Is he a troll?  Maybe.  Don't care.

The way I see it, if he's a troll, and I respond with advice, he maybe gets a chuckle out of it, and I lose a few minutes of typing, that maybe someone else might see and go "hey, good advice" anyway.

If he's not a troll, and I respond as if he is, then I'm just shitting on someone.

So, for my personal view, the choices are obvious - either don't respond, or respond with actual advice.

Quote from: Omega;923915To me it just reads like the standard (over) reaction some have to plot hooks. The sort of reactions factions in the GNS/Storygamer/Swine/whatever have been trying to drill into players heads. Its also how a few hexcrawler/freeform players react to anything resembling a plot or plot hooks.
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I am not a fan of obvious plot hooks, but my feeling is a player reacting like this, just ruins it for all involved. It might be a bad GM, but even a bad GM is usually at least trying to entertain and give everyone a good time. Stuff like this is just disruptive and annoying. Still think it is a troll though.

If someone is getting annoyed by obvious plot hooks, I'd rather than just say so, let everyone decide if they want to take another approach and move on with playing.

Quote from: robiswrong;923918...

So, for my personal view, the choices are obvious - either don't respond, or respond with actual advice.

If we don't respond to obvious trolling with heckling, humor, admonishments and satire we ARE NOT DOING OUR JOBS. Next thing you know, our jobs will be outsourced. This is survival of the surliest sir. SURVIVAL.

Quote from: cranebump;923905I don't know about everyone else, but I was identifying obvious douche baggery when I see it.

This.

The OPs post is demonstrating shitty behavior as a player to the person who is gamemastering and I feel no inclination to reward that.
The OPs post is demonstrating shitty behavior to the person he is dating and I feel no inclination to reward that.

Right.  He was told enough times on the first page that he reacted like a dick.  

He was asking for help when he posted.  

I don't really see the point on the 9th page of telling him he's a dick again.  

Actually all the people calling him a dick and a troll are reacting exactly the same to the OP as he was to the GM.  In stead of helping him out or engaging with the tread you stun grenade him and call him a troll.

Quote from: Headless;923957He was asking for help when he posted.

That assumes that it was a legitimate request for help rather than an attempt by a troll to stir shit up.  Why are you so sure of this?

Cause I'm not an ass hole.  Well at least not full time.  

Draw your matrix. Troll not troll on one side. Treated like a troll, treated like a human being on the other.  Which of your actions has the best possible out come, which the worst?

Seriously are there points for calling troll the fastest?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;923885What's a +3 beer?

Obviously it's +1 better than a +2 beer, though on careful inspection my original meaning should now be clear.

That's just an exercise in confirming your bias.  It's trivially easy to write that so that the best outcome will be whatever the hell I want it to be.

I haven't been around here for all that long but this sort of leeriness about troll doesn't come from nowhere.  It develops in communities that have had persistent problems with trolls for a significant period of time.  People have cited several reasons why they think this guy is a troll.  You haven't responded to any of them.  I doubt you have even considered them at all.  The truth is that this is just an excuse to get up on your high horse and call people assholes because of your personal animosity toward them.  You are just indulging yourself.

I don't know if this guy is a troll or not but I'm also unsure about what advice to give him and his girlfriend.  My thoughts are this

To the girlfriend: The one thing that a player really controls is their character.  If you are about to make a statement that starts with something like "Your character wants to do X" or "Your character does Y". stop.  What the player's character wants to do or does is up to the player.  You present the situation.  They decide what their characters wants to do or does.  Here is what is happening.  What does your character do?  

To OP: She would probably have an easier time GMing if you stopped actively sabotaging her attempts to do so.  Work with her, not against her.  If you have concerns, talk to her about them.

Quote from: Headless;923957Actually all the people calling him a dick and a troll are reacting exactly the same to the OP as he was to the GM.

The false equivalence there makes me giggle.

Something Headless wrote really stuck with me:  

Quote from: Headless;923573I'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?"

I realized that I couldn't answer those two questions, "What setting do I want?" and "What objective do I want?"  It was like a big blank spot in my mind.  Even now I struggle to answer it.

So I tried something that's worked for me in the past: cutting the problem into smaller, more manageable parts.  I asked my GF to run a quick session for me, no more than 5 minutes, maybe two skill challenges.  For this, at least, I was able to define myself as a thief stealing a large ruby from a guarded room.

She ran the game, I convinced the guard I was a janitor, and I walked off with the gem.  

