...then unless people get involved, that is how the plot is played out.
Personal experience talking here: If people don't get involved, don't play the plot. If people aren't interested, there's no point wasting your time. Find something they are interested in, instead, and let your original idea become either a personal plot or wait until a more receptive time. Let them run what they come up with after that, while you just nudge things enough to keep it inside acceptable IC bounds.
Some things have to be carefully scripted to avoid player death, which I think some people don't realize.
Okay... I have trouble accepting that as a reason to overscript things. Yes, I agree that on a consent-based game you can't go killing people's characters off if they don't want you to, so you have to find ways around that, but that doesn't mean excluding all chance. (There's a few people I would have taken out over the course of my RP career, let me tell you, if I didn't have to hassle with consent and the IC strictures it forces. And there's a few that would have happily done the same to me, too, I'm quite certain.) So, yes, limits have to be established. No question. No argument here about that. But, they should be reasonable to the situation.
Taking your example: Player U has the right to make an attempt on Player T's life. Player T can decide how successful that attempt may be. Player U cannot be allowed to escape IC consequences, however, though he should be permitted to have a hand in determining just what those consequences will be. Most people will be reasonable if you appeal to their sense of fairplay and remind them how they would feel in the same situation. And those that aren't reasonable are either twinks or people that are caught up in some sort of OOC situation that has unfortunately spilled IC. And that's a different problem all together — one that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot as an IC event.
Yes, you have to establish rules. But, the rules should ideally have some sort of flexibility to them.
Again, however, I would wager this is a perception issue. It could be, and, knowing you, like is, that you have tried to set flexible limits. I don't deny that. But, if your players aren't getting that impression, it doesn't make a difference how flexible you are. It all comes down to how flexible they think you are. And that is impossible to control.
I also think people don't realize the difference in global TP vs. regular TPs
Well, no. They don't, often enough. Not if they're young and/or inexperienced, at least. But, that also has absolutely nothing to do with the overscripting of a plot, either. The same prinicples apply, regardless of plot size. The trick with a global, far-reaching plot, however, is that you break it down into bite-sized chunks that are, in effect, mini-plots confined to specific areas. And you tailor those mini-plots to the people that want to be involved and try to involve as many different and disparate characters as possible. No small order, I know. Tough as hell and twice as ornerous.
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momijizukamori
Plotting - Part one (Yes, I'm longwinded again.)
Date: 2003-04-23 02:05 pm (UTC)Personal experience talking here: If people don't get involved, don't play the plot. If people aren't interested, there's no point wasting your time. Find something they are interested in, instead, and let your original idea become either a personal plot or wait until a more receptive time. Let them run what they come up with after that, while you just nudge things enough to keep it inside acceptable IC bounds.
Some things have to be carefully scripted to avoid player death, which I think some people don't realize.
Okay... I have trouble accepting that as a reason to overscript things. Yes, I agree that on a consent-based game you can't go killing people's characters off if they don't want you to, so you have to find ways around that, but that doesn't mean excluding all chance. (There's a few people I would have taken out over the course of my RP career, let me tell you, if I didn't have to hassle with consent and the IC strictures it forces. And there's a few that would have happily done the same to me, too, I'm quite certain.) So, yes, limits have to be established. No question. No argument here about that. But, they should be reasonable to the situation.
Taking your example: Player U has the right to make an attempt on Player T's life. Player T can decide how successful that attempt may be. Player U cannot be allowed to escape IC consequences, however, though he should be permitted to have a hand in determining just what those consequences will be. Most people will be reasonable if you appeal to their sense of fairplay and remind them how they would feel in the same situation. And those that aren't reasonable are either twinks or people that are caught up in some sort of OOC situation that has unfortunately spilled IC. And that's a different problem all together — one that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot as an IC event.
Yes, you have to establish rules. But, the rules should ideally have some sort of flexibility to them.
Again, however, I would wager this is a perception issue. It could be, and, knowing you, like is, that you have tried to set flexible limits. I don't deny that. But, if your players aren't getting that impression, it doesn't make a difference how flexible you are. It all comes down to how flexible they think you are. And that is impossible to control.
I also think people don't realize the difference in global TP vs. regular TPs
Well, no. They don't, often enough. Not if they're young and/or inexperienced, at least. But, that also has absolutely nothing to do with the overscripting of a plot, either. The same prinicples apply, regardless of plot size. The trick with a global, far-reaching plot, however, is that you break it down into bite-sized chunks that are, in effect, mini-plots confined to specific areas. And you tailor those mini-plots to the people that want to be involved and try to involve as many different and disparate characters as possible. No small order, I know. Tough as hell and twice as ornerous.