<Snipped quote by Dervish>

I usually define evil as point of view, namely what their motivates are and how deep they relate to the outside world. A really good villain to me is someone who's dark actions actually have some good aftermath because it establishes them as sort of a needed evil rather than just evil to be stopped. Which brings that moral aspect into play: do you merely destroy the evil and basically accept their fall will ripple off to hurt innocents that don't deserve the aftermath or allow the evil to continue and risk other innocents to suffer from their actions?

Realistically, when you don't actually think of this as a story are pretty harsh choices either way.

Moral grey areas are where I like to play most for exactly the reasons you mentioned. "evil for the sake of evil" is just boring, I like it when the bad guys think they're doing the right thing based on what their goals are, or the ends justify the means kind of thing.

<Snipped quote by Dervish>

I usually define evil as point of view, namely what their motivates are and how deep they relate to the outside world. A really good villain to me is someone who's dark actions actually have some good aftermath because it establishes them as sort of a needed evil rather than just evil to be stopped. Which brings that moral aspect into play: do you merely destroy the evil and basically accept their fall will ripple off to hurt innocents that don't deserve the aftermath or allow the evil to continue and risk other innocents to suffer from their actions?

Realistically, when you don't actually think of this as a story are pretty harsh choices either way.

That's why I was sayign that, in hidnsight, thsoe characters were a bit cliche. I mean, the torturer oen was loyal to his king and was more or less concerned with stoppign the rebellion. The oen that was a full blown amd scientist wanted to control his group through the manipulaiton of the figurehead within said group to consolidate power around hismelf. They weren't of the kidn of "needed evil", except the torturer oen sicne he was mroe doign his job out of loyalty, but mroe or less an evil that needs to be stopped. I liek to thign that I've gotten better at this kind of thign over time, but I am nto so sure.

As for hte question you presented, it's a rahter itneresting one and -nowadays- I rather like mroe and mroe the "needed evil" kind of characers, btu I do find the purely evil characters fun to play as well (as in, for example, playing a follwoer of Chaos in a 40k RP, and even those can have their nuances despite being, msot of hte time, the evil for the sake of evil kinda characters). But yeah, when you don't think of it as a story, those are pretty harsh choiced either way.

Still running it. :D.

It's super lighthearted though

<Snipped quote by Fallenreaper>

It's a nightmare to try and RP with characters like that. If a character doesn't have any agency to want to associate with anyone and deliberately cuts off any dialog because it's "in character" for them, it makes them exactly the last person anyone wants to associate with. You basically end up with a mopey D-Bag who isn't interacting with other characters, and if they were going to have any depth, usually you never get that far because the player who owns that character is feeling left out. My first incarnation with Tanya had her being someone who did everything in her power to avoid socializing with the team at first because she didn't want to get to close to them, and it's reaaally not a fun thing to play, even though you have a big character arc planned for that character warming up and getting over their fears.

In another game, one of the players had a character who fit the whole brooding anti-social assassin archetype, and one of my characters made it her life's goal to harass the crap out of that character for her own personal amusement, and as it turned out, it ended up doing a lot to drive the development with both of our characters and they ended up becoming one of my all-time favorite relationships in my roleplay history.

It's probably worst with characters who have the edgy/dramatic weaboo off-the-shelf tragic backstories that don't hold much bearing except to cause drama and draw in attention. I saw it (along with annoying kawaii-desu mary sue rambo cybersex throwaway chars) a lot back on a number of Garry's Mod RP communities (TacoNBanana, InfusionGaming) and at best it was just disruptive rather than conductive to good RP. Not saying tragic backstories are a bad thing - they're great when pulled off right, just a lot of the time they're hit and miss or just miss.

Speaking of that, Does anyone have a favorite trope they enjoy doing? Mine's a little obvious.

My fave is Always Something to Prove trope. Either to themselves or someone else. It's mixed cases coupled with strong will or ruthless tact. Churns out some high energy and tunnel vision motivation for characters, I find at least.

Another trope I love and hate equally is the Dark Vs Light romantic tropes. i.e Phantom of the Opera. It can be endearing or just make me puke a little in the back of my throat.

