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Well, but that "troll" in Macbeth is probably confining his trolling to a few scenes, and doesn't randomly jump in every time a scene threatens to become "too serious".
And i don't mean investment in my characters. I mean investment in your own characters.
I try my best to make my characters interesting, but as you said they do gain a lot of their character through their interactions (note that "interaction" doesn't only mean talking, either) with the players. Madeleine had limited character because noone ever bothered to interact with her. You put her into a basement and forgot her there. I may be mistaken here, but i thought that Rickard was invested in the story between Isabel and her family. But that is not the point i wanted to make here. I agree that the focus of the game should be on the PCs.
Which directly leads to what i meant to say: A certain emotional investment in your characters as characters, instead of basically using them like a tool to manipulate the game world into a shape that you as a player like, can help make the game more enjoyable. This might even mean making choices that you know to be bad for the character, because it would be in character for that person, and you are interested in finding out what will happen on that path. Think character first, player second. And make that character interesting enough that you care what happens to him. Interesting doesn't mean nice, either.
None of this means just slowly walking in circles being emo and sad. I like action. I like things happening. I like it more when interesting things happen to interesting persons.
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Idk, but even out characters aren't "deep" per se. You're putting me into a position where I basically have to rip on them now, so I apologise in advance, this isn't meant to be offensive, but let's have a look at them.
Boldiszar likes to fly around and throw fireballs because those things are interesting, I like that. To you not serious enough
Kanut is the stereotypical murder hobo, his big goal was to punch the other guy in the canalisation, because he's a rat man, get it?
Isabel likes human, because she's not human anymore, but apparently not to the degree where she can emphasise enough with her sister to understand why she is legitimately afraid of her, instead she resorts to basically mind controlling them and then murders her sister, not really giving a single fuck about anything anymore.
Aristid is the brooding tough guy who likes money.
Ruperts interests shifted around from poking into corpses to obtaining a BDSM dungeon. Albeit probably quite vampiry things to do you have to admit that those aren't really forming strong emotional moments. The thing that sticks out to me here was that when Aristid ate Rupert's ghoul, he didn't feel upset about someone that he'd lived with dying but rather him being inconvenienced because he had no more ghoul.
Now this all might just be me being jaded, but none of these characters possess fascinating personalities or are plagued with heart wrenching emotional decisions. I don't mind at all, frankly I prefer it this way.
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I'll touch on the solo scenes, my point is that it is hard to delve deeper and enrich and develop characters if we are always together and no one gets their own scenes. That's why I didn't like the sound of that. As with everything that needs balance though, of course, and I don't think you're suggesting we'd skip it all together either, because we pretty much can’t always be together. So yeah, minor point.
We're not going to achieve some literary masterpiece, but that's not really needed to connect with the characters or stories we make, and I don’t see a reason to look at it like it has to be a masterpiece or we won’t try at all. I just want to aim for something interesting, yes, knowing full well that it's very easy to tear anything we create to shreds. Congratulations. I can’t really make you invest in your character, and I would say that’s fine, maybe we could play around each other, but you make it difficult for me to invest in mine when I can’t easily justify Isabel staying with the group after being caught in fire time and time again. This last session you actually went “Ok this is boring”, and proceeded to burn the entire party with the biggest fireball you could muster. What the actual fuck?
So I don't know what to do on Sunday. I don't really see the point in playing with you in campaigns where we try for a "serious" tone, but I guess if no one else sees a problem then it's my problem.
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I think i made it quite clear that i see things similar as Rickard here. As he stated, none of us is a genius author, and even a genius author would have a hard time coming up with an incredibly complex story in real time while interacting with others. That should obviously not be our goal. Coming up with a compelling interactive story is still something we could do, and of course if you overanalyze any story you can rip it to shreds, but that should not be our goal.
I would very much enjoy a more serious tone, but i also feel like Lucas and I simply don't speak the same language here, because none of the things he appears to see as a problem with such a game are things i even want out of my game. You seem to think that immersion and investment in characters lead to stiff, uneventful boring emo stories.
Now, i don't want to be rude, but this appears to be something that needs to be solved, and i think speaking clearly might help with this.
