#merely roleplayers

[merelymatt]

Audio Drama Sunday is for questioning who governs

🤖 Metropolis by @luxradium. "Every city is built on top of a sewer." What a great first episode. I love stories about cities, especially ones that aren't what they want you to think they are. I'm also a sucker for when a character encourages someone to live up to their potential and it gets them into trouble, maybe killed – but maybe they went out doing what they were really born to do!! Plus, just look at that cover art (by Michael Hirshon).

🐉 World Gone Wrong from Audacious Machine. They just keep nailing it with this show. I think because it's the feeling of being an ordinary person in strange times that they're trying to capture. This is an election episode, and the exaggeration of a literal dragon running for office is wryly funny, but what really works is the exhaustion of just not even having the capacity to be outraged or weirded out any more. Plus the idea of voting as choosing which final boss you'd rather fight is inspired.

And what's new from me and @foggyoutline this week?

Also an episode about how you get the people in power to do the right thing – I'm deliberately referencing stuff like 5calls.org but I didn't deliberately schedule it for US election season, that part just sort of happened.

We got to give Dédé Davi her audio drama debut – she'd done ad and corporate voiceover before but not acting. If you like her performance, she's looking for more parts in audio drama, so go cast her!

And Backstage on @merelyroleplayers, we're doing character creation, with the slight twist that it's a new character coming into an eatablished setting, played by an established player who retired her first character. It changes the maths a little bit – there's a lot of rules and lore there already that you're slotting into (not that Ellie doesn't add plenty more of her own in this episode! 🧛‍♀️)

[merelyroleplayers]

Opening in the Studio on New Year's Eve:

Her Many Masks

An emotional journey in 3 acts, using For The Queen (2nd edition) by Alex Roberts, published by Darrington Press.

Music by Alexander Pankhurst

Cover art by @merelymatt including assets by Timplaru Emil, Muhammad Fathurrahman, and Carlos Vila on Vecteezy

[foggyoutline]

Ready: Watch Amira's awakening now

▶️ New animation: Amira investigates plastic tree guards, promoting Friends of the Dales' Living Woods campaign

🎧 Scary tales for Hallowe'en in new episodes of I Need A Miracle ( @inyourbenevolence ) and @merelyroleplayers

🛄 Callum speed-runs airport security in a new chapter of A Net Too Wide To Break His Fall

The Ready edition of Ready & Waiting, our fortnightly email newsletter, is all about the things we've made that are out there for you to enjoy right now.

[merelyroleplayers]

We played Gertrude's surprise birthday party on What Am I Rolling?!

Have you played YAZEBA'S BED AND BREAKFAST ?

By Mercedes Acosta, Jay Dragon, M Veselak, and Lillie Harris

A slice-of-life legacy tabletop role-playing game about a found family and their magical home.

[prokopetz]

The thing about the idea that "rules don't matter" in tabletop RPGs is that, while it's obviously wrong, there's only one relatively narrow sense in which it's actually a problem.

There are basically three major strands of "rules don't matter":

Groups for whom the rules don't matter because they aren't playing a game as we'd conventionally think of it – they're having a freeform RP jam, and occasionally letting a coin-flip decide what happens next for spice. The particulars of rules-based procedures aren't relevant to these groups because they're not following any particular procedures. This is perfectly fine; sure, some players who favour this approach like to go online and write bloviating thinkpieces about how all tabletop roleplayers secretly want to be doing freeform RP, and anyone who claims otherwise is simply too stupid or brainwashed to understand that they're not truly having fun, but that's not doing any harm – it's merely annoying.

Groups who have a narrow idea of what it's possible to do with tabletop RPGs. They'll look at the fact that it's possible to run – for example – a sword and sorcery dungeon crawl and a cyberpunk heist caper using the exact same set of rules, and conclude from this that it must not really matter what rules you use; of course, the real reason this works is because in terms of their formal and narrative structures, a sword and sorcery dungeon crawl and a cyberpunk heist caper are nearly identical. Again, this isn't hurting anyone – if they want to run endless reskinned dungeon crawls in a variety of milieux, that's their business, and the worst that can be said for it is that some people are a little annoying about it.

