[Meta thread] Iron's PokeRole Adventure: The Skull Ruins

[Lord Windos]

Ventus was more or less using what was available of Apsis movepool. She only knows Glare and Poison Sting (and strike), and it was battling a dangerous carnivorous plant that would show no mercy to it if it held back, so what else was he going to command it to do? He didn't want to catch it, and the fact that it got poisoned was completely by chance.

If he wanted to be cruel to it, he could have had Ekans used Glare at the start, then stayed far away as it fired Poison Sting after Poison Sting, then when it was knocked out, had Ekans poison it on top of it being paralyzed and throw the plant in a body of water for water types to chow on. He doesn't really consider Pokémon Predation or pruning the local predatory population cruel, but now I'm just making excuses at this point, so I'll just stop.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

(...) "I don't expect you to treat me with anything less then professionalism, after my transactions caused you and Nathan so much distress. I promised that I would explain it to you, my...friend, but I can't exactly do that if you are not willing to hear me out. We both have our demons, Vince, and I would like to reveal them first to a person that can truly understand," (...)

Already showed that Shiva's understanding your situation in some way, and offered to tell what bothers him do much about the flowers. In fact, she doesn't pressure you to explain yourself about why you reacted how you did. That's worth a lot!

[Lord Windos]

(...) "I don't expect you to treat me with anything less then professionalism, after my transactions caused you and Nathan so much distress. I promised that I would explain it to you, my...friend, but I can't exactly do that if you are not willing to hear me out. We both have our demons, Vince, and I would like to reveal them first to a person that can truly understand," (...)

Already showed that Shiva's understanding your situation in some way, and offered to tell what bothers him do much about the flowers. In fact, she doesn't pressure you to explain yourself about why you reacted how you did. That's worth a lot!

Derp. I forgot about that. Well, lets just consider him saying as him trying to get Vincent to open up to him, rather than Ventus being thoughtless. He really does appreciate Shiva's unconditional acceptance and understanding of his actions, but I don't think she can quite relate to what has happened to him early in life...

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

(...) "I don't expect you to treat me with anything less then professionalism, after my transactions caused you and Nathan so much distress. I promised that I would explain it to you, my...friend, but I can't exactly do that if you are not willing to hear me out. We both have our demons, Vince, and I would like to reveal them first to a person that can truly understand," (...)

Already showed that Shiva's understanding your situation in some way, and offered to tell what bothers him do much about the flowers. In fact, she doesn't pressure you to explain yourself about why you reacted how you did. That's worth a lot!

Derp. I forgot about that. Well, lets just consider him saying as him trying to get Vincent to open up to him, rather than Ventus being thoughtless. He really does appreciate Shiva's unconditional acceptance and understanding of his actions, but I don't think she can quite relate to what has happened to him early in life...

Might not 'relate', depending what it is. But she's more than willing to listen. But I think revealing your demons in a RV with unfamiliar people (you cannot know how they would react! Plus, we don't know them, so why should they get to know about those demons as well) isn't the best idea. But after all, your choice~

[Lord Windos]

He was not planning to, unless Iron makes the back of the van soundproof or something. Still, he'll tell everyone his story eventually. It just when that is the biggest issue, my dear.

[Lord Windos]

If it seems like Ventus is still acting like a cuckloid, well that's because he's quite frustrated that he can't seem to make any headway into fixing up his relationships. There never really has been a situation that Ventus could just explain things or make it up excessively to whatever party he offended or caused trouble, but now he's hit a wall, so to speak.

He wants and desires to explain just WHY he went frothing mad towards almost everyone in the flower field, but no one is giving him the time of day besides Shiva. Heck, he even went well past his comfort zone and was fully willing to give his background to Vincent and the rest of the group, but he's been rebuffed at almost every step. I can't blame Nathan and Vincent from being cold towards him, since he did threaten to use his Ekans on the whole lot, and was only stopped when Vincent stepped in and chased him off. They have all right to avoid the nutty doctor and his repressed emotional trauma, but its not going to make the journey any easier for them if they have to watch there back 24/7.

I just hope that Ventus get a chance to explain himself someday...

[Dies Irae]

If it seems like Ventus is still acting like a cuckloid, well that's because he's quite frustrated that he can't seem to make any headway into fixing up his relationships. There never really has been a situation that Ventus could just explain things or make it up excessively to whatever party he offended or caused trouble, but now he's hit a wall, so to speak.

