Quote from: CRKrueger;923545Rofl, nicely played.

Quote from: TristramEvans;923550

What am I missing here?

Credibility, mostly.  Many of us still think you're trolling.

If not, you didn't just treat your girlfriend's game badly, you treated her badly.  You acted like a jerk, plain and simple, in ways that had nothing to do with gaming.

Quote from: abcd_z;923560What am I missing here?

There are just a lot of things in that post that suggest troll to people here.

Quote from: abcd_z;923547As for why I was so against her plot hooks?  I'm not entirely certain.  I could give you a few guesses, but that's all they'd be; guesses.  Maybe I was passive-aggressively indicating that I didn't like her plot hooks.  Maybe I've been the GM for so long that I've picked up some bad habits as a player.  Maybe I'm afraid of becoming emotionally vulnerable, so I have to keep my character safe no matter what happens. (Don't laugh; I've had some messed up stuff happen in my past.)

I think this is worth exploring. You are not alone in developing bad habits as a player based on past experience, and being primarily a GM can exaggerate this as you feel the loss of the normal power you have to defend yourself. Unfortunately, your behaviour is likely just passing on your faults on to a new GM, so as the experienced RPGer of the two I think the burden is more on you to work through these issues to create a more positive gaming experience for the both of you.

Quote from: CRKrueger;923556I know, right?  What's next, a Ron Edwards/Vince Baker namedrop?

It was much more clever than the first post, I'll give it that, but at the same time absolutely damning.

Quote from: TristramEvans;923567It was much more clever than the first post, I'll give it that, but at the same time absolutely damning.

Seriously, what am I missing here?

They still think you are a troll.  Actually they might be trolling you telling you you're a troll.  The neck beards can get pretty deep around here.

It can be very difficult to role play with out a sense of your charcter,  as you said you had no motivation.  

Bruce Lee said the highest martial arts style is to be with out style.  But if you go there from the start you are just sloppy.

If doing free form stuff in the future remember you have to go with what ever is offered.  There is no setting to fall back on, so if you reject the adventure your GF brought you have to bring your own.  

I've run a couple of very successful completely free form 1 or 2 player games.  I always start by asking the players what setting they wanted and what objective they wanted.  Then we refine that a bit.  Then I ask them who they are, we refine a bit.  Then I give them an intro.  "This is who you are, this is who you work for, this is what happening in the world/what's important to you.  This is what you are being asked to do right now. Any questions?"

If we had done all that and you then told me "I don't want to ride the worm?" I would have told you to subvert the plans, or come up with a new tatic for achieving the objective, or try and talk Shai-Hulud into rolling over and getting his belly rubbed.  But it's on you now.  Or go do the dishes.

Well, you seem like a legit user now to me.

This place is just very rough, so get used to that.

Basically, all you have to think of when you do 1 on 1 RPGs is that you're working together.

Guys, I don't care if he's a troll. I'm achieving my objective here - I'm killing time while recovering from a flu.
If I wasn't, I likely wouldn't have visited the forum often, and thus wouldn't have seen this whole thread.

Quote from: abcd_z;923538Thank you to all of you who were willing to engage with me and give constructive advice, even if you did suspect me of being a troll.  Skywalker, Omega, mAcular Chaotic, robiswrong, thank you for your advice.  Edgewise and AsenRPG especially, thank you.

Sniderman, yes, I realize I handled that wrong.  If this entire thread is any indication, I handled the entire situation wrong.

Ratman_tf, thanks for that.  Made me laugh.  

AsenRP, Edgeless, and Headless: thank you for sticking up for me (or at least giving me the benefit of the doubt).  You were right; the biggest reason I didn't respond was because of the backlash.  I hadn't planned to respond, but then my silence was being used as evidence that I was a troll, so... I guess I felt like I had to prove to random people online that I'm not a troll?  I probably didn't think that one through very well.

Going forward, I'm going to work on treating the game as a collaborative work.  "Yes, and" instead of "no, because".  

Thank you again to those of you who gave me the benefit of the doubt.