Groups who do want to play a game with a formal structure, and who recognise that rules have opinions about how the game ought to be played, but think it doesn't matter because if there's ever a disagreement between the game the rules want to produce and the game the group wants to play, the GM can fix it on the fly. This is always going to happen to some extent, because the rules and the group will never perfectly agree about how the game ought to be played, but positioning the ability to repair that disagreement regardless of its magnitude as a basic expectation of any GM is one of the reasons we have so many folks who GM for a year or two, the burn out and never touch a tabletop RPG again.

Basically, "rules don't matter because we don't use them" and "rules don't matter because tabletop RPGs are only one thing" are largely harmless, but "rules don't matter because something something Rule Zero" is demonstrably harmful, and we need to cut that shit out.

[sophieinwonderland]

Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I feel like roleplayers, depending on how much they get into their roles and how naturally the responses come, are a little bit plural. Not totally plural exactly, cause I’m assuming here that they don’t actually have the people chillin in their brains when they aren’t roleplaying, but if it gets to the extent where you talk as them so often they feel like their own person…

I agree, at least to an extent. I don't think that this applies to all roleplayers. I mean, we have roleplayed as characters that are very distinct from headmates. But I think that there are some role-playing techniques that are actually dissociative.

There's a bit of a spectrum here that I don't think is talked about enough.

On the completely singlet end, you have the non-dissociative roleplay character.

This is pure pretend. The roleplayer is simply pretending to be somebody else. In this case, I think the roleplaying is entirely external. Non-dissociative roleplay is just acting.

Then towards the middle, you have dissociative roleplaying. The dissociative roleplaying character will be embodied internally. They are not merely acting as the character but they begin thinking the thoughts that the character would think.

The difference between these is that when something happens that would make the roleplaying character angry, the non-dissociative roleplayer will try to act angry because that is how the character is supposed to act. But the dissociative roleplayer is going to actually feel that anger as the character. They are not pretending to be angry. Their brain is actually triggering the same reactions as it would if the person was actually upset.

Then at the far end is where you have the roleplaying tulpa. At this point, they are fully plural. The roleplaying character has gained self-awareness and autonomy, and they are able to communicate with other headmates in the system. They can offer advice completely separate from the game. They will also probably be aware of the game they were playing, and have meta-awareness of the outside reality.

[marbled-magician]

🥀OOC// Responding to @//an-honest-endeavor [LAST PART]

CONTEXT

—————

1. Alright, I’ll admit that I should’ve reached out in private first, I deeply apologize about that. Though, the admins that reached out to me have been hesitant to talk about this for a reason I won’t disclose. I decided to be their voice. I don’t see anything wrong about speaking up for my comrades.

2. Let me be frank, and I’m sure many others will agree with me- IC Endeavor wouldn’t flirt with a villain, or anyone unless there’s a bond, this is not the main concern though. @kaichisaki-rp informed to me that they never sent any anonymous questions to your inbox about making a move on them. It could’ve been literally anyone else that sent those messages, it’s anonymous for a reason. And the admin behind Overhaul was very genuine about what they told me. The reason why I’m high on my horses is because these are my friends you’re making uncomfortable with your interactions. I’m not doing this ‘just because’, I’m doing this because I get pissed when my comrades are uncomfortable. Here’s what I’m talking about:

3. The admin of Yumiko gave me permission to SS their explanation of their OC’s behalf:

Like I said before, Endeavor was half the fuel to Dabi’s character. I’ll not argue about the dabi-endeavor topic any longer, since both characters are in the wrong in their own ways anyway.

