wankgate | The Fifty-Third

i like infomodding and i think it's necessary in rp.

i don't mean the "he's a villain, i can feel it!" type of shit that spoils someone else's gameplay, but i deliberately include things about my character's past or actions in my tags so that the other player can pick up on them if they want.

in most rp settings, especially with castmates, the characters are going to have more information about each other than the players do. castmates typically have tons of shared experiences that are only touched on or alluded to in canon. there's also a visual/interpersonal element ic that's lacking ooc because rp is text-only interaction. yeah, you could write "she fidgeted with the hem of her skirt" but unless there's plenty of canon evidence that this is what she does when she's upset, i think it's in an rp setting it's reasonable to write it like "she fingered the hem of her skirt the way she always did when she was upset" or "remembering her dead brother, she idly toyed with the hem of her skirt."

the character has access to all kinds of "real world" information that doesn't explicitly come across in a text-based medium unless you deliberately include it. i don't know why people hate this so much.

people hate that?

yes if you're in an ecats commentspam game

ECATS-exclusive player here to say you're wrong. Or at least, not all of us feel that way.

it would only be infomodding if the other character immediately responded with HMMM IT SEEMS YOUR BROTHER HAS DIED

them responding with something like 'oh hey are you nervous/upset?' after seeing that character fidget wouldn't be infomodding, it'd be reading body language

i would agree with you, anon, but i've seen people call "infomodding" and whining about it over the smallest of rational conclusions based on stuff like the example above, so now i never know where the line is.

then there's probably the a word that we can't say here anymore

and i don't mean that as a pejorative

but there is a disproportionate number of people here who have a lot of trouble reading visual cues and connecting them to other concepts (general emotional state, comfort with the environment, etc.)

i think that accounts for a lot of the ic/ooc miscommunication when it comes to body language and expressions and why icons with very basic expressions (as opposed to icons that convey a general mood state) are preferred

you can say it if you're not insulting someone with it.

okay ty, i wasn't sure

but i've seen people call "infomodding"

Deets? I have never seen this. Care to mention who pulled something like this?

What you describe isn't infomodding and I have never seen it called infomodding by anyone, not even the dumbest anons on rpanons/wankgate.

This is an ECATS thing, I think. You won't hear anything like it outside of ECATS, but it's absolutely rampant inside. I play in an ECATS game myself and I enjoy it a lot, but this is one thing that drives me fucking insane. Players literally outright refuse to put any information about what is happening with their characters because they're so worried about being "infomodded." Infomodding in this case entailing any reading of mood/body language/anything whatsoever other than straight dialogue.

It's gotten to the point where I literally will ask people OOCly straight up - what is your character getting at here? And I'll be shot down. They consider any request for more info ( even just on body language or demeanor, much less god forbid actual feelings/thoughts) to be an attempt to "infomod" their characters.

This is also especially annoying because it often leads to circular conversations that end up going nowhere. Sometimes having some clue as to a characters internal monologue/feelings will be a good cue as to what might be an interesting thing to come up in a thread. This doesn't necessarily mean something silly like I SENSE YOUR BROTHER DIED AND YOU FEEL SAD ABOUT IT if I've never met your brother... but it's possible for me to nudge the conversation in some direction that would play off that so that SOMETHING is accomplished in the thread. It doesn't even have to be a good thing - maybe my character would say something stupidly insensitive about the death, or maybe she would say something sweet and comforting, or maybe she would just flounder and feel bad. But it wouldn't have to be 100 comments of guessing games before getting bored and walking away.

It's gotten to the point that I just drop threads with some of these people. Like sorry, not interested in the small talk. I guess I am just a horrible infomodder or whatever.

I've played in ECATS games for years and this has never even slightly been a thing. Like, to the extent that I can't think of a single time "infomodding" has come up outside of the normal "IT'S HARD TO PLAY VILLAINS" line as a concern. And I've asked and been asked for further clarification on body language pretty routinely in threads.

