No-Selling
cmon son

if you are 'barely clinging to life' or 'struggling to remain conscious', you should act like it and think about whether the actions you're taking and things you are saying/how you're saying them, are congruent with your physical condition.

I'm not saying that we can't all improve our RP in situations like these but we also need to give players some creative freedom over their characters.

I would suggest that players take some time to think about how they imagine their characters would react in various situations like those mentioned here. How they can keep it realistic but also fitting to their character concept. It makes it a lot easier then making it up on the spot.

That said, Grey0's advice is really good. It took a few of these situations for me as the player to react quickly enough and accurately enough for my PC to engage in the RP in a way that didn't leave me having severe hindsight regret (if that makes sense). It's very easy to get totally immersed in what's being done and then remember 'oh shit! I'm supposed to do something!'

Watch this: https://youtu.be/wp3yreeTUmU

Batman versus the Joker, the Joker largely laughs and talks through his injuries, but his posture and body language undeniably reflect his wounds, right up to the end, the same for Batman.

Now you're not super heroes and super villains, but if these bakas can represent their wounds in how they act, you can do.

You don't have the benefit of a visual representation, so you have to use pose, otherwise you're robbing everyone else of a better RP experience, and honestly, you're taking away from your experience too, by being lazy.

Your brain simply doesn't shut down, it doesn't make you resistant to torture -- quite the contrary.

Right?

it ups your BODY's tolerance for pain before your brain shuts you down. It doesn't turn you into some pain for pleasure fetishist.

If you're some artsy musician type who doesn't have very good endurance, for example, and you're being tortured? Don't try to act tough. Break down, and show the other PCs that you're actually being heavily traumatized by their IC actions.

It's not very fun to me when I put the effort in to do something but get minimal effort in return and don't see the post-effects of my RP on them, too. I'm not telling you people how to play your character but I just think it makes things more realistic and fun when you see that person who had tortured you for hours and traumatized you in a way that you hire a solo to go after them and fuck them up worse than they fucked you up. It makes for good plotlines and character development if you don't just think "meh, let's just get this over with and die so I can forget all this/forget the effects" considering all of us -- even me at points -- just take cloning for granted and think "when I clone out this will all go away anyway, why should I care?".

Don't do that. Make all this shit traumatize and leave a scar on your character, then use it to plot against those same players.

Sometimes the player is just in disagreement with the situation they are in and don’t want to play along.

It is rather discouraging for multiple people to plot a kidnapping and torture and the majority of what you get back is “no matter what you do to me, you won’t get what you want” and “kill me so I can just never leave my cube again “. It sounds like an OOC fuck you and also like a passive aggressive way of Trying to guilt trip someone into not doing something in the name of retaining you as an active player. I’m not saying you give it all up every time, but be graceful about it I guess.

And to clarify I mean masochism in a nihilistic sense, not a sexual one. Obviously I understand that the vast majority of masochists as we know them IRL would not be aroused by non-consensual acts.

I've also gone to to great lengths to be a good victim to accommodate other people's efforts and in turn became a bit of punching-bag of RP at times...I've also been a total flub at times. As brutal as it may be, it can really turn into some really interesting RP. That said, if you are uncomfortable with RP'ing to that level because its disturbing - just OOCly opt-out but please do try to cooperate on some IC level.

In my experience it is considerably easier to perm someone or outright brutalize them into defeat than it is to kidnap and engage in this sort of RP. If you fail to engage in one - you will likely be met with the other. To Grizzly's initial point, this is something everyone could work on from top-down.

But what happens when you do these acts and it doesn't seem to have an effect? You have your character send a message through the beatdown only to see your target shrug it off and act like they do on every other day. Just have their toes melted off and made to drink them? But they're acting like it's pretty much fine? Okay. Kill them. Except what happens when they act like death also doesn't effect them? Okay. So maybe they really only value their possessions.. except, well, you get the theme of these examples now.

So what do you do. Do you just disengage from RP from them? Do you resort to the only solution you have left aka perming them?

That's really what most of this thread concerns. It isn't about "oh, I tortured this guy, but they won't give me their codes or their flash or super important data." It's.. "Oh, okay. I tortured this guy. But no matter what I do, no matter what occasion, it never has any RP payoff."

That's a disheartening experience for people who put in effort to do tangible, meaningful RP events that don't necessarily lead to death. Only to get what's essentially a non-reaction. It isn't an issue of a PC not conforming to expectations of a player. It's an issue of sometimes people not.. reacting at all.

I’m not going to tell you how to react to it. No point in really suggesting much else then what has already been posted a ton on here either. But what I will say is if you anger someone to the point of them doing something like this to you, 10/10 times they want you to live with and it’s an alternative to them having to kill you in a situation they believe justifies your death.

When these people start killing you left and right with minimal interaction it’s likely because they’ve given up on the majority of people who pop wood at their wood being popped off or whatever.

I also remember the situation that led to this post from Vera. It was because an NPC had been harmed to near death by a deadly weapon and was being dangled off a tall building and they were all smiles, cracking jokes, flirting, the whole nine yards. That is where the top down remark comes from. I think I am venturing into unpopular opinion land here when I say just because you saw a GM do it before doesn’t make it the right thing to do in every situation.

To simplify, if you don’t plan to be effected by it then ask to skip it. We can go back and fourth all day about it but that’s what you will keep coming back to.

Most people, when they get kidnapped and tortured, unless it's old hat to them, are probably upset, because a lot of people have strong connections to their characters and don't want to see them harmed, abused, etc. I don't mean from an "I'm uncomfortable with this RP" standpoint, I mean from a "This is horrible that it's happening to my character" standpoint.

I once had to intimidate an immy, so I dragged them to a rooftop and beat them up. I then put on my very best RP face, emoting, making it seem like a dramatic scene, trying to play up their dire circumstances, and they literally just didn't care. No-sold the injuries, ignored what I was saying, and generally acted like they were waiting for me to kill them or depart. At the time I remember thinking, "Why did I put this effort in? It was literally for them and they're not interested."

And the answer is, people don't immediately warm to being attacked and threatened. They don't immediately see you as another person trying to direct them in a themely way without killing them.

I've also seen a really amazing player interrogated and it was a completely different experience, they made the people questioning them look boring AF by comparison, they plead for their life, they got shrewd, they tried persuasion, they went through stages, and I assume everyone there was OOCly floored and appreciative of them playing along.

I've seen plenty of NPCs tortured or interrogated as well. Even NPCs don't just give you the information you want, especially if they've seen some shit (like most Mixers have) and especially if it's something that could hurt them. In a world of cloning, the threat of death or violence doesn't have quite the same sting, especially because dying is often cheaper than whatever you're asking them to give up. People do have a survival instinct, but in a Genetek world, they also think about their long-term survival, not just the present moment.

Having been interrogated and killed, I can tell you it also feels disappointing to really RP your hardest for the person questioning you, to lie, flatter, cajole, flirt, rationalize, talk circles around them, seem convincing, make cinematic tension and drama with your poses, and still just end up getting killed at the end of it. You don't necessarily think "Well that was a waste of time," it's more like, "Nothing I could have done would have saved me, but I tried."

TL;DR

For victims: Recognize that someone is making an effort to try and RP with you in a more interesting way than just murdering you outright. They're trying to leave a lasting impression on your character. They may be giving you a chance to amend your ways so they don't have to kill you. In that spirit, try to put aside your OOC frustration and make it interesting for them in return. You might earn major respect points from your enemies.

For torturers: Realize that players, especially newer players, may have an emotional reaction to their character's situation and lