I hate Meta-Gaming in Arena.

Oh hey, my character has this strange, very specific weakness and your character knows it...SOMEHOW! Without it ever being shown IC! Cool!

Derpestein said
I hate Meta-Gaming in Arena.Oh hey, my character has this strange, very specific weakness and your character knows it...SOMEHOW! Without it ever being shown IC! Cool!

A primary problem with the nature of Arena is because it's supposed to be competitive in nature, people still feel the drive to "win". I see some people keeping track of their win/ tie/ loss ratings and I can't help but wonder how many of those games actually ran fairly or if people didn't try to bend things in their favour just to get that "win".

I use win in quotations because ultimately, in this medium, the outcome has to be in a sense mutually agreed upon at some point instead of what should have been the finishing blow or submission being countered in some way.

Dervish said
A primary problem with the nature of Arena is because it's supposed to be competitive in nature, people still feel the drive to "win". I see some people keeping track of their win/ tie/ loss ratings and I can't help but wonder how many of those games actually ran fairly or if people didn't try to bend things in their favour just to get that "win".I use win in quotations because ultimately, in this medium, the outcome has to be in a sense mutually agreed upon at some point instead of what should have been the finishing blow or submission being countered in some way.

And this leads to...

The dreaded auto hit.

You block that near impervious sword with your own near impervious weapon and it breaks somehow. It doesn't stop there. They write it as though you've already been stabbed, killed, slashed, whatever. 'And so, Terrior 'Terribad' McB sliced his opponent in half and held his corpse.' Not leaving room to dodge, block, run, whatever.

I'm in an RP in another forum. I was PMing another poster who I'll call Alan about an idea I had, asking him what he thought about it. Alan then made a post specifically worded to prevent me from ever following through on my idea. This is (was) a community run RP rather than a GM run RP. I mentioned what happened to another poster I'll call Vic by PM (I didn't think it was right what Alan did, but I didn't want to make a big deal out of it) and later realized that Vic had already spoken with Alan. Vic and Alan were in an alliance in the thread with a third user.

Because we do everything by vote it quickly became clear that nothing was going to go well for me anytime soon. The thread is GM run now...but it's run by Vic...

It's been a fun thread, but it's hard to post in it when you can't trust several of the posters anymore.

You know what's slightly annoying? Elitists. I mean, I understand wanting to play with others of you skill level and capacity because it's more fun that way 'for you'. I understand people looking for that kind of group, because we're all about our personal opinions. Some of us have the will to GM these opinions and ideas into a functioning world. Some of us do not have that drive, the time, or the will. But there are really just two things that irritate me. I'll keep this short and simple.

#1: Elitist Evangelist: He or She who joins a group expecting it to be withhold their ideals. Perhaps the rp idea is just too good to pass up, perhaps it looks to most promising, perhaps a friend is in it. "That's Alright," The evangelist thinks, "I'll just PM the GM on my opinions of the would-be recruits and let him know that their skill level doesn't nearly fit the criteria for this RP regardless of how the GM or the players feel, I'm sure I can convince him." "Well," The evangelist thinks, "Perhaps the GM will see it my way when I convince all his prospective players that it should be this way or we'll all leave and start our own thread based off of this ideal, or something totally different because fuck you that's why don't let the noobs join."

#2: GM's who can't understand that we were all noobs once. I'm sure nobody here picked up a pencil in kindergarten and wrote a best selling novel (and if you did link it because I'd very much like to read it, especially if it involves a plague of cooties.) Writing some one off because their character doesn't have a twelve page biography, or because they 'forgot' something in the base story, or left out a detail on something you had made thirty-seven posts back. I'm not a fan of elitists because I feel everyone at some point should reach back and help the community out. Yes some people are ungrateful and dumb and can't, won't be helped. But is that person really the only one you could have? On the opposite hand it's irritating to see players from other sections use the "Oh, this looks too hard... I guess.. I just won't.. make.. a.. CS.. here... sorry... bye." method, I will personally slam the door on you. Or the "looks good, better go post this idea in casual because they'll never let me in advanced." Even better the simply blind to your offers to let them join so that they can improve. I try to help those who wander over from casual, hell they could come from free.

