This always stumped me. Why is it when ever I put the words "roleplaying" into a search engine or livejournal, a very large number of the results are about freeform roleplaying for in the settings of Charmed, Harry Potter or strrangely enough, both?

Why are these things so popular and yet, from my point of view, almost completely disconnected from the hobby in general?

Its even weirder because I've known an online-Charmed-roleplayer. He was my roommate. He was definately not at all associated with the hobby. I showed him a copy of Sorcerer and he was like "Whoah, is that like Dungeons and Dragons?" (You know they're not in the hobby when they neither abreiviate nor pronounciate the ampersand), but he called the Charmed thing "Roleplaying".

So, does someone know more about these things? Lineages/successors? Usual demographic?

I've had a few passing encounters with FFRP. It's almost completely its own animal; very few people who are involved with it, I've found, are at all interested in RPG's. (yeah, yeah, Tony, FFRP *is* an RPG)

I don't know why Charmed and Harry Potter are so popular. Back when I had my experiences with FFRP, neither of them were around, and they tended to be generic fantasy.

There've breen some threads on this in the past...even had a dedicated practitioner pop on and give the inside scoop on a couple of them.

Check out: Intragalactic League of Sims

There were others but that's the only one that seemed to pop up on a search for "Simming" which is what many of these folks refer to their play as.

I've found that the folks who do the HP and Charmed stuff are doing FFRP, but they have no clue what tabletop gaming is about.

I started to write an article about this, actually, because I made up a character for a tabletop verison of HP that our group was running, and I wanted an online forum for the character (the tt group petered out).

I could not find anywhere to play, because my character, according to FFRP standards, is a Mary Sue.

Yes, they are their own deal. And what they are really doing is writing interactive fanfic. What I've seen happen with the 2 games I followed, is that the moderators want to do their thing, and they don't pay any attention to anyone who joins that isn't playing a canon caracter. And they heavily discourage non-canon characters.

It seems like very incestuous, cliquey play. I welcome comments/proof to the contrary.

So, if you're interested in what I've written so far, you can go to it at http://www.livejournal.com/users/librisia/2004/10/05/

The bottom entry is the first one, so read that first.

Intereasting.

After perusing a few of these sites, I've notoiced a very strong tendecy - Characters tend to have a very strong sense of very loose and vague definition, sometimes simple idealism or what would appear to be descriptions of the players themselves, mixed with a very definite and concrete list of the character's powers.

So it makes sense to say that Charmed and Harry Potter are particularly popular franchises because the nature of the settings are both A) Very escapist and B) highly supportive of characters that are "You + Powers". Charmed makes sense paticularly because of the "indeterminate genre + Soap Opera." nature of the show, which seems to follow along the general consistency of "Simming" in general.

I tried my hand at a few of these back in the 1990s, and then it was all Star Trek games. I think people who play these games are attracted to strong franchises, and most of the players are hardcore fans of the chosen fictional world. There is a lot of reverence for the setting in these games, and anything established by the "official" movie/book/tv show is generally considered off-limits.

And another I've observed is the use of "Roleplaying" forums to increase traffic to a site. The moderators may be interested or may just throw it up and advertise their "Uber l33t forumz were u ken play as goku n brolly n stuff" (I've personally seen a lot of DragonballZ forums that work as such).
Interestingly enough, Neo (my company) actually produced a Perl script that facilitated an organized, structured play, much like a regular RPG...and no one bit. Folks got tired of working with a regular set of rules & restrictions.
It does indeed appear that what errupts ends up being an interactive fanfic as opposed to "roleplaying" as we consider it, or at least as a Roleplaying "Game".

sirogit wrote:
...the nature of the settings are both A) Very escapist and B) highly supportive of characters that are "You + Powers"...

I'm familiar with the term "Mary Sue" from fanfiction, but how is it used in these FFRPG's?

And -- using Harry Potter to explore one's sexuality? That's just a stunningly weird concept to me.

Danny_K wrote:
And -- using Harry Potter to explore one's sexuality? That's just a stunningly weird concept to me.

sirogit wrote: After perusing a few of these sites, I've notoiced a very strong tendecy - Characters tend to have a very strong sense of very loose and vague definition, sometimes simple idealism or what would appear to be descriptions of the players themselves, mixed with a very definite and concrete list of the character's powers.