It's not much.  In fact, it's almost nothing.  But you'd be surprised how tiny actions, repeated often enough, can snowball into a much larger change of habits.

So, you logged onto an RPG website and expect us to believe you have absolutely no experience with role playing, despite a strong familiarity with jargon?  And she gave you a setting and an objective, and you shat on them.  Repeatedly.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;923995So, you logged onto an RPG website and expect us to believe you have absolutely no experience with role playing, despite a strong familiarity with jargon?

I...what?  I have quite a bit of experience with roleplaying, just mostly as a GM.  I have trouble wrapping my head around most game systems, and everybody else wants to run their familiar rule system (usually D&D), so if I want to be involved in an RPG I pretty much have to GM.

Quote from: abcd_z;923996I...what?  I have quite a bit of experience with roleplaying, just mostly as a GM.  I have trouble wrapping my head around most game systems, and everybody else wants to run their familiar rule system (usually D&D), so if I want to be involved in an RPG I pretty much have to GM.

He's still responding to your opening post. As are a few others. SOP here. You'll get used to it.

Explain what you mean and sooner or later a few will actually read the later posts. The rest will keep kicking you because of the original post for a few months. Under any other circumstance more than a few would be howling for the DMs head. But they want to get laid so they'll side with the tits instead on the off chance she dumps you and they can get lucky. aheh.

I exaggerate. But probably not by much. :cool:

But as noted and other have noted too. One on one freeforms can have slightly different dynamics depending on if its being played as a straight up RPG or as a storytelling type play.

Quote from: yosemitemike;923978That's just an exercise in confirming your bias.  It's trivially easy to write that so that the best outcome will be whatever the hell I want it to be.

I haven't been around here for all that long but this sort of leeriness about troll doesn't come from nowhere.  It develops in communities that have had persistent problems with trolls for a significant period of time.

(snipped)

To the girlfriend: The one thing that a player really controls is their character.  If you are about to make a statement that starts with something like "Your character wants to do X" or "Your character does Y". stop.  What the player's character wants to do or does is up to the player.  You present the situation.  They decide what their characters wants to do or does.  Here is what is happening.  What does your character do?  

To OP: She would probably have an easier time GMing if you stopped actively sabotaging her attempts to do so.  Work with her, not against her.  If you have concerns, talk to her about them.

But that assumes I care what a troll might do. What can a troll do:)?
Stir a conversation? That's useful.
Get a raise out of me replying? I don't give a fuck;).

Quote from: abcd_z;923989Something Headless wrote really stuck with me:  



I realized that I couldn't answer those two questions, "What setting do I want?" and "What objective do I want?"  It was like a big blank spot in my mind.  Even now I struggle to answer it.

So I tried something that's worked for me in the past: cutting the problem into smaller, more manageable parts.  I asked my GF to run a quick session for me, no more than 5 minutes, maybe two skill challenges.  For this, at least, I was able to define myself as a thief stealing a large ruby from a guarded room.

She ran the game, I convinced the guard I was a janitor, and I walked off with the gem.  

It's not much.  In fact, it's almost nothing.  But you'd be surprised how tiny actions, repeated often enough, can snowball into a much larger change of habits.

That's a good start. Not exactly how I'd do it, but it's something. And who knows, it might be better than my approach.

Now look at your GMing experience. What do you want to run? Do you want to play the same thing?

Quote from: Omega;924010He's still responding to your opening post. As are a few others. SOP here. You'll get used to it.

Explain what you mean and sooner or later a few will actually read the later posts. The rest will keep kicking you because of the original post for a few months. Under any other circumstance more than a few would be howling for the DMs head. But they want to get laid so they'll side with the tits instead on the off chance she dumps you and they can get lucky. aheh.

I exaggerate. But probably not by much. :cool:

But as noted and other have noted too. One on one freeforms can have slightly different dynamics depending on if its being played as a straight up RPG or as a storytelling type play.

Omega, I assume you don't include me and Headless in those people that wanted to get laid?

Also, the differences in dynamics are quite large.

Quote from: abcd_z;923996I...what?  I have quite a bit of experience with roleplaying, just mostly as a GM.  I have trouble wrapping my head around most game systems, and everybody else wants to run their familiar rule system (usually D&D), so if I want to be involved in an RPG I pretty much have to GM.

To most people here, your behaviour was normal for a newbie, or for a player with bad experiences with GMs. Almost nobody can wrap his head around why you did what you did.
What were the games you ran like?

(Also, was there even a system in the game your GF was running?).