House of Cards GM Log

Writing to a Decision Point

posted by Ginger at 11:09 AM, April 18, 2005 | Filed under : Netiquette & Play Procedures | Comments and Followups

(This is the same post that appeared on the OOC list last week, but mysteriously didn’t get blogged at the same time. Bad GMs! No biscuit!)

One of the keys to cooperative role-playing is realizing how far it’s a good idea to take your post before stopping. The answer is “you should write far enough along that the other people present (PCs and NPCs both) will have a reasonable place to react.”

In this, PCs and NPCs are not unlike the universe in general. If you say “I try to kick the albino hunchback”, you’re reasonably giving the universe the opportunity to reply (via the GMs). If you say “I line up my foot to kick the albino hunchback”, then the GMs don’t know if you’re putting the boot in on poor Bronwen-moto or if you’re just looking to make her cringe. The universe, as interpreted by us, will not make you kick her until you say you kick her.

In large threads, we ask you to make sure every one has an option to go. This applies both to not running over your fellow players and the NPCs, but also to the scope of your post. If you reach a point at which an NPC or player should reasonably have an opportunity to act or speak and you overrun that point, then you’ve effectively chosen for them. This can happen in several ways, such as talking over someone’s chance to speak or leaving a room without giving the others a chance to react or not.

The down side of this is that it’s sometimes slower to have to touch first base before moving onwards. The positives far outweigh the negatives: It’s more courteous to your fellows and your GMs, it prevents the wrenching annoyance of a rollback (or, worse, the GMs deciding to let it stand and figuring out how it happened that way, and letting the chips fall where they may).

Unless we’ve discussed it in advance (such as a summary thread), your best choice is to play to an uncertain point, let us or your fellows react, and play on from there. Doing so will make your posts more GM and player friendly.

Follow up: the trackback URL for this entry is: http://www.whiterose.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/5309

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