#godmodding

Resumo: Nesse material você verá o que é god mod e meta como evitar cair nesse tipo de jogo.

Oh, I love characters like this! Despite the intricate little dance you have to do to stay cool-beans with everyone, they can be immensely satisfying to play with/against/or at all. A lot of it comes down to checking in OOCly and creating a sense of trust between you and other players. You can't just jump in willy-nilly, but you've already shown that you recognize that! So...

First things first, you need to build a rapport with others. This can only be built through time, roleplay, and the trust that comes with seeing how you use your powers. Any person on the street walking up to you and just misusing your inner thoughts is going to get a realistic reaction from both player and character: disgust, annoyance, and generally thinking you're a prick they want nothing to do with. Do not jump any player character with anything you'd be weirded out with IRL without accepting there will be negative consequences. In this case, they might just reject all RP with you—

So you're going to have to prove yourself.

It’s recently come to my attention that there’s still some confusion about what these terms mean in the RP Community, so to help people out, here are some updated definitions and examples:

Godmodding:

This is the most common term used to describe when a writer writes another person’s character’s reactions, movements, thoughts, or feelings. This doesn’t just go for physical attacks. Godmodding is also writing how someone else’s character thinks or feels. This gets done a lot in RP, which is godmodding, and frustrating to a lot of people.

Ex: Say my character is Sam and your character is Frank. I write this: Sam walked into a bar and sat down next to Frank who had the ugliest look of disgust on his face to see him.

Or: Sam noted Frank checking him out.. (when Frank’s character never said they were)

That’s Godmodding. If this was not previously discussed with the other mun, or the other mun didn’t specifically already say in a previous post that they were disgusted, or checking them out, then you just controlled their character in your set up or reply. They are forced now to have their character upset or interested in yours. It’s controlling their character’s personality, mood, and actions. This is godmodding. You can’t do that.

Metagaming:

This is when you take ooc information and use it ic without discussing it first with the other writer or without a realistic reason to why they would know said information.

Ex: My character is a demon in a human disguise and on first meet yours knows they are a demon. Or on first interaction, your character knows mine is a spy or something private from history in their bio. This is Metagaming. If there isn’t a realistic way this character would know this, ie: say like a werewolf who might smell their scent not being human, then this is information that needs to be discussed with the other mun to either establish a connection somewhere where they’d know their secret information or your character simply would not know in rp until it came out in rp.

Also, adding: it is also Metagaming to have your character know information that another character was thinking in their head or that the writer did not have as dialogue or action. Realism.

For example: I write: Frank wanted to go to school but he was terrified of people. And then you have your character magically know they are afraid of people. You can’t have your character magically read minds. They can only react to what the character says and actually does visibly.

It comes down to realism. You don’t know anything about a stranger in real life until you ask or see something about them and their visible behavior, or someone tells you. Same for RP realism.

So, roleplaying.  As I alluded in my last response, there are plenty of roleplayers on tumblr not getting the kind of hate Simon gets.  I’ve done it, and I didn’t once get someone come into my ask and try to harass me.

And that’s because Simon is breaking one of the most obvious rules of RP, and even of owning a blog if you’re going to open it up to anonymous asks.

Imagine I have a blog where I’m going to RP that I’m Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series.  Anyone who sends me an ask in good faith is buying into the premise that the wizarding world is real, and that Luna is a Ravenclaw at Hogwarts.

Most of Simon’s asks do this.  They are happy to buy into the idea that he might be a monster running an experiment.

However, the other end of the deal is that I can’t “play god” by controlling what other players do or say.  It’s actually called godmodding and it’s considered pretty rude in RP circles.

So if someone comes into my ask box and tells me they’re a witch who works at the Ministry for Magic, I have to take their word for it.  Luna can’t tell someone who comes into her inbox that they’re actually a muggle.  That would be an attempt to control them.

And this is what Simon does regarding a whole range of issues, but most prominently when people try to say they’re a cousin, or another type of cryptid.

part 2) same anon; it alienates your members and as someone who really wanted to join it makes me want to run as far away as i can. i get it, you’re anti-regina apparently, but you have to realize there are people who aren’t anti-regina.

