Entertainment vs. Entertainment

[Underdark Song]

Armageddon has a great playerbase, but I am sometimes left wondering about how utterly stuck up it is.

I haven't been around for a very long time yet, but I have been around long enough to read the boards and see just what kind of things Armaggedon folks talk about.

One of the topics that comes up often is "Such and such did OOC something-funny, and I don't like it because its jarring."

There are two seperate levels that I exist in while I play Armageddon.  The first is the Deep Level.  My mind is full of smooth imagry of my player skulking in the darkness, or hunting that dangerous beast, or running for its life from a band of gith.  I hear the sounds it hears and sense the danger it senses, and the indignation and anger they feel.  There isn't a character--there is a person, stuck in a harsh desert world, where they are very often at the bottom of the food chain.

The second of these is the "Upper" Level.  I am watching these people play out their daily lives, make decisions... I am NOTHING like most of my characters.  I love comedy, and while they may be trapped in the pit of dispair or caught up in a moment of fear, _I_ am free to be amused.

You people need to lighten up.  Its a game.  While I would hate to be spammed so much that it became difficult to play, there's nothing wrong with a little humor.

[Marauder Moe]

there's nothing wrong with a little humor.

There's nothing wrong with a little IC humor when appropriate, no.  OOC humor should really be kept to a minimum in-game, though.  Most of us really don't like seeing characters quote movies or people doing ">ooc LOL!" at an emote mis-target.

Are we stuck up?  Yeah, maybe, but I think that if everyone was lax about the usage of OOC  (comical or otherwise) in-game then Armageddon wouldn't be as great as it is.

[Underdark Song]

I would never condone (in fact, it would bug me immensely) to hear a character preference real-world sayings, concepts, events, or..well, anything.

And "LOL!" isn't quite the humor I was talking about.

:\  I am talking about things of a more wit-based nature.

[JohnGalt]

I would never condone (in fact, it would bug me immensely) to hear a character preference real-world sayings, concepts, events, or..well, anything.

And "LOL!" isn't quite the humor I was talking about.

:\  I am talking about things of a more wit-based nature.

It might not bother you to see this kind of thing, it doesn't bother me either, but it bothers some players so what is the point of doing it?  Some people really like to get "in the game" so to speak, and like to keep OOC at a minimum, I think we should respect that.

Its a small price to pay for the incredible quality of the player base this game has.

[amoeba]

I wouldn't take the GDB as representative of Armageddon as a whole.  There are some players who are immensely fun to play with, and rarely if ever post on these boards.  I have enjoyed a good amount of all emotions IG including a good amount of humor.  And yes there  are quite a few egos around.  All I have to say is I'm glad I didn't read the GDB before joining up, or I may never have done so.

[Rindan]

I can't even begin to count the number of games where what you describe as 'upper level' enjoyment is all there is.  Armageddon is a rare bastion where people make a serious attempt to role play out their characters instead of trying to amuse others with OOC silliness.  I can scratch my silliness itch without trying.  Pick a random MUD, go to the smurf zone, and get disemboweled by papa smurf.  Ha ha.  

The number of dark serious dramas that exist is damn close to zero.  Armageddon truly is one of a kind.  I kind find a thousand silly of MUDs, but the number of MUDs I can find with 50+ people playing a perm death game that is all about serious dark drama is one, and Armageddon is it.

It is just my opinion, but I would much prefer people leave silliness and attempts to make me laugh OOC at the door.  There are literally thousands of places to do that, but only one places that does what I want.  Why interfere with the one place that does something original to get something you can get anywhere else?  Funny things will happen naturally that will make you laugh OOC and IC.  I don't see any reason to intentionally set out to constantly inject OOC humor.

[jstorrie]

IC wit is good, although its place is restricted. Your everyday Bynner might not be the greatest wordsmith, you know? The other problem is that IC-witty characters might not be played by IRL-witty players, and everything just sort of falls flat.

All that said, though, IC funny is all well and good, so long as it fits the game. OOC humour can stay on the GDB.

[flurry]

There are two seperate levels that I exist in while I play Armageddon.  The first is the Deep Level.  My mind is full of smooth imagry of my player skulking in the darkness, or hunting that dangerous beast, or running for its life from a band of gith.  I hear the sounds it hears and sense the danger it senses, and the indignation and anger they feel.  There isn't a character--there is a person, stuck in a harsh desert world, where they are very often at the bottom of the food chain.

The second of these is the "Upper" Level.  I am watching these people play out their daily lives, make decisions... I am NOTHING like most of my characters.  I love comedy, and while they may be trapped in the pit of dispair or caught up in a moment of fear, _I_ am free to be amused.

Yeah, I totally respect that, but that's not the case for everyone.  That was really the point of the thread I posted.  Just remember that using "ooc" or "gone" for OOC comic relief isn't going to tickle everyone's funny bone.

[Underdark Song]

I am not going to attempt--or expect anyone else to attempt--to make everyone on his game happy.  We are a diverse bunch.

