Amidst the discussion in 'Style for Nuyen?" there was a point in regards to people living in bars, made by tear.  With other tidbits here and there from posts past, my brain started ticking.  Please, excuse me if I'm ahead of myself or rather, what everyone has applied in thought towards the movement of grid RP.  If anything, store these questions in the back of your brain after reading in order to allow unconscious cognition to take over, eventually yielding an effect at a more appropriate time.

I'd basically like to know how/what plans may have been made by pc's or staff on how to keep us moving around to different attractions. (Public places other than the watering hole and the one npc contact's biz everybody shops at.)

 I notice the IC announcements section of the forum, one possible avenue of information, but what else?

People sit around the bar because it's an easy environment to RP.  Great for introductory meetings, chance happenings ( Chaos and Drama could always throw in a bar fight, etc), and the occasional J sit-down. What will draw us to other places on the grid?   

And what can you/I do, as a player?  Why should you/I care?

Because rpstaff will not always be around.  What do you do?  Idling does not propagate grid development.  The wandering minstrel type can always turn a desolate place into a buzz of minor interest.  Share legwork you've researched via song as a gift to the other creatures in the sprawl.  It'll spin more stories to tell, thats for sure. 

Perhaps your fixer has some spare tech but not any cred...  A nomadic bazaar would be a perfect place for  runners to meet.  Plus, that fixer can make a killing selling ware and word alike.  Maybe a thug character can find work as hired muscle?

Just examples,  I mean hell you can have a breakdancing competition at an abandoned playground if you want to.  A staffer ( especially those crafty, dark staffers)  who pops on and finds pc's are interacting, they might find a way to group all together for something more worth each owns while.

A great way to practice your new RP stirring technique is to log onto the old sr3 grid as often as possible and try them out with a fodder-type character as example.  Yessir.

I hate Bar-RP.

What is the grid? Is it our OOC apartments/banks to hide and hoard our stashes, or the +hotspot PUBLIC bars/clubs where the oh so SECRETIVE meetings happen at a table and TSers ply for a hookup? I suggest ignoring all that and instead run a PrP.

I mean directly the public places other than the bars/clubs that are part of our surroundings.  Prp's are great, if you got'm.  We can have prp nights using +ooc apartments or wherever the gm of the eve/morn wants to hold'm.  Maybe there will be prp rooms again. Either way, if NS:SE plans on being an interactive environment, to some extent, then i'd assume certain places would become the stage our characters seek so passionately. 

Posting in "Public Destinations " by Kynan ( example at :   http://forum.newseattle.org/index.php/topic,12.msg38.html#msg38) cites: It is in these destinations that all PC's can potentially find each other.? Each local should offer some peice of environment or service(s) that the others don't. No player will have direct control over any of these destinations.? Rather, they destinations will have a thematic set of guidelines for the nature of the roleplay environment there.

As usual, it is stressed that the smaller, well known areas ( bars/clubs/hotel/ street clinic) will be the easy access point for pc's to gather and interact.  First few times, sure, maybe you can keep it interesting.  Run the whole friggin' gammet on the joint.  If it was one of those  bars that took pictures of the regulars, you'd be all over the wall in two weeks.

I too, hate bar rp.  It's been drilled into the ground. Another place of common occasion is a Gang/Org hangout.  Based on the thematic set of guidelines that might be available for the larger (but still well known ) places will the players who can,  paint a picture?  

 If all our players might eventually run with one another ( or against...) there has to be something else that buzzes around the environment.  Anything, even if we all *just talk about the +weather being crappy.







 

The problem with Bar-RP is that most people who do it never try to liven anything up, and if YOU do they tend to get upset by it.

Most of the time, it's just boring conversation, pick up lines, talk about sports teams, etc. Very few people I ever see Bar RP'ing are ever really RP'ing their char, and then they tend to freak out a bit if someone opens fire or LoneStar does a bust.

Bar RP is indeed a scourge, but it's hard to get away from.

