now, I decided to just write something new, from a more positive perspective.

Why hasn’t anyone spoken, ooc to ooc, to anyone making this error?

No one likes confrontations. And frankly, we’ve all gone through this before and the sort of people that tended to do this were usually pretty creepy/scary. So that alone should be a good enough reason to try and avoid thought sniping.

SO.

I think it’s a good time to illustrate ways to make happy RP partners and happy play with people in general.

Give people something to work with.

I know, right?!

But, observe.

Pharlen loved Dris with all of her heart. No really. She loved him so much. She loved his shoes, she loved his tie, she loved when he called her sweetheart. Every time she looked at him, she was more in love. Pharlen sat at the bar and drank her coffee, lost in how much she adored Dris. He was so sweet, he went and bought her ice cream the other day and now he was polishing her car. Could you find a better, more loving man? She was so lucky.

Wow. If you can find something to interact with there, you win a cookie. Literally, Pharlen is sitting at the bar drinking coffee. She might have moony eyes, but there’s nothing that says as much.

What it does say, over and over and over, is how much she loves Dris. Yay?

Okay if I was writing a book, this would be fine. A little syrupy, but fine. As herself or the narrator, she can go on for pages like this, and it’s all good. Because I, the writer, would finally decide when she would interact with another character.

This is not a book. This is cooperative role playing. Therefore, if I want to play with someone, I need to do something to allow them to play with me.

Like so:

Sitting at the bar, drinking coffee, Pharlen had her moony eyes on. She sighed with a smile on her lips and batted her lashes. Her lips were ever poised to whisper ‘Dris’. She carefully spooned sugar into her coffee and oops, spilled a bit and…

Oh hay look! Something that another character can work with! Several things, even.

“Gee, what’s that smile for, Pharl?” Dillon asked, “You look love sick, haha. Can I get you more sugar?”

Cooperative!

Now if you are playing with someone else, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on what you are writing -- remember, quantity does not necessarily equal quality, and most people are done reading after a paragraph or two.

“I’m smiling for Love!” Pharlen exclaimed, clutching her hands together in a transported bliss that shimmered from her in beams of love’s holy light. How silly Dillon was to not know how in love Pharlen was. Probably because it was just a man, he didn’t understand. Poor Dillon. He needed to know the sublime heights of true love’s kiss, and there he was concerned with sugar. Dillon should stay near and learn about love from Pharlen and Dris’s most tender and pure and perfect adoration. Then he might be able to find someone to have and cherish, and not be all alone and wondering about his job, which he was always doing.

Okay that? That’s just bad form. And syrupy.

Let’s stage that little scene. Pharlen sitting at the bar. Dillon beside her. Pharlen, with a dopey smile on her face, says one sentence, and then she just sits there staring at Dillon while she runs over her inner monologue.

Meantime, Dillon’s all ??? Not to mention, Pharlen has referenced the character several times with several remarks which Dillon could respond to EXCEPT… she never said them out loud. So IC, Dillon’s literally waiting until Pharl finishes staring at him to reply.

OOC, Dillon’s player is saying “what the hell? There’s nothing here for me to have Dillon respond to.”

So. Clearly. If you want people to play with you, put that exposition to good use! Have your character *say* it. Otherwise …

Take it out of your exposition. It does not belong there. This is not a book, this is cooperative role playing.

This is especially true if you are insulting people. If your character cannot say it, if other characters cannot react to it, it does not belong in play, period.

This is called ‘thought sniping’ or ‘expositional sniping’, and it is very bad form. It is bullying. You are attacking other characters and not allowing them to respond.

Particularly if you are someone who is really wanting to gain respect and cooperation from other players, this is the last sort of play you want to indulge in. It makes people angry, it’s frustrating, and no one wants to deal with it.

There’s nothing wrong with expressing that your character feels angry or sad or whatever. For instance:

Pharlen was really mad. She stormed in, stormed to a barstool, and stormily demanded a drink in a storming voice. Smoke came out of her ears. She was furious!!

Why does this work? Because I am only describing what the other characters can see. Let’s go a little further.

Why was she angry, you may ask yourself? Look at her left foot, which she let dangle in easy view of the room. She had a flat tire!