But if I have to "respect" that these other people, who want to flaunt their oppressive presence over me, want absolutely NO OOC what-so-ever, then THEY should have to respect that I may see no need in further depressing myself with a dark theme, if I am trying to play a game for fun.

*Edited:  I consider myself a fair roleplayer, and will always stay in-theme.  I consider it extremely poor roleplaying and sportmanship to mix IC and OOC to any degree: it also takes away from the depth that the game has and the current environment.

If the staff of Armageddon wants to step on me concerning that, then they should say so, and I'll respect these people and quietly go find another RPI MUD where I can actually relax and have fun.  

I'm not looking to play on some retarded hack-and-slash MUD populated by horny little pre-teens.  I am looking for a strictly RPI game with an IC world based in depth and realism, and a playerbase that is both intelligent and mature.  But 'intelligent and mature' does not mean they have to walk around tight-assed because everyone can't relax like they can.

This isn't a job, people.  It's a game.

[amoeba]

Armageddon has a great playerbase, but I am sometimes left wondering about how utterly stuck up it is.

All that said, though, IC funny is all well and good, so long as it fits the game. OOC humor can stay on the GDB.

There is a certain air of arrogance about the GDB at times, and at times I have seen it leak into the game in inappropriate ways.  The GDB is rife with bitch threads.  All delfs are played crappy, too many magickers, they give out karma too easily, everyone is a twink, everyone is a powergamer, yada yada, etc.  I can see where Underdog Song comes from, at times it is overwhelming.  

In terms of this leaking into to the game, I'll give an example.  This is generic enough that no IC is being divulged.  

Not that long ago I had my first truly city based character in near a RL year, most of that prior time, I rarely set foot in a city.  He was interacting in a tavern, when a character I OOCly knew had gone hidden did a rather simple hidden emote. A sigh.  Now, I tend to play things quick and furious, I find that if I just let it flow more interesting things happen, it's also my playing style.  In the sands, a hidden sigh means something, it means someone is there.  Knee jerk reaction, my character reacted,  A couple of seconds later, I realized it was probably the wrong reaction.  

The whole scene was nothing major, but the person in question broke into a a fairly long OOC diatribe about the appropriateness of reacting to said emote.  The incident was -very- jarring and a bit insulting.   I was just coming off of a interesting character's death, and playing a new one I absolutely hated playing at the time, with this comment it took everything in me to keep playing the scene and not ether answer back with a nasty OOC of my own or follow my inclination to say screw it, and log off.

Sadly enough this is not the first time I have seen or heard about this.  My point here is that one OOC communication, be it light hearted or for other reasons, should be limited to that information needed to convey information. Not to be silly just because, and not to play rp police.  And in terms of the first part, lighten up a little, sometimes I think people take them selfs way too damn serious.

[Bestatte]

Hypothetical scene:

Lord Tor is waying Jim Magicker, who's sitting at the bar with a bunch of other people. Lord Tor's telling Jim that he knows he's a magicker, secret and ungemmed. Jim's player is all excited because this is gonna be his first REAL RPed conflict with this character. His knuckles are white as he grips the edge of his keyboard, but he lets go long enough to find out what Lord Tor wants in return for his silence.

In the meantime, a group down the bar is just chitchatting about nothing particular, everything's going fine ICly for them. All of a sudden:

The green-eyed elf is gone to smoke a fat one.

The blue-haired woman oocs, "Heh."

The skinny elf oocs, "He should learn to share."

Jim's player sighs, shakes his head sadly, and pretends that his character is still mortified by his way conversation even though the moment is totally lost thanks to some ooc "fun" in the room.

Yes, it's just a game. But the nature of the game is that people are -intentionally- trying to get lost in the depth of their characters. OOC witicisms are not conducive to this, and just plain flat out don't belong -in- the game. That's what IRC is for, that's what AIM is for, that's what the GDB is for, it's what games that aren't RPI are for. There are plenty of RP-enforced games that aren't RPIs, and that kind of "fun" is usually acceptable there. It isn't in Arm, and the docs state this pretty clearly.

[Underdark Song]

Then may I suggest removing the OOC and GONE commands all together?

It doesn't spam, and it ends shortly.

I do NOT make liberal use of the OOC commands--but if I do, I mean it all in good will, and if someone were to jump my ass about how positively evil I was, then I would be forced to feel infinitely uncomfortable while on the game.

As it is, just reading the boards has made me uncomfortable.  

How I can play a game and enjoy myself knowing that the person on the other side of that mean-looking cross-eyed templar is a stuck-up ass who can't respect ME?

[Forty Winks]

While I'm sure the intentions of removing the gone and OOC commands are good, there are certain circumstances that merit their uses when used properly. I think it deals more with trusting that people use the commands as they are ment to be used.

Some uses that OOC commands might be helpful for:

:arrow:

[flurry]

Underdark Song:

Let me explain my perspective a little bit differently.