One place that was hot for a while on Denver was a dojo where people would spar with each other to pass the time.  That was a lot of fun because there were plenty of kickass martial artists bumming around and it was a chance to RP some action without needing to run a whole plot and without the danger of death.  I don't see that happening on NS though, since martial arts are considerably less good in SR4 and it's unlikely that enough people will know how to fight on the new grid.  Plus, dojos are sort of exclusionary anyway since anyone without unarmed skill or interest in learning unarmed skill doesn't really have a reason to hang out.

Also, there have been a couple gyms...  I have to say though that on the whole gyms are ten times more boring than bars.  I've had way more people posing by themselves in the corner about running on a treadmill or lifting weights without being willing to talk to anyone than I ever had drinking alone in a bar.  And hey, it's realistic - a lot of people go to the gym to work out and don't want to meet people.  But gyms tend to attract the kind of unimaginative person who logs onto a MUX to do real life activities via text.  Bars do too of course, but less people who get the idea to go to a bar have a preset intention to be antisocial. 

And now I'm getting into the whole area of antisocial RP -.-  I guess this isn't the right topic, but I'd just like to say that I hope people who RP antisocial characters do so in a way that promotes RP rather than stifles it.  And giving someone a chance to start a fight or back down is not promoting RP, since most people will just leave, not wanting to risk their character's life for no reason.

Anyway...  There isn't much getting away from bar RP is what it comes down to.  Just the activity in the background changes - in general the blandness is the same.  If you go to a shooting range, people are being boring while shooting.  A coffee shop, they're being boring while drinking coffee.  A gym, they're being boring while working out.  The only +places that seem to produce a real deviation from the blandness are ones that provoke contests between players - it seriously breaks up the boring to have a sparring match, shooting contest, game of chess, race, or whatever...  But those things exclude people without the relevant skills (or just aren't that fun if the skills of the players are too unequal) and they're not strictly RP.  You might be able to pose some cool stuff while having a contest, but really the dice are driving it forwards, not the characters.

ElseMU we would have scheduled sporting events or concerts. Under normal circumstances, you don't start a conversation with a stranger about your latest shadowrun. Creating additional IC information creates more fuel for IC roleplaying. Having something like sporting events (Urban Brawl maybe) and concerts (yeah, someone reciting poetry) could motivate players to go to different locations to hang out and give them something to talk about. PCs need something to talk about. If there is nothing safe to discuss, then you have a bunch of people posing that their eating or drinking or doing nothing. If you have IC information that can be discussed with a stranger, then strangers can talk. Once you get to know each other, you can talk about finding jobs, gear, and improving shadowrun tactics; however, until you're that close you need IC information to discuss. You could even allow PCs to be urban brawlers or singers, and then shadowrunners after the day-job.

It's all about what you @desc.

@desc that the gym is in an old warehouse. Give it climbing walls. Give it ball games, from basketball to squash. Give it a juice bar and a social area. Give it a pool. Give it a bike circuit. Put it on the water and add kayaks or rowing. Give it an archery range. All of which can be done with Places code. Give it an arena for jogging, vaults, and so on. Give it a co-ed locker room.  Then make thhe rates affordable enough to let in anyone.

Then for those of truly low means, make a place that is abandoned so they can organize games of urban brawl, let them run it like pakour for exercise, desc up a few cinder blocks with rebars stuffed through them so people can work out. Heh. Then put a mom and pop store with a hard core troll owner and let them use that for their socialization, sitting out front drinking, or getting refreshments inside. Add a pinball machine or two. While it all sounds young-oriented, I've seen my share of old timers RL doing all of the above. I even knew a 42 year olf pakour nut who an an old navy base.

Pakour?  Is that the crazy street running thing where people run across rooftops and fire hyrdants and old ladies?

Yup. I've had a lot of friends who were mega avid. It was a huge workout epidemic in San Francisco about six years ago. Heh.