oh, I'm very happy with the vast majority of the WW games I've played in, but there's always the bad apple who spoils the whole bunch. and I just like picking on them. :P
I'm not much of an online gamer, but taking a cue from livejournal drama, I'm sure the opportunities for angstmongering are staggering.
Hmm, there is no ultimate method of good roleplaying. Or is that enough of a refutation? I could go into great detail about how 1990 marked both an amazing new departure *and* a growth inhibiting influence on roleplaying in general, but I feel pretty sure that you can fill in the gaps.
However that would be wrong of me as angst is not the exclusive property of WW. Angst can be fantastic in any and all games, it can facilitate some amazing rp and gives motivation for a host of actions that would otherwise be pretty unthinkable, but it is, in the end, just an emotion. Bad things happening moves the plot along and many games have the potential to get very boring without it, but dear holy God, joy and triumph are pretty damn rocking too.
But this would be the choir I'm preaching to here, so I'll stop... and anyway, you may be getting even more irritated by an answer to a possibly rhetorical question. :)
Angst can be fantastic in any and all games, it can facilitate some amazing rp and gives motivation for a host of actions that would otherwise be pretty unthinkable, but it is, in the end, just an emotion. Bad things happening moves the plot along and many games have the potential to get very boring without it, but dear holy God, joy and triumph are pretty damn rocking too.
I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing here. I see angst as the reaction to bad things where the character stands around, mopes and whines about it (shorthand: hand-staple-forehead); you seem to be describing the bad things themselves.
Angst isn't an emotion in this usage, it's an action - sadness, anger, the desire for revenge, those are emotions.
Aye, as your good lady pointed out. Different usages of the word. But in that usage I think it's best to remove all the positive comments about it from my comment and just focus on the negative. :)
Hmm, I'm not sure about this. But I should qualify. I have *absolutely* no time for a character concept that is focused on screwing over other PCs, nor do I have any time for someone who turns that into a major motivation or the like. However, there are times, now and again, when it's necessary. The reasons should not just be for simple personal gain or the like, there really should be decent plot reasons (whether justified or not), but sometimes it happens. God willing everyone will manage to work together afterwards and it's not sustainable, but I couldn't go with a complete ban.
I have to admit that I completely hate that too and really sometimes wonder why sometimes parties stay together even with all that backstabbing, my instinct sometimes is that my character would just leave at the next most convenient city.
Part of the negative reaction necromancers get is connected with our ambivalent attitude towards the industrialisation and systemisation of society. Zombies substitute in this world view for ourselves; soul-less, robbed of violition and energy by our higher-ups (controlling mage == boss), we lurch towards what we hope will be our redemption, unaware that our very life-force has already bled away.
I agree with the statement. Frankly, I don't see "angst" as a real, proper emotion anyway. According to dictionary.com it is defined as:
"A feeling of anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression."
The best roleplaying I've ever had or GMed over has related to questions of morality and self-sacrifice. I'm particularly a fan of the issue of the good-of-the-many in a roleplaying game and the most interesting character turns I've ever played have been when a former character of mine (in Vampire) had to deliberately and knowingly decide to push himself to forsake his humanity so as to level the playing field between him and his arch-enemy, who was an inhumane monster and had that advantage over my PC when it came to the war between them.
So in short, personal horror is something I define as being different to angst and I prefer personal horror. Angst just strikes me as being an "emotion" associated with goths swooning in anxiety over their miserable and meaningless lives, while writing bad dark poetry.
Hm. The definitions aren't clear here. But I've a comment to make anyway.
"The Ultimate Method of Good Role-Playing" to me is experiencing an alternate life which has as much versimilitude as the real one. The character I experience this life through is as real as I am.
That character has good times and bad times. So sometimes the amount of negative emotion floating around could be called "angst." Sometimes the opposite will be true.
I know people who refuse to play anything bad with their character on the grounds that "I role-play to enjoy myself and pretending my boyfriend died is not enjoying myself." Or something similar. Likewise I know folk who will role-play as if winning the lottery is a personal disaster. I don't think either is right.
What to do with those people? Don't play with them - Find a happy medium in your play group.
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I'm not much of an online gamer, but taking a cue from livejournal drama, I'm sure the opportunities for angstmongering are staggering.
I think the mopers should be quarantined. yes.
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However that would be wrong of me as angst is not the exclusive property of WW. Angst can be fantastic in any and all games, it can facilitate some amazing rp and gives motivation for a host of actions that would otherwise be pretty unthinkable, but it is, in the end, just an emotion. Bad things happening moves the plot along and many games have the potential to get very boring without it, but dear holy God, joy and triumph are pretty damn rocking too.
But this would be the choir I'm preaching to here, so I'll stop... and anyway, you may be getting even more irritated by an answer to a possibly rhetorical question. :)
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But seriously, right, yes, if that is the semantic difference then so noted and I really just agree more.
That kind of angst is no substitute for real emotion.
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I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing here. I see angst as the reaction to bad things where the character stands around, mopes and whines about it (shorthand: hand-staple-forehead); you seem to be describing the bad things themselves.
Angst isn't an emotion in this usage, it's an action - sadness, anger, the desire for revenge, those are emotions.
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"Success in the micro-world compensates for lack of success in the macro-world." Discuss, with uncomfortable shuffling.
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Discuss.
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Copy and paste that somewhere PERMANENT
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"A feeling of anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression."
The best roleplaying I've ever had or GMed over has related to questions of morality and self-sacrifice. I'm particularly a fan of the issue of the good-of-the-many in a roleplaying game and the most interesting character turns I've ever played have been when a former character of mine (in Vampire) had to deliberately and knowingly decide to push himself to forsake his humanity so as to level the playing field between him and his arch-enemy, who was an inhumane monster and had that advantage over my PC when it came to the war between them.
So in short, personal horror is something I define as being different to angst and I prefer personal horror. Angst just strikes me as being an "emotion" associated with goths swooning in anxiety over their miserable and meaningless lives, while writing bad dark poetry.
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"The Ultimate Method of Good Role-Playing" to me is experiencing an alternate life which has as much versimilitude as the real one. The character I experience this life through is as real as I am.
That character has good times and bad times. So sometimes the amount of negative emotion floating around could be called "angst." Sometimes the opposite will be true.
I know people who refuse to play anything bad with their character on the grounds that "I role-play to enjoy myself and pretending my boyfriend died is not enjoying myself." Or something similar. Likewise I know folk who will role-play as if winning the lottery is a personal disaster. I don't think either is right.
What to do with those people? Don't play with them - Find a happy medium in your play group.