everyone needs a bad rper
I think it's the true sign that my fandom has finally died that bad_rpers_suck is being taken over by Sages rants/wank, and the days of Potter!wank are but a glistening memory.
A h , f o r t h e g o o d o l d d a y s , w h e n e v e r y o t h e r p o s t w a s H a r r y P o t t e r w a n k , a n d di d n o t a l l r e v o l v e a r o u n d t h e s a m e t h r e e p e o p l e . A n d t o p r o v e t h a t , t r u l y , t h e g o o d o l d d a y s w e r e g o o d i n m o r e t h a n m e r e l y t h e r o s e - t i n t e d r e a r v i e w o f m y s u n g l a s s e s , I b r i n g y o u t h i s p o s t .
. . . d a m m i t , n o w I h a v e t o t h i n k o f a s u b j e c t .
I h a v e i t .
E v e r y g a m e ( o r g a m i n g g r o u p ) n e e d s a b a d r o l e p l a y e r .
T h e r e a s o n s f o r t h i s a r e s i m p l e . The bad roleplayer is the person that all activity will coalesce around. If, of course, by coalescing, you mean "fleeing in terror". The other players will shun that person, IC as well as OOC, and they will never notice, if they are truly a bad roleplayer beyond redemption.
I ' d j u s t l i k e t o t a k e a m o m e n t t o p o i n t o u t t o s o m e o f t h e people t h a t I k n o w are re a d i n g t h i s b e c a u s e I m a d e t h e m r e a d i t t h a t I a m n o t t h a t p e r s o n . Y o u ' r e v e r y c l e v e r , n o w go a w a y .
W h e n y o u c a n u n i t e a g a m e a r o u nd the principle of "that one person that almost everyone hates", you can get a lot more done than if everyone is running around doing what they want to all the time. If the bad roleplayer is going to go get twinkies, you can bet that the rest of the group will have one of two reactions. Either they will go with him, on the off chance that something horrible will happen at the 7-11 (or they can make something horrible happen) or they will immediately go off on quest for !game object, leaving the bad player b e h i n d .
I n e i t h e r c a s e , a c t i v i t y h a p p e n s . A n d a c t i v i t y , a s w e a l l k n o w , i s a g o o d t h i n g . Y e s , t h e r e a r e p e o p l e w h o a b u s e t h e a c t i v i t y p r i v i l e g e b y p o s t i n g t h e s a m e a c t i v i t y o v e r a n d o v e r a n d o v e r a g a i n ( a n d I w i l l c o p t o t h a t c h a r g e , t hough there were extenuating circumstances, like lack of activity on the part of everyone except one other person) and generally what they post is smut. In that case, activity is a bad thing. But in the cases where the game is sort of waiting to see what the mods (or the GM, because this applies to good old pen-and-paper) will do, and where the game depends on the mods to be active, it is always a bonus to have a sucky rper in your game.
N o t t h a t t h i s m e a n s t h a t y o u s h o u l d r u n o u t a n d a c c e p t t h e f i r s t v i o l e t - o r b e d , f l a m e - h a i r e d , f a i r y - w i n g e d b o o b g o d d e s s t o a p p l y . S e e p r e v i o u s p a r a g r a p h a b o u t s m u t . B u t i f y o u c a n a c c e p t o n e o r t w o t r u l y g h a s t l y w i t h o u t b e i n g g e n u i n e l y offensive players, you're in good with the activity, because everyone else in game will hate them, and the mods will either not throw them out, or point blank refuse to cop to having balls and confront them about their sucky rping. (Note that this is often a technique, when employed well, to keep the game active by keeping sucky players in.)
L o n g a g o , b a c k b e f o r e t h e d a y s o f d i s c o v e r i n g s l a s h , H a r r y P o t t e r s l a s h , t h e H a r r y P o t t e r c a n o n , a n d o n l i n e r o l e p l a y i n g ( i n e x a c t l y t h a t o r d e r , I p r o m i s e y o u ) I p l a y e d i n a T a l a m a s c a g a m e . I t w a s o f t e n r e f e r r e d t o a s t h e g a m e t h a t w o u ld not die, and I am fully confident that, should graeae want to, we could run another session or ten of that tomorrow, with barely a pause to remember our last characters. This is, bear in mind, ten years after the original game folded (and adulthood happened to the gaming group, which meant "psychodrama"). But for a long time, there was no game we wanted to play more than Talamasca. And when there was, it was something called Zero Hour, which was remarkably sim i l a r .
B u t I d i g r e s s .
I n T a l a m a s c a , w e h a d a p l a y e r t h a t I w i l l , f o r t h e s a k e o f r a n d o m n e s s , c a l l C , w h o p l a y e d a c h a r a c t e r t h a t , a t l e a s t a t t h e p o i n t I r e m e m b e r h i m , w a s h e a v i l y t a k e n f r o m M a g e t r a d i t i o n s . O r w e ' l l say that, because I don't have a fucking clue, but I do know that he used to trot off all the time to get more spells. Other than that, my main interaction with C was to become his stepmother, which amused the hell out of all of us, except for him, the moment I grounded him. Obviously, this is not C's real initial, because I am afraid that merely mentioning C's real initial would cause the demonpits to spew forth tentacly slime, and I just got this jacket drycleaned.
