good luck to your dad on his path to downton abbey BNFdom

[rpanonyoda]

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Comments

Character Squatting

[(Anonymous)]

What do you consider character squatting? Is it something you'd bring up with that person because it might effect your character or bring it up to mods? I think games need to be a little stricter on character squatting. People who only do the minimum comments for AC or people who never finish threads but talk about rp all the time on plurk or app in 100 games but never finish plots with people and leave people hanging.

Re: Character Squatting

[(Anonymous)]

Man, this is always a hard one. It's hard for games to be strict about character squatting, because the line for what is and what isn't character squatting can sometimes be vague. Usually the definition of squatting is "Someone who barely scrapes by with AC putting in the minimum amount of effort and takes as many hiatuses are allowed by the game." Since this often doesn't break any actual hard and fast game rules, it can be hard to crack down on. And what's considered character squatting in a really fast game might be considered really active in a slow game.

So as far as defining it, I think the easiest thing to judge on is the player's activity in comparison with others in the same game. Do they tag considerably less than what is considered the average for the game? ("Considerably" being the key word here.)

Do they continuously struggle to make activity or phone their activity in, in a setting where the majority of players seem to have no trouble making AC? (If the majority of the game is struggling to make activity, that's another matter entirely.)

Do they start threads only at the end of the month to get AC and then drop them as soon as they've passed activity?

Do they have an incredibly low rate of threads that ever amount to anything, or trouble finishing or getting to the important bits?

Do they regularly handwave important interaction?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may have a character squatter on your hands.

As for bringing it up, it's a really difficult/delicate situation and personally I'd approach it on a case-by-case basis. Mods in general usually ask players to try to resolve matters on their own first before involving them, but if you don't know the person well, or if you know that they're someone who'd react badly, approaching them privately may go... badly.

If you know them well and/or you feel like they're chill, by all means approach them in person. I would probably say something like, "Hey, I notice that we've been struggling a lot to finish threads lately between (their character) and (your character). It's getting to the point where I don't know what's going on with (xyz) because of (abc). Is there anything I can do to help?"

Of course, the problem with this approach is that if they don't improve and then you take it to the mods later, you could end up with a huge blowout on your hands where the person guesses it was you who took it to the mods and gets resentful.

So if you don't think that's a viable approach, I'd just compile your evidence and send it to the mods quietly without making a huge fuss. (Of course, it does depend on your mod team. Some are strict about activity and will appreciate it being brought to their attention or will already know, others may not care or see you as a problem player for complaining about it. Choose your battles wisely depending on the mod team you have.)

Either way, I'd just write like you're bringing it to their attention and you have some concerns. They may not do anything about it, but if they receive multiple complaints from others, or if they've observed the behaviour in question for themselves, they may take the player aside for a chat. Who knows.

Either way, my condolences, anon. Character squatting is frustrating to deal with and honestly in my experience rarely does it ever end well. But I wish you good luck.

Inquisitor Lavellan | Dragon Age: Inquisition

[(Anonymous)]

Any tips for someone who is new to playing the canon? I've gone through two play-throughs of each game and feel like I know the setting well enough, but I'd like to know if there are any tips from people who have played with Inquisitors on what worked for you and what didn't work for you, especially since they're more or less subject to players choices to an extent.

TIA!

Re: Inquisitor Lavellan | Dragon Age: Inquisition

[(Anonymous)]

my advice would be to stick with canon as much as possible. nothing grinds my gears like being forced to play with a sparklesue inquisitor whose backstory doesn't follow canon. for instance, lavellan is not a foundling from another clan or a former tevinter slave who ran away from a lifetime of abuse. also don't make the inquisitor a mouthpiece for fake social justice. i've had inquisitors harp on the ELF OPPRESSION DOWN WITH THE SHEMS!!! so much that they've almost made me hate the inquisitor. (and my default inquisitor is an elf.) elves can be just as big of assholes as the rest of the races on thedas. lavellan is shown to have pride in being elven, but is not an elf supremacist and shouldn't be acting like one. if you do go that route, don't be grating oocly with it. acknowledge your inquisitor's flaws and weaknesses.

 if you app into a game with canonmates, don't throw a pa fit when the characters don't recognize your inquisitor as their inquisitor. never assume a ship and don't act like an entitled brat who deserves the ship if the castmate in question doesn't ship it or wants the ship to develop naturally.

i know this is really negative, but i have never played with an inquisitor that isn't obnoxious as hell with the elf or mage oppression, doesn't ship push or get pa when they don't get want they want, isn't a huge self-insert, and isn't a selfish jerk who thinks every thread has to revolve around the inquisitor. and that really makes me sad because the inquisitor is very important to all of the characters i play. i would love to see a well played inquisitor in dwrp and i would love to get to play with one.

[(Anonymous)]

This is absolutely helpful, thank you!

As someone who is mostly planning on sticking to PSLs, are the majority of people who play companions likely to stick with "their Inquisitor" so to speak, or is there room for compromise in that area, assuming the mun playing the Inquisitor isn't complete rubbish and open to discussion? I only ask in order to set proper expectations.

...and lo, just noticed I mis-fired. Thanks for answering anyway!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a companion player who's willing to play against Inquisitors as "my" character's Inquisitor. I think the most helpful thing you can do is present who your Inquisitor is in terms of basic personality and major decisions, up front, and then ask the other player how they think the canon character would get along with your Inquisitor. Nothing turns me off faster than having a protagonist player tell me what the relationship should be like, especially since the approval system is easy to game with dialogue choices and fetch quests. Just because you made Cassandra adore your Chantry-loathing smart ass by choosing the right dialogue in her conversations doesn't mean I want to play her as loving them and ignoring their actual personality/decisions. Being asked rather than told how they might get along alleviates 99% of my problems.

ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

if you're doing psls and memes, it's normal for the companion player to accept your inquisitor as the companion's inquisitor. i mostly play companions (and romanceable ones at that) and when i've tried playing with inquisitors on memes and psls, i always played my characters as accepting that inquisitor as theirs.

the problem i always ran into is that the inquisitor would always be played drastically different from the canon inquisitor AND the player would force the ship. but the problem was, the inquisitor was never like what we see in canon. so if you're playing a shem-hating, blood mage elf supremacist, cullen isn't going to be into having a relationship with your inquisitor. which is the kind of crap i got all the time.

if you want to play in memes and ship with companions, first ASK the player if they'd be cool doing a ship and offer to either give information about the inquisitor's personality (having this information in the journal helps immensely; many of us companion players won't tag with an inquisitor that doesn't have this information) or play out gen until the companion player gets a feel for your inquisitor's personality.

another thing to be mindful of is make sure that you don't treat the companion like they exist to provide endless love and support for your inquisitor and his/her problems. we companion players don't play companions because we want to be fun/support/prince charming dispensers for inquisitor players. we play the companions because we want to explore the characters' personalities. so when you're threading with a companion, make sure it's equal. make sure the inquisitor is giving just as much attention and support etc to the companion as you're expecting the companion player to give to your inquisitor.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Totally get it. A lot of this sounds like common-sense RP etiquette (ship-pushing, keeping character etc.) but knowing the fandom I can see why this stuff bears mentioning.

I too have a companion or two that I have on the back-burner that I want to try at (namely Leliana and Fiona maybe?) so I get the last paragraph 1000%. Thanks again for chiming in!