Now we’re adding in oh, hay. Visuals. Let’s go on…

How did she get that flat tire? Well, just look at who followed her in! That shoe-stepper-onner, Dris! She turned and glared at him. Glare!

Ah hah! Dris is evil but! I let you know that he is the evil one by having her actually glare at him. Done! Now, if she wants to insult him, and believe me, she does, all of her insults will be to his face. Not tucked away in her exposition, safe from comment.

So, once more, describing what the characters can see, hear, experience is what we expect of exposition. Using exposition to wallow in a character’s mind, not a problem. Some players do that all the time.

Using exposition to talk smack about someone, to insult, to go off on gratuitous love/hate fests? That is bad role playing.

We’re here to play together. So play nice.

[Strawberry]

So. While I agree 99.9% with Pharlen's post and 100% with Bailey's, I do want to add my own spin on things. Here I am, a frequent poster of long exposition when writing for particular characters (like S-berry here). I love the long winded prose, the verbosity, the diving into the details of the surroundings, the character, all of it. I am a writer at heart thanks to roleplaying and in turn, I write a lot.

I have noticed what others have and I am not for it. But I am here to say it's possible to balance exposition with being a contributing part of a scene. It is 100% possible to be long winded, to wax poetic on the subtleties of posture and shading, on emotion and underlying thought. And it's possible to do it without the latter being a hurtful contribution to the room. If your character is thinking it about another player, find a way to incorporate that into your character's body language, focus, or other physically playable trait. Don't just put it to the screen knowing that people cannot respond to it without either a) thought-sniping back or b) powergaming or using telepathy to read those thoughts. I've seen a number of times where chars with psionic backgrounds put a stop to thought-sniping by saying if it goes to screen, it's fair play and while we can discuss that another time, I can't say I blame them for it. If your character is being nicey nice to mine or not paying attention to mine in a way that she can recognize but you're also throwing in thought-only comments about how awful she is, I can't play off that and will not play off of it. But I will also likely minimize my play with people who do that because it's not worth my enjoyment and it's no fun playing with people who give nothing to play off of.

Long of the short, thought-sniping is not okay. It's not okay for me to do, not okay for old players to do, not okay for new players to do. The community is growing and it's growing quickly. For some of us, this is an old discussion and something that has existed since the beginning. But there are always new additions who either have minimal/no RP experience, or they have different experience, all of which is great. It means we always have to be vigilant as a collective whole to be mindful of poor behaviors like this and work to actively correct them, both in ourselves, in our friends, and in our peers. Obviously don't be a dick about it, but if you see it, it's worth pointing it out.

In regards to dueling, I don't think I can say anything that Bailey didn't already say. I have characters that are absolute assholes on multiple levels (Karma included), but unless I have a pre-established rapport and background relationship with a player, I try not to be an ass when they lose. Losing sucks. Big time. I've lost more than people probably realize and no matter how big or small the duel, tournament, or challenge, it still gets to me in some way. The last thing I want is for someone else feeling that way to feel worse because of a comment I made. And honestly, if you aren't sure if your comment will be received well either a) don't send it or b) make sure you're communicating OOCly to ensure there are no issues. I can't count the number of times I've DMed someone just to make sure that a comment I made was known to be only IC.

So that's my rant/rave for this subject. I'll get off my soap box.

Oh, but one more thing; Lurkers, I know you're reading this thread. I know some of you will read it all and have your own thoughts and feelings but won't post them for whatever reason, whether you dislike conflict, don't want to rock the boat, or it's simply easier to walk away from something than it is to risk conflict. But you aren't alone, your voice matters, and people wanna hear it. If you need help sorting thoughts into a way that is constructive and such, let me know. I'd be glad to help.

Tl;dr we're all in this together, high school musical style. Be the sort of player you want to play with.

[Pharlen]

Absolutely, Strawberry!

Some people do a LOT of exposition (Dillon), and it's awesome. It's awesome because it adds into the scene, or just takes you into their head, or just is strangeness. Sometimes it's purple, sometimes not. The people that do a lot of writing all have one thing in common: you can play with them.