C w a s , i n m a n y w a y s , n o d i f f e r e n t f r o m o r d i n a r y t e e n a g e r s - c a p a b l e o f g r e a t p s y c h o d r a m a , a m b i g u o u s l y i n v o l v e d w i t h , a l t e r n a t e l y , h i s g i r l f r i e n d a n d h i s s a m e - g e n d e r ( i e , m a l e ) b e s t f r i e n d , a f r a i d o f f r e e w a y s , e a s y t o m a k e s c r e a m , c r y , or squeak, in some cases with only a look, and an attention-whore of the highest level. However, C had one feature that differentiated him from the vast herd of teenagers at my high school (funny how you find those there, innit?) - he was a gamer. And even more than that, the icing on the cake, he was a bad gamer.
T h e s o l e r e a s o n t h a t h e w a s t o l e r a t e d i n t h i s g a m i n g g r o u p w a s , n o m i n a l l y , b e c a u s e o f h i s c o n n e c t i o n s ( l a b y r i n t h i n e ) t o t h e G M - d u o . B e c a u s e h e t r u l y , d e e p l y , a n d a w e s o m e l y s u c k e d . S u c k e d w i t h t h e p o w e r o f a t h o u s a n d f i r e y s u n s . S u c k e d to the point of violent personal hatred, not merely on my part but on the part of others.
And yet, the GMs would not, seemingly, get spines and get him gone. At first, I was prepared to accept this, as it seemed truly that getting rid of him would entail amputating roughly half the gaming group, and there weren't that many of us, alone and in the wilderness back in the dark days of 1992-1996, at my high school.
S o w e k e p t h i m .
I t w a s n ' t u n t i l y e a r s l a t e r t h a t h a l f o f t h e G M - d u o , i n a m a n n e r a k i n t o t h e c e r e m o n y o f p a s s i n g o n a s m a l l b u t v a l u a b l e p i e c e o f K r y p t o n i t e i n t h e L u t h o r f a m i l y , r e v e a l e d t h e r e a s o n w h y C w a s a l l o wed to continue playing, and it had nothing to do with his connections. It had a lot to do with the fact that, whatever he did, the group was determined to do the opposite. If he was active, and the group wanted to be active, rest assured, he could go to the Plane of Wank all by himself, and we would go check out the Coven Of Scantily-Clad Stewardesses, or something. If he wanted to sit around and bullshit, the rest of the group STILL wanted to go check out Scantily-Clad Stewardesses*. And if we wanted to sit around and bullshit (IC, I will add, to forestall the accusations that we were all sucky rpers and simply in denial), that didn't replenish his deuterium power packs or whatever the shit he needed to do (it also didn't get him unpinned from the floor the night Cthulu came to call on him and him alone) so he would go racing off to do something, and the rest of us would be united in our dislike of him, and would do things! In-game things! It would be fun!
A n d t h e r e a s o n I h a v e d r a g g e d o u t t h i s l e n g t h y e x a m i n a t i o n o n W h y C S u c k e d ? B e c a u s e . T h e f a c t t h a t h e s u c k e d m e a n t t h a t t h e r e s t o f u s d i d n ' t s p e n d t i m e f i g h t i n g o v e r w h o w a s g o i n g t o D R I V E t o g o c h e c k o u t t h e S c a n t i l y - C l a d S t e w a r d e s s e s , w e j u s t w e n t . W e d i d n ' t w a n t h i m a l o n g , a n d i t m a d e f o r a s u r p r i s i n g a m o u n t o f a g r e e m e n t , t o h a v e o n e p l a y e r ( a n d c h a r a c t e r , h i s c h a r a c t e r w a s a t o t a l j a c k a s s t o o ) t h a t w e h a t e d .
O r , t o t o t a l l y b o t c h s o m e o n e f a m o u s ' w i s d o m , i n a f a mine situation, everyone's too hungry to fight. But when there's plenty on the table, it's time to go to war. C made every game a famine situation. He brought his whirling vortex of suck with him everywhere, and it united the rest of the group against him.
But we couldn't throw him out. He was in too close to the mods, we thought. We couldn't stop the mods from inviting who they wanted to invite - if we wanted to have a game without him, then we by-damn had better plan on running games of our own.
So there we were, united against C, and unable to get rid of him.
It was a situation that made for a lot of activity.
And it's advice that I have applied to later life as well. Of the games I have run or been a part of, I can confidently state that the ones that had a C in them were better than the ones that weren't. (And for those of you waiting till now to scream that I am C, I will poit out that the games that didn't have a C that I could identify as such didn't react that way to me, therefore I did not fill that role.)
So gather round, ye seekers of good rp, and I will give you the mysterious piece of advice, in a chain unbroken from GM to GM for at least two years: accept a player you don't like. Accept a Slyther!Sue, accept a total wanker (though try to steer clear of the ones with real social disorders), accept your fandom's closest version of a Slyther!Sue.
Your players will unite in hate against them and will be active. And you will thank the ghost of that long-ago total wanker C, for having brought this revelation forth upon the earth. And somewhere, god will drive tiny darts of pain into his skin for every thought of that sort directed at him. And I will be pleased, because there's such a thing as forgiving and forgetting, but that is not the Italian-American way .
* T h e r e a r e a d v a n t a g e s t o g a m i n g b e f o r e t h e d a w n o f P C .