MURP: God-mod Policy

OK, so in light of recent events, it's clear we need something, somewhere on here, that goes into detail about god modding, this way, if any of you god mods and then claims you have no idea how, why, where, what we are talking about, we can point you to this lovely blog. Now in general god modding is a general term/rule for all role playing games everywhere, not specific to this or any site. Those of us who go way back in participating in role playing games, know this term well, some of you are very new to rpg settings, and need to learn the do's and don't's if you are going to have any fun with others on here, and not get yelled at every time you make a mistake.

So What Exactly IS God Modding
God Modders have been a burden of text based roleplaying games for a long time, and they can really annoy other members who like to develop their story gradually at a decent pace, only for the story to be taken on an unusual sidetrack or finished prematurely and undramatically.

In play by post games there usually aren’t usually about statistics and experience points like more traditional tabletop roleplaying is, play by post games usually have more in common with collaborative storytelling. Each character is portrayed through paragraphs of description alone, and therefore the strength, skills and abilities of the character are open to interpretation through the storytelling, and not a number on a stat sheet.

This makes for great storytelling, but it’s also open to abuse. It means that a player can literally write anything about their character, even if it seems unrealistic.

To make your character seem a lot more realistic, they shouldn’t always be the best at what they do, they should be fallable, and often fail a few times before succeeding in whatever mission they’re part of. Think about TV programmes and films, the characters don’t succeed in defeating their enemies straight away, first they usually have to go on a quest, then fail a few times, and then learn some valuable truth or skill that allows them to defeat their enemy right at the end. There is also a pattern with God Modders which gives them a lot in common with Mary Sue characters, that these players are acting out their fantasies, which in itself isn’t a problem and to some degree what a lot of members are doing. But God Modders will take it too far and make their own character much stronger than everyone else, essentially demeaning all other characters.

Even the relatively simple action of putting words in another characters mouth can be seen as God modding, or making a character perform an action that their player might disagree with, which is why you should usually check with another player if it’s okay to use their character.

Why does god modding make the game frustrating for the other players?
God Modders can really ruin the experience of the game for other players, at the least it can make the game boring and predictable, and at worst it cause a lot of frustration.

All the players in your roleplaying game have invested a lot of time and effort into thinking up the story, thinking about what their character’s place will be in this story, and spent time writing the story in their head. To have all this undermined by another member can be very frustrating.

A God Modder might also have a larger ego than your other players, and be quite bold about the decisions they make fr their character. These players have the potential to sidetrack your game’s story and make it purely about their character, not allowing room in the story for other characters.

Auto-Hitting
Arguably the most common form of G-modding. It should be clear what this one means, but for those that are uniformed, Auto-hitting is saying your attack hit, without giving your opponent any time to react.

Now, in order for me to demonstrate, imagine two people in a forum Role-Play; Player A, and Player B. Their respective characters are ‘Joe’ and ‘Bob’.

Anyway, these two are busily role-playing, when their characters get into a fight. Here’s what transpires:

Player A   Joe punched Bob, hitting him in the jaw and sending him flying. Joe then used his knife to stab Bob in the shoulder. After which, Joe kicked Bob in the shins.

Player B   Bob punched Joe, sending him to the ground. He then brought out his shotgun and shot Joe several times, killing him.

Hold it….what? Okay, there are several things wrong here-and they all have to do with auto-hitting. Player A had his character punch, stab, and kick Bob, without giving Player B any chance to react! And what of Player B? He went so far as to have his character kill Joe? What?! These two both need a lesson in how to RP fights-definite godmodding going on with these two.

Now, imagine that the lesson I mentioned has been given and both players find themselves Role-playing together again. Just like before their characters get into a fight. Only this time, things are a little different;

Player A

Joe aimed an uppercut at Bob, hoping the attack would connect with his jaw and send him to the ground.

Player B

Bob ducked to avoid the attack, then came at Joe with a powerful right chop, aiming for his face.

Player A

The attack hit head on, sending Joe flying a ways. His head slammed against a tree, knocking him out cold.

Ah, now that…that is how you RP fight scenes! As you can see, neither of them forced a hit and they each let the other player react to their attacks. This is a huge improvement in both Player’s styles.