James Holloway wrote:
Ostensibly, this is to prevent an unreasonable, disbelief-suspension-breaking player group demography: "what, you mean we'reall the last son of a dead tribe? Well, don't that beat all." In practice, it does send a signal to some players that their characters are subsidiary. I've referred to the typical Werewolf game as "all chiefs and no Indians" elsewhere, or maybe "all rebels and no cause," but people do like to play the chiefs and rebels.

I've been marveling at this form of online rp for years, ever since I began searching roleplaying in the yahoo groups section a few years agao. There were an enormous number of Buffy tVS ones a while back, I suppose the fashion has moved on.

It just goes to show how insular the world of tabletop rpg really is, that this whole alternate form could exist largely unknown to us, like the aztec empire to europe before Columbus.

On the Yahoo online chats, I find plenty of younger players who literally are at a loss when I try to describe a tabletop rpg to them. I think a real online outreach to that crowd could be possible, but it would take a willingness to do completely different things with rpgs , things I think the normal rpg crowd would find anathema, but the Indie rpg world might profitably investigate.

b_bankhead wrote: I think a real online outreach to that crowd could be possible, but it would take a willingness to do completely different things with rpgs , things I think the normal rpg crowd would find anathema, but the Indie rpg world might profitably investigate.

sirogit, Ralph, Librisia: You guys are aware of communities like Must Be Pop, right? In a way, they are to the HP / Charmed FFRPs what the HP / Charmed FFRPs are to tabletops.

Librisia wrote: Yes, they are their own deal. And what they are really doing is writing interactive fanfic. What I've seen happen with the 2 games I followed, is that the moderators want to do their thing, and they don't pay any attention to anyone who joins that isn't playing a canon caracter. And they heavily discourage non-canon characters.

It seems like very incestuous, cliquey play. I welcome comments/proof to the contrary.

So, if you're interested in what I've written so far, you can go to it at http://www.livejournal.com/users/librisia/2004/10/05/

Danny_K wrote:
Another way to look at this is that it's a consequence of freeform RP'ing. If it's important to everone in the game that the game have a certain Sim feeling to it, and there's no practical way to control player's action once in the game (i.e. no system), then an easy and practical way to handle it is to disempower the players.

In other words, you can play in a Harry Potter game, but you're only allowed to play Unnamed Griffyndor Student #23.

I had very similar experiences with MUSHs in the early Nineties. Sign up on a big WoD mush where no one knows who you are, get restricted to playing a non-super, wander around in a world where all of the Super plot lines are invisible, and the only other non-supers are all newbies, and no one is setting up non-super plot lines, get bored and frustrated and quit. However, two of my housemates who were serious Mushers explain that if I'd stayed in longer and shown myself to be a decent player, then either my character would have gotten pulled into the cool stuff, or I would have been approached about taking a super character and brought into the actual plots.

I think the LJ style online RPs work similarly. You may start off as third Auror from the left, but if you can do interesting things with your character, then either you will become more important, or you will be offered one of the major roles if they open up.

One big advantage of the LJ style RPs is that you can at least read all of the plotlines, so you aren't left completely ignorant of where the interest lies. Also, since they are done in fic format, it is possible to do interesting stuff with your character even if no one else is paying much attention to you.

Smaller, less popular ones (such as Civilitas, a very good but fairly obscure HP game) may have more openings for central characters, although they will use other methods to make sure that you will be good at it, since they aren't able to survive badly played main characters anymore than the popular ones are.

My gaming group has actually been contemplating starting up an online LJ style game based around our game world, as there are things that seem like they could be done better in the online fic format than in face to face play (plus it would be a way to include some players who are separated from us by a continent and a player who has become disaffected towards face to face play). There are definitely some interesting things that the LJ game format has to offer (besides other players who are interested in playing in the HP universe).

Charles

Alephnul wrote: However, two of my housemates who were serious Mushers explain that if I'd stayed in longer and shown myself to be a decent player, then either my character would have gotten pulled into the cool stuff, or I would have been approached about taking a super character and brought into the actual plots.

