Post by Just Evan on Oct 9, 2012 18:51:32 GMT -8
Howdy folks,
PA Evan here. This post is intended as a discussion point and a voicing of my opinion as a PA. It is not endorsed by the staff or any other party.
If I told you that in the weird, culty Zombie/Psychological thriller The Serpent and the Rainbow, Bill Pulman's character gets his testicles nailed to a chair by a drug lord houdoun; I'd be tossing out some mild spoilers. Kind of a douche move, but at the end of the day (or the film), your knowledge of that fact only changes how you react to watching it.
If instead, you and I were at Dennys after game and I told you that MY CHARACTER got his testicles nailed to a chair in a private scene with Nelly's drug lord houdoun earlier in the night, I have effectively cheated.
I know, we all talk scenes out of game and we all try to keep OOC knowledge out of IC interactions. Let's follow the logic here though.
Your character and mine are buddies - coterie mates, sire and child, loyal ghoul and well meaning domitor - does not matter. You spend most of game trying to find my character IC. At first, you think the Primogen meeting might have just gone on a bit long or maybe my sparring match with Luthias took a turn for the absurd as we take turns firing Gangrel out of canon at each other. In any case, you aren't worried.
Then we meet up after post for a shared ride home or the next day at the mall. You ask how my night went and I respond with my tragic tale of abduction and genital mutilation. I might not even be trying to sway your IC actions with my story; maybe I am just geeking out about how well Nelly played up the Path of Power and the Inner Voice torturer he has been secretly playing these past six weeks or how epic the muffled shrieks of IC pain were delivered as he mimed pounding a 40 penny nail into my man satchel before staking me and dropping me in concrete. In either case, you as a player KNOW what happened to my character now.
Without that knowledge, you might have e-mailed me once during the week and asked "Did Billy ever come back to the haven after his meeting?" If my answer had simply been "No and he is not answering his phone this week." you might register an investigation with staff or get the word out to other players that their PC's get concerned phone calls inquiring about my character's well being.
But you know now. Even if you have every intention of playing out your IC actions under the veil of IC ignorance, asking you to make choices without thinking about what you know is like telling you to not, whatever you do, on pain of death, imagine a pink elephant right now.
Impossible.
It's the way the human brain works. Put information into it and it gets processed. Instead of a few phone calls, you might leave frantic messages saying you are worried that I might have been hurt. You, despite your best efforts begin to realize that you saw my character arguing with Nelly's voodoo priest a few sessions ago and wondering if your character would then be suspicious.
Worse, you might start hatching plans. "When I *DO* find out IC, I'll start by having my Toreador friend read his mind to get the location. Then I'll have him jumped by the other Brujah while I mount a rescue with the Tremere." And suddenly you have a well thought out, week of polishing plan that your character might not have come up with in the thirty seconds after he does find out legitimately IC.
None of this even begins to touch on folks that ARE dropping IC information OOC to get reactions or the players who (meaning to or not) end up playing telephone and exaggerating IC interactions to the point of folks crying foul.
I'm not advocating for folks to stop talking about LARP outside of game hours. I'm not even suggesting it is a bad idea to talk about your story arc or character development with other players OOC. But I do think it harms the game every time a player decides to dish about something that other folks do not have an IC reason to know but will effect interactions by their characters once they know.
So please, the time you are hanging out with fellow fangdorks outside of game and someone asks where your Last-Male-Daughter-Of-Cacophony-who-collects-Gangrel-Teeth was last session; smile cryptically and shrug. Express how excited you are to see what happens when they find out IC. Say you aren't answering your phone. But don't TELL; let them have an honest reaction when they legitimately find out.
Thanks for reading.
San Dimas Highschool Football ROCKS!
PA Evan here. This post is intended as a discussion point and a voicing of my opinion as a PA. It is not endorsed by the staff or any other party.
If I told you that in the weird, culty Zombie/Psychological thriller The Serpent and the Rainbow, Bill Pulman's character gets his testicles nailed to a chair by a drug lord houdoun; I'd be tossing out some mild spoilers. Kind of a douche move, but at the end of the day (or the film), your knowledge of that fact only changes how you react to watching it.
If instead, you and I were at Dennys after game and I told you that MY CHARACTER got his testicles nailed to a chair in a private scene with Nelly's drug lord houdoun earlier in the night, I have effectively cheated.
I know, we all talk scenes out of game and we all try to keep OOC knowledge out of IC interactions. Let's follow the logic here though.
Your character and mine are buddies - coterie mates, sire and child, loyal ghoul and well meaning domitor - does not matter. You spend most of game trying to find my character IC. At first, you think the Primogen meeting might have just gone on a bit long or maybe my sparring match with Luthias took a turn for the absurd as we take turns firing Gangrel out of canon at each other. In any case, you aren't worried.
Then we meet up after post for a shared ride home or the next day at the mall. You ask how my night went and I respond with my tragic tale of abduction and genital mutilation. I might not even be trying to sway your IC actions with my story; maybe I am just geeking out about how well Nelly played up the Path of Power and the Inner Voice torturer he has been secretly playing these past six weeks or how epic the muffled shrieks of IC pain were delivered as he mimed pounding a 40 penny nail into my man satchel before staking me and dropping me in concrete. In either case, you as a player KNOW what happened to my character now.
Without that knowledge, you might have e-mailed me once during the week and asked "Did Billy ever come back to the haven after his meeting?" If my answer had simply been "No and he is not answering his phone this week." you might register an investigation with staff or get the word out to other players that their PC's get concerned phone calls inquiring about my character's well being.
But you know now. Even if you have every intention of playing out your IC actions under the veil of IC ignorance, asking you to make choices without thinking about what you know is like telling you to not, whatever you do, on pain of death, imagine a pink elephant right now.
Impossible.
It's the way the human brain works. Put information into it and it gets processed. Instead of a few phone calls, you might leave frantic messages saying you are worried that I might have been hurt. You, despite your best efforts begin to realize that you saw my character arguing with Nelly's voodoo priest a few sessions ago and wondering if your character would then be suspicious.
Worse, you might start hatching plans. "When I *DO* find out IC, I'll start by having my Toreador friend read his mind to get the location. Then I'll have him jumped by the other Brujah while I mount a rescue with the Tremere." And suddenly you have a well thought out, week of polishing plan that your character might not have come up with in the thirty seconds after he does find out legitimately IC.
None of this even begins to touch on folks that ARE dropping IC information OOC to get reactions or the players who (meaning to or not) end up playing telephone and exaggerating IC interactions to the point of folks crying foul.
I'm not advocating for folks to stop talking about LARP outside of game hours. I'm not even suggesting it is a bad idea to talk about your story arc or character development with other players OOC. But I do think it harms the game every time a player decides to dish about something that other folks do not have an IC reason to know but will effect interactions by their characters once they know.
So please, the time you are hanging out with fellow fangdorks outside of game and someone asks where your Last-Male-Daughter-Of-Cacophony-who-collects-Gangrel-Teeth was last session; smile cryptically and shrug. Express how excited you are to see what happens when they find out IC. Say you aren't answering your phone. But don't TELL; let them have an honest reaction when they legitimately find out.
Thanks for reading.
San Dimas Highschool Football ROCKS!
Having said that, I still like the old coot, so don't anyone take that as hatin' on him 
