Mr. Zero, the major factor is the inability to RP and play my own character. Ahrian intends to tell Raphael after minor morning shenanigans, and we'll probably be going outside to the street without doing a single thing different from the turn. However, with 2 weeks between turns, we can afford to spend a couple days RPing the actual events of the morning and getting around to making the decision of what to do, and doing it that way lets us show the characters personalities better and the interactions between them.
in other words, to not just be cardboard cutouts being moved around on a game board.
My character is not an NPC. Period. If you feel the need to NPC the PCs, then you can play just as well by yourself. and likely will.
If there IS an actual REASON for my character to be autoed, then that's fine. mind control is a thing. command seals are a thing. charm spells are a thing. saying "look, this is taking a long time and I need to get you to point A, so I'm autoing you there" is a thing. someone failing to post their turn is a thing. Those are all perfectly valid reasons for autoing characters. Logical follow-throughs on actions submitted or natural automatic reactions to a changing environment are fine as long as they change things, usually providing otherwise unavailable information or changing the status of what's going on.
for example: if we're talking to NPC A and he says he wants to show us something and steps inside a tent, it's good form to not have us auto-follow him inside.
yes, it's an obvious easy action with no logical alternative, but we didn't say anything about following NPC A around, or leaving where we were, or anything of the kind.
if we say that we follow him inside, and it's a tent with multiple rooms, then it is FINE to have us auto-follow him from room to room as he shows us around.
here we DID say that we wanted to follow NPC A around, even though we phrased it as though there was only a single room to the tent.
after we finish following NPC A around, we talk for a while with him and then leave - stating our next destination, point B. on the route between NPC A and point B, there is a trap door. we fall down the trap door with no warning (failed to see it so we stay autod), but you have Ahrian auto-use-reduce gravity to slow her fall, and after Raph falls down you have him auto-get-up and look around.
this is an iffy, but ok, autoing. the auto-reduce-gravity is a very logical snap reaction to the situation, and it prevents you from having to freeze time while we're both in midair while you wait for me to submit the action. it would be better form to go ahead and do the midair-time-stop though, and since you're stopped anyway to keep it stopped until DAF posted some kind of "well I guess I'm falling then" action, I might want to dash up instead, and Raph might have an idea or ability to try to slow his fall. him auto-getting-up after the fall and looking around is totally fine though, because it provides signifigantly more information about the situation.
next thing that happens is Bandits 1->4 run in from a side room, and a combat turn begins. DAF submits a generic attack action without saying who or how he's attacking, and I submit some giant wall of if-then statements and chained actions that will take way more than 1 turn to complete.
you have Raph auto-target the nearest bandit and attack him with his sword.
you run part of my if-then wall, but the very first action fails, and I didn't submit an if for that happening. So you have me auto-retry step 1, and once you feel you've hit the limit for how much I could try in a turn, you stop mid-action and say that I don't have enough time to complete the rest.
those are both 100% fine autoings, Vague action submissins require GM interpretation, and also translate to free reign to do whatever you think is appropriate within the limits of that action. quick actions that fail, with lots of stuff requireing them going on, are good reasons for an auto-retry.
next turn DAF posts an attack action, and I fail to post completely. however, one of the bandits disengagged from him and went to attack me instead, so you have him auto-disengage from the ones fighting him to go protect me, provoking attacks of opportunity as he leaves, and have me auto-finish that giant if-then wall I had posted earlier.
that is one bad auto, and one good auto. the bad one was making him take an unecessary risk, even though he posted a vague action, the risk was in line with that vague action, and the risk was a good tactical move for the sake of the team as a whole, it wasn't a risk he said he wanted to take.
the good auto was making me auto-finish the if-then wall when i didn't post a turn. there, the if-then wall from the last turn still applied, and the only reason it hadn't been finished was that it took too long for a single turn. when I failed to post, you were forced to auto me somehow anyway, and that was nearly equivalent to having a turn submitted from before.
combat ends, and I still haven't posted, so you have me auto-follow Raph around and go entirely off of Raph's actions, including if he posts actions for me.
perfectly fine auto, player failing to post is again very much a free reign situation, and having a teammate post actions for that player helps avoid the character acting off GM-only info.
do you get it that every time the character does ANYTHING by GM-fiat, it is a form of auto? down to simply tying their shoes. If a player submits a vague action, or an action that has prerequisite actions, then having them auto-do the reasonable thing is good. but going outside the bounds of their action is a problem. if the player wants to go to a town, you have them go to the town, fine, and walk down the main street, listing off what's there, fine, and then hear an NPC call out to them, fine, and then follow that NPC into a buildilng, NOT OKAY. What part of "go to the town" is following someone that yelled at them?
if the action is "wait for chracter Y to wake up", and you have them wait for him to wake up, okay, and then get him out of bed and put his gear on, not okay.
waiting for Y to wake up in not the same as putting gear on. doesn't matter that there is absolutely NO reason to not do it, you don't do that.
next action submitted is to go outside, so you have him put his gear on then before going outside, and then go outside. that is FINE, it's a prerequisite action to the one the player submitted.
am I making sense?
Author
Topic: old AOS main (Read 18413 times)