Brendan wrote: sirogit, Ralph, Librisia: You guys are aware of communities like Must Be Pop, right? In a way, they are to the HP / Charmed FFRPs what the HP / Charmed FFRPs are to tabletops.

Librisia wrote:
Could you explain that first part again? "A very strong sens of very loose and vague definition" is not clear to me. I just want to be clear, because, with your permission, I'd like to perhaps quote you in the rest of the article (when I get

Sirogit:

Which sites are you looking at?

Compare those to the character descriptions at Civilitas:
(e.g. Fluer Delacour's Dad)
Or at the completed Nocturne Alley(e.g. Draco Malfoy)

Of course, both of those are closed games (although I'm pretty sure Civilitas takes applications, since it does list the currently open character slots), so they don't have the cattle call issues that Librisia is objecting to.

Librisia,

I totally understand your position (I quit doing MUSHs after a month or two for pretty much the same reasons, and I was still pretty young then), but it seems to me that the cattle call games at least offer a place for players to prove themselves. If all of the games were closed membership, then there would be absolutely no way for someone who wasn't already sufficiently involved in the fandom to be friends with a mod to get involved in a game.

Alephnul wrote: If all of the games were closed membership, then there would be absolutely no way for someone who wasn't already sufficiently involved in the fandom to be friends with a mod to get involved in a game.

::delurks shyly::

I've travelled in both fandom and gaming circles. Both subcultures tend to be quite insular, and -- as has been mentioned -- both subcultures remain largely unaware of the others' existence. To most people who came to gaming through fandom (whether the games they play now are based in canon worlds or in completely original ones), the term "RPG" refers to a written RPG, usually played on livejournal, but sometimes also through e-mail or forum software. Most of them have never heard the term "table-top," and they won't know what you're talking about if you use that term to try to distinguish your preferred form of gaming from their own. (Most of them don't know the term "PBEM," either, even though many of them avidly engage in it.)

As to the relative quality, whatever...my experience with both forms of gaming has been that both of them, like just about everything else in the world, follow Sturgeon's Law. To generalize about fandom RPG based on some random crap livejournal game makes about as much sense as to generalize about table-top RPG on the basis of some adolescent boy's "My Very First D&D Dungeon Crawl" game.

One of the main differences between the two subcultures, of course, is demographic. Fandom is overwhelmingly female. Gaming, while it is not quite so extreme now as it was back in the pre-WW days, is still a primarily male hobby.

Personally, I don't see very much difference between playing a game set in the world of JK Rowling and playing an Ars Magica game, or a game set in the world of Greyhawk or Harn (or, for that matter, the world of Dragonlance, which straddles the border between "fanfic world" and "gaming world.") In all such cases, there is a "canon" and a corresponding orthodoxy, which each individual gaming group can choose either to adhere to or to ignore (or to modify, but only in specific permitted ways. Or to...well! You get the idea.)

There are some big differences, I think, which arise out of the differences in medium: written vs. oral. On a very basic and grossly over-simplified level, one might say that online RPG is to fiction writing as table-top RPG is to acting. Rather than acting stuff out, you're writing stuff out. I believe that many of the aesthetic differences between these two forms arise out of this basic fact: online RPG tends to deal more heavily with the characters' internal states than face-to-face gaming does (just as novels tend to deal far more heavily with internal states than movies do), and authority over the characters is more "shared" -- ie, there is far less interest in preserving a pretense of absolute player authority over his character, partly I think because there is a great deal more player authority over those parts of the game which are allocated to the "GM" in traditionalist table-top gaming.

(Many fandom gamers have never heard the term "GM" either, by the way.)

Something tells me that if we can ever get the twain to meet, something wonderful will happen.

I'd love to see that happen. As I hope was obvious, I've a great fondness for both groups, and I think there's a lot they could potentially be learning from each other. Table-top gaming has been around longer, and it's already developed strategies to deal with a lot of the pitfalls that some fandom RPGers of my acquaintance have only now started encountering for the first time. And I think that table-top gamers, for their part, could probably derive much of value from fandom RPG's different approaches to player authority and to the internal/external divide.

The "subculture" aspect is a difficulty, though. Both groups have so much of their own slang and special terminology and, well, and cultural identity built up that I think that there's some degree of mutual incomprehension that tends to get in the way when you try to reconcile the groups.

