Why feel like a dick? Ignore the person's posts IC and pm him/her something amongst the lines of:

"Hey dude! It's cool you're interested, but we sorta require an application from everyone who wants to join this game. Here's the link to the OOC *link* Just read what's written in the first post, fill in the application/character sheet/whatever and the GM will get to you as soon as possible."

Then tell your co-players your course of action in the OOC. If your RP is full; say that! "Sorry mate, the RP has reached it's maximum amount of players. Good luck finding another game, cheers!" or hell, even "Hey man, *other poster* and I were really enjoying this duel and we'd like to keep it between the two of us. If you could let us, that'd be awesome. I'm sure there's plenty people still looking for a fight, just look through this section *link*"

Problem solved. It really isn't that hard and costs almost no time. If they insist, just repeat it once and if that doesn't work contact a staff-member and/or ignore them altogether.

Most of the stuff I do is the Multiverse, so chat without requiring character approval, but thank you for the advice. I've just decided to be pretty much rude to people who don't show courtesy to me. (By which I mean I'll tell them to step off as its invite only, if it is invite only, and that they should ask etc)

In my experience being more aggressive commonly invites pissed PM's and a slew of negative posts; ie a longer waste of my time. I will have to delete the PM's and report the posts and have an explanation down for my co-players, etc. It really isn't all "Be nice to other people because it is morally just." It is avoiding to piss people off so they won't waste your time :p

This is something I learned really fast as a GM. Don't be lax in your rules and expectations, but lighten up in your attitude. Can't tell you the times it saved me needless fights and how it got people to see my point and change something, accept a penalty or to leave the game out of their own free will. If people feel they're treated with respect (or more importantly: as an equal) they're likely to treat you the same, whereas anything identified as an attack will be quicker to trigger an auto-defence mode.

Once again, its the MV. Anyone can join at any time, and its not against the rules to do so, its just not polite to do so without asking if you're welcome.

That's one of the things that often puts me off RPing in the MV.

As a naturally rather cautious RPer who's scared of butting in and annoying people, I honestly find it impossible to work out whether my character can interact with characters freely , or whether said characters are doing 'a bit' and the RPers don't want anyone interrupting their storyline.

So, more often than not I end up stuck with my character doing very little. It is, I suppose the risk run by something that's used often as a place to get characters to meet, but if often also used by RPers for their own private plotlines.

Patcharoo wrote:Once again, its the MV. Anyone can join at any time, and its not against the rules to do so, its just not polite to do so without asking if you're welcome.

Same applies, I said I learned it as a GM but it is a universal principle that applies as a player also. In normal RP's and MV's all the same. I thought that was fairly obvious. Just because it is the multiverse doesn't mean that people react differently. You just adjust 1-2 things about your phrasing making it less about a rule and more about a request. Persuasive typing isn't dead either.

Well, you can deal with it whatever way you want to deal with it anyway, this is just the way that worked for me. If you don't want to try it, that's your choice.

The assumption that X is bad.

Let's go with vampires. When generalising why people don't want to go into the MV, they'll often use an example like 'I don't want to get godmodded by some vampire'.

Well, that's not entirely fair, because if you trawl through the Multiverse you'll find that the current players of vampires include many rather well respected users.

Another one occurred to me recently: Abuse of the NPCs.

Now, NPCs can be pretty handy for establishing things, a few of my written out character introductions feature one or two in them to highlight how a character interacts with the world, or to create a situation that allows them to more seamlessly interact, e.g, a recent RP I took part in, set in a shop in modern times. My character, Alice, tends to avoid magical places, but ended up there reluctantly conversing with a PC shop assistant because an NPC ghost was inhabiting her shower and refusing to leave, so she needed to go get a talisman to ward him off. This changed Alice's routine enough to suit the RP at hand.

NPCS are useful tools for that kind of thing. They are not however there to elevate your character, provide a nebulous threat to your character, or to provide a convenient army.

For example here, not taken from anything in particular.
Say your characters, in a sort of Elder Scrolls fashion, start the RP in prison. People are escorted in by a couple of guards and thrown into cells. Suddenly it's time to introduce Johnny Godmode. While everyone else has come in with a couple of guards suddenly twenty-five heavily armed elite soldiers with magic swords and griffons are required to move him along a corridor because he's SO DANGEROUS, and all the soldiers are terrified he might use his touch of death on them.

I feel that that's abusing the point of NPCs.



The second example is the nebulous threat usage.

The characters are on a quest to take back the orb of power to repair their halogen oven or something. It's been tough going but they're making good progress and the RPers are having a decent time. Suddenly, at random fifty black clad assassins descend, ignoring everyone else they hurry towards Mary Sue at the back, whom most of the questers had been ignoring due to her always wanting to talk about her dead parents.

As it turns out they're a cult devoted to exterminating Mary Sue and have come for a great battle. As every other quester is apparently frozen in place awaiting their turn, Mary Sue proceeds to use her mad skillz to dispatch them all...but then..oh no! She becomes terribly horribly injured! Someone had better rush over and worry immediately!