You know what really, REALLY, makes me mad? "I'm a better roleplayer." No you're not, there is no roleplay rank. Yes, their are categorized divisions using common terminology so everybody can find a group that resembles their creative outlet, I give you that. "Advanced" does not make me better than "Free" or "Casual". It means I am willing and able to express myself more. Roleplaying is creative writing from all ends, creativity is not a measurable skill. "But Aeon, how come museums don't show case my art?" Because everything that has ever existed for any reason is all based off of opinions on how you feel it's measurable worth it conceived. Some people may like something more than something else, some people may buy that thing because that person thought that. It's all expressionism, people who can't understand that piss me off.

From an arguable standpoint, and to be contradictory, yes, you can be better. But you'll only ever achieve as much greatest as others perceive you to be. Understanding that all creative writing is good, because it is creative, is one of the doors to a higher state of being. Yes, even those terrible one liners are good, because that's how much effort they choose to express themselves. You don't know how much creative ideal that one liner sparks inside their head, just because it isn't written over two-hundred seventy-two paragraphs.

That's my bitching. If you want to argue about it PM me, I love debates.

Derpestein said
I hate Meta-Gaming in Arena.Oh hey, my character has this strange, very specific weakness and your character knows it...SOMEHOW! Without it ever being shown IC! Cool!

That can go both ways. with people having "strange, specific. weaknesses" that make it literally impossible for the.other person to take advantage of.

Same with weaknesses that are completely at the mercy of the.controlling player.

Ok do you really want me to vent. I have a bunch of things I hate on people not even in the community but in real life he on while I spell check my rants I have written down right next to me.

When people mistake me for a boy on almost every account on almost every site I go on. Grrr do you not read user names, would any boy have a user name like enchanted meadow or enchanted forest?? Grrr.

When people in roleplays suddenly stop posting and move on after the first twenty pages. That leaves the fateful rp's to sit and wait while the Gm finds new people. It never starts up again and then when the restart comes so do the same people from before. Get you mind straight.

This is different as you get the react time but you can't do anything as the gmail mod is controlling who ever you fighting and if you harm the character you get kicked out.

Rules that make no sense and keep the rp from getting interest or progressing.

Gmods not accepting charecters and making people change major parts of the characters persona just to be in the rp. Let me see like minor changes like if the bio doesn't fit the plot and setting or the picture is anime and they wanted real. But saying you couldn't have the personality you took time perfecting because the good has a Girl that has a few of the traits. Grrr.

I may add more I may not those are ones that go around rp'rs the rest are about posts and plot lines and Grrr.

EnchantedMedow said
Ok do you really want me to vent. I have a bunch of things I hate on people not even in the community but in real life he on while I spell check my rants I have written down right next to me.

When people mistake me for a boy on almost every account on almost every site I go on. Grrr do you not read user names, would any boy have a user name like enchanted meadow or enchanted forest?? Grrr.

When people in roleplays suddenly stop posting and move on after the first twenty pages. That leaves the fateful rp's to sit and wait while the Gm finds new people. It never starts up again and then when the restart comes so do the same people from before. Get you mind straight.

This is different as you get the react time but you can't do anything as the gmail mod is controlling who ever you fighting and if you harm the character you get kicked out.

Rules that make no sense and keep the rp from getting interest or progressing.

Gmods not accepting charecters and making people change major parts of the characters persona just to be in the rp. Let me see like minor changes like if the bio doesn't fit the plot and setting or the picture is anime and they wanted real. But saying you couldn't have the personality you took time perfecting because the good has a Girl that has a few of the traits. Grrr.

I may add more I may not those are ones that go around rp'rs the rest are about posts and plot lines and Grrr.

Hmm. I guess I'll go in order, with possible ways to understand the circumstances and mitigate your Grrr:

Alright, the username/sex problem. People think you're a boy, even though your username is "EnchantedMedow". Well, this is very common, on the Guild and otherwise, as the majority of usernames (look at my own, even) are decidedly gender-neutral, and no one is forced to call themselves anything masculine or feminine. Until you know a person, until you have asked, or someone has told you, anyone on the forums could have any sex/gender/orientation.

Off the top of my head, look at Sherlock Holmes. Named after a male character, generally has an image of that male character as an avatar... She's a girl. Avatars, signatures and usernames are poor estimates of these things, and if it is truly irritating to you, I would recommend simply telling all of the people in your threads that you are a girl. There's not much else to be done. Tell them you're a girl, and then they'll know, and the ambiguity will be cleared up.

The second one, people moving on after posting for a good while... Yeah, not much to say. This just happens, generally when those players aren't enjoying the RP as it is. I had a whole post about it close to the top of the last page.

