Negative reinforcement!

[jlh]

Dear Fandom Friends,

Isn't in interesting the way that if you have an opinion that is thought through but in the end fairly moderate, no one cares, no one comments, no one probably even reads it, but if you constantly post completely crazy screeds full of venom, everyone will comment on your journal and talk about you in theirs?

If I were joining the fandom now, I would be nothing but randomly hateful. It is always rewarded and never punished. People in fact generally think that it is really, really funny and want to be your friend.

In the spirit of attempting to bore everyone reading this a little less (why are you here, since I'm neither wanky nor particularly interesting, and you never comment?) I'm taking down my previous post.

Sincerely,

Clio, who is too nice and too boring to talk to.

Comments

[ladyjaida.livejournal.com]

Are you sure you didn't mean Clio, who is one of the few rational, well-thought-out, intelligent, and interesting voices still left to us, that never fails to give me hope the entire fandom isn't just out to jumble some panties? *squeezemuch*

[fiatincantatum.livejournal.com]

Actually, my response to it was something along the lines of "I don't get how RPGs are suddenly about the audience" which I figured was besides the point, so I didn't comment.

But I really don't get it. IMHO, RPGs are for the participants and if the audience likes 'em, so much the better, but it's not FOR them. Then again, I'm a former tabletop D&Der, so maybe I'm just old.

But don't feel bad about not getting responses. I was down with pneumonia and posted about being ill and missing three weeks of work and nobody commented. I can sorta feel your pain.

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

We're both old skool D&D'ers.

The problem is, I think, that NA really created* the fanbase for RPGs. Every other RPG now wants to play to the crowd, rather than play for themselves.

* - created isn't the word I want to use here. Sponsored doesn't work either. It was the first one with a squeeing fanbase enough that a whole community was created for it. Now I think everyone is trying to cater to the fan community instead of the game just being the game. And wow, this note is longer than the original comment, I should probably stop now.

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

See here, woman! (http://www.livejournal.com/users/tea_and_toast/55945.html) Specifically, note the part where I said, "If there is fangirling to be done, I will reserve it for jlh, who always seems to have something interesting to say." :D

Perhaps it's not that you are too boring to respond to; perhaps it's that others might have nothing interesting to offer in response.

I *did* just enter the fandom, by the way. What I found the most intriguing about this whole aspect was the social coherence that seemed to come out of nowhere during the first f_s go-round back in February. Remember when Zorb was giving out "Golden Lemon" awards? It was interesting, in its own way.

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

Maybe 'defined'?

BTW, another old D&D person here - we gamed all the way through grad school and may still be if our GM hadn't been out of the country on various postdocs for the last 3 years. I saw that you're pencil and paper gaming (on Sundays, was it?) and had more than a passing flash of envy. :D

Getting used to the RPG thing on LJ has taken a bit of adjustment, because it is a completely different dynamic.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

I have been not commenting a lot in general, along with not posting; muteness has grown into a bad habit. But you are on my list of LJs I read daily, including on days when I just cannot stand fandomy stuff any more, and you are there specifically because you are consistently thoughtful and interesting. :)

[fiatincantatum.livejournal.com]

"Created" in the Frankensteinian sense, perhaps.

I help run a 6th year HP RPG and our game's designed so that the audience can follow, without too much difficulty, but it's intended for the players. One thing we have to cope with is players wanting to know what the plot is and what they should be doing. Er, what? When did it happen that players don't figure things out as they go along?

Another thing I have trouble understanding is the popularity of the LJ/GJ game format. It's been explained to me that in games like NA, the "action" happens offscreen and the "game" is really the characters reporting on what they've seen/experienced. I think this maybe goes along with the whole "want to know the plot ahead of time" thing.

Color me baffled, the appeal of that escapes me. Our game runs on message boards, with different forums for the different rooms and locations, a lot like an older-style paper or electronic dungeon.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

Mad props to your PA icon, Jules.


