About plot domination, I've never played in a game where there was one Grand Glorious Main Plot(tm) that governed the whole game. And from what I've heard about what such games are like to play in if you're not lucky enough to have gotten in early and nabbed one of the Main Characters, I don't particularly want to try one. All the games I've ever played in were organized such that the mod(s) set up the environment but it was up to the players to create the plot lines. If you wanted your character to be the main character of a plotline, that's cool -- write it. If it looks like fun, other people might ask to join. Or you might ask other people if they'd like to have their characters help yours out, or act as antagonists, or whatever. If you see someone else doing something fun you can ask to join, hopefully with some specific suggestions of what your character could do to help make their plotline more fun, but a polite refusal is never rude. It's up to each player to be responsible for her own fun; the benefit to this is that each player can be responsible for her own fun, without finding herself stuck in some boring spear-carrier role because you're playing Neville or Lavendar in a HP game and the plotline is set to have only The Trio and a couple of other characters doing anything interesting.
Now, once you're in a plot and your character is playing a certain role, then there is behavior which is more or less appropriate. I've been involved with a wedding scene where this one player had her characters constantly speaking, whispering, fidgetting, looking around, etc., through the whole darned ceremony, when her guys were just in the audience. The scene wasn't about them -- they were there as wallpaper, essentially -- but if you go through the scene and count words her characters had more verbage in the scene than some of the wedding party. [eyeroll] It was distracting and annoying and I considered it rude, but I wouldn't call it "outrageous." I guess it depends what you meant by that. I think that appropriate behavior applies in RPGs as much as it does in real life, though, and that if someone wants to be disruptive they should ask the people they're scening with beforehand, as with any other plot twist or whatever.
Unless someone is being incredibly rude, I think complaining about an OC just because it's an OC is rude. And if the writer is being incredibly rude then the problem is that writer, not the fact that the character they're doing it with is an OC. But then, I don't see the problem with OCs and I know a lot of people get twitchy around them. [shrug]
I loathe warnings in general and that extends to RPGs. Unless by "inappropriate" you mean something like two writers doing and posting a scene where, for example, space aliens land in a Harry Potter game, in which case I don't think a warning will do it -- that sort of development needs to be run past the mods for approval beforehand and posting something like that out of the blue would certainly qualify as "rude" in my book.
About saying bad things about another player.... [sigh] Usually I'd agree that this is rude, but sometimes another player is just SO incredibly outrageous, and has messed over SO many other people -- people who don't know each other and aren't just members of one clique trying to make trouble for someone by bad-mouthing her, but strangers who all agreed independently that this person is just outrageously rude -- and has done it over and over and over and the mods haven't kicked her butt out for whatever reason.... At that point it becomes a public service to warn newbies about her. And I don't mean, "Oh, Jane is such a bitch, don't write with her!!" but calmly presented specifics about what she's done in the past, so the person being informed can decide whether or not they object to that behavior enough to want or not want to write with her. It sucks, yeah, but the alternative is worse. It has to be pretty bad, though, and for an extended period of time, and I won't do it if it's just me personally having a lack-of-chemistry problem with someone.
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About plot domination, I've never played in a game where there was one Grand Glorious Main Plot(tm) that governed the whole game. And from what I've heard about what such games are like to play in if you're not lucky enough to have gotten in early and nabbed one of the Main Characters, I don't particularly want to try one. All the games I've ever played in were organized such that the mod(s) set up the environment but it was up to the players to create the plot lines. If you wanted your character to be the main character of a plotline, that's cool -- write it. If it looks like fun, other people might ask to join. Or you might ask other people if they'd like to have their characters help yours out, or act as antagonists, or whatever. If you see someone else doing something fun you can ask to join, hopefully with some specific suggestions of what your character could do to help make their plotline more fun, but a polite refusal is never rude. It's up to each player to be responsible for her own fun; the benefit to this is that each player can be responsible for her own fun, without finding herself stuck in some boring spear-carrier role because you're playing Neville or Lavendar in a HP game and the plotline is set to have only The Trio and a couple of other characters doing anything interesting.
Now, once you're in a plot and your character is playing a certain role, then there is behavior which is more or less appropriate. I've been involved with a wedding scene where this one player had her characters constantly speaking, whispering, fidgetting, looking around, etc., through the whole darned ceremony, when her guys were just in the audience. The scene wasn't about them -- they were there as wallpaper, essentially -- but if you go through the scene and count words her characters had more verbage in the scene than some of the wedding party. [eyeroll] It was distracting and annoying and I considered it rude, but I wouldn't call it "outrageous." I guess it depends what you meant by that. I think that appropriate behavior applies in RPGs as much as it does in real life, though, and that if someone wants to be disruptive they should ask the people they're scening with beforehand, as with any other plot twist or whatever.
Unless someone is being incredibly rude, I think complaining about an OC just because it's an OC is rude. And if the writer is being incredibly rude then the problem is that writer, not the fact that the character they're doing it with is an OC. But then, I don't see the problem with OCs and I know a lot of people get twitchy around them. [shrug]
I loathe warnings in general and that extends to RPGs. Unless by "inappropriate" you mean something like two writers doing and posting a scene where, for example, space aliens land in a Harry Potter game, in which case I don't think a warning will do it -- that sort of development needs to be run past the mods for approval beforehand and posting something like that out of the blue would certainly qualify as "rude" in my book.
About saying bad things about another player.... [sigh] Usually I'd agree that this is rude, but sometimes another player is just SO incredibly outrageous, and has messed over SO many other people -- people who don't know each other and aren't just members of one clique trying to make trouble for someone by bad-mouthing her, but strangers who all agreed independently that this person is just outrageously rude -- and has done it over and over and over and the mods haven't kicked her butt out for whatever reason.... At that point it becomes a public service to warn newbies about her. And I don't mean, "Oh, Jane is such a bitch, don't write with her!!" but calmly presented specifics about what she's done in the past, so the person being informed can decide whether or not they object to that behavior enough to want or not want to write with her. It sucks, yeah, but the alternative is worse. It has to be pretty bad, though, and for an extended period of time, and I won't do it if it's just me personally having a lack-of-chemistry problem with someone.
[Continued on Third Rock...]