4. @dabis-blueflame’s admin told me you’ve been annoying them in the beginning of when the rp blogs started to appear. Speaking about Dabi IC, he wouldn’t want to talk to Endeavor.

5. I did not wake up and decide randomly to bully you, I’m merely just speaking out about my comrades’ feelings (that they were hesitant to speak about). It wasn’t my intention at all. How is this bullying you? Does speaking up for my friends count as bullying you? I’m doing this for my comrades, not you. You’re the one that’s freaking out and handling this immaturely. All I’m doing is looking out for my comrades. The SS’s are what’s backing me up on me and my friends’ statements, that is all.

Unfortunately, some people have a hard time turning down certain things due to the fear of being yelled at, or make the person upset. No one wants to make anyone upset. Let’s look back at this SS again from my previous post:

Overhaul’s admin was answering the way they believed Overhaul would respond IC, but you got upset about that and showed you were not happy about their rejection. This stressed out the admin. I know this because they came to me to express how stressed they were, telling me they possibly offended you and made you upset.

—————

I’m sure you’re not a bad person, genuinely. Just please be aware of what you say sometimes, because there will be roleplayers that are hesitant to express their feelings.

I will no longer respond to anything else regarding this. This wasn’t meant to be a big deal, but if I were in your shoes, I would’ve felt somewhat attacked, so I greatly apologize for making you feel that way. Don’t make me stop you from what you enjoy doing. Keep interacting with whoever you please 🙏

[merelyroleplayers]

Jinny becomes a god of vengeance

Cameron, a god of war (vengeance is his whole thing but Jinny's much more the eye-for-an-eye type, Cameron's revenge has more of the character of a crusade)

Renko is a god of secrets and mysteries

Mick would be a forge god, a god of smiths and crafters

Kincaid is a god of roads, the straighter the road, the more devout the prayer

Percy could be a god of time, or another of the forge (she and Mick hammer in the divine forge while watching Ice Road Truckers), or a goddess of gates and walls

Jess is a kindly god of the dead, or of death itself, a bridge between death and life, with maybe a psychopomp role, a redeemer

Harper could be a god of twilight, or of knowledge, maybe both, seeking secrets in shadows (what do you reckon, @nanaluvren?)

Calistarius is a god of wisdom and stories

Melody is a god of music and coming-together places, cafes and town squares and markets

Then the actually-supernatural characters, who aren't far off being gods already:

Brier is obviously a trickster god, and a god of the forest

Graham's a god of lies, leaning strongly towards self-deception

And Gwyn actually is a god these days so she doesn't count for this game

We've got a cleric and a wizard of Kalakta in our campaign... but what would the PCs be gods of? ⚡️

(I think Morgan would be god of waistcoats) 👿

[thetepes]

This might be a bit too much information (sorry) but I just wanna say: I’ve dabbled in nonsexual age regression before. I’ve never engaged in any roleplay pertaining to it with a second person, I’ve never viewed it in a sexual light, etc. Within the Agere community, there is a majority sentiment that is strictly nonsexual and people with this sentiment do not want to even interact with anyone sexually age regressing.

From what I’ve seen of Patricia Taxxon, her agere is almost completely sexual. And while I usually dont condemn coping mechanisms for being the only thing some people have to relieve the trauma (especially since agere IS a coping mechanism often), it’s naive to ignore that there is a subset of sexualized age regression that’s more for sexual gratification of pedophilic tendencies over trauma reclamation or merely coping. Thus why majority of the agere community insist on only interacting with fellow nonsexual members.

This is especially true when there’s also the phenomenon of predators who roleplay as the victim in order to normalize and/or get off to pedophilia in the “correct” way. The “I’m the victim, I’m not the perpetrator” framing can feel more palatable to the roleplayer who apparently suffers from “fearing of being a pedophile”.

Oh also she pairs all of this with incest. So yeah, it’s sexual gratification.

Sorry again if this is TMI, I just wanted to tell someone why Patricia’s whole baby thing felt disingenuous and honestly suspicious even as an age regressor myself.