"This is different as you get the react time but you can't do anything as the [GM] is controlling who ever you fighting and if you harm the character you get kicked out."

Um, I don't know if this is exactly correct, but I think you're talking about combat against GM-controlled characters? And if you try to take out/"harm" the character, you get kicked out of the game? That seems... needlessly harsh. If you really can't convince them to let you back in, though, there's not much you can do. Try to find an RP with a less vengeful GM, I suppose. In at least some cases, though, you should be able to talk to the person and get back in.

The last two, yeah... Just like the above, unreasonable GMing. I can see myself demanding massive rewrites only if I think the sheet is poorly done, or if the backstory itself is inherently perpendicular to the plot/setting (the character is the daughter/son of the villain without knowing anything about the villain, that kind of thing). I'm also the type who's a stickler for lore, though, and I can be highly critical of characters who are created without an understanding of that lore... :( It can get kind of ridiculous. I'm trying to work on this.

Aeonumbra said You know what's slightly annoying? Elitists.

You just don't understand the eloquent artist art in arting up the arts so I can art art art something something art something art something art something something plaebian something art master race.

Followed up with their character describing with eight paragraphs that have absolutely nothing to do with the story why your character sucks in every possible imaginable way.

Don't worry though bro, it's completely in character for the peaceful, wise sage to do that. Mmhmm. Totally.

Aeonumbra said #1: Elitist Evangelist: He or She who joins a group expecting it to be withhold their ideals. Perhaps the rp idea is just too good to pass up, perhaps it looks to most promising, perhaps a friend is in it. "That's Alright," The evangelist thinks, "I'll just PM the GM on my opinions of the would-be recruits and let him know that their skill level doesn't nearly fit the criteria for this RP regardless of how the GM or the players feel, I'm sure I can convince him." "Well," The evangelist thinks, "Perhaps the GM will see it my way when I convince all his prospective players that it should be this way or we'll all leave and start our own thread based off of this ideal, or something totally different because fuck you that's why don't let the noobs join."

This happened once. My reply was something along the lines of quoting their PM'd critique, then quoting parts of their IC posts from other RP's, accompanied by comments like "Oh god the irony ahaha I can't stop myself from laughing." Eventually ending it with; "Yeah no, but seriously. No and fuck you."

Then I got a PM about how I shouldn't look down on them. I miss the days I didn't care about shit and had field days with people.

When people answer and interest check that is labeled for higher post standards then submit character sheets that are not filled out length wise.

Another pet peeve of mine is when people claim that a character is overpowered, a m/gary sue, or any other term of the word based on a person's reputation rather than her/his actual skills.

The very idea of an 'overpowered' character does my head in. I understand why people want to avoid having players just storming round shooting crazylasers (or whatever the RP's equivalent is), but some people in life are better and stronger than others.

A GM may decide to ask players to be at a set level from the beginning of an RP to prevent crazylasers, but players bitching that a character that is justifiably the strongest beats their character in a fight of some kind really annoys me.

Somebody that has been practicing Kung Fu for twenty years is going to beat a novice. That's the way it is. Those are the characters, and those are their skillsets. Just deal.

I tend to hamper or put my characters into difficult situations. There are a couple acceptions to this but, for the most part their strongest area is tempered by their personality or fighting style. I'll give two recent examples of mine own make: One guy is average in physical combat....his only abilities involve physical combat for anything ranged he relies on normal tools and he is piss poor when it comes to strategies he's more of the charge in head first kind of person. The only redeeming qualities are his charisma and his high ability to use elemental based attacks. The other is a naturally skilled fighter and is the type of strategic person that could make it as a future commander (if he makes it that far) but he is a light weight, he lacks charisma to unite people, and even though he is usually calm and collected, if he DOES break down he is more or less useless.

Rilla said
That can go both ways. with people having "strange, specific. weaknesses" that make it literally impossible for the.other person to take advantage of. Same with weaknesses that are completely at the mercy of the.controlling player.

It was hypothetical.

For a more relatable thing:

Lets say this man is very durable to most elements without fire. His opponent who doesn't know this IC but does OOC, uses fire first thing for no reason. He's not a pyromaniac, he's not a fire Mage, whatever.

When it IS a fire Mage, however, then it's different because fire is their strong point so of course they'd use it.