-abcd_z

First: if you want to persuade people you're not a troll, posting in this thread is a good first step. But it's only after you post in some other threads that the doubts are likely to dissipate:).
Also, you're thinking in terms of improvisation (BTW, is your GF familiar with Improv and/or creative writing? If she is and you aren't, that might be the explanation).
But, to many people here, using terms as "collaborative exercise" and "yes, and"...while technically right, would brand you as a "dirty storygamer" or some such. In fact, many people prefer to avoid the terms even when speaking about stuff they should cover - it's a quirk of the site. So much so, that they believe you're trolling them just for mentioning Dungeon World and "Yes, and..." (their reasoning being that anyone who has registered some time ago would know not to do that if he wants to avoid a backlash).
I'm not saying you should do the same, but the admin (TheRPGPundit) believes he's on a quest to purge the influence of dirty storygamers from RPGs, or some such. Don't worry, he's not into banning people for disagreeing with him.
However, I'd suggest that since you're playing a custom Dungeon World campaign (or some other game of the same family), and/or your GF is using the "improv way" in her GMing (maybe


Second: you did it wrong, yes. Now forget that - you own her one apology, but that's between you. The question is how not to do the same in the future.
not consciously, but it sure seemed so from your description)...you would do well to look more into improv. In fact, I'd suggest you'd do well to make some improv exercises together.
http://improvencyclopedia.org/categories/Exercise.html
They should help with improvising "everyday details", too. Oh, and they're fun!

My only other advice will echo what Headless said, but in other words:
Keep the momentum going!
If you can think of what to do, feel free to reject her plot hooks.
If you can't, think of a reason why your character would accept it. Think what it tells you about the character, too - but later, when you have the time. This should help with building characters that might well surprise you, too.

Also, this advice applies well even when playing system-heavy games. Early D&D players had a procedure what to do: when going into a town, they bought everybody in the tavern a drink, tipped the bartender, and asked to be filled on local rumours - especially rumours that might pertain to treasure and/or people needing someone for possibly dangerous situations.
Then they picked something from what they heard, and/or combined them. If you hear someone is paying to be smuggled out of the city, and someone else is looking for guards for a caravan...well, you only have to find someone to disguise the first guy, present him as a party member, and get hired to keep that caravan! Win-win, and double the money.
It's possible you know that already - but you might have overlooked that this means they were never out of things to do.

Conversely, you might ask your GF to come up with a list of things to do and let you pick from them. We mostly call that "sandbox" around here, and it might be a nice compromise between your styles.
If you decide to go this way, you can print my post and show it to the GF - but I'd avoid printing the whole thread, if I was you;).

Oh, and you mention you've been a GM? When she presents you with a plothook, imagine it was you who presented it to a player. Than do what you'd like this player to do in your session:D!

Quote from: Headless;923573They still think you are a troll.  Actually they might be trolling you telling you you're a troll.  The neck beards can get pretty deep around here.

It can be very difficult to role play with out a sense of your charcter,  as you said you had no motivation.  

Bruce Lee said the highest martial arts style is to be with out style.  But if you go there from the start you are just sloppy.

If doing free form stuff in the future remember you have to go with what ever is offered.  There is no setting to fall back on, so if you reject the adventure your GF brought you have to bring your own.  

I've run a couple of very successful completely free form 1 or 2 player games.  I always start by asking the players what setting they wanted and what objective they wanted.  Then we refine that a bit.  Then I ask them who they are, we refine a bit.  Then I give them an intro.  "This is who you are, this is who you work for, this is what happening in the world/what's important to you.  This is what you are being asked to do right now. Any questions?"

If we had done all that and you then told me "I don't want to ride the worm?" I would have told you to subvert the plans, or come up with a new tatic for achieving the objective, or try and talk Shai-Hulud into rolling over and getting his belly rubbed.  But it's on you now.  Or go do the dishes.

That is true, as noted above (though they're playing system-light, not systemless...it seems).
But when playing or running freeform, I prefer to just talk about the setting a bit before the game begins. It achieves the same as being ready to jump on every opportunity, I've found.

Improv, shmimprov.

This is yet another variation on "players who won't get involved." If I had a pint of beer for every thread here and elsewhere about "how do you get players involved who deliberately refuse to get involved" I'd never have to buy my own beer again.  This is the RPG version of the two year old who just learned the word "NO" and proceeds to say "NO!" to everything, and even more tedious if the person doing it is older than two.  It's like asking "Want to go out to eat?" "Sure." And then the person who said "sure" proceeds to shoot down every suggested restaurant within forty miles.