Dodging Everything That Comes Your Way
In one of the first RPs I’ve ever been in, I had the unfortunate luck of experiencing something like this. Sometime during the course of said RP, the characters of two other players got in a fight. What transpired, was dodging, after dodging, after everlasting dodging! Seriously, for the longest time, neither character got a hit in-the other would just keep on dodging. This lasted for several pages and got kind of annoying.

The battle never finished. In fact the RP actually got locked eventually.

So yes, having an instance where someone dodges every single attack can be rather annoying. Look people, it’s okay to have a character that’s good at avoiding attacks-heck. However, let at least some attacks hit you so that it’s not godmodding.

In this new RP they are in, the characters once again get into a fight. This is what happens;

Player A   Joe moved in with an uppercut, hoping to catch Bob by surprise.

Player B   Bob dodged the attack with ease, then shot at Joe multiple times. With any luck Joe’s body would be peppered with bullets.

Player A   Joe quickly sidestepped out of the way, avoiding the attack.

…And so on.

This goes on for pages upon pages upon pages. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but the fight did last for quite a while.

Now, the way to avoid this should be rather obvious; take some hits. Yes, I know you may not want to lose or anything, but be reasonable; is it at all fair to avoid every single attack that comes your way? Not at all. So while you can have characters that are great at avoiding attacks, it’s still a good idea to take some hits.

Let’s get back to our players now. After a quick lesson in why one should not dodge every single attack, they go back to their RP;

Player B   In an attempt to stop Joe once and for all, Bob shoots several arrows at him.

Player A   While Bob managed to avoid a couple of the arrows, the rest of them shot into his body like the projectiles they were.

See this? While Player A dodged some of the bullets, the rest of them hit them. And that’s another thing one could do, with certain kinds of attacks. Elemental abilities and melee are good moves where you can dodge some of the attack, but get hit by the rest.

Controlling Characters other Then Your Own
This one is just like it says; a person, for whatever reason (usually to move the story along), takes control of someone else’s character and treats them as their own. What they do with them depends largely on the situation (and auto-hitting could be categorized as a form of controlling another person’s character), but one thing is clear; it’s annoying.

It’s simple folks, if a character in an RP isn’t yours, then you don’t control them. However, there are people that don’t seem to get that, and it’s very unfortunate.

Player A   Joe rushed over to Bob, aiming his knife at him. With any luck the blade would go through his shoulder blade.

Player B   Bob ducked to avoid the attack. Joe’s knife got stuck in the wall in front of him. He tried to pull it out, only to find out that it was stuck tight.

Okay, notice how Player B took control of Player A’s character? You cannot do that in an RP. I’m sure some of you can think of other explanations, but here’s one reason why you shouldn’t control a character that isn’t yours; because it isn’t yours. Would you like it if someone controlled your character without your expressed permission? I know I wouldn’t.

So what do you if someone hasn’t posted in an RP for quite a while? Well, you could either wait for them to post again, or you could contact them somehow (such as through a PM system and the like). Either one of those methods are good to attempt, and they can help prevent unnecessary character controlling.

Exceptions on THIS Wiki
Now there are a few very small very minor exceptions of what would normally be considered god modding that we are lax on here. Mostly on quests or general rp's (never fight or battle rp's) where you are trying to move the story along. Say on a quest you have 5 people, and you all need to travel somewhere. Now Technically even assuming that all the characters travelled somewhere with you would be a god mod, but let's face it, around here, if we wait for every single user on a quest to rp the words "Followed the others", "travelled with the others", etc a quest would take a lot longer then the 4 to 6 weeks real time that it already does.

Now sometimes you might be rp'ing across comments and want to move to another page, now usually even I ask first the person I'm rping with, but if you forgot to ask, and you started on the new page with something like "you and your character walked up to the Dining Pavilion" we wouldn't crucify you for it, as long as you and that character were already involved in the role play. Now, even in a minor way, if you don't have permission to use someone's characters, and you weren't already role playing a story line on pages, you can not just randomly say that they are with you. For instance, I just logged on, Nhlott isn't on and I want to role play our characters out to the pond, I can't just say that our characters walked over to the pond, I would go over to one of that character's pages or cabin and role play my character looking for his, or what not, until he signs on and picks up the role play also.