NPC abuse can be astonishingly irritating, and it's rather hard to stop. You don't want to remove the ability to make use of them, but when NPC effectively bring about a limitless supply of...anyone it's rather tough.

The NPC abuse factor is something of a sticking point regarding the "legitimacy" of what has come to be known as Nation RolePlay. From the point of certain people that are in on it, they think that their ability to call on powers and numbers that no Johnny Godmode can hope to measure up to makes those that are "limited" to playing individual characters somewhat uneasy. They're right, of course, but there's more to this argument.

NPCs are not only a useful tool for building a character's history and personality, sometimes they're downright necessary to include over the course of a story. Most often this occurs when your character gets involved with an organization, but it doesn't have to be associated with the military. It could be a rival group that must be put down (they may be enemies, but as long as they're controlled by the game master, they're NPCs) or part of a business that the character either patronizes or founds, such as the archetypical bartender that's seen it all. Not only is the typical adventurer ill-suited to setting down roots in any one place, this reinforces the assumption that not everyone's life consists of going out and having epic adventures in forgotten corners of the world.

What VitaminHeart speaks of happens when a player is given liberty to have NPCs interact with their own characters as they see fit. The prison cell with Turbo Badass being escorted by twenty guards. The ninjas that attack only the Mary Sue in the back. These things are regrettable, but not entirely avoidable, particularly in the introductory phase.

On the subject of NPCs, I hate NPC theft.

We were doing a roleplay where one person was supposed to be a military person in a warzone; she needed to get to the rest of the characters, but wandering around on her own would be out of character. So, she created a soldier character with the intent of killing him in the combat going on with the rest of us. She arrived, and had her soldier grabbed by the monster and thrown to the floor, where according to her he 'lay, unmoving and lifeless.'

One post later, Other Roleplayer talked about watching the soldier get up and unload his supergun into the creature, saving every single player character. he then took complete control of the soldier and kept him alive throughout the entire fight.

This is a problem because the PCs are all keeping a secret and since the soldier is not dead, he is free to report it back to the army.

While I do think the first examples are especially annoying, they're more godmode and Mary Sue issues, the latter (LSunday's) is legal. Just as easy to kill the soldier off; monster had babies that took him by surprise and gnawed off his head. The soldier decided to scout and stood on a landmine, then got blown in twenty seperate pieces. Try surviving that. In my games, NPC's are to be freely controlled by everyone unless stated otherwise by the GM. If the other player can do that without punishment/warning, you can kill the character off (for realz) without consequences. Just don't try to constantly 1up your co-players.

Funny how experiences and problems differ. I haven't had to deal with a lot of major NPC-abuse, most cases were easily fixed by asking the person to edit their posts. More often than not people are shy about introducing NPC's or writing about them. Ironic thing is that I worry more about how to get that level of enthusiasm over how to deal with it when it goes wrong :P

A long time ago I was okay with people controlling my NPC's, especially my enemy ones, but one group ruined that. It was usual stuff, medieval fantasy, meet at a bar, team up to complete a quest, that old chest nut. They encountered bandits and everything was going smoothly (as the bandits were meant to be dispatched casually). Then I introduced the Black Guard, men who I stated rather clearly were soulless warriors from a literal dead land, clad in black armour known for their fearless nature.

Well, that turned out to be me lying when, mid fight, an orc tore one of the Black Guard's armoured arms off with their bare hands, which sent the man screaming in fear, and threw it at him.

'Oh well they probably just missed the part with-' yeah, getting to that.

The story continued, and no manner of creature could momentarily concern the adventurers, bandits were dispatched easily, town guards were eluded or dealt with if necessary, even the necromancer and his skeletons were practically dealt with by the thief character alone.

Well alright, said I. I'm going to give them something that they'll have a real hard time beating!

That was probably my big mistake.

In came the cave battle wherein I introduced the giant scorpion, who's exoskeleton made it near impervious to magic and incredibly resistant to other combat. I expected my players to band together, or shoot for the eyes or something. But nope, first round of posting (after establishing magic doesn't hurt the thing) one of the swordsman characters slid underneath the belly of the beast and slew it. And that was where things go bad.

I was at a loss. Trying to figure out how to salvage what was meant to be a boss fight, I was stumped for a good while. Wherein the Thief Player decided they would take over. Up rose the scorpion, regrowing severed legs, spraying goop on the man who had cut them. Their young came charging out, all of which were attracted to the smell of the goop which was now on the man, and the scorpion itself was back and ready to fight. Once more I was at a loss. We had gone from an easily slain disappointment to a nigh unstoppable regenerating monster, who, thanks to me having described them as extremely resistant to magic, was nigh unkillable.

In the end I had to bring in a band of NPC mages and collapse the cave from no where just to save my friggin' players.

So nowadays I prefer not to give my players the option of controlling NPC's, especially enemies. One experience rather broke that for me.