[Delahada]

Bailey, I'd like to thank you for being the first to speak up on this issue. Rest assured that you are not the only person who has witnessed this behavior lately. I'd like to join you in saying a few things. Touching specifically on this:

Good dueling etiquette (which, I’m sure I’ve fallen short of at times and I apologize if I’ve done this to you) means you don’t call shots when your move succeeds and you don’t dictate how much damage it does when it succeeds.

More importantly and perhaps more philosophically, dueling requires trust and good faith. Not everybody is going to get along IC, and perhaps not even OOC. There are plenty of characters who will not IC duel certain other characters -- my character Jay for instance refuses to duel against children or anybody that he feels might cause him grievous bodily harm -- but I’d like to think I have an OOC understanding with players of kid characters or dangerous characters that it’s nothing personal. And if it comes down to a tournament or a challenge where those matchups might happen, I have IC RP solutions for that.

Hello. S here. I play a bad guy. A scary, violent SOB that I know for a fact your Jay avoids precisely because of the reason I bolded in your quote above. ;) I'd also like to thank you for acknowledging this and talking about him in play. I've noticed. I appreciate you perpetuating the "holy geeze here is a bad mofo I should probably not eff with" narrative. Thank you for seeing my character precisely as I have been portraying him.

Playing a villain in FFRP is a huge responsibility, though. Yes, my character is pretty damn powerful and he probably wants to hurt yours a lot. There is a lot I can say he can do, but ultimately the decision on whether or not any of that in any way effects any other character is not up to me. It's up to the other person writing them. Even, and especially, in a duel.

I'm very vague in my duels. I tend to write general attempts as opposed to precise actions to allow leeway for the other person to decide what happens to their character. Much as Sal is going to want to gouge someone's eye out and eat it, I'm not going to write that without their express permission beforehand. Ask Amaris. ;) If I'm going to write something tremendously violent that could possibly maim another character, I always confirm with the other person beforehand to make sure they approve of it. That may look like called-shots to those not involved in the behind the scenes dialogue, but I assure you it's not. And that's where I think some misconceptions about what is acceptable behavior and what is not can derive from.

This is a place of cooperative role-play. Which, for those of you new to the concept, means "involving mutual assistance in working toward a common goal." Our common goal here is to have fun, to write fantastic stories ... together. It's not a one-man show here where you get to call all the shots about what happens to your character(s) and everyone else's. You want to do that, get off and go write privately, maybe in a Word document somewhere. Don't smother us with your excessive exposition that hardly anyone can react to whatsoever. This includes writing me five paragraphs of your character's backstory to prelude them actually entering the room. I'm going to be honest with you here. If there is a wall of text on my screen when I'm playing in a public channel that consists of more than two paragraphs, chances are I'm not going to read it, skip right over it. Especially in a busy room.

People might have noticed that when I'm writing Sal in the public channels that I'm very minimalist about what I send to the room with him. There are reasons for that which stem as far back as when I first noticed, literally decades ago, all this thought-sniping and blending happening. I used to put all kinds of things into my narrative, trying to give my character(s) more life and personality. But then I noticed how people would take that information and use it as, pretty much, ammunition. Somehow these characters would magically know things about mine that they shouldn't, unless they were a mind reader, and that made me very uncomfortable.

So now my public writing is very basic. You're not going to know what my character is thinking unless you're very good at deciphering the body language and contextual clues that I give you, or you or your character ask. And even then, you shouldn't assume. I get really annoyed with people who write my character portraying emotions or thoughts that I never revealed in my own narrative. And I know it's probably a result of frustration that I do not reveal those things, but there is a reason. My Sal is supposed to be unreadable by telepaths and empaths. I've found the only way to guarantee that is by not writing his thoughts or feelings into live play.

On a related note, this is largely why I won't do DoM with Sal. I've noticed a trend toward people deciding how their spells effect other characters, and I do not like that. Primary example being the spell Fear Touch. Unless we've been writing together for a long ass time, you shouldn't presume to know what my character is afraid of. Being that I've already established his mind is a fortress against psychic assault, this makes interpreting this spell difficult. Can't get into his head to tap into his greatest fears, so what else is there but letting someone assume what illusion they've crafted up is scary? But that's besides the point.

I have other characters to DoM with anyway. The main point is called-shots are a huge turn off and major no-no. And as a writer of a villain, that's something even I can respect and will not do. Unless you want me to. ;)