HMD;; May 2010

[capemods]

FIRST OFF: INTERNET DRAMA AND YOU! And if this is your first round, you might want to take a look at HOW TO GIVE AND TAKE CRITICISM.

Read that?

Good. Now let's start.

✖ HOW'S MY DRIVING?✖

Okay kids, it's one post for the entire game this round! So everyone will be found in here!

Comments

Re: MODERATING TEAM

[hotforbabyleg]

I ACTUALLY CHANGED MY MODBOX LOCATION AND EDITED THE MOD CONTACT PAGE TO REFLECT IT BUT NEVER TOLD ANYONE HA HA HA WHOOPS

[hotforbabyleg]

yes baby

[anonymous]

This plot, while interesting, is shrouded in a little too much mystery. I want to enjoy what's going on but mostly I feel like because we don't know anything, we're deadlocked and can't do anything with our characters until the plot is over.

[poisoninkbottle]

Whoa! Hey, no, hey!

Maybe I'm a freak of nature here or something, but what you guys are doing is creating actual suspense and dramatic tension. When everyone spends a few days in the dark because nobody knows what happened to the disk or who/what killed Rikku, that's realistic. It provides a sense of being unsure of one's footing, just as it would for the characters, and I think it adds to the shock value OOCly when a new revelation is made.

You guys use foreshadowing. You're using actual pacing instead of trying to cram everything into an unrealistic week's worth of "I HATE THE HIVE" "I HATE NYC" "LET'S GET HIM" "RAWR STABBITY PUNCH PUNCH MCBEATSTHEMUP" "HOORAY THE DAY IS SAVED".

This plot is brilliant. The way it's being pulled off is fabulous. And anyway, when people do know what's going on OOCly--and I hate to say this, but we've all done it at one point or another--suddenly it's okay to somehow logic out these great revelations IC and assume they're truth. Week-long plots have their solutions discovered by midnight

[anonymous]

This is your opinion and of course you're entitled to it, but I respectfully disagree. We need more than just random NPC posts. I'm not saying give away the WHOLE PLOT but a little more information would make it easier to figure out how your characters would react/if they would react at all.

[anonymous]

Agreed. Even info on how the natives of the city are handling this would be nice, and Helpful.

[poisoninkbottle]

And I shall respectfully disagree in turn.

You can't really base your judgments of what your character would do ICly now on what you know will happen in the future. Technically, you're crossing ic/ooc knowledge lines by doing so!

If Miles would take a stand and say 'to hell with you, sir, I shall be freezing your ass to your fancy little spinny leather office chair' and go and do it as of this last post, then I should play him as going to do so. Even if I know that two days from now the Mayor is going to fall off a cliff and Edgeworth is going to get there only to find an empty office and a lot of wasted airfare. Even if I know that guards will kill him on the way back out and it would mean that he'd still be dead for the sudden attack on the City five days from then.

You play your character. You should know how they would react on a day-to-day basis to what's going on. And for a plot that's meant to be mysterious and have world-bending effects and would be utterly dull if it were all lined out, you shouldn't have access to

[thing4telepaths]

Not the anon up there but stating what is or is not fun for someone isn't a helpful defense. Fun is subjective.

And sometimes knowledge ahead of time is necessary to properly play your character without ruining things for everyone else, because you don't have carte blanche to act as you want. You have to respect the wishes of other characters.

Sometimes you need to know that, hey, the President is meeting with your people because your character is super paranoid and distrusts the Man and observes the movements of the President very closely with future tech. Or maybe you don't trust Tony and Norman at all and you watch what they do or where they go.

There are a ton of reasons why someone would want more information, some of which are even necessary to play their characters correctly. AND it could be done without ruining the big reveal.

[poisoninkbottle]

It may well be. But I don't know very many people who prefer to live their lives without any surprises in them.

And if it is IC for my character to do something? Then yes. I do. It may suck complete and utter balls for someone he knows to have to deal with the painful actions of someone they know, and how they'll feel about what he does may be a large factor in his choice to go through with it--but if he would, then he should. I don't need to run every single choice I make with the people I play by every single person who plays the people they know. That's an inherent danger in having CR with other people--sometimes, it's going to affect you.

Furthermore, it is not the responsibility of someone to need to second-guess all of another player's reactions for them. If I have never been told and/or am not aware that someone is afraid of the government, and watches their every move, then I can not be expected to sit down and tell them everything. The moment something turns political, that player should take the responsibility to

[thing4telepaths]

Judging from the majority of the comments on this, it seems that people would enjoy less surprises though.

But we're not talking about characters revealing things, we're talking about mods revealing things or sharing more information on a huge plot. I don't think being completely open about the outcome is what's necessary but I think offering more information so that characters can plan accordingly and in an IC manner would be more helpful and beneficial.

[poisoninkbottle]

Personally, given some of those same comments? I wouldn't call it "enjoying less surprises". A lot of it seems more "wanting to be able to win".

A few things would be okay, you know? Sure, it'd be interesting if I knew if the HIVE has some seekrit other use for Trowa but didn't get told what it was or any of their plans or their numbers or who's in charge of what groups etc etc. But that's not what was said.

As of the next post we're just going to drop the mystery (almost altogether, there are a few details that we'll be keeping in the dark).

That's not allowing characters to plan accordingly, and that's not throwing a few choice bits out for people to chew on in suspense. That's near-complete removal of the mystery and the OOC dramatic tension after people spend weeks continually complaining that they don't want/feel they can't do anything until they know.

And that? Is a choice the player made.

[thing4telepaths]

You must be reading different comments than the ones I am.

Rereading my comments, I'm pretty sure I never said what the mods were doing with the reveal was what was necessary or helpful. I didn't even address it, rather I was addressing the fact that having more information could be useful and important to getting the most of an IC reaction.

[poisoninkbottle]

Several have said that they don't want their character to fail/do the wrong thing/waste their time/look bad. That smacks heavily of it to me--they're still willing to react, which means they want IC 'surprises', but they want to be able to react to it in a way that will end well for the future... which they can't possibly do unless they're crossing IC/OOC lines, and which means they're aiming to be the one that Gets It Right.

Which, I suppose, is where the idea of having more information may very well make a chunk of IC reactions not-so-IC all things considered comes from, which is why I am against the putting out of it beyond the barest of teasers. 'Necessary' and 'helpful' seems to be translating at least a good portion of the time into 'what I can use ICly', not 'giving me the player a sense of peace of mind'.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining that well enough; I hope I am?