If I could speak to the "girlfriend" here I'd tell her "After the second time somebody refuses to play, you stop and say 'if you don't want to play why are you here?' "

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;923671It's like asking "Want to go out to eat?" "Sure." And then the person who said "sure" proceeds to shoot down every suggested restaurant within forty miles.

But what happens if you really want to have a girlfriend?

Quote from: abcd_z;923538Thank you to all of you who were willing to engage with me and give constructive advice, even if you did suspect me of being a troll.  Skywalker, Omega, mAcular Chaotic, robiswrong, thank you for your advice.  Edgewise and AsenRPG especially, thank you.

Sniderman, yes, I realize I handled that wrong.  If this entire thread is any indication, I handled the entire situation wrong.

Ratman_tf, thanks for that.  Made me laugh.  

AsenRP, Edgeless, and Headless: thank you for sticking up for me (or at least giving me the benefit of the doubt).  You were right; the biggest reason I didn't respond was because of the backlash.  I hadn't planned to respond, but then my silence was being used as evidence that I was a troll, so... I guess I felt like I had to prove to random people online that I'm not a troll?  I probably didn't think that one through very well.

Going forward, I'm going to work on treating the game as a collaborative work.  "Yes, and" instead of "no, because".  

Thank you again to those of you who gave me the benefit of the doubt.

-abcd_z

Frankly I'm happy to have been proven wrong welcome to the site.




Don't worry to much about the reaction some people are having, this place is on more then its fair share of hit lists, so we can be a bit leery at times.
If you keep hanging around they will get used to you and stop thinking you are a troll. Also keep in mind that people here do defend there opinions and you are free to do the same, and as headless said the neck beard can get deep at times, but don't worry they mean well.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;923671Improv, shmimprov.

This is yet another variation on "players who won't get involved." If I had a pint of beer for every thread here and elsewhere about "how do you get players involved who deliberately refuse to get involved" I'd never have to buy my own beer again.  This is the RPG version of the two year old who just learned the word "NO" and proceeds to say "NO!" to everything, and even more tedious if the person doing it is older than two.  It's like asking "Want to go out to eat?" "Sure." And then the person who said "sure" proceeds to shoot down every suggested restaurant within forty miles.

If I could speak to the "girlfriend" here I'd tell her "After the second time somebody refuses to play, you stop and say 'if you don't want to play why are you here?' "

Well, it had to happen sometime. I mean you live long enough and shit. But I agree 100% with El Gronan. (I believe my previous high was 67%!):-)

Quote from: abcd_z;923547As for why I was so against her plot hooks?  I'm not entirely certain.  I could give you a few guesses, but that's all they'd be; guesses.  Maybe I was passive-aggressively indicating that I didn't like her plot hooks.  Maybe I've been the GM for so long that I've picked up some bad habits as a player.  Maybe I'm afraid of becoming emotionally vulnerable, so I have to keep my character safe no matter what happens. (Don't laugh; I've had some messed up stuff happen in my past.)

Substantively, I'm with Gronan.  The way RPGs are played is that players follow up the plot hooks they're given.  Passing up several in a row, whatever your reasons or justifications, is being aggressively obnoxious.  I might follow up with hitting the brakes and asking you just exactly what you *would* buy into, although I'd likely say so with a considerable bite in my voice.

But if you can't trust your own girlfriend not to maliciously screw you over, in a solo run where your decisions and roleplay aren't under scrutiny from anyone else, then man, you've got trust issues you really need to work on and through before you're able to be a player in anyone's game.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;923671Improv, shmimprov.

This is yet another variation on "players who won't get involved." If I had a pint of beer for every thread here and elsewhere about "how do you get players involved who deliberately refuse to get involved" I'd never have to buy my own beer again.  This is the RPG version of the two year old who just learned the word "NO" and proceeds to say "NO!" to everything, and even more tedious if the person doing it is older than two.  It's like asking "Want to go out to eat?" "Sure." And then the person who said "sure" proceeds to shoot down every suggested restaurant within forty miles.

If I could speak to the "girlfriend" here I'd tell her "After the second time somebody refuses to play, you stop and say 'if you don't want to play why are you here?' "

And I remember how an old geezer once told me on another forum that the way to resolve the problem with a player who refuses to engage is to talk with the player in question like adults;).

That's what I'm doing, I'm talking to the OP like an adult, because his GM is not experienced enough to know this. The question is, what are the rest of you doing, apart from bitching?