The point of this is discussion, so I'd like to think all inputs are welcome. Thank you, everyone thus far.
Do you think male or female gender identity affects whether or not characters 'cry' or can make said fake tears(deadpan, for the sake of argument) awkward?
I can't fake cry. I feel too stupid doing it. And if I were to try and get into character by thinking of things that make me tear up, it would take too long and I don't know that I could stop.
Oh, I don't even mean going that far(that's not a fair thing to do to anyone if they're not training for the stage), I meant saying something along the lines of "my character cries", even.
Ah, see, now I find that quite believable in comparison with a few similar situations I've encountered in real life table-top sessions... but it's also a bit refreshing. I'd like to think that we, as gamers, are hams at times. What's the use in gaming if one can't have a little ham?
Not to mention that the barbarian class has to thrive on emotion. I think a ridiculously stoic barbarian (who isn't of the urban pursuasion) would be the greatest breaker of my suspension of disbelief.
Also, HELLO RINGTAIL! I was worried about 'chu. Good to know you're still alive. :)
So your best friend just got eviscerated in front of you. Your party blew up. Your captain/lord/leader exiled you for reasons that weren't your fault.
So your character just stands there and....?
From what I've seen, even in pbps, there are lots of situations like this where characters just don't... cry? Emote? Do anything more than sigh, let a single tear fall, or say nothing. Okay, I get this, sometimes. What I don't get is a the fact that a majority of characters I've seen both in live action and pbp games... they just don't let tears fall? Ever?
Why do you think this is? And do you find it as much as a disconnect with the suspension of disbelief that there are so many characters who barely seem to care about the world around them like this? I mean, I know they're fictional, but even fiction has to parallel reality if it's to be believed.
I'm not just talking about hardened soldier characters, either. I'm talking about the first level just-above-commoners and farmhands, too. Sometimes there doesn't seem to be anything in the backstory to justify this detachment.
Thoughts?
And for those of you who prompted this post, don't take it personally, I've just always found the 'single tear' concept has been taken too far.
Name of PC: Misacita DeMerienda/ Liza ?
Class/Level:Halfling Bard level 3/ Sorceress 3
Adventure: Book 2
Catalyst: Player dissention and companion ineptitude
Story:
The party's paladin had a tendency to treat everyone else with childish capriciousness, and the alchemist really hated her. In fact, this enmity stretched out of game. The halfling bard, both in game and out, was the only reason they didn't kill one another outright. However, the combined suspicions that the alchemist IC had about the paladin being possessed (started by her casual reading of Lamashtu's unholy scripts and solidified by a homicidal haunt in the misgivings that caused her to murder a poor sorceress), the alchemist finally decided he'd had enough of the paladin's apparent evilitude.
The paladin was both unrepentant and confused as she was critted by his firebombs despite the halfling's proximity. The paladin saved, but the only thing left of the bard was a smoking crater.
Sandpoint was not amused by the loss of a character with the favored daughter trait. Neither were the players happy. I suppose the game should have been listed in the deaths list. No one would continue until the action was retconned and ignored.
Though it would be pretty awesome if we got to use mending to spam heal...
No, no, I see what's going on here. I'm grateful for the different rulings and insights, but as a player, I seem to see now it's up to the dm, and as a player, I would rule it as a standard action in accordance with a STR chart reference as per advice found here.
As far as this person/object debate goes, I'm not picking a side, because these are just game semantics-
Though I must say there was a campaign where the paladin lost her powers because she got annoyed that we were in a dungeon without equipment and started using my character as a battering ram against a locked door. That was hilarious. Painful IC, but as players, we were laughing very hard.
Can a character use an action on their own turn to help someone else to get up from being prone (so they have their turn free)? I'm not concerned with AoE semantics, but can it be done?
Thanks for the tips, Vicon. I'll try not having any extraneous characters for a while and see what happens, and to Kitsune Knight, I'm sorry if I offended in any way, but you're actually pretty correct, I think. It's the whole 'the weak don't deserve to be loved' vibe I'm getting, after all.
Beggars can't be choosers, but I think this actually clears everything up.
I would say the situation is on the other player not you. Personally, they sound very rude, and I certainly wouldn't put up with them at my table. Honestly, I would try to find another group if at all possible. Most likely place is to simply look online to see if there is any pathfinder society games in the area. If that isn't possible...idk...passive aggressive types tend to be impossible to deal with in my experience.
The only other GM I know in my area besides my own boyfriend (who much prefers playing, too)... Well, I...he... how do I put this? He's an elitist, and he hates anything he sees as weak or unoptimized, and he certainly doesn't like me. Or anyone like me. Or he's trying to look cool to such a point he just comes off as an a!&%#!$.
He is also very vocal in every opinion he has, and he's rather Machiavellian/Ayn Rand. I want to live and let live, but I tend to feel like crying after being in his presence for seven minutes.
It's not so much a situation as an accusation by another player that I jokingly agreed to for months, though I've thought about it. I can't tell if it's a tease or if there is actually something wrong.
I don't go out of my way to get engagement from the gm unless I've been ignored for somewhere close to ten minutes or something is going down the drain and I think I can do something about it, but I always worry that I'm taking away from the experience of others when I rp, even on the internet.
Some Nitty Gritty:
In real life, I'm not so sure. Like Kirth, I almost never get to play, and even though I normally hate dming, I get made to dm all the time in comparison. My demand for attention isn't usually from the dm so much as the players, however. I just like to see the room fully engaged.
However, I often find that the dm calls on me because I'm a natural performer and my characters often have friendly NPCs or a family in game that I'm also expected to play. These interactions can take a long time, and while I try to do it quickly and the rest of the players seem entertained, the one player who calls me an attention hog always seems disgruntled. However, the character she plays is always someone who thinks they are the main character to the point that she starts sulking whenever she doesn't get to do something awesome and threatens to leave if the dm presents her with natural consequences of her actions or the actual ramifications of her alignment (which she always lists as something different while playing CN). She insults all of the other characters (in character), is an all-around angst muffin, and thinks the GM is always conspiring against her (even when I'm the DM). She always leaves the rest of the party when she's not entertained as a character, and yells a lot as a player. I'll admit that this has actually caused me to cut her off a lot in character, as she often ends up doing something that causes the party to start turning on itself and the players in the room to start something barely short of a blood feud. But perhaps I've become a bit belligerent?
Would that make me an attention hog? Is she an attention hog? What's going on here?!
Before you suggest it, I can't go to the GM. The woman I'm talking about is his girlfriend, and a decent friend to me outside of gaming, but I just... gah! Not to mention this is the only other GM that gms with any frequency.
Talking to her doesn't work either, as she always interprets it as a personal attack and makes under the belt accusation about me 'preaching' and being 'just as bad as her mother' sort of things...
On the internet though, I worry because in an rp I'm currently in, I have a character that always narrates or writes more than any other character in each post. The same character is always rescuing other characters and doing heroic things, but I worry that I'm robbing other players of the chance to do something cool?
I have several questions as a player, and please bear with me... what traits do you consider before you call someone an attention hog? Are they generally disagreeable?
Is there a wasted time requisite?
Is it just a tendency to be a narcissist?
It it possible to be one in a pBp or PbEm?
Can someone be an attention hog and still be nice (both as a character and a player)?
You get so much better at corrupting wishes it's ridiculous, but only because your base personality becomes so sadistic and isolated from other people's emotions that you begin to give into violent impulses. On the bright side, you never have to buy meat from the supermarket again.