Not to mention, of course, the disdain factor.

(To people not immersed in fandom, the idea that anyone might find the slightest bit of value in a game about Harry Potter characters having gay relationships at Hogwart's, to take a commonly cited example, does tend to produce an immediate "Ew, how embarrassing and childish!" reaction, even from people who themselves enjoy games about Four-Color Superheroes Dressed In Tights Fighting Master Criminals. There are gender issues that come into play here, to be sure!)

But Librisia's anecdote really did make me wince when I read it, because while I'm pretty sure that what really happened there was just that the moderators of that particular game were a bunch of jerks, it's also possible that there was some culture clash over what sort of characters (or even what sort of character write-ups) were expected from potential players. I really liked James Holloway's explanation above of what the relevance of the term "Mary Sue" might be to an RPG, why such characters could be perceived as problematic, and so forth. Sadly, it's not a way of explaining things that I suspect you'd get from many fandom RPGers -- for the simple reason that they're accustomed to dealing with people who are already immersed in the culture, know the terminology, and so forth.

(Please note that I'm not actually trying to say here that there was anything problematic about Librisia's character idea at all. Far to the contrary, I think it pretty clear that the mods were being jerks -- "That's a Mary Sue!" is a downright rude way to express an objection to someone's character concept, no matter what the context. But even if there had been a legitimate problem, it seems to me that a similar situation might still have arisen, simply out of a lack of shared vocabulary and terminology and cultural construction of gaming concepts.)

SK wrote: ::delurks shyly::

I've travelled in both fandom and gaming circles. Both subcultures tend to be quite insular, and -- as has been mentioned -- both subcultures remain largely unaware of the others' existence.... One of the main differences between the two subcultures, of course, is demographic. Fandom is overwhelmingly female. Gaming, while it is not quite so extreme now as it was back in the pre-WW days, is still a primarily male hobby.

SK wrote: As to the relative quality, whatever...my experience with both forms of gaming has been that both of them, like just about everything else in the world, follow Sturgeon's Law. To generalize about fandom RPG based on some random crap livejournal game makes about as much sense as to generalize about table-top RPG on the basis of some adolescent boy's "My Very First D&D Dungeon Crawl" game.

SK wrote: Personally, I don't see very much difference between playing a game set in the world of JK Rowling and playing an Ars Magica game, or a game set in the world of Greyhawk or Harn ...

SK wrote: Rather than acting stuff out, you're writing stuff out. I believe that many of the aesthetic differences between these two forms arise out of this basic fact: online RPG tends to deal more heavily with the characters' internal states than face-to-face gaming does (just as novels tend to deal far more heavily with internal states than movies do), and authority over the characters is more "shared" -- ie, there is far less interest in preserving a pretense of absolute player authority over his character, partly I think because there is a great deal more player authority over those parts of the game which are allocated to the "GM" in traditionalist table-top gaming.

SK wrote: "That's a Mary Sue!" is a downright rude way to express an objection to someone's character concept, no matter what the context.

SK wrote: But even if there had been a legitimate problem, it seems to me that a similar situation might still have arisen, simply out of a lack of shared vocabulary and terminology and cultural construction of gaming concepts).

Librisia and SK, you might be interested in a paper I skimmed recently (found via Matt Webb's Interconnected): "The Social Cost of Cheap Pseudonyms." It's as long and heavy as you'd expect from a paper on game theory, but it seems to describe exactly the "watching Monopoly" phenomenon and offer an explanation for it. From the abstract:

"A large degree of cooperation can still emerge, through a convention in which newcomers 'pay their dues' by accepting poor treatment from players who have established positive reputations."

"A large degree of cooperation can still emerge, through a convention in which newcomers 'pay their dues' by accepting poor treatment from players who have established positive reputations."

Andrew Morris wrote:

"A large degree of cooperation can still emerge, through a convention in which newcomers 'pay their dues' by accepting poor treatment from players who have established positive reputations."

Brendan, are you suggesting this is a good thing, or just a noted convention?

Andrew Morris wrote:

"A large degree of cooperation can still emerge, through a convention in which newcomers 'pay their dues' by accepting poor treatment from players who have established positive reputations."

Brendan, are you suggesting this is a good thing, or just a noted convention?

