Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 15, 2024, 05:11:32 PMEven more so since you oppose it, since you are pretty much always wrong...

Look another of Eirikrautha's pathetic ad hominem attacks.

My game isn't a FRPG and is about social interactions, so there is romance in it.  In a FRPG, I'm there mainly for adventuring and combat and questing for treaures and stuff.  All this relationship stuff isn't for my fantasy adventures.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 15, 2024, 05:11:32 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 15, 2024, 04:23:46 PMThese days there are money-making activities like paid GMing on startplaying.games as well as "actual play" streaming like Critical Role.

If someone is up-and-coming at making money from these, then they might well pay a lot for advice on how to monetize. Just like someone might pay a lot for professional advice on how to run their RPG Kickstarter, which goes beyond general game design and gets into marketing, social media use, and so forth.

None of which is "GM advice."  I stand by my statement.

This may be miscommunication. I understood the topic was IsFriday's claim that she would "charge $150-300/hr for consulting". She didn't say that the consulting was "GM advice" -- that is projection from what she said. It sounds possible she might indeed charge that for consulting, but it isn't advice for hobbyist, non-professional GMs.

Quote from: jeff37923 on July 13, 2024, 02:35:20 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 13, 2024, 01:38:53 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on July 13, 2024, 12:31:23 PMIs Friday, your response seems overly defensive. Could you give us your real name so that we could verify your claims of 5+ Star reviews and over 900 professional games ran? I'm also interested in your workshops and consulting on RPGs.

I'd presume that this is Friday Strout, since she is credited as lead on the Backerkit project page, and "IsFriday" is her online handle. When I check her profile on StartPlaying,

https://startplaying.games/gm/isfriday

She's listed as having 923 games hosted with a 5.0 rating.

You forgot their other fundraiser, jhkim.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/fridays-feminization-surgery-fundraiser

Why am I not surprised it's a guy with mental issues?

Divorced, thinks he's a she, probably a "lesbian"...

Exactly the kind of person to give advice about romance... In any way shape or form.

No wonder he needs "safety tools" the idiot can't differentiate between reality & fantasy or his bdsm dungeon and the dungeons in an RPG.

Quote from: is friday on July 12, 2024, 08:41:49 PM

Quote from: Orphan81 on July 12, 2024, 12:42:40 PMSo I've been seeing this making the ad rounds on facebook.

"How to GM Romance" and the art for it is exactly what you would expect for present day progressive standards.

But it made me take a closer look at the 'staff' that's putting this all together and all I could think is... Have any of these people actually been in a longterm committed relationship? Are any of them married?

What business do people who know nothing about real world healthy relationships have trying to 'teach' the rest of us how to run 'romance' in our tabletop games?

Which brings me to my next point.

Do you put romance in your own tabletop games?

When I was younger I did... but these days, in my 40s, married and a child of my own... I'm not here to be anyone's pretend girlfriend/boyfriend. I don't make it impossible but it's always going to be a minor part of my games with fade to black with most everything.

Hey there! I'm the Project Lead for How To GM Romance. Some info about me:

• Married 15 years with a congenial split, 3 loving children.
• Currently in a happy 2-year long lesbian relationship with a woman so hot her DMs are blowing up every day for no reason.
• I've run over 900 professional tabletop games with 130+ 5-star reviews.
• I host a blog and podcast that is one of the most popular in the industry for both pro GMs and game designers.
• I've hosted several hundred pro GMs on workshops to improve their business techniques, including romance.
• I charge $150-300/hr for consulting and people routinely pay it, because the value is immense.

I would say I'm very qualified. But not only that - my team is assembled of the most skilled professionals in both the design and performance side of our industry. We have a lot to impart to the average person.

Just as our ad copy says on our Backer Kit campaign, not every relationship should be railroaded. This book is a toolbox for GMs to help enable the players they have at their table who are interested in that type of roleplay. This can be as subtle or overt as desired by all parties, with consent.

You're absolutely right: It's not our business to tell you how to run your table. But it speaks volumes that you feel condescended to and threatened by queers so terribly that you had to make a topic about us.

When promoting a supplement about romance, it strikes me as odd to brag about being divorced or whatever you mean by "split". Wouldn't that mean you failed at the long term aspect of it? Not something I personal would brag about but go off I guess

Quote from: HappyDaze on July 15, 2024, 07:12:17 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 15, 2024, 05:11:32 PMEven more so since you oppose it, since you are pretty much always wrong...

Look another of Eirikrautha's pathetic ad hominem attacks.