He wants and desires to explain just WHY he went frothing mad towards almost everyone in the flower field, but no one is giving him the time of day besides Shiva. Heck, he even went well past his comfort zone and was fully willing to give his background to Vincent and the rest of the group, but he's been rebuffed at almost every step. I can't blame Nathan and Vincent from being cold towards him, since he did threaten to use his Ekans on the whole lot, and was only stopped when Vincent stepped in and chased him off. They have all right to avoid the nutty doctor and his repressed emotional trauma, but its not going to make the journey any easier for them if they have to watch there back 24/7.

I just hope that Ventus get a chance to explain himself someday...

All signs point to yes. After all, this is basically a game which we're playing for fun, so... eh. This too shall eventually pass.
Just that doing the setting equivalent of pulling a gun on Vincent and Nathan is has left some scars which will take a while to fade.

Anyway. Here comes the ugly full disclosure.

I'll be honest. I didn't enjoy that little episode as a player either. Whether you were doing it consciously or not, it felt like you were grabbing for the strings of my little fantasy mannequin. And while I can't speak for the other players, player agency and verisimilitude go hand-in-hand for me in RPG. No insult to Iron - he's telling an awesome story here, but if I'm just rolling dice while letting my character get dragged around without my input, but... then it's suddenly a novel.

I don't think you're doing it on purpose either. You don't strike me as a 'stop having fun guys' type of person but I do think you're trying too hard to establish Ventus as awesome to the exclusion of everyone else at the table. We're all people behind screens too and we've all got our own stories to tell and dice to roll as well. There's a little bit of us invested in our characters too, I like to think. It's not fun being condescended to by another person's virtual avatar without consent.

I think we'd all benefit if we sat down and figured out what we're shooting for as a group of players at the table and see if we can find a compromise outcome, just because if we're all tiptoeing around each other trying to avoid stepping on toes...

Well... I think we're sort of wasting Iron's time.

[Lord Windos]

...Well, I now feel like an complete idiot for not seeing this beforehand. I have a tendency to overfantazise a bit, and a nasty habit of empowerment fantasies, so both of them came together and ended up creating a massive mess for everyone involved. *Sigh* For what its worth, I would like to apologize for my overzealous roleplay. I let my DnDing get out of hand, and made a character change that even I am finding difficult to agree with. If I find my character actions inexscuable on some some level, then I did something truly wrong.

I'm sorry Iron for causing you unnecessary headaches when making your campaign, and I'm to the rest of the players for derailing your plans. I'm all for us getting together someday and planning out an overall goal for us, so that this kind of thing doesn't happen again. Time to really reign in Ventus, and stop letting him dictate my actions for the campaign as a whole.

[Iron]

She'll be right. As long as everyone is open minded and honest (as players) it's super easy to reach a point where everyone is happy (as players).

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

@Lord Windos and @Dies Irae Am I...allowed to add my POV to this? Because... if I'm very honest, I somehow enjoyed that incident that some weird flowers have caused. Sure, I can only speak for me, but such turns and unexpected matters like this and currently a RV to deal with make an RP enjoyable for me. Same goes for emotional scenes, whether they're plaqued with positive (like Nathan trying to protect the Mankey that's been posing a threat for us) or negative (like Ventus becoming very serious about the Deyo Flowers) emotions. My character may find it hard to deal with them, but I really enjoy reading through them, imagine the scenes, and thinking out carefully how she shall react to them.

On the other hand, I understand that Ven being so, I'm sorry, nasty toward Vince and Nathan might have been a little too much, not just for Iron as our GM (you're a great one, on top of that), but for us as players as well. Noone of us could have expected such a tension within the group, least at the relative beginning. Having our Charas wipe the incident off with a simple 'I'm sorry' sounds pretty unrealistic to me, and I'm not blaming Dragonstrike and Dies Irae for having their Charas behave towars Ven the way the do. At all.

Noticed by the newer posts in Gamethread that both Vince and Nathan still interact+talk normally with Shiva, and I'm very pleased about this. Nevertheless she is on Ventus' side. Given his latest attempt of approaching Vince, she seems to be the only person he might have now. Beside his dear Pokemon of course - and Windos, I highly doubt you would want to dragg Larry into this mess. Better make Poffins, if they have the ingredients and berries inside the 'vehicle'~