What saddens me is that any other RPG that wants to play to a crowd doesn't remotely understand that the reason NA became so popular was because it deliberately didn't play to the crowd. It's not really fair for any other RPG to constantly compare itself to NA and say "well we want to be like that and have that kind of success" because the reason NA became popular was by being an iconoclast, and not trying to be like anything else.

< /two cents>

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

eek, must clarify:

It's not really fair for any other RPG to constantly compare itself to NA and say "well we want to be like that and have that kind of success"

it's not really fair to any other RPG. To shoot itself in the foot like that.

Done now.

[aome.livejournal.com]

Why take down the post just because no one commented? I read it and thought it was thoughtful - but I do not have time to comment in much of anyone's anything these days. It's not doing any harm being there, and you never know who is silently reading it and taking it in, even if they don't respond.

[wednesdayschild.livejournal.com]

Y'see, I found your last post really interesting. I kept it open in a new tab for about six hours, trying to think of how to respond to it. Suffice to say, I had no idea what to actually say, so didn't say anything at all. Which I now regret, because it was an engaging and thought provoking post. I just felt that I had nothing to add to it, and eventually closed the tab, and went to bed.

It's true, though - it is often vitriolic posts that get the most responses, or, I don't know, inane posts that have very little substance. A month or so ago, I wrote a very long post about all the sorts of things that I'd like to be told in the information about fics so I could make a decision about the way to approach them; I asked my flist to comment with things they'd find interesting, and I got a total of no responses. A big fat zero. It was an issue that I'd put a lot of thought into, and I was really interested in discussing, but apparantly no-one else was. It's not as though very few people read my journal; my friends-of list is close to 200, and well over half of those people are fandomers, so I'd have thought that at least one person would have responded, but, uh, no. So, yes. I do know how it feels.

Your posts don't bore me. I'm just bad at commenting :(

[legomymalfoy.livejournal.com]

I'm in an RPG that has a rather small, quiet fanbase, and that's fine. We're not plotting and so forth to get readers... in fact I think we tend not to get readers because we march to the beat of a different drummer and all that. But that's fine.

And uh, I really did mean to comment on the original post *blush*

But yes, to comment on the rest of this post -- nothing gets you noticed like hateful wank. It's sad to say, but true. I much prefer reading the type of posts you and others on my flist post, even if I don't comment.

[legomymalfoy.livejournal.com]

Plus the reason that nraged was created to give all of us squee-space as we were driving everyone else nuts; it wasn't created with the intent to get them to try and play TO us, but I don't think people understand that.

< /also done now>

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly what I read of your post last night when I got in (I'm not positive that I do as it was quite late), I think you made a/some excellent point/points. I was just too damn tired to post anything that would have contributed to the conversation. I was saving comments that required thought for this evening when my brain finally follows me home.

[sheryll.livejournal.com]

There is no such thing as too nice and you are never boring. Of course, I only have your LJ and meeting you in person briefly two summers ago to judge by. Hmm.... no, I'll stick my my assessement. Though 'too nice for this fandom' might be slightly accurate, I think the fandom would be worse off if it ever lost you. We need nice people.

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

wah! crap, I haven't gone back through weekend-LJ so I missed it entirely!

do you have a copy you can email me...? <:}

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

Well, I loff you very much, but I have very little interest in RPGs so I didn't really have anything to say...

[alkaloid.livejournal.com]

I think if I go one more day without friending you, Ely will start getting annoyed with me.

So here I am! :D

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

Yay, D&D!

Actually, I game quite a bit. Not as much as I used to, but still...

The husband runs all the games I'm in right now. We have a regular Sunday game that meets every Sunday but one. He also does an every other Tuesday game with D&D Modern. We also have an alternate Friday D&D game, which I run. And the husband again runs a once-a-month D&D game on Saturdays, and we don't play on that following Sunday.

He also plays in a Star Wars game on Monday nights, and a Silver Age Sentinels game on Wednesdays. Before the Wednesday game started, we were both in a DC Heroes game on Thursdays. And before the SW game on Mondays, we were both in a Wheel of Time game that night. :)

Man, I need me some GURPS games. I'm very happy 4th Edition is going to be out at GenCon this week! *glee*

But yes, LJ RPGs are a very different beastie.

