Mage OOC Talk and Questions

[deltadream]

As far as the Sanctuary scene is concerned I wanted to run an idea by you guys which I alluded to in Philip`s post today: what if I had him directly ask Winter/Witch if they were part of the Guardians of the Veil, would that be a bad idea, to add a lot of spice to the scene?

ReubanBrightwood is correct that we don't pre-plan RP actions per our Site's metagaming rules.

Regarding the assumptions your character is making on Orders. I let the first post slide. But now you have a second and are talking about pushing the issue.

I'm going to tell you to stop right now.

This popped up a few months ago on discord and it didn't go over then and it won't now.

You are borderline metagaming. You know that Witch and Winter are GoV and are stretching to try and come up with IC reasons to have Philip magically come to that conclussion.

Philip can safely assume that neither Witch or Winter are FC (she has said she doesn't know the state of that are of the Circle, and neither said 'oh me too!' with his intro)

Rationale of "they aren't aggressive enough for Adamantine Arrow" or "not assertive enough for Silver Ladder" doesn't fly for me as valid IC knowledge that would push to have Philip be able to sus out their order after two meetings.

[Xisdor]

OK that sounds like I screwed up again. Nice. Well that answers that. OK. Great. I will drop it then.

[ReubanBrightwood]

Xisdor, since were both new to this how would you feel about reading the threads together? consolidating understanding and the like, 2 heads being better than 1 and all, no pressure either way just thought I'd put it on the table so to speak.

[Xisdor]

That sounds like a great idea, ReubanBrightwood. I can read the threads again and you can do the same and when we are both on we can compare notes. I just re-read the metagaming thread on your suggestion. I thought I understood it, having read it for the xth time, but I guess I didn`t get it in practice, and it seems the thoughts straddled the line. Good thing I asked. deltadreams answer cleared several things up at once. But now no doubt Xander will be hounding me again, assuming those mistakes are a symptom of me not getting the rules at all, and that I haven`t learned anything from the pre-posting incident earlier. But the truth is, I have. I will still make mistakes though, and while you can fault me for doing so, it is what it is.

[ReubanBrightwood]

I can't and won't speak to anyone else perceptions or actions, I'm just offering what little help I can, and happy to . I'm free for the next 7-8 hours if you want to drop me PM, or if your comfortable I believe the discord has a voice channel, if we're allowed to use it??

[ReubanBrightwood]

Xisdor I have just found you can't send or reply to private messages until you've posted 10 times, at least that was the redirect I got when I tired to reply -- this is my 7th?? Give me a minute to find stuff to contribute to then I should be able to get back to you.

[deltadream]

Xisdor

I am saying this because of the cranky get off my lawn old timers on the site, I might be on the lower end of the cranky spectrum. So while tone is hard to convey in text, please understand that this post is said in the spirit of facilitating RP.

The "Oh no I f'd up again guess I'm gonna get yelled at/banned" is ... unproductive to our RP interactions.

Since you are not on discord where a more casual chit-chat environment is, all interactions are through the forum, where everything takes on a bit more formal of a tone. This can't be helped and just has to be understood.

Re: the Orders coversation and your comment about screwing up again.
You didn't. I warned you to stop before you did.
A "Gotcha, I'll keep that in mind. Thanks" would have sufficed.

Re: making mistakes.
Yup. You make them. I make them. Everyone makes them.
And then they are called out/corrected/addressed. It's how we learn and get better.
I refer back to the above re: discord vs forum formality of conversation. If you wanna pop on discord where things are (usually) a bit more relaxed, great. We'd welcome you there. But until then, if it's just the forum you are going to have to understand that feedback here is always going to sound/appear a bit harsher than it maybe is.

There are some hard rules we have and certain triggers for us get-off-my-lawners because we are all tired of being burned by the same things. Reading (lack of) and meta-gaming (being done at all) are two of them. We point it out and assuming the players go "gotcha gotcha" we move on.

So please, take a breath and keep on with the RP. Keep asking questions here because as you can see, you do get answers and this IS the OOC question zone.

[Xisdor]

You bring up a good point, sometimes its hard to gauge through writing in this formal setting what was meant as a serious warning or a less serious hint for the future and in which context I should see things. If I come across as extreme in that respect that is because I really do not know where I stand after my first major mistake and what sorts of mistakes are tolerated and which aren`t. So, because I don`t know how to respond I usually go with the worse of the options. If this is wrong of me, please tell me so, because I`m wracking my head trying to find out where I stand. And as far as discord is concerned, I find this to be a bit too personal as you might be able to find out more about me with regards to other games/groups I am a part of. If this is wrong and I somehow misunderstood discord, I will try again there too.

[Xander]

So, lot's of stuff I need to respond to, so I'm breaking stuff down into sections.

Solo scenes

I'm not running them as your storyteller. You the players are welcome to do scenes one on one or do glimpses.

Metagaming

What if's on character actions is 100% metagaming if you use that OOC information to decide on IC actions. I tend to find it suspicious in general if you do what if's with someone about an ongoing scene, but I'm happy to start a new player off with just a warning.

As far as guessing orders is concerned, I think the rational for Guardians specifically is flimsy. That being said, the last post for Philip does mention the Mysterium which is the only other order that tends to hide that information. After watching this site's mage venue for over ten years I've found the Mysterium and Guardians of the Veil are the only orders that don't offer their affiliation freely when a new face offers it to them. The Free Council has a tenet about sharing information freely, and the Arrow and Ladder on site tend to let people know their order because it facilitates their duties as protectors and shepherds of the awakened. Dozens of Arrows and Ladders over the years have offered their order freely, high profile cases including Animus, Truce, Phoenyx, Ixidor, Avis, Weavebreaker, Asp, and Gallows if you want to search names. In this instance the rationale for assuming Witch and Winter are Guardians specifically is flimsy, but the overall assumption that people who evade sharing their order are probably Guardians or Mystogogues is an assumption in line with the sites historical precedent and 100% fair game. At least in my opinion and experience. So again, warning but nothing more serious.

Tone and Accusations

This is the big one I want to make clear right now. The actual actions taken in the IC forums are minor and easy to deal with, not warranting more then a clear warning or some clarification. What's not minor to me is shit like this.
Xisdor - This is my venue. That means I have a responsibility to make sure you read everything and that a certain degree of quality is delivered from all parties. I take that responsibility seriously and expect diligence and respect from those in the venue. Myself included, though I admit to having issues with certain behaviors of previous players. I could remove you at any time if I like, but like before I'm choosing to warn about your errors instead. Whatever you have going on that leads you to post stuff like that needs to end now. I can tolerate an honest mistake here and there. I won't tolerate mischaracterizing my responsibilities as 'hounding' again.

[Xisdor]

OK. I understand that. If my tone was inappropriate in the post you reference Xander, I will apologise for that, and I will not make that mistake again. I do want to clarify something though. It was not my intention to offend you with what I wrote, or overstep boundaries, it seems I did, but that was not intended. I merely wanted to make the connection to my previous mistake clear, and state the difference in my opinion.