Ad hominem refers to attacks based around the personal characteristics of the arguer.  I'm attacking based on the probabilities determined from frequent interaction.  Unless you are agreeing that jhkim's personal characteristics include almost always being wrong?

Look, another pathetic self-own by HappyDerp...

Quote from: Wednesday on July 16, 2024, 08:21:30 AMHey there! I'm the Project Lead for How To GM Romance. Some info about me:

• Married 15 years with a congenial split, 3 loving children.
• Currently in a happy 2-year long lesbian relationship with a woman so hot her DMs are blowing up every day for no reason.
• I've run over 900 professional tabletop games with 130+ 5-star reviews.
• I host a blog and podcast that is one of the most popular in the industry for both pro GMs and game designers.
• I've hosted several hundred pro GMs on workshops to improve their business techniques, including romance.
• I charge $150-300/hr for consulting and people routinely pay it, because the value is immense.

It's generally unwise to make an issue of your personal life in a venue like this. I try not to engage in pointless insulting of strangers on the internet, so I'll just say that none of these inspire confidence.

A more interesting question is what could this individual have said that would? Credentials mean next to nothing in the RPG space, since there's no respectable accreditation body and neither someone's GM-ing skill nor the quality of their products can be anything close to objectively measured. Even sales figures are relatively meaningless by themselves, since tastes vary and sales are often driven by factors that have nothing to do with quality. I assume some understanding of this is why personal lives were brought up, but personal lives are unverifiable. Someone says "married 15 years". Well, was that 15 years of fairytale romance, or 15 years of cheating and throwing household furnishings at each other? I can read between the lines based on some of the other facts presented, but it'll be speculation.

I really only respect someone's work in the RPG world based on having seen it. For GM-ing that means either playing in their game or seeing an actual play. For products that means either previous products or a quickstart/free sample.

Quote from: Wednesday on July 16, 2024, 08:21:30 AMWhen promoting a supplement about romance, it strikes me as odd to brag about being divorced or whatever you mean by "split". Wouldn't that mean you failed at the long term aspect of it? Not something I personal would brag about but go off I guess

You mean you don't find the attempted brag about the girlfriend the most pathetic part?  I'd hope someone who was giving advice about romance would at least not sound like a 15 year-old boy with his first crush.  Plus, as we all know, hotness isn't communitive.  Just because the person you are dating is a catch, doesn't mean you are.  They could just be slumming, or broken.

Though I must admit, considering that children of divorce are much higher on the potentials for personal, social, behavioral, and educational problems that last a lifetime (more than even children born into poverty), I wouldn't necessarily brag that you did that to your minor children.  Especially if the divorce is amicable.  I can see risking the damage of divorce to your kids if there is violence or abuse involved (the lesser of two evils), but then how could the divorce be "congenial"?  How could you be nice to someone like that?  Based on the other information, if I had to guess, this is one of those, "I'm a woman now, so I'm out" kind of splits.  Imagine doing that to your kids.  Especially since the basis of all lasting romance is caring about the others involved.  Whew.

Normally I wouldn't care about any of that stuff, especially when it comes to judging the value of RPG advice.  But when they bring it to the table themselves, especially as some sort of C.V...

Edit: Oh, and my quick math tells me that 130/900 is around 14.4%.  So that's a 14.4% 5-star rating?

Quote from: jhkim on July 15, 2024, 07:48:52 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 15, 2024, 05:11:32 PM

Quote from: jhkim on July 15, 2024, 04:23:46 PMThese days there are money-making activities like paid GMing on startplaying.games as well as "actual play" streaming like Critical Role.

If someone is up-and-coming at making money from these, then they might well pay a lot for advice on how to monetize. Just like someone might pay a lot for professional advice on how to run their RPG Kickstarter, which goes beyond general game design and gets into marketing, social media use, and so forth.

None of which is "GM advice."  I stand by my statement.

This may be miscommunication. I understood the topic was IsFriday's claim that she would "charge $150-300/hr for consulting". She didn't say that the consulting was "GM advice" -- that is projection from what she said. It sounds possible she might indeed charge that for consulting, but it isn't advice for hobbyist, non-professional GMs.

Thats my fault, I apologize.

Since the consulting bullet point is after 'several hundred pro GMs' bullet, i made an assumption connection in my head.

You are right, its probably more like business consulting, how to make money, sell yourself, branding, etc. 