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

My experience with LJ RPGs comes in the form of x_project, where the players were the ones creating the plot, and driving the game. In cases where players didn't know what was going on with a specific plot, lots of badness happened, and we took great pains to make sure that it didn't happen like that again. (I was a mod there for a time, too.) It is a totally different environment from your GM/players model, and it took me AGES to get used to that. I still don't know that I like it all that much.

BTW, I love that cat in your icon. *uses matching cat icon*

[fiatincantatum.livejournal.com]

He thanks you :) That's my boy Silver, who is sixteen years old. He's very sweet and gets cold alot at night, so sleeps on my head.

Most of my cat icons are of my own babies :)

*uses a different one*

[fiatincantatum.livejournal.com]

By the way, we HAVE modified the GM/Players model slightly, in that the players work on creating/driving the minor plots for each other (but not for their own selves, if that makes sense) and the main administration group coordinates everything and keeps the main plot running. So far, so good *crosses fingers* but the term's going to start sometime soon now *panics*

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

Ah, but it's NOT a PA icon, but a PVP (http://www.pvponline.com/) icon. :)

I should emphasize that I just /think/ that other games may be trying to play to the audience, I don't /know/.

But for players to get so worked up over the fans who spent too much time ship-squeeing instead of plotting, it does make one wonder.

[frozen-jelly.livejournal.com]

I thought your last post was so well thought out, raised really interesting points and was quite thorough too, that there wouldn't be much to add to it by commenting.

It definately gave me food for thought though. I always though of rpgs as being a kind of joint venture, obviously the players and actio of the game are central, but the reaction of the fans can be as enthralling in a completely different way. For example the way peope read different things into the exact same post, and what you take away from that post can depend on who is your favourite character and your own personal views on an issue.

Certainly when I was following NA, as soon as a player posted, and after I had read their post, I headed right over to nraged to see if anyone else had seen it and was thinking the same things as me. Its like anything you love really, you love to discuss it endlessly with people who understand your enthusiasm.

[adjudicated.livejournal.com]

I would have liked to read your thoughts on RPGs, especially as I just conducted an RPG poll of sorts on my own LJ . . . but I clearly missed it. Would you send the text of it to me via email or something? slytherincess@gmail.com .

Personally, I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say (I don't know if my recent post had anything to do with prompting you to muse about it) because while I do have frustrations with RPGs, I'm never entirely sure if they are logical ones.

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

I do not have one of Missy to go with Beana - she's the one in the above icon - (they are actually Artemis and Athena) yet, but I do intend to make one, with the other River quote of "No power in the 'verse can stop me."

Beana has been known to sleep above my head/on my head. When my babies were girls, they both used to sleep on my pillow. Now they are both WAY to big for both of them to be there. And Athena also has started to sleep next to me. She's started hogging the bed like a child, pushing me into my husband's side of the bed and making him grump at me.

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

*wibbles* You know I don't follow RPGs so post relating to them confuse me and I skip them. *loves you*

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

So no one can develop a plot for their own character? Like, I couldn't say (this is HP, right?) - I want my character to have a run-in with another character so they can have a fight. I've talked to the other player, and they agree...blah blah.

Feel free to contact me off Clio's LJ if you want to go into further detail. :)

[nothingbutfic.livejournal.com]

Er, sorry? But I really wasn't going to comment to your earlier post cause I'm not that uh, stupid anymore ;)

And my opinions regarding RPG operation and reaction to and with RPGs (with examples from the ones I've been in) would not go well :D

[budgiesmuggler.livejournal.com]

eee, clio! I am just lame at commenting and am hardly ever online enough to read my friends list anyway.

I agree, though. Hateful people tend to be seen as Oh-So-Funny (when quite often they're not). Maybe it is an all-out effort to somehow connect with Draco Malfoy? I don't know, some people have weird obsessions.