RPG.Net is an interesting example of this gaming-theory principle, too, although it works a bit more like eBay -- anybody can create a new handle for themselves at any time, but it's a long-lived RPG community and there are many members who've already established a minimum level of credibility by posting intelligently and politely in the discussion forums or by playing in other online games.

Danny_K wrote: RPG.Net is an interesting example of this gaming-theory principle, too ...

My first and only RPG experiences for four years were FRPGs, until I came to college.

I would note that not all FFRPGs are based on some canon-settings. Prodigy (http://prodigy.mysteryandmagic.com/entrance.htm) and several other M&M games when I frequented them three or so years ago were generic genre settings, relatively free of particularly powerful characters... Prodigy regularly had events created just by a bunch of villain PCs meeting up, and PC heroes deciding to show up (all PCs, all not particularly more powerful than the others). These combats never went really well for good guys... unless a bad guy's player was leaving, there was little chance of these conflicts ever successfully coming to a conclusion that didn't involve "run away! run away!" for one side. There were also social-esque events, where non-masked characters would meet up and have fun (normally ending in a fight). Other events were the sort of cooperative fanfic described previously in this thread... a few players would talk outside of game, and then play out some event they had already half-planned out, like a skit almost.

There were (and probably still are) problems involved, but there was no waiting period to get started: however, you had to submit a bio to get the character accepted (which created incredible problems I don't even want to go into), and then new players could play... although they were generally timid and not really knowing what to do (they tended to show up in places where people already were and just sort of join the "social" event.

There is a reason why character emotions tend to become important: it's the only thing a player has any real control over, unless they're a veteran (ie accepted player) or a mod, in which case they are assumed to have some authority of the actual setting. If I shoot at a villain, the villain will dodge, somehow. If I try to rob a bank, the heroes will show up and I will run away. If a mod describes me getting killed, I have little to argue about. Playing in an unused part of the forum gives the player more control (I've seen players go months without posting an interaction with another player, just leaving posts in various locations that haven't been visited in months, as their character "lives their life.").

Also, there is some disagreement over what the game is supposed to be about, with a general feeling that "numbers and stats" are wrong and should not exist. DnD and it's ilk are no more than brainless nonsense, like playing Diablo (to paraphrase myself, five years ago).

When I came to college, I found tabletop RPGs more stable and more enjoyable because of the face-to-face interaction. Online RPGs are prone to sudden social dysfunctions (one game I was in got shut down cause the server owner broke up with his girlfriend, another game almost got wripped to shreds when we all decided we disliked one assistant mod's "heavy handed practises" (he wouldn't accept our friend's character bio) and decided to ask the head mod to kick him off the site). Also, they lack the roundtable jokes that help make tabletop really enjoyable.

Fascinating stuff, people.

First, could I get a couple of definitions. We've skirted close to one for Mary Sue, but I still don't know what it means. Second somebody mentioned "slash fiction?"

Anyhow,

An RPG is a game, and you don't deny people game time just because they haven't been part of the group for a while.

From my good buddy Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_fiction

Slash fiction is fan fiction, describing gay pairings between media characters, often in explicit detail, and very frequently outside the canon of the source. The name arises from the use of the slash character in phrases such as 'Kirk/Spock' to describe the stories. ('Kirk/Spock' is widely thought to be the first type of slash fiction, first appearing in the 1970s in Star Trek fanzines.)

Mary Sue (or simply Sue) is a usually derogatory expression for a fictional character who is an idealized stand-in for the author, or for a story with such a character. A Mary Sue therefore goes beyond a conventional author surrogate character. The term originates in fan fiction but is spreading into general use.

Thanks. Now why is a Mary Sue a bad thing?

Mike

Given the canon setting of the Enterprise, an Ensign Mary Sue might solve a crisis in Engineering, be the only one who can translate the writings of Ancient Alien Race X, seduce Riker and beat the Romulans in a climactic final battle; this entire story would be replete with the crew commenting about how awesome this new Ensign is, and how she's really become a part of the Enterprise family.

Mary Sue fiction is an exercise in self-validation by manipulation of characters the author admires into a positive relationship with his or her idealized self. This rarely makes for interesting reading. (It also occurs in many other forms than fanfic; fanfic was just the first to recognize the symptoms and make a diagnosis.)

