Trying to resolve different aims, or at least coexist

[Valamir]

I have to admitt I'm having a little trouble seeing where the issue actually becomes a problem.

You wanted to say something specific about the nature of your character and you hit upon adopting a stray kitten as a way to do that.  But it seems to me that perhaps you've since confounded a way to do that with the way to do that.

Its entirely possible that C's actions have made it so your stray kitten idea won't have as much impact as you'd initially hoped.  But at this point, I'm not really seeing how that is a problem.  Roleplaying, is afterall an interactive activity not a solitary one.  I often go into a session with an idea of how I want to spot light my character, and only rarely does my idea survive contact with the other players wholly intact.

I'm not sure why you view the gift cat as an obstacle rather than an opportunity.  I'm sure you could figure out another way to say the specific thing about the nature of your character that you wished.  Instead of doing this with the stray kitten idea, you now need to springboard off of something else.

I'm having trouble viewing the creative addition of an in game element by another player as being a "problem".  At first blush it seems like something to embrace.  I don't mean your character embracing the gift, but rather you the player embracing a fellow player's contribution as being more grist for your own creativity to find a way to use.


Forgive me if I speculate over much, but I think part of the problem may be that you got overly attached to your vision of the "perfect scene" and perhaps are now a bit bitter that that scene can't happen they way you'd played it in your mind numerous times.

I used to do that alot.  I'd get tremendously frustrated when my envisioned spot light time didn't turn out as I envisioned...sometimes right down to another player "stealing" the cool one liner that I thought my character should have said.  But a few games of Universalis broke me of that.  Since the cool scene I envision will never go off precisely as initially thought, I really had to start embracing all of those curveballs the other players would throw into my plans.


That would be my take anyway, unless you truly believe that C is intentionally and maliciously attempting to screw with you...then you've got much deeper social issues than we could help with.

[Callan S.]

Man, it just sounds like gamist vs narrativist. Probably everyone else already thinks this, but I'll type it out as if I'm adding something.

P1: I want my character to spontaniously adopt a kitten, as this will allow me to address a certain premise for my character.

P2: You want a pet!? Well I've tallied up my resources and figured I can buy you a +3 snow leopard cub! Now your even more effective and since I bought it for you, were totally team bonding here like I'm buffing you! Yeah!

Killing with kindness?

I think when you talk about your character, your just setting up challenges for her to step on up to.

You might want to speak to her in what I'm assuming is her style:
"This is really great stuff your sending my way, anyone would love it, but I want a real challenge in getting these things on my own and if I'm helped it feels like I'm not winning."

Not really the way you feel, but she might leave you alone if she understand something about what she needs to (not) do.

[beingfrank]

I've taken a while to get back to this tread, because I've been having a lot of productive discussions with other people in the game, and then reflecting on it all.

We've established that we've got a number of issues.  The GM and player are going to try and be more aware of differing aims in play.  And I've been requested to jump up and down next time anything at all in the game bugs me.  I tend to shrug my shoulders and ignore minor things that irritate me, so that the other players don't necessarily know that it ever bugged me.  Then they keep doing it because they're unaware of any potential problem, and I gradually get more annoyed by a series of extremely minor things.  So next time I'm to go thermonuclear and everyone will know.  We've designated this as a distinct phase of the game and will keep reminding everyone that I'm deliberately overreacting, rather than not reacting at all, and that nobody should take offense.  We shall see how it works.

The discussion brought up another issue, which I may address further in another thread, but I'll describe it here.  The GM and other player are opperating on the assumption that the proportion of game time devoted to plots relevent to only one PC compared to game time for plots involving both PCs should be 30% to 70%.  And when that balance is too far in favour of plots relevent to only one PC, the other player will try to redress that by involving her PC in my PCs personal plots (for example, the charity example above).  Now, perhaps because I've come to roleplaying from a PBEM background, I don't have any such assumption of a 30%/70% split.  I enjoy watching scenes involving other PCs that have nothing to do with my PC, and kind of assumed that the split between personal and shared plots would be whatever was fun at the time, rather than there being some goal to aim for.  And if I was going to pick a ratio, I'd probably pick a different one, closer to 50:50.

I'm still thinking about this one, and working out my own views.  Because it's not a clear case of the other player only trying to bring the PCs together to make the game more fun.  I've set up situations to bring the PCs together on shared goals and had them rebuffed for no obvious reason.  The PCs were going to learn scuba diving.  I suggested my PC research diving schools, find one, and the PCs could learn together.  It wasn't consciously following the 30:70 rule, but it would have served that end.  But the response was "no, my PC will find her own diving school and learn by herself."  So it's something that needs further discussion, because at this point I'm not convinced there's equal acceptance of plot joining attempts and acceptances, and I don't want there to be the assumption that I'm supposed to always accept the other player making connections to my personal plots, but my connections are not equally as accepted.

As Loki and Valamir have said, the example I started with is a minor thing and I did that deliberately.  I don't think that, as Valamir suggested, I was getting upset because it couldn't play out exactly as I planned it in my head.  I hadn't planned anything beyond the general idea, and wasn't actually expecting to play it out at all, more just a side note.  And, of course, it's also an opportunity, and one I think I can do some interesting things with.

One of the things I was trying to illustrate by starting with an example of a minor things, is that trends of minor things can be annoying over a period, but extremely difficult to deal with, because raising the issue just makes one look like an oversensitive freak.  Any one issue in that trend is probably too minor to worry about, yet the cumulative effect can be a problem.  I think that's one of the most challenging things to deal with.

Noon, I can see why you say gamist vs narrativist, but I'm not sure that's the case, mainly because I don't think I'm narrativist but rather mostly simulationist.  However, as I've discovered, there's more going on.  It's not purely about conflict of CA (if it is at all) but also about different views of play structure.  I can't easily classify those as any one CA, and I think that they probably aren't.

So it's more:

P1: I want my character to spontaniously adopt a kitten, as this will allow me to address a certain premise for my character.
P2: You want a pet?!  That's cool, but you've already used up your resource of personal plot so I'll involve myself in that so we keep the proportions about right.

That's not quite the same.

[Callan S.]

Oh, I see. Well, what I think you have is people/this person wanting to decide when they come into your plot, with no constriction from you. Like the scuba diving thing, you would have been in control of some of the factors of it. She just doesn't want to put herself under any amount of authority from you. So instead she finds places where you haven't established authority and dives in there because she feels more free-est.

I think you might have to establish something about everyone always having some authority over their plots as players, even if their PC doesn't have that. So although your PC couldn't stop her buying the snow cub, you as a player do have something to say about it (the authorities wont let you own a dangerous animal, for example. Or even you just saying no, we wont go that way).

Once everyone has some authority recognised, either everyone stays by themselves plot wise or accepts this situation. There is no further trying to find an 'lack of authority' opening in someone elses plot before joining that plot.

Also the eyeballing of that 70%/30% thing is likely to be way biased. It might be interesting to write out a relationship map and see exactly how much everyone is connected to everyone.