You're not boring! Silly girl. Sorry if I never comment. I really am lame.

Yas

[fiatincantatum.livejournal.com]

oh gads no, not that, we love it when characters come up with ideas of their own! Well, as long as they're canonically reasonable and/or developed slowly over the course of time if they're marginal. We're really leery of the "marginal" ideas unless it's someone we've seen play and know we can trust. But if there is something official planned, something designed specifically for your character (the way we are with Percy and Lupin) or for a group that your character belongs to (such as the Order or Draco's gang) then you aren't in on the planning of that.

You can even suggest plots and get people to help you with them. An example would be a character of mine that I want to become an Auror, except that he's rather self-contained/ self-centered/ what have you. Very intellgent, but not too interested in anything other than what's going on inside his own head. In order for him to become an Auror, he has to become the sort of person who does something like that, someone who cares enough about *something* to put him or herself on the line for it. Right now, he's too dispassionate. My "desired plot" is for things to happen to him that will turn him into that person. I'm sure it will be very unpleasant for him *evil grin* and I am looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Have added you to AIM, etc, to continue this, so we're not spamming Clio's LJ. AIM name is same as LJ name.

Game is found here (http://www.thefloonetwork.org/) if you're curious.

[fiatincantatum.livejournal.com]

OK, cannot even get the URL for my own game right. See icon, that one I know is right!

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Clio! I wasn't here, I didn't read it, I would like to read a lovely thoughtful post since I am feeling burned from vitriol from one I hadn't expected vitriol for.
I think fandom would be much much nicer for more moderation.
Also you are not boring.
Also... don't be sad...?

[lissannej.livejournal.com]

I did read your post, because I read all your posts, but since I have zero interest in RPGs, I didn't feel like I had anything useful to comment. I think you should have kept the post public :-)

[thegraybook.livejournal.com]

Poor Maya! Who was mean to you?

And Clio, you know I don't care about RPG's but I am sorry you took down the original post - you always have good things to say.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

I miss D&D desperately. LJ RPGs are nowhere close, but, like D&D, they are for the participants, not the audience. This isn't Hollywood.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly.

I'm sure I've discussed the origins of that community a bajillion times by now, but the people who want to be jealous of NA aren't going to fact-check before they assume what they want to assume.

Eh. The game's over, and its players are irreproachable to me, which is all I really care about.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

PVP! I haven't been there in ages. :D

And, not that I follow other RPGs with regularity by any stretch of the imagination, but there are RPGs out there which automatically create their own fan community at the onset of their game, which just boggles my mind. Fan communities can't really be created, they generally just occur spontaneously and naturally, exactly like Nraged did.

And it seems to me that if you're operating from that mentality from the start--that you can kind of cultivate your own fans--then you're not going to have a successful RPG, because you're going to be so focused on the people watching you and worrying what they think, you won't be able to focus on your characterizations and on just having fun, which is the most important thing.

Also, diving off-topic: I would greatly appreciate your thoughts and feedback on this (http://www.livejournal.com/users/wayfairer/421574.html).

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I think that generally what happened was that rpgs floated into a fandom set up for fanfic. Some of the first ones, like XX, were really more like extended group writing projects, hence the idea that the GM wasn't the only person who knew what would happen. But also, hence the idea that the people outside the game were going to offer a certain amount of criticism that the players were supposed to listen to. And when they didn't, that led to a feeling that NA was rather cliquey. But I'm with you. The game is for the players.

Of course, the whole thing of how Nraged came about has been documented to death, and the fact that other rpgs came with their fan comms pre-set up is a whole other kettle of fish.

It's funny, it's just like LJ. Is blogging for an audience? I'm not sure. But LJ absolutely is. Everything in fandom, it seems, is up for critique. Your very life, even. It's mad.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's not that you are too boring to respond to; perhaps it's that others might have nothing interesting to offer in response.