Because players of fandom RPGs want their work to be interesting, and because they are familiar with the fact that Mary Sues make for boring fiction, they reject what they identify as Mary Sues out of hand. There are a number of conceptual mismatches in this situation, though.

First, Mary Sues are an outgrowth of the worst parts of single-author fiction. But gaming is not single-author fiction--in fact, even freeform roleplaying is not multiauthor fiction. It just isn't. It's a medium in itself, because it's generated in a different way.

Second, when you don't know the player, any character can be identified as a Mary Sue. Any positive aspects of the character ("I'm a good shot," "Karen knows lots of hexes") can be seized as self-aggrandization; self-aggrandization is a telltale symptom of a Mary Sue. This makes "That's a Mary Sue" the unblockable accusation.

As we've accepted, I think, established players who have endured the initial hazing carry a great deal more weight than any given nonestablished player. This means that any established player can reject any new player with impunity.

Mike Holmes wrote: Thanks. Now why is a Mary Sue a bad thing?

So, would it be true to say that the phenomenon is really more about the player in question not respecting the value of the overall narrative as a joint venture, and sacrificing it for their own personal use?

Yes, this is just an abusive player, and, as always, it's a result of a lack of social contract. Seems pretty straightforward.

The wikipedia doesn't make this clear at all, BTW. It makes it sound like any time the character has any trait that's reminiscent of the player that the phenomenon is occuring. Or is it that the original term was broad, but has come to mean only the abusive player?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote:
The wikipedia doesn't make this clear at all, BTW. It makes it sound like any time the character has any trait that's reminiscent of the player that the phenomenon is occuring. Or is it that the original term was broad, but has come to mean only the abusive player?

Mike

Mike,

My understanding of Mary Sue was that the story lacks conflict because the point is to daydream rather than make a strong story.

John

Mike and David, you've pretty much summed up what I said in my essay.

I don't disagree with the inherent problems, but I think that the two types of RPing - at least in the HP and Charmed universes - are never going to come together.

The FFRPGers call their games RPGs, but they are really interactive fiction communities. They have their idiosyncracies for reasons, but they happen to grate on the social contract that a lot of tt gamers are used to. Me in particular.

Some people are willing to go through the initiatory process to "prove" that they aren't Mary Sues. I'm not willing to do that (see my "Monopoly" scenario above), because for me, an RPG is a GAME, and I don't feel that I should have to go to great lengths to prove that I can play a game. I'm a grownup, and I don't want to spend my time reading along for months and not get play time.

Mike, I agree that much of the screening process is done beforehand in TTRPGs. But only most of it. Ron's whole GNS conflict paradigm occurs quite often when someone invites a gaming friend who is primarily gamist into a group where the focus of the games is simulationist (or any combination thereof). People feel like they can't ask the new friend to leave because he's a friend of a player they don't want to piss off ... we all know the story.

Unfortunately, the immediacy of ttrpgs leaves some people (like myself) unwilling to go through the lengthy process of the ffrpg proving ground.

As Andrew and Brendan point out, the online ffrpg communities unfamiliar with tabletop games are paranoid about characteristics they think are "Mary Sue" characteristics. What I created was a good character for a tabletop game that uses canon characters as NPCs. What ffrpg players see is someone who is self-aggrandizing and not able to play well with others.

Also, a point I have yet to discuss is that in the ffrpgs that base themselves in a fandom, what happens is that the mods and their friends all play the canon characters. I hate to break it to them, but canon characters ARE MARY SUES. Which is a blind spot that most people who play ffrpgs in a fandom setting seem to have. The people running the game get to play all the interesting characters who get all the play time and plot attention, while folks who haven't proven themselves get to sit around and watch them play.

The people running the game get to play all the interesting characters who get all the play time and plot attention, while folks who haven't proven themselves get to sit around and watch them play.

komradebob wrote:

The people running the game get to play all the interesting characters who get all the play time and plot attention, while folks who haven't proven themselves get to sit around and watch them play.

You've just described everything I hated about the Vampire LARPs I tried.

Is TTRPG unique, in that a rank beginner can jump in and expect to attract as much "screen time" as someone who has been doing it for years?