Hey, deep breath. It's all good. It's not TMI, we're having a discussion about these things. You're welcome here and your insight is appreciated.

You're so right about the “I’m the victim, I’m not the perpetrator” angle too. Making yourself the victim, if anything, makes it more harmful to yourself and then pairing that with engaging with others in it?

It's harm. It's all harm. There's nothing good coming of this. It's all sexual and nothing about this is healing, Very obviously, given how bad it's gotten.

Thank you so much for the anon.

[merelymatt]

The Audio Drama Sunday after spooky night

I finished The Mask of Inanna just in time for Alicia Goranson's new series to start. This week, Jenny goes round 2 with Hunger, the reality warping godling that will try every manipulative trick in the book to get you to walk willingly into its mouth.

I did not expect to get so fired up by a description of a handshake, but this is a handshake between the two most competitive jousters in Spèir. It's Liz Anderson describing her character guarding their food from all the flying debris kicked up by the handshake shockwave that really did it for me.

It's the Audio Drama Sunday after spooky night, so here's the spooky special I enjoyed the most this week – Beef and Dairy's first guest-written episode, which gets deep into the mythos of milk.

And here's what's out from me this week

More by luck than judgement, one of the darkest episodes of the season dropped on Hallowe'en. When everyone – everyone – has a direct line to the divine, the world is not going to be all sunshine and rainbows.

And in the midpoint episode of Tailor Made, Cal concentrates on getting the residents out of the house while Peggy delves deeper in.

[merelyroleplayers]

Now playing in the Main House

Act Four of Five: Test your smoke alarms and check your boiler regularly. Otherwise your home can really hurt you.

Coming next on 26 November – Vigil: Tailor Made, Act 5

Programme notes

This production contains strong language, drug use, gunfire, and gory fantasy violence.

Meet actual play podcasters and see some live recordings at the Dragonmeet PodcastZone in London on 30 November.

Back the Slayers Survival Kit and Hunter’s Journal, two new Monster of the Week books.

Luvvie alert! We simply must introduce you to OMEN Investigations, a comedy horror podcast starring three secret agents as they travel the world fighting monsters, ghosts, aliens and other paranormal perils.

Dramatis personae and other definitions

Peggy Tailor: The prodigal daughter of a local family that dabbles in fey frolicking and organised crime, back in town to lay low after a grift gone horribly wrong.

Calistarius Softbinding: A local horror writer with a cult following, who sponsored the construction of a whole new wing of Sherrydown’s library. Calistarius Softbinding is a nom de plume.

Ed Kincaid: A once promising, now disgraced MI5 agent assigned to investigate the more … esoteric threats reported to the national security hotline.

Jinny Greenteeth: Proprietor of the Grove of Oddities, a tacky Sherrydown tourist attraction. In a past life, Jinny was branded a witch after a series of drownings in her Lancashire village.

Department of Omissions (DO, DoOm): The UK government department tasked with preventing harm to citizens from supernatural phenomena. Severely defunded under Tory austerity policies and currently prioritising major urban population centres.

Sherrydown, Brackshire: A historic English market town. One of the first towns to lose its DoOm office.

Omission effect: The rejection of certain beings and phenomena by long-term memory. Recently lifted.

Credits

COMPERE: Matt Boothman

STARRING:

Ellie Pitkin as Peggy Tailor, the Crooked

Chris Buxey as Calistarius Softbinding, the Expert

Chris MacLennan as Ed Kincaid, the Professional

Josh Yard as Jinny Greenteeth, the Spellslinger

with Chris Starkey as Cameron Jarvis

ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands

MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst

SOUND DESIGN BY: Matt Boothman

SFX AND INCIDENTAL MUSIC INCLUDES: Mirage by Kevin MacLeod; and may include others made available to use without attribution.

EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman

Find us

On Instagram @MerelyRoleplayers

On Tumblr @merelyroleplayers

www.MerelyRoleplayers.com

[merelymatt]

Chris (who plays Kincaid in Merely Roleplayers: Vigil) is the determinist friend to the extent that he tried that line in a maths exam

Me: wow three nat 1s in a row the odds of that are like one in eight-thousand

My determinist friend: actually the probability of it happening was one-hundred percent because it happened

[foggyoutline]

Ready: Once-familiar houses

The Ready edition of our newsletter is all about stuff we've polished and published, read for you to experience right now. Including, in this issue:

☀️ Why isn't solar energy powering everything?, a new lecture series

🎧 New episodes of @inyourbenevolence and @merelyroleplayers

🤠 A tense showdown back where it all started, in the new chapter of A Net Too Wide To Break His Fall

[fandomsoda]

If you label people you don’t know as “roleplayers” or “fakers” simply for existing in a way that you for some reason don’t deem “valid” I sincerely want you to re-examine your own values.

You are not being progressive or protecting your community. You are participating in lateral oppression.

When a group of people are simply trying to mind their own business and exist in peace alongside you and your immediate reaction is to demonize them and treat them like vermin, you are the asshole.

Have whatever reservations you want, think whatever you want, feel however you do, there is no such thing as a thought crime and it is ok to have beliefs. But the second you start preaching hatred or treating people as less than or denying their existence publicly, that is when you become an oppressor.

Those are real people on the other side of the screen. They are not just pixels, they are not just characters. You are not fighting against a notion or concept, you are attacking the existence of real, living, breathing people. Identities and experiences are not mere ideas. They have people attached to them. People who are hurt by hateful rhetoric.

And if this post angers you, please examine why the message of “don’t be cruel to people�� upsets you. I don’t mean that snarkily, please genuinely think about why someone reminding you of others’ humanity pisses you off. That upset at having your ideas challenged is natural, but try thinking deeper about it for a moment, you might understand yourself a little better. /gen

[life-winners-liveblog]

There were cases where I'd go into collabs with people, and they'd ask me to say specific voice lines to trigger a storyline event for them.. that didn't line up with how I want to portray myself so it put me in a weird position. (asking me to be the villain as an example)

-fwhip on his twitter. he has also discussed more about this and not liking being the villain on his streams (not in the traditional blow- things-up way -he doesn't mind that)

ofc it's a matter of personal opinion but i think that no matter what we should respect people's boundaries even if nobody is looking. just because they are creators does not make them any less human and give us any more right to invalidate their boundaries- whether they can see us or not. saying that they give us the material to construct these storylines (like the creepy shrine thing) doesn't mean we should if they don't want us to- if that makes sense. this may be an unpopular opinion of mine and i hold nothing against you author, i completely understand wanting to show people how bad these types of things are - heaven knows there are some reall pieces of work out there.

i have watched fwhip for a reallly long time and there's been a lot of issues with him being portrayed rather nastily in the fanbase, and he doesn't seem to like it all that well.

i'm not saying you should retcon-maybe just mention it less? and besides these are just my own thoughts and you should run the blog however you see fit. i am merely a person on the internet that rather liked your blog but this recent storyline rubs me the wrong way because of this, so i shall return once its over :) hope u have a nice day!

... That just means he doesn't want to be forced to play the villain which is like understandable because he just wants to play his characters how he wants which is what every roleplayer wants but that is a completely different thing.

Still, I was already planning on it being mentioned less as it makes sense too, the realization has happened, Jimmy broke trough the denial It's not like he's going to mention it if the whispers don't push...if they do push then I can't really do much about that...every mention of it will have the tw: sa tag on it so if you want you can block It! And soon there will be more lighthearted stuff! I promise!

[merelymatt]

Yes! And A Horror Borealis' Keeper Alex Flanigan wrote a micro-RPG called WONDERS which we're playing on @merelyroleplayers next week!