That seems rather upsetting. I get a lot of that and I'm not sure what to do about it. Am I just so very intimidating? I can't imagine that it's just that my arguments are air-tight; if I were that good I'd be yammering about everything endlessly. Am I that unwelcoming? That makes me rather sad, really, that people don't feel they can make a comment here.

I don't know, I've reached this sort of weird middle, which makes me thrash about a good deal. I go through long periods of having my attitude toward fandom and status and that sort of thing more or less worked out, and then something shifts and I have to do it all over again. Better to be at the top or the bottom, I say. Though, that's probably a fairly uncharitable attitude, but at least you know what to expect.

[misscora.livejournal.com]

-spams Clio`s journal because I want her to join to...-

Jules, do check out the game Fiat`s talking about. I think you`d like it, and the players (-cough--cough-shameless--cough-) are a lot of fun.

[misscora.livejournal.com]

I don`t find you intimidating, but I think if I hadn`t met you the way I did (at the very beginning of my fandom stuff) I might have. It`s not so much that you`re arguments are always airtight, but rather they are well thought through and reasonable and in fandom that`s really, really rare. I think the reason the vitrol gets a large response is that it`s easy to have an opinion about - you don`t have to think at all in order to know if you agree or disagree with someone who says `This thing here sucks and anyone who likes it sucks more`. You either do or you don`t. Your posts, on the other hand, have reason in them, and a lot of people are too lazy (I think, becaue I`m a cynic) to try and really think it through.

-loves you-

[wordplay.livejournal.com]

I took a bit to think about this and even as I sat down to respond I didn't really know what I was going to say. I was going to give it a shot anyway because I'm foolhardy like that. :D

And then I started that first sentence, and for some reason it was clear. This isn't about intimidation at all, silly; it's about respect. When you respect someone's thoughts and opinions, you don't just respond with the first thing that comes to mind. You take some time, consider their words, and carefully craft a response. A lot of us check the flist on the fly, so we respond to stupid shit like bacon polls and posts about boots (to pick two of my own recent complete contentless posts) and leave anything that requires real thought for that mythical "later" that we all seem to be living for. And this f_s is so unworthy of respect, and so very easy to pick at - of COURSE he gets high comments, because it's always easy and fun to mock and run. (That should be f_w's slogan, I think.)

And that's what I mean by my fangirling of you, Clio; I hope it didn't make you uncomfortable. Just that I don't know you very well at all (we barely spoke because I was doing my "OMG will be mute and shy now!" routine) but what I have seen is intriguing and likable and inspires respect. And that just has to do with you.

So. That's what I think. I actually don't think this is about fandom status at all, although I may be wrong. Like you, I'm at an age where I have been in and out of a number of different kinds of communities, and so I mostly grok status for what it is and usually see through it. I will admit to having spent more time scratching my head over the whole thing in the last several months since decloaking in the fandom, though. It's an odd thing, and I wish it didn't trouble you. For that matter, I wish it never troubled me, either. :))

(I do get, by the way, that this kind of wibble is probably one of those fleeting varieties, and that by now you are probably largely over it and so I'm rambling on about something that you now feel sort of strange about, but still. RESPECT. And so here I ramble.)

...

I can't believe I'm posting this not behind a filter. *is shy* Post some more so it gets buried really deep, OK? :))

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I know it should be its own reward, and most of the time it is, and sometimes, it just isn't. And boy howdy, when it isn't, it isn't.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

You, actually, are one of the people I sort of vaguely know IS there, and I have to say, it's an honour to be one of the journals you read. It really is.

Thanks. Sorry for being the occasional brat!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

After a lot of talking back and forth mostly with Aja, I think I've come to a place where there can be players and there can be fans, but rarely can they meet peaceably. The players really do have to form a little clique and put up their walls if the game is going to succeed. The problem is, that sort of behaviour in fandom tends to get you wanked, as though you think you're better than everyone else, when really, you just need to focus on playing the game!

So while I think that the reaction of the fans, and their conversations, can be a lovely added bit for the other fans, I think the players have to be careful how much they interact with that, or it will be ruined for players and fans alike.

Thanks for replying!