I call him Edmund the Ecstatic Exception (EEE for short). He's that dude who gleefully submits a character who's an exception to every rule and norm laid out in the OOC. If the character is an elf, he's a fat elf. If the character is a vampire, he's a vegan. If the character is a mercenary, he's a pacifist. If the character is a pokemon, he's a digimon. Edmund not only breaks as many rules as possible he mistakes these breaks for creativity. In reality Edmund's ideas are always painfully obvious and lack anything resembling subtlety. He's like some kid who gets a coloring book, craps on it and thinks he's an artistic genius. God, I hate Edmund.

Scumbag_Brain wrote:I call him Edmund the Ecstatic Exception (EEE for short). He's that dude who gleefully submits a character who's an exception to every rule and norm laid out in the OOC. If the character is an elf, he's a fat elf. If the character is a vampire, he's a vegan. If the character is a mercenary, he's a pacifist. If the character is a pokemon, he's a digimon. Edmund not only breaks as many rules as possible he mistakes these breaks for creativity. In reality Edmund's ideas are always painfully obvious and lack anything resembling subtlety. He's like some kid who gets a coloring book, craps on it and thinks he's an artistic genius. God, I hate Edmund.

Is it okay if I take this to TV Tropes, or do you want to do that yourself? You will, of course, be credited.

(Also, I feel sorry for you that this has happened often enough for you to come up with not only a name for it, but to use assonance in the name to boot.)

I hate people who....I dunno exactly the word for it. "Oh, your character, who exercises every day and is in prime physical shape, just punched mine in the face? lol my character uber-dodges/grabs your hand mid-flight/gets hit, barely feels it, and goes "lol u punch liek gurl', and then punches your character really hard and your character is on the ground bleeding with a broken nose and my character laughs and walks off".

So yeah, Overpowered characters. Perfect characters. And, of course, text talk in RPs, or mind-crippingly god-awful spelling and grammar. Unless you are under eight years old or not at all fluent in English, there is no excuse for it.

qbsuperstar03 wrote:Is it okay if I take this to TV Tropes, or do you want to do that yourself? You will, of course, be credited.

(Also, I feel sorry for you that this has happened often enough for you to come up with not only a name for it, but to use assonance in the name to boot.)

Ha, I love TV tropes, how else could I understand why evil clowns freak me out so much. Yeah, of course, man, go for it. Come to think of it there are many characters in media who appear to have been designed by Edmund.

Things the really piss me off?

The most prominent is probably the people who can't be arsed to write a creativity, inspired character. Those people who only put a line or two under each parameter, they rely on a picture and only a picture for their appearance and their personality is cookie-cutter.

Then there are the people who can't write to the level of the roleplay, or those who take far too many liberties even if there a very set way to doing what needs to be done, or what is happening, they're off having their own adventure, brings in some outlandish bullshit or another.

And then, there is everyone's favorite, the power-player. the person who has a Mary Sue character that can block every hit, dodge every blow and when he takes on? It's nothing but a flesh wound! This is especially bad when the GM supports the bigot.

My character got irritated and shoved theirs. No reaction. So I posted that they magically became transparent and I opened the fridge through their body and got my food so I could move on with the storyline.

Oh yeah, first actual complaint of mine I think; NOT DEALING WITH SHIT!

Most of the time problems are easily solved or ignored, but rather than being solved or ignored people cry rivers about them ruining the atmosphere in the game over pretty much nothing (look at this thread for example.) Or they get really angry and make a problem worse instead of solving it (again look at this very thread.) Especially as a GM I manage to deal with pretty much everything slung my way without major riots being thrown. While not having that authority makes things harder as a player, I still feel that the majority of the time you can deal with it by properly approaching the person you have an issue with... Or just ignore. And you know if something doesn't work out but at least people tried... Sure, tough luck, but at least you learned a thing or two.

You know what the thing is? The more you actually make an effort to properly deal with people, the less you have to deal with them. You develop an attitude that people like and/or respect and makes them much less likely to rage if you disagree with them or deny them something. It's not just relevant to roleplaying, too. Bitching about shit without making efforts to solve them, however, does absolutely nothing about this personal growth and ability to deal with people. In fact it makes you irritable and easy to clash. This also makes you a really fucking annoying little bitch to deal with when you throw a little riot yourself. Which is often. What's the problem with whiners and complainers is that a lot of the time they're self-righteous little bastards and REALLY FUCKING CONVINCED they're right and ruin several pages of your thread with being petty, ruining atmosphere in the game, putting people up against one another, etc. AFTER ALL THAT, they bitch about it somewhere else publicly too.

On the other hand, approach a random god-moder or mary sue properly and they'll prolly be like a variation on either 1.) "... Okay, I guess." or 2.) "Thanks for the feedback, I didn't know that." 3.) "ROARRRR" for one or two posts and then never, ever come back to your game. These people aren't a thorn in your side, they're minor inconveniences. Often willing to fix that too.

This doesn't mean I accuse every single person posting in this thread of being one of those self-righteous little bastards, but still, I think people should at least give some thought to it. How can you easily solve a simple problem and why don't you?