I only have a couple of characters with tragic/really horrible back stories. But to be honest, you kinda have to make the character based around that backstory because it will affect every aspect of their life, be it through fear, bitterness, hatred or other base emotions, jealousy etc. One of my favourite characters (sadly ineligible to be played here, though if custom races were allowed, I'd be on it like a shot XD) was exiled unjustly in the subterranean realms of her race and has grown to hate those who exiled her and everything connected to them, it's formed the backbone of that character's view on life - fatalistic, black, forever the pessimist (or realist, as she calls herself) and fuelled by anger, rage and a desire to revenge herself on everyone responsible for her exile. But then, she's also not completely one-sided. She has a soft side, and when someone she cared about asked her 'What will you do after you'd indulged yourself in your little orgy of bloodshed?', that character did almost like a double-take. What *does* someone do after they've had their revenge? Does it give them inner peace? Or is it nothing more than a hollow victory, like Achilles' killing of Hector in the Iliad? When the motivation disappears, when you do finally hear the last pained gurgles as your scimitar plunges through your hated enemy's neck, what happens now? Is it over? Or is it just the beginning?

Every character is multi-faceted. If you fail to take that into account, or simply fail to understand that, then perhaps it's something you need to work on.

Just my £0.02 on the matter.

<Snipped quote by Fallenreaper>

My fave is Always Something to Prove trope. Either to themselves or someone else. It's mixed cases coupled with strong will or ruthless tact. Churns out some high energy and tunnel vision motivation for characters, I find at least.

Another trope I love and hate equally is the Dark Vs Light romantic tropes. i.e Phantom of the Opera. It can be endearing or just make me puke a little in the back of my throat.

That's why the dude wears the mask, you see. Puke shield.

I only have a couple of characters with tragic/really horrible back stories. But to be honest, you kinda have to make the character based around that backstory because it will affect every aspect of their life, be it through fear, bitterness, hatred or other base emotions, jealousy etc. One of my favourite characters (sadly ineligible to be played here, though if custom races were allowed, I'd be on it like a shot XD) was exiled unjustly in the subterranean realms of her race and has grown to hate those who exiled her and everything connected to them, it's formed the backbone of that character's view on life - fatalistic, black, forever the pessimist (or realist, as she calls herself) and fuelled by anger, rage and a desire to revenge herself on everyone responsible for her exile. But then, she's also not completely one-sided. She has a soft side, and when someone she cared about asked her 'What will you do after you'd indulged yourself in your little orgy of bloodshed?', that character did almost like a double-take. What *does* someone do after they've had their revenge? Does it give them inner peace? Or is it nothing more than a hollow victory, like Achilles' killing of Hector in the Iliad? When the motivation disappears, when you do finally hear the last pained gurgles as your scimitar plunges through your hated enemy's neck, what happens now? Is it over? Or is it just the beginning?

Every character is multi-faceted. If you fail to take that into account, or simply fail to understand that, then perhaps it's something you need to work on.

Just my £0.02 on the matter.

I think it depends on the PC and how long they have been at it. I know Vellios has his own issues himself, from issues with commitment to eliminating suicidal tenancies.

Anyway, what's currently going on in the IC? What's needed, who's in a collab, etc?

I'm waiting on more IC posts so me and Derv can work on our collab.

@Dervish

<Snipped quote by DearTrickster>

That's why the dude wears the mask, you see. Puke shield.

HrrrrrrrrRRRR. Phantom of the Opera was an example of the trope. Endearing and well done.

@Legion X51 Aftermath of successful or unsuccessful revenge is best. The drive for revenge is all well and good but the aftermath is when things get interesting.

<Snipped quote by Legion X51>

I think it depends on the PC and how long they have been at it. I know Vellios has his own issues himself, from issues with commitment to eliminating suicidal tenancies.

Anyway, what's currently going on in the IC? What's needed, who's in a collab, etc?

I'm starting a collab up with Rtron and Zombie. Any of the assault teams can feel free to make the next round of posts and start banging around.

Once that happens, DJ wanted to do a collab with Tonka.

<Snipped quote by Fallenreaper>

I'm starting a collab up with Rtron and Zombie. Any of the assault teams can feel free to make the next round of posts and start banging around.

Once that happens, DJ wanted to do a collab with Tonka.

Currently Vellios is waiting for Kasya, who's lead he's following, to make the go ahead signal so they can make some noise, who is likely waiting for the go ahead as well.

Yo, I am currently writing up the distraction.

Mood Music: Let Me Hit It - Sporty-O

Yo, I am currently writing up the distraction.

Mood Music: Let Me Hit It - Sporty-O

Did you want to tag along with any particular group? I initially thought it was going to be a group of the assault guys going for the warehouse and then the rest going after the admin building and Alex would be attached to one of those groups, but things seem to be going sausagey in the planning department right now.

Who isn't spoken for at the moment, I know Morty isn't, and if Grey Warden's still around I know he's unspoken for.