I'm not saying you haven't had this experience, but holy balls which part of the ECATS playerbase are you hanging out with anon, tell them to chill the fuck out.

Who are you playing with in ECATS? I can't think of a single person who wouldn't love to tell you, in excruciating detail, what their characters are thinking about given the slightest provocation.

YOu'd not be an infomodder if you actually play with people like that, the people you're playing with would just be batshit insane.

If I am asked for info on what I am going at, of course I will give it. Why wouldn't I? This isn't a game of paranoia.

Unless you're playing Paranoia, in which case you'd be doing it wrong, but I doubt it :P

This is me, as an ECATS-exclusive player too.

Example: A character's coming from somewhere that isn't their home at a funny hour and explicitly says he wasn't visiting a friend, just someone else. He's told you in previous conversations he has no family in the game. Isn't it safe to assume it's someone with a different relationship? People don't generally go over to other people's private spaces and say HELLO MY NAME IS CHARACTER X AND I'M HERE TO BECOME BEST FRIENDS.

But I guess that sort of thing counts for infomodding in the games I'm in, because no you shouldn't ever pick up on the fact that the player includes "he's sneaking back" in the thread! You should just assume it's normal for him to be out at buttfuck dark o'clock sneaking around. Clearly.

seeing a character is upset from cues in body language or tone is cool, but immediately knowing why they're upset without asking isn't cool

"you look upset! are you okay? are you getting over a loss of some kind? a parent, or a sibling?" is not ok, because who the fuck jumps to that oddly specific conclusion?

"you look upset! are you okay? did you flunk a test? do you have a flat tire?" is ok

yeah it's the presumption of motives/intent that makes it infomodding

if someone's being fidgety, most people are going to assume they're either nervous or they need to pee or their clothes are too tight or something along those lines

it is impossible to reasonably assume that dead brother memories are the source of apparent physical discomfort

Characters feeding off of information you're giving them isn't infomodding, for sure. Nor would a canonmate or close friend picking up on stuff that others might not be, particularly if you're communicating OOCly about it.

Infomodding is more when a character picks up on so much, so quickly, they're practically reading the other's mind. And they do it constantly. sometimes when it's not even information in the tag, but information that they know because they're familiar with the canon and/or they've read info on the person's journal/app/etc. It's much more extreme than OP is describing.

I agree, anon.

Also, most people show how they're feeling, to some extent. They look upset when they're upset, they sound sarcastic when they're being sarcastic. I mean, obviously my character can't tell every detal about your character's history just by looking, but she presumably can tell the difference between a sarastic "Oh, yay." with rolled-eyes versus a quiet but sincere "Oh, yay." with clasped hands. Those are two totally different things.

Obviously people who are master manipulators or have a lot of experience hiding their emotions are a different story, but even then, my character will see the image of themself they're trying to present. if they're trying to seem friendly or interested, you can do things to convey that.

Unless your character legit just seems like a robot most of the time. Some characters do, but that needs to be something you say too.

The idea that people should only be judging on what your character says and no anything else is kind of ridiculous.

i wouldn't include info about body language if i didn't want it to be picked up on. my character has a lot of pretty blatant tics and his body language is more telling than most of what he says. he's not particularly chatty, that's IC, so in order to give people something to respond to i'll use expressions and fidgety shit and non-verbal cues. they're there to be noticed, i don't write that shit for my health.

yeah i think maybe the problem isn't so much that other characters aren't picking up on a problem, but maybe op isn't giving the right cues that someone else could reasonably pick up on.

if my character is lying through their teeth and you note that despite the character being good with lying and the other calls them on it wihout being a psychic, that's infomodding. if my character is a shitty liar i will include a number of tells in their body language, maybe mention how obvious they'd being about not being honest. the other character calling them on that isn't infomodding, it's reacting to what i've given them to react to.

write your body language. it's more fun for both you and the other player when it's picked up on.

The Fifty-Third

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