Thank you for coming to us with your concern, anon. While we don't know what interactions you're referring to specifically, after some discussion with the whole mod team, I have a better understanding of how some things that have been published on my blog (Emma's) were godmodding. It was unintentionally done, and after our in-depth discussion, I have a better understanding now. We don't hate Regina at all. I personally love Regina and her character development! When not doing AU weekends and we are faced with canon, I do have to get inside Emma's tone, but I'll be completely honest and say that it has been very challenging. I can't wait for the day I can have Emma view Regina as a friend rather than an enemy. Writing in Emma's mindset now does not correlate to my thoughts on Regina.

If you wouldn't mind coming to us off anon via instant message instead and let us know which post(s) on Emma's blog are concerning, we would greatly appreciate your help in that area. There was zero godmodding on Snow's blog. She received one ask about Regina which painted Regina as a villain, and in Snow's response, she was confused, having no idea what the anon was referring to, as the ask was referencing OUAT canon events that did not occur in our HP AU. I think I know what posts you're referring to on Emma's blog and I have been in touch with our Regina to discuss these concerns myself. Thank you again for bringing this to our attention. We’ll be keeping a closer eye out in the future for any possible instances of potential godmodding. 

We hope that you'll still apply with us! We'd love to have you.

Hey there, Ay here!

This isn’t a tutorial, but more of an explanation as to what God-Modding and Meta-Gaming are. There has been a lot of confusion in the Tumblr RPC with this and I just want to really make these two things clear.

They are NOT the same!

You will see a lot of groups and even indie RP blogs tell you that you shouldn’t god-mod/meta-game. Please be very mindful of this because not everyone knows that these are actual huge “no’s” in the RP community. 

Let me explain God-Modding first since that’s a doozy of a problem still and I have no idea why it is.

God-Modding is making someone else’s character do something without the player’s permission. Think of it like this: if you were talking to someone and all of a sudden they made you do something you wouldn’t normally do, how would you feel? Miserable, right? That’s God-Modding. Sure, there are players who don’t mind it...but they want you to talk to them first before it’s posted. This isn’t forums where you have to go back and forth in an inbox for days on end to get through a post. People like to be asked about these things. Back on IMVU, it drove me crazy when I’d have friends invite me into group rooms and sit there and read through T1 posts (those are considered several multiple-paragraphs/pages in Tumblr/Tabletop standards) just to make sure someone wasn’t god-modding. I once spent eight hours reading and refereeing the entire interaction. In Tumblr, this would bring concern to the Admins and it could mean several consequences for you and your character. If you say you’ve been RPing for years, then you know this is a huge nopeity-nope on practically everyone’s rules. So, please, God-Modding is a NO unless you get the okie-dokie from the other player(s).

Now, as for meta-gaming. This gets confused for god-modding so often and they are slightly similar but not the same thing. Let me explain.

Meta-Gaming is knowing something OOC (out of character), like information about a character that was given to another player, but then used IC (in character) without the other player’s permission. Let’s say a character has a secret that no one knows, but you have your character knowing it and talking about it to the other character. That, there, is meta-gaming. Or another great example is a character knowing the weakness of another character. For instance, let’s say you’re playing a person who just met someone who’s super rude. You and the other player are friends and they disclose their character’s greatest fear. You use that fear IC to gain the advantage. That is Meta-Gaming. You can’t use OOC information in the game. You cannot, I repeat, CANNOT do that. Imagine if you were that player, the one who trusted you with that information and it was just all blown away because it was used IC. You’d feel pretty crappy, right? Imagine how the other player feels when you do that.

Neither of these are fair, and I get it...life isn’t fair. But, really, this isn’t life. It’s a game. You play fair in sports, you play fair with boardgames and card games. It’s why it’s called a Roleplaying Game, not life.

So, in conclusion: be respectful, always ask for permission, and don’t assume anything is IC unless stated otherwise. Are we clear? Good.

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

She noticed him eyeing the water bottle in her hand --- it stood out amidst the glasses of champagne. “This is my third bottle, Bea’s better than the actual waiters here. Once the bottle empties I have a new one in my hands,” Lykke scoffed, some of her characteristic sharpness returning to her voice. “I would have thought that my tolerance would have grown after our night out. I was mistaken.” She had a dry look on her face, the new water diet already bringing her party mood down. Sobering up was more important than fun though.