I think i can maybe describe it as this. When i think of Isabel, i think of the character Isabel. When i think of Rupert, Arisztid or Kanut, the same is the case. When i think of Boldiszar, the image i have is one of Lucas wearing a very silly Boldiszar mask. I don't think you actually play a character most of the time, you use a character-shaped poking stick to poke around the world. This is very noticeable in the way you simply can not accept that a character might have no knowledge of technologies that you have, and couldn't even fathom them ever existing due to his place in history (This makes playing in the past really cumbersome). Your characters also never appear to have any goals except becoming more effective poking sticks, or any character traits that might lead them down a specific path and influence their actions beyond what you find funny at the moment. Pretty much the only exception here that i remember is how you dealt with the whole hair stealing business. There might possibly also be this idea that if you show any weakness or have any spots on your character that are not exceedingly slippery, i will mercilessly push you down the railroad path to doom.
Another big problem is that i have shitloads of exams over the next month, so i really can't find the time to deal with additional stress regarding the game. I can run the game, that is not a problem, but i really don't have the mental capacity to deal with a lot of out of game drama.
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But that's just what I am trying to get at. It's really hard to come up with "realistic 13th century vampire behaviour" storylines. Their allure usually stems from there being some of humorous interaction, like the cheese lady, or a competition about who has the largest BDSM-dungeon. Basically, emulating the life of a 12-13th century peasant is really not my idea of fun. Isabel monologing to her family that no one else had any ability to interact with for the longest time wasn't particularly interesting to me either.
Of course, that's fine too. People have different preferences and if that's what Murgel wants to do, more power to him. However, the main focus in my opinion should be on group play, in my opinion. Not 5 people sitting around, listening to 4 other little stories, one at a time.
I totally understand why you would critise the way I play my characters. They usually aren't serious and like to blow things up. I'll try to change that somewhat if it's important to you Sven, but you also seem to reject the possiblity that someone might just behave like that.
I have no penchant to argue about this with people either, I just want to play. >_>
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Welp, I have managed to fuck myself with scheduling issues this Sunday. Not being sure what to do, I said yes to another thing, and won't be able to make it. Might not be the worst thing this particular week anyway. :p
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I like big tents, and I can not lie.
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I think I'm taking a longer break. It was just nice to not think about this stuff for a while. Any time I tried to come up with a new character or whatever else, I realized I didn't even really want to. Maybe I'll see if you guys are still playing in the future, but if you need to get more players in the meantime, JUST DO IT to quote the meme. If I were to come back and see that you filled my spot then that's my problem. You guys have fun, thanks for all the games!
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I am very sad to hear that, but i can understand how after two years of weekly play you can get a bit burned out, especially if a difference in style appears, like it did in this last campaign (with which i am also increasingly dissatisfied). I really dislike the idea that this was a problem that we didn't manage to fix, and that that drove you away.
I hope there are no bad feelings, i can totally understand that every sunday evening is a big commitment, and should not be made for something that you no longer enjoy. I wish you the best of luck and maybe we will see you again, if you ever feel like playing, you are definitively welcome.
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Oh, I don't know if anyone already let you know already Olof, but we're probably not going to be playing next week since people are doing things.
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I was aware but thank you.  I would have been able to play but maybe it's for the best as I am still adjusting my schedule to be awake during the day, you guys probably noticed I was super tired last session 
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Sadly, i also need to mention that i won't be able to play on the weekend thereafter, since i am at my grandparents place in no internet zone.
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Hello everyone.
I have a genius plan, which involves you guys doing my work, and being happy about it because it allows you to steer the campaign in a direction that you like.
I would like to have from each of your characters:
One person or thing that you care about (outside of your work for the corporation)
One personal enemy (This can be anything, but you dislike them/they dislike you because of something beyond just you being a Shi Yukiro agent. You must have some sort of personal history with them)
Something you absolutely can not stand.
Also, i assume we will be playing this sunday? Noone is talking to me anymore 
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Ha, I have some ideas!
Dude who doesn't like me: The cook at the Shanghai noodle house who we shook down for some intel used to be a Shi Yukiro agent trainee, until a friend of mine and I played a prank on him which ended up with him being expelled for sleeping drunkenly and very undressed in our instructor's bed. He'd all but forgotten about me, but then he recognised me as we met again, causing his bitterness and resentment to rise up again he know plots to bring our posse down. Oh, he's also more involved with the mega super international Ajinn mafia than we know right now.
Person and thing I really care about: My senpai sensai guy in the dojo I was originally trained at. He's like a replacement father to me, but he's starting to grow old and weak and I'd really like to find a way for his life to be elongated with some sick Eurasia Inc. medical stuff, but have no idea how to procure that.
Something I absolutely can not stand: A group of master thieves who stole our millenium old relic xX5000fuckmasterXx katana from the dojo and keep on taunting the boss guy with their continuous escape. Although that may be more relevant to #1. Otherwise cucumbers.