First, my objection really isn't to humor, it's to the way those commands are being used.  I like wit.  I like humor.  I love clever characters, or dim characters who inject IC comic relief.   Some of my best memories in the game were ICly funny circumstances.  You might find some people who think a gritty harsh gameworld should be completely devoid of humor, but I'm not one of them.

"ooc" and "gone" are good, necessary commands.  My objection is to what I believe is a misuse of those commands.   That's all.  It's not the humor part that's the central issue for me, although that is one example of the misuse.

And it's not about thinking the people who do that are poor roleplayers or not worthy of respect.  I have no doubt that it has nothing to do with one's ability to roleplay.  It just seems like a matter of courtesy, I guess.  Like not smoking in a non-smoking section.  

This may seem like a lot over nothing, but as Walter Sobchak would say "This is not 'Nam.  This is bowling.  There are rules."

[Marauder Moe]

I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what it is you're complaining about, Underdark Song.  You agree with limiting OOC and 'witty' gone messages, right?  I guess what I don't understand is do you think people need to be more OOCly relaxed/funny or ICly relaxed/funny?  Or maybe more relaxed/funny on the GDB?

If it's OOC, well, that's been covered already I think.  If it's IC, all I can say is that its a mean and harsh world and most people are too hungry or too greedy to think about comedy much.  If it's the GDB, not too long ago humor and wit used to be rampant here.  Every other post/reply was an attempt at humor.  The staff decided it was too much and humor should be mostly kept to the OOC discussion.  Also there were issues about all those messages clogging up the forum's server space.  Nowadays, most discussions here are rather serious.

[Twilight]

Is it really IC to throw in an exact quote from real life?  Would your character really say that exact thing?  Why?  The other characters don't have the background to find it funny or amusing, unless it is by itself funny or amusing.  Maybe the players do, but if you are performing an action in the game that is not an OOC command that is for another player's benefit, you are starting to cross the IC/OOC line.  Like helping obvious newbies out, its a slippery slope that you should at least be aware that you are on.

As for jarring:

Character finds the corpse of a militia member and the obvious perpetrator.
Character tries to kill the perpetratior, and is assisted by the city militia.
The good guys kill the evil villain.
Evil villian rises up, saying 'There can be only one' and the beat down begins again.
The good guys kill the evil villain.
Evil villian rises up, saying 'There can be only one' and the beat down begins again.
Repeat like 10 times.

Funny?  Yes, funny as hell.  Jarring?  Jarring as hell.  And how the hell do you play that one out later?  And unlike some other examples, this one actually happened in the game, years back.

[Xygax]

The core problem, of course, stems from people who think they're funny, but aren't.  Posts like "don't try to be funny in your 'gone' message; it's jarring" are for them.  Alas, every has to suffer for the poor sense of humor of a few.

-- X

(non-staff opinion disclaimer here)

[Ghost]

As long as the ooc or gone messages left unanswered, I think it would be OK.  Going to Bestatte's hypothetical example, if the other players did not responded with their own sense of humor, the gone message would not hurt the flow of events at all.

I myself don't care, as long as the joke is made with an OOC message.  But I do believe people don't like the OOC being put to the game much.  So I tend not to respond to joke messages myself.

How I can play a game and enjoy myself knowing that the person on the other side of that mean-looking cross-eyed templar is a stuck-up ass who can't respect ME?

Don't get discouraged with this friend.  I hear you, but I think it is a matter of trust.  You should trust the player(s) that they are doing what they are supposed to you.  Probably, if we could share some jokes with the player(s) it would be easier.  But too much OOC could itself damage the gameplay as well.  I hope you did not get discouraged with the posts in this thread.

I can see where Underdog Song comes from, at times it is overwhelming.

Yes, but can you see where Underdark Song comes from?

[amoeba]

Yes, but can you see where Underdark Song comes from?

Duh  :roll: :oops:

[Anonymous]

I think that probably everyone here agrees that OOC and GONE should be used minimally in-game.  But, I do agree with the original poster that in other aspects some lightening-up should be a good idea.  Personally, it has happened to me that my char. was enemies with another char. and the player was so involved in the game that he was rude towards me on the GDB for a long time (this was in a situation where it was obvious who I was).  It's fine to be immersed in the game but people should try more to leave IC emotions IC.

[Ritley]

Then may I suggest removing the OOC and GONE commands all together?

It doesn't spam, and it ends shortly.

I do NOT make liberal use of the OOC commands--but if I do, I mean it all in good will, and if someone were to jump my ass about how positively evil I was, then I would be forced to feel infinitely uncomfortable while on the game.

As it is, just reading the boards has made me uncomfortable.  

How I can play a game and enjoy myself knowing that the person on the other side of that mean-looking cross-eyed templar is a stuck-up ass who can't respect ME?

You don't need to joke to have fun. On Armageddon mud, we have fun by becoming our character's, don't like it go somewhere else, and we do respect YOU just not ICly, OOC does not relate to IC in anyway, other than the player behind that character.