Quote from: HappyDaze on July 15, 2024, 01:32:25 PM

Quote from: Omega on July 15, 2024, 11:47:41 AMBleed is when the player is blurring the line between PC and self. You start thinking of yourself at the table and on the street more as Alkharg the Elf Destroyer rather than Jane Doe, accountant. Worse case scenario is you momentarily stop thinking of yourself as Jane Doe, accountant at all.

If that's what it is, then "Bleed" is a clear mental health issue and beyond anything GMs should be dealing with.

Was my thought too. And there were people wanting this?
This is why I am always wary when someone starts demanding more and more "immersion". EuroLARPers and storygamers sometimes push it.

Its like someone saw Tom Hanks character in Mazes & Monsters and thought this was a good thing.

Quote from: jhkim on July 15, 2024, 03:20:12 PMAs defined here, it's completely unremarkable. If the GM puts on scary music and a player's PC acts more jumpy, then that's bleed (aka "bleed-in" where out-of-character emotions affect the in-game stuff). If a player gets pissed at Bob because Bob psycho PC killed his PC, then that's also bleed (aka "bleed-out" where stuff in-game affects the player's feelings out-of-game).

But I've also seen it used as if it's more of a weird mental/emotional state. So I'm not sure how people in online play like startplaying.games intend it. It certainly isn't a "safety tool".

Well it stopped being "unremarkable" and started bordering on schizophrenia pretty damn fast.

If the players want romance in our games, I always promise to GM that romance with all the sophistication, subtlety and realism of a 12 year old on a sugar high.

THAT usually gets us back to action and adventure instead.

Seriously, why do people need stuff like this? I mean, if you want 'romance' in you games let it happen organically in game. Who needs a whole manual of childish dross to play it?

I suppose the creator's are all experts on the subject.

Quote from: Omega on July 17, 2024, 04:56:09 AM

Quote from: jhkim on July 15, 2024, 03:20:12 PMAs defined here, it's completely unremarkable. If the GM puts on scary music and a player's PC acts more jumpy, then that's bleed (aka "bleed-in" where out-of-character emotions affect the in-game stuff). If a player gets pissed at Bob because Bob psycho PC killed his PC, then that's also bleed (aka "bleed-out" where stuff in-game affects the player's feelings out-of-game).

But I've also seen it used as if it's more of a weird mental/emotional state. So I'm not sure how people in online play like startplaying.games intend it. It certainly isn't a "safety tool".

Well it stopped being "unremarkable" and started bordering on schizophrenia pretty damn fast.

Well if that is bleed, then I use it all the time in my sci fi and more so in DB CoC game. Ambient noise, Bladerunner background music. tehcno punk electro music for a bar scene etc as applicable in the Traveller game . Creepy music in DG and then low volume barely noticeable scarry sound effects when they are exploring the haunted house or cultist's underground temple.

The best was when I ran a one off traveller game for them a few years ago (sold it as just trying the traveller rules, but they should have paid attention to the Calander and realized it was October, and October ALWAYS means a scarry adventure), They were out at a remote work site doing repairs etc. Then I slowly started adding the more creepy music in the background. Then when the first door creek and Alien motion detector ping sound effect went off in the background, my younger daughter stopped dead in her tracks mid sentence and went "Ok, we have to leave here right now". No one else notice the change in music, and asked her why and talked about their plan to make the emergency repairs needed. She was strait up "No we leave now. Right now!" That is when everyone else noticed the music and looked at my blank face ... "Really, you want to leave now, why ?"... oh make a perception roll .... >You do notice a shadow seem to move down in that side maintenance corroder" ...

So bleed is useful, but again I call that simply using a good DM tool out of the ole bag of experienced DM tricks. Not something that needs to be listed as a safety tool or trigger warning item.

However, Like you point out, if the 'bleed' goes the other way, yeah that is bad and not mentally stable !

Romance stories work in many sorts of media but there's a basic problem with them in tabletop rpgs.  All romance scenes will inevitably focus on one or two characters with the rest of the characters not being able to be involved in any meaningful way.  That's fine in a TV show or movie with a main character but it doesn't really work in a tabletop rpg.  The one or two PCs involved in that romance story are involved while everyone else sit around waiting for it to be over.  Even if I wanted to do that as GM, a lot of players will not be happy about sitting around being bored while the one player with the romance subplot plays that out.  It won't happen once either.  For the romance to be meaningful at all, this would have to happen multiple times over an extended period.  I suspect that some players who want a romance story for their character are asking for that, at least in part, for this very reason.  They know it will force the spotlight on to them repeatedly and that's what they want.  They want to be the main character.  That's fine for a 1 on 1 game but most games involve a group of players who are all here to play not be audiences for your romance scenes.