<Snipped quote by AeronFarron>

Did you want to tag along with any particular group? I initially thought it was going to be a group of the assault guys going for the warehouse and then the rest going after the admin building and Alex would be attached to one of those groups, but things seem to be going sausagey in the planning department right now.

Who isn't spoken for at the moment, I know Morty isn't, and if Grey Warden's still around I know he's unspoken for.

Was hoping to run a truck through a wall, biotic charge a guy, then duck into cover to shoot. You know distraction stuff :3

So...warehouse team, I guess?

<Snipped quote by Dervish>

Was hoping to run a truck through a wall, biotic charge a guy, then duck into cover to shoot. You know distraction stuff :3

So...warehouse team, I guess?

Here, lemme start a new PM thread where I have Zombie and Rtron doing distraction/ support stuff. We're doing the truck ramming goodness there.

<Snipped quote by AeronFarron>

Here, lemme start a new PM thread where I have Zombie and Rtron doing distraction/ support stuff. We're doing the truck ramming goodness there.

OK. Thanks.

Hookay, time to open the door and air out the cabin a bit.

I'm starting to think that this huge focus on pre-planning every detail of the missions and doing absolutely everything in collabs is A) making the pacing really uneven, B) Having some players end up hitting a brick wall because they're waiting on another group or player, C) players who aren't as active as others being left out, and D) giving me the impression everyone feels like they're walking on eggshells or feels like just having fun with the scenes is going to screw everything up and have major consequences.

Usually, as these games go, there isn't really much in the way of planning. It's just "here's the scenario, go have fun" and players would collaboratively build the scene and play it out, going in a loose rotation. It almost always flowed organically and people branched off on their own accord. Feel free to ask my alumni players Echo and Legion how the old Nova games went for these action scenes, usually things worked out pretty smoothly. Here I'm starting to see some of the growing pains of having so many players, and there's definitely a divide between the people who are frequently active and the ones who are meeting the standards but aren't necessarily on every day, who I feel are probably getting confused and maybe even a little frustrated, or feeling left out because of the god knows how many back door collabs we have going on.

So, going forward, let's try to reduce the collabs and not be rigid with planning out every little detail. You guys are free to improvise what you encounter, and don't feel like starting a gun fight is going to suddenly screw over everyone and scrub the mission. Let's put it this way, when you play Mass Effect, you don't know anything about the missions going into it, you just kind of roll with the punches and enjoy the experience as it happens. Right now, I kind of feel like the game's suddenly veered off into Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six and shit is starting to look like this in people's minds:



If that's the case, relaaaax! Gold team isn't going to get gunned down in a blaze of hellfire because Red team breached a room with unsuppressed weapons and then the hostage was killed because green team's flashbang didn't get the guy facing away from it. Remember, we're going for a feeling of a bunch of ragtag mercs trying to make ends meet, a la Firefly. Don't be afraid to be a little spontaneous and if you have an idea, don't feel like you can't do it because it would ruin somebody's plan, have your character do what they'd do and have the world react to it. It's spontaneous, it's fun! This is how you end up with great roleplay moments like normally even headed businessman krogan going into an uncharacteristic bloodrage while chasing a hapless merc through an office building, trying to do everything to put obstacles between her and the krogan, or an infiltration mission on a sea vessel on Kahje going horribly wrong with the ship sinking and falling apart as the team struggles to complete their mission and get out alive, or stealing an arms shipment from a Blue Suns outpost while driving the truck filled with what they find out to be nerve gas through the busy Omega streets while fighting off pursuit vehicles.

Those three scenarios were things that happened in previous games off the top of my head, and part of what made it special and fun was that everyone got to throw something into the mix and we let whatever was going to happen, happen. Part of the charm of these games is the unintentional chaos that brews from one of the characters fucking up, intentionally or unintentionally, and setting this game apart from the super serious military-themed Mass Effect roleplays.

So, yeah. This isn't a rant so much as a manifesto and just a reminder of what we're here for, and to hopefully open a bridge to keep this game inclusive to those who aren't really into doing collabs every two days and don't want to spend every day working on posts for this game. I sure as hell don't, and I'm the one running it. I love the enthusiasm, I love all you guys, I just want to make sure we're not leaving people behind or treating each potential in-character action like we're defusing a bomb at a puppy orphanage. Let your hair down, relax, start improvising some shit.

I'll put my heroic soap box away until time it is needed again, likely to announce lunch specials.

I am staying IC... Vellios won't move until his team does, he's in military mode now and won't break from that. :p

Just waiting for people to catch up~~ Then FIREWORKS (So many flashbangs and explosives)