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Kae Nam Hyon
I am basically the american dream. I grew up in a pretty shitty part of the old city of Pyongyang which is more or less in a constant state of gang warfare and feuds between organised crime syndicates. Then someone had the genius idea of forming a citizens militia to throw out the gangs and criminals, adding one more faction to the already chaotic situation and probably doing more harm than good by escalating everything even more. I got involved in the whole situation on the side of the citizens militia, after some gangs shot up my parents store. A few of the gangs were Ai-Jinn sponsored, and i got deputied during Shi Yukiro Agent operations against those guys a few times, and apparently i impressed someone important enough to get an Agent contract offered to me.
Personal enemies:
My sisters wife, Ryon Min Joo. I don't like her. She is involved in some shady gang stuff, she is doing drugs and she is an overall bad influence on my sister. I don't care in what kind of hole she ends up, but i fear that she is dragging my sister down with her.
EI-Agent Jeremiah Freiherr von Siegesloh: He is a sneaky scheming dude, constantly changing faces and working complex scams to achieve his mission objectives. And he tricked me. Multiple times. A lot. Probably still views me as an easy mark to con into doing something.
People i care about: Pretty classic, family first.
With my agents pay, I have got my parents (mother Un Yeong Hee and father Kae Jun Seo) out of the old city into a nice lower level apartment in Seoul spire. Sadly it is pretty much impossible to stop them from continuing to run his store in the old city, so they still commute there every day.
My sister (Kae Nam Rim), even though she might have fallen in with a bad crowd.
Things i can not stand: People taking things for granted.
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I wanted to remind people that I'd appreciate a few more details regarding their character background, i.e. people they know, are important to them or with whom they've found themselves at odds. Outside influences to which they would feel inclined to react to and stuff like that would be cool to. Thanks.
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Ok so, Shigure Scratch wont escape the Prison apparently. So time for a new character:
I will play Alexei Dmitriyev (Алексей Дмитриев). Alexei was a former UIG-Intern, who got send all over the place. Due to his combat capabilities, he was mainly used by the UIG as an assassin (during his internship). Most of his missions were either long range support for ground troops in open conflicts respectively assassination of opposition rebel leaders. During my internship I developed a form of PTSD, unable to handle stress as well as because of inner conflicts, my performance dropped a little bit. With each shot I felt more like a murderer. I developed a drinking habit (particularly a love for Vodka).
Three years ago, I was sent to Taiwan to assist Nishimoto in eliminating the leader of a worker uprising. Nishimoto infiltrated the area to find the leader for me to assassinate. I nearly killed Nishimoto, after a miscommunication as well as me for being drunk. But the Leader was killed by a head-shot shortly after.
At some point I was sent to Russia with a Chinese companion "Bob" for an operation. What I didn't know at that time, was that the Chinese man was an AI-Jinn agent. At the end, when the mission was complete, Bob got shot 5 times in the chest, after having revealed his true identity and purpose in this mission. He died later. Generally disappointed in the course of my life, I obscured the death of Bob and left the UIG for assuming the identity of Bob to get integrated in AI-Jinn. However this elaborate plan lasted approximately 2 hours. After that AI-Jinn sent one assassin after another to take me out, I killed one after another.
Noticing my potential, AI-Jinn offered me a job as an agent in their agency. Hoping to become something better and being used for more than just a killing tool, Alexei accepted it.
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Ok, my presentation is succesfully held and I wrote a mail to the customer support of Skype, hoping , that they can do smth. The site says, that I'll get an answer within 24 hours, but I somehow do not really believe that.
Anyway, this sunday is the chess tourney, you thought, I'd attend last sunday, so I have scheduling problems. I'll try drive back ASAP, so that I can drop in with you guys later, but I can't guarantee, how fast I can be there.
@mods: My Skype account is currently not available, so I had to use this method to contact the others. That is the reason, why I am bumping.
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It's in my blogs, so i don't think bumping matters. Sadly i think that i am the only person who reads this. There is another problem which i wrote about on skype, because i forgot that i can't reach you there. Basically i will not be able to make it this week because i have to talk about cyclotomic number fields and the lecturer disliked what i wanted to say about them, so i have to redo the whole presentation over the weekend. I am not happy about this. You should be enough people to play, though. I hope someone will run something. I am very sorry about this.
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Ok, can you inform the others, that I will be late and don't really know, when I can make it? This (and roll20-chat, which probably doesn't get read during the week) are currently my only methods to contact you. Skype at least replied to my mail, so maybe I'll have a functioning account again. Next week (26), I should also definitly be able to play.
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EPT