But when you have a very varied character with lots of different abilities and by coincidence you use a fire bomb on your opponent who is weak to fire without any indication, it's fishy.

Unless the character has super perception. Or something.

Derpestein said
It was hypothetical.For a more relatable thing:Lets say this man is very durable to most elements without fire. His opponent who doesn't know this IC but does OOC, uses fire first thing for no reason. He's not a pyromaniac, he's not a fire Mage, whatever.When it IS a fire Mage, however, then it's different because fire is their strong point so of course they'd use it.But when you have a very varied character with lots of different abilities and by coincidence you use a fire bomb on your opponent who is weak to fire without any indication, it's fishy.Unless the character has super perception. Or something.

Oh no. I get what you're saying. having been in the arena, for years its a bit more common than people think.

I was just pointing out the other side. haha. some people give their characters weaknesses that aren't weaknesses, or something really elaborate.

I see that a lot in the forum I frequent, only as it's not an Arena forum it's more along the lines of a very unlucky, or uncharismatic, or unintelligent character who is written without taking into account those weaknesses. Stat or Character Sheet wise he/she is deficient in those areas, but for all practical purposes he/she is just fine.

With this post, this thread has officially outlived its predecessor. Just an observation.

Edit: I really feel it important to point out Elitism itself isn't a problem. It has this terribly negative connotation to it, but Elitism itself merely refers to the choice or best of anything collective in such a case of people or merely the people of highest class. That has a huge scope of possibilities because the status of 'best' or 'being choice' is utterly subjective. The highest class could exist because of a meritocratic system just as much as it could an monarchical or traditional system. An Elitist that is a problem is one that believes in some higher 'tier' solely to place themselves within it, thus have a sense of self-entitlement based on unprecedented claims. Considering that the entire system presented here on RPGuild is based on a GM that essentially has dictatorial authority, social stratification itself isn't uncommon. There is an obvious division line. It exists and performs a function. Elitism, such as that of a meritocratic system, could as well. I really think a far better term here would be 'narcissist' or - my personal favorite - 'asshole'. It really irks me that a potentially positive function of society is used so distastefully because of a negative connotation of the word.

Sort've like Communists, Socialists... or Libertarians. Although, that also depends highly on culture and geographic placement. I've got some friends on the West Coast that think Libertarians are utterly perfect while just about everyone else I know think they're too idealistic to take seriously.

New B!tching:

When people sign up to an RP with requirements they can't fulfil. Nobody's a winner, and nobody's even to blame. When I'm GMing, I typically stipulate that I'm not bothered about post length, really, but getting basic spelling and grammar right most of the time is important to me, and if they can't do that, it's not the RP for them.

On the whole, I don't think there's really an excuse for frequently getting basic stuff wrong for people using English as a first language, and mistakes* like that, when regularly made, really do annoy me. It's even one of the stipulated criteria for Casual and particularly Advanced sections on this forum. I guess it's not their fault that they don't know better (otherwise their SPaG - Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar - would be more accurate), but I hate having to choose between putting up with something that really irks me, nagging a player about their SPaG during the RP, or sending that really awful "You're not up to scratch, sorry" PM.

It's been discussed in this thread, or its ill-fated predecessor, where the boundaries are for the dreaded Constructive Criticism, but surely basic SPaG really is an objective thing that can be demonstrably improved through a clear explanation? At what point is it acceptable to send somebody a PM along the lines of, "This is how an apostrophe works (ie: not the way you do it)"?

*When I say mistakes, btw, I mean ones that are caused by simply not knowing the basic rules of the English language. Typos, along with death and taxes, are inevitable.

MetaB!tching:

When people like me complain about people with a worse grasp of English language than the complainant with three inevitable consequences:

• Somebody feels less confident about their own writing and is put off an RP (or a section) with standards they can definitely meet


• I get a reputation I don't feel is fair as an elitist


• I panic that I've made a typo in this b!tching and I'm going to get picked apart

I hate it when, after telling someone their CS just isn't good enough, they try to edit it and it's still bad. If the edit is good, then yeah, it's fine, but trying to fix a problem only to make it worse...

It's even worse if your RP has some certain specific rules and say, at the end, it says that "Put ____ in your CS if you've read the rules" and when you tell them, THEY TRY TO TELL YOU THEY'LL EDIT IT IN.

THAT'S NOW HOW IT WORKS. There's a difference between adding more content and editing in a rule you didn't bother to read in the first place.

Preach it.