Are there any other hobbies ANYWHERE that have that characteristic?

Most board games, and especially party games, fit that category. Most party games are designed to have lots of wild swings as to who's in the lead so that everybody gets some "spotlight time", although the most skilled person/team will win in the end. Spotlight time is desirable because it helps foster the social interaction.

Vaxalon wrote: Is TTRPG unique, in that a rank beginner can jump in and expect to attract as much "screen time" as someone who has been doing it for years?

I'm not sure it is the game, so much as the social context, that drives this phenomenon. The new kids getr hazed in a lot of contexts in which membership and the identification of membership is important to the group. This can apply to table-top RPG if the group has that sort of mindset, especially where they have been bonded in the fires of adversity, as it were.

But the parlour games that give everyone spotlight time straight away without any dues-paying are dealing with a social context which is entirely ad hoc, and composed of people for whom the game-activity is essentially trivial, rather than anything seriously purposeful. Its just a bit of fun.

contracycle wrote:
But the parlour games that give everyone spotlight time straight away without any dues-paying are dealing with a social context which is entirely ad hoc, and composed of people for whom the game-activity is essentially trivial, rather than anything seriously purposeful. Its just a bit of fun.

Librisia wrote: The FFRPGers call their games RPGs, but they are really interactive fiction communities.

Some people are willing to go through the initiatory process to "prove" that they aren't Mary Sues. I'm not willing to do that (see my "Monopoly" scenario above), because for me, an RPG is a GAME, and I don't feel that I should have to go to great lengths to prove that I can play a game. I'm a grownup, and I don't want to spend my time reading along for months and not get play time.

Mike, I agree that much of the screening process is done beforehand in TTRPGs. But only most of it. Ron's whole GNS conflict paradigm occurs quite often when someone invites a gaming friend who is primarily gamist into a group where the focus of the games is simulationist (or any combination thereof). People feel like they can't ask the new friend to leave because he's a friend of a player they don't want to piss off ... we all know the story.

As Andrew and Brendan point out, the online ffrpg communities unfamiliar with tabletop games are paranoid about characteristics they think are "Mary Sue" characteristics. What I created was a good character for a tabletop game that uses canon characters as NPCs. What ffrpg players see is someone who is self-aggrandizing and not able to play well with others.

Also, a point I have yet to discuss is that in the ffrpgs that base themselves in a fandom, what happens is that the mods and their friends all play the canon characters. I hate to break it to them, but canon characters ARE MARY SUES. Which is a blind spot that most people who play ffrpgs in a fandom setting seem to have. The people running the game get to play all the interesting characters who get all the play time and plot attention, while folks who haven't proven themselves get to sit around and watch them play.

Mike Holmes wrote: Well, like I say, I can see them as feeling that the player in question is not contributing to a community level aesthetic. The player is playing for themselves at the cost of the overall aesthetic. IOW, the creative agenda is not agreed upon, or at least not being followed by the player in question.

Gosh, Librisia, I'm really sorry for the delay. I honestly didn't mean to do a "post and run" on you; I just got a little bit distracted there for a while. (And now you know why I'm not currently in any games - of late, I'm unreliable, and I know it.)

Librisia wrote: I think it's a misnomer to say that gaming and fandom are separate. Gaming is a subculture of fandom in general. I disagree that fandom is overwhelmingly female.

Librisia wrote: I'm willing to wager that most people playing successful, enjoyable online rpgs - whether they be SIMs or PBEMS - are having the enjoyable success because someone involved in the creation of the game has experience with tabletop games.

Librisia wrote: Would you be willing to elaborate more of the idea? For instance, what parts of GM authority are given over to the player in online sims?

Librisia wrote: No one was actually that rude.

Librisia wrote: I think the literary rpgs are also more interested in writing interactive fiction than they are in the experience being a game, per se.

Vaxalon wrote: Is TTRPG unique, in that a rank beginner can jump in and expect to attract as much "screen time" as someone who has been doing it for years?

Was this the sort of game contract issue you meant, Mike, when you referred to methodologies for "transmitting CA?"

I don't really know if table-top gamers could learn something from trying out similar approaches to PC authority in their face-to-face games, but I think it might be interesting to find out!

They don't want "rules" yet they have to have rules in order to make these things work.