11-19-2015, 10:28 PM
By personal agenda I mean godmodding and mary sue-ish behavior, yes. But I also mean running a plot just so you can get a shiny you want, so you can punish a PC you don't like, and generally running something involving multiple characters strictly for your own benefit with little regard to the other people involved. Here's some examples. They are extreme examples and thankfully I had far more good incidents instead of bad, but this should make it plain what I mean...
I once had someone who ran a plot on a site I GMd on back in 1996 set up something for a PC that he knew was quiet, and because of circumstances at the time was downright sulking. Knowing this, he ran the plot so that the character might as well have not been there and all of his characters got the accolades. He bragged about how his characters all blew the PC off during the plot and how it had been the character's decision to be a useless lump during the plot so he had full justification to. When I asked him why he did it knowing the character was going to act that way he blew me off and we decided not to let him run plots by himself anymore.
We had another plot where we learned too late that the GM had bias towards thieves and roguish types. During interrogation when the PC was caught for a minor offense the law suddenly decided to throw the book at him and he actually invented an interrogator who played on each and every one of the PCs weaknesses. The PC claimed to be a potter and when asked about his job answered admirably in my opinion, but the interrogation continued and every creative and clever reply he made was dismissed and later he was forced to confess or stay in that plot limbo forever. We managed to have him rescued and didn't let the GM run plots with roguish characters anymore.
I had someone who was an otherwise good player suddenly start showing me pictures of 'just something random they drew' of a weird chimera type critter. She'd tell me about the character little by little until eventually she confessed that it was a character that she wanted to play on the roleplay site that broke all of the rules. This person was a great roleplayer, but when given things that were overpowered they would get snobbish, bullying, and lord their little shinything over everyone. So, from past experience, I knew that if I had given them this character it would have been like setting godzilla loose on the playerbase. They quit over not being allowed to play the character despite it not even being one that the setting allowed (This was like someone wanted to play a purple horse that somehow happened to have cat claws, a scorpion tail, and variable venom glands in its jaw along with tons of secret magic powers on Aukate, as comparison.)
I could spin examples over and over and over, but it all boils down to the philosophy I'm explaining. We give you as much as you're trusted with. If the trust is abused, things will adjust accordingly. If we get a return for our investment in trust, we will give a little more. I find it more fair than having a strict line of 'EVERYONE WILL DO THINGS THIS WAY' rule which punishes the people who genuinely want to involve folks in fun plots and have creative ideas.
Tamara will have opportunities to interact with other characters in bootcamp. When she does, we'll read and watch like we do with everyone. If she does something that strikes us as 'Wow, that was clever/creative/nice' and/or 'that was nice of her to try and encourage X-minion to work with her' we will notice, remember, and give her more opportunities to and potentially opportunities that make doing so easier and more fun. But if it ends up like the examples I cited above, we'll adjust accordingly.
I once had someone who ran a plot on a site I GMd on back in 1996 set up something for a PC that he knew was quiet, and because of circumstances at the time was downright sulking. Knowing this, he ran the plot so that the character might as well have not been there and all of his characters got the accolades. He bragged about how his characters all blew the PC off during the plot and how it had been the character's decision to be a useless lump during the plot so he had full justification to. When I asked him why he did it knowing the character was going to act that way he blew me off and we decided not to let him run plots by himself anymore.
We had another plot where we learned too late that the GM had bias towards thieves and roguish types. During interrogation when the PC was caught for a minor offense the law suddenly decided to throw the book at him and he actually invented an interrogator who played on each and every one of the PCs weaknesses. The PC claimed to be a potter and when asked about his job answered admirably in my opinion, but the interrogation continued and every creative and clever reply he made was dismissed and later he was forced to confess or stay in that plot limbo forever. We managed to have him rescued and didn't let the GM run plots with roguish characters anymore.
I had someone who was an otherwise good player suddenly start showing me pictures of 'just something random they drew' of a weird chimera type critter. She'd tell me about the character little by little until eventually she confessed that it was a character that she wanted to play on the roleplay site that broke all of the rules. This person was a great roleplayer, but when given things that were overpowered they would get snobbish, bullying, and lord their little shinything over everyone. So, from past experience, I knew that if I had given them this character it would have been like setting godzilla loose on the playerbase. They quit over not being allowed to play the character despite it not even being one that the setting allowed (This was like someone wanted to play a purple horse that somehow happened to have cat claws, a scorpion tail, and variable venom glands in its jaw along with tons of secret magic powers on Aukate, as comparison.)
I could spin examples over and over and over, but it all boils down to the philosophy I'm explaining. We give you as much as you're trusted with. If the trust is abused, things will adjust accordingly. If we get a return for our investment in trust, we will give a little more. I find it more fair than having a strict line of 'EVERYONE WILL DO THINGS THIS WAY' rule which punishes the people who genuinely want to involve folks in fun plots and have creative ideas.
Tamara will have opportunities to interact with other characters in bootcamp. When she does, we'll read and watch like we do with everyone. If she does something that strikes us as 'Wow, that was clever/creative/nice' and/or 'that was nice of her to try and encourage X-minion to work with her' we will notice, remember, and give her more opportunities to and potentially opportunities that make doing so easier and more fun. But if it ends up like the examples I cited above, we'll adjust accordingly.