Are we allowed to have public discussions (e.g. on Facebook) about our character’s most generic stuff? I know GMs get very unhappy when people start discussing secrets and roleplay before the game actually starts, but what I’m talking about is something like posting “Yay, I got cast into [game name] as Lady A., I’m gonna make pretty blue velvet dress for her!” and then discussing the dress, or “I didn’t get Lady Y. character sob, so unhappy, what to do, should I still play that game?” I know some people will discuss no matter what, but I’m a compulsory good girl so I’d like to know if this kind of thing is ok 
I’d say that was ok, as it doesn’t reveal any plot points. When you’re told that your character is secret, however, is a time that you shouldn’t even mention that you’re going to be at the game XD
Lol. yeah, I guess so - but probably that’s not a case in Chimera 
I can then start squeeing…
I would say the less disscussion the better, so instead of “I got cast as…”, just say “I’m making a pretty blue dress for a character at Chimera”. It not that there’s anything really wrond with the first statement, its more that it could lead to disscussing and speculating which could then become bad.
I’ll only be giving Players enough information about their characters to sort costumes, not enough to spoil plot. So for Jade Empire, they can talk all they want.
Ah, but then where is the FUN??? :mrgreen:
I’m trying to think of “bad” consequences that may come out, so far the only thing coming to my mind is that if I was posting much about my flagship character in 2009 there was a chance another player would know it is me playing her and would be looking for me in game, which would get my character in big trouble… on the other hand since he never found me that piece of GM-generated plot gone wasted because the characters never met.
What other bad things can be?
I’ll be sending out full character briefings for Forgotten Gods well before Chimera. I expect players to not discuss their characters.
I do this because I far prefer to have full characters supplied to me well in advance, so I give the same curtesy to my players. I want time to get familiar with my character. I hate this business of getting a long, detailed character sheet minutes before a game is due to start. I need time to absorb and remember the details, otherwise I’m going to make flubs or waste time flipping through my sheet during play. I need time to decide what my character’s plans for the situation are, and to decide how I’m going to portray them. In one case, I didn’t even discover my character was an elderly man until just before the game, removing the option of applying “age” makeup.
Every year I hear that the reason we’re given full characters for the flagship event at the last second is because there are some players out there who discuss secret details of their characters in order to get some sort of IC “advantage” and to make OOC plans. That sort of behaviour sucks. 
But what sucks even worse is the rest of us having to suffer for it. I emplore GMs to release full characters to players, and to ignore the cheaters. They don’t deserve our attention, and we shouldn’t make games less playable for everyone else just because of a few people who have totally missed the point.
My answer to Lucy - discussing costume or excitement about playing a character is cool, discussing what’s on the character sheet is not.
Is there an English web-slang abbreviation equivalent to expression “I will agree with every word on this”? I’d put it as comment for Ryan’s post.
Frankly speaking, I don’t understand why people discuss secrets this way - it means they are giving out their secrets! I would think it disadvantages them rather than the other way round.
I have particularly difficult time when someone asks me something about my character and it’s a secret info, and admitting that it is secret is already giving something out, so I have to quickly create a confusing response 
I had an incident at the last KapCon where characters had been given out before hand and during the pre-kapcon drinks someone else came up to me and went “Our characters know each other in the big larp, my name is ****” I had read my character a lot and knew everyone I knew but the name didn’t ring a bell. I happened out that my character had amnesia and her character didn’t know so she knew me and I had known her but didn’t know her now. All very confusing but kind of gave a meta plot out there before the game.
This. 
This. [/quote]
QFT*
[size=50]*Quoted For Truth[/size]
I response to Ryan et al : For the flagship game this year, there will be a lot of information for everyone to consume. In departure from previous games, considering the sheer number of players now involved, this will not be done in the “half hour” before the games starts. Initially we will give everyone a brief description of the character, plus their racial/planet background, once casting is complete, hopefully next week. (Assuming weekend meetings are sucessful). This should be enough information for some awesome costuming to happen.
At this stage, we are unsure when further information will be sent out. Possibly more information at teh start of August. As a last resort, the traditional “character packs” will be available to be picked up any time at Chimera, from Friday night to Saturday lunchtime. I will probably also be available to answer specific queries people may have at those times at Chimera.
We had an incident last Chimera where a player posted what they thought was an innocuous bit of trivia from their character background on FB for a giggle. Since Tigger was writing the game, I happened to know it was actually a major plot point that was going to come out during the game, so I messaged the player urgently to have it taken off FB. It was taken down before any of the other people involved noticed, but it’s an example of how something you think might be inconsequential could have more attached to it than you know. I think the risk is always greater of someone inadvertantly spoiling something than deliberately.
That so makes sense.
That so makes sense.[/quote]
QFT! (hehe)
One persons throw away comment, is another persons blackmail material. I’d prefer to have as much information as possible before the game, so I can organise my thoughts, plan of attack etc, sometimes your goals need a specific order for you to acheive all of them. However, too much and you have nothing to discover. Although some goals or backrounds i’ve had have been a little sparse, but if you use that as part of your character, ie they’ve forgotten it, or it wasn’t important enough to remember the minute details, then its a great way to investigate, rather than going ooc and saying “oh, I don’t think thats on my sheet what do we both know?”
I was told that in Flight of Hindenburg when Al Capone yelled that there is a bomb on board and everyone started running in panic, the person who had the bomb ran too, totally forgetting the bomb was in her handbag.
When Masquerade on Fleet Steet was run first time I was playing an opera singer and at some point asked a guy IC “Do I know you?” and got response “I’m your manager”.
Playing Magistrate of Cormere I was promised briefing before the game, then got thrown in with no briefing at all, got asked loads of questions, improvised the answers, then got summoned to the crew room and given character sheet with all those answers - obviously totally different to what I made up
I had a chat with Anna yesterday and got an awesome piece of advice: when in doubt - ask GM. So if you are a GM and I am in your game you can expect me to ask if that’s ok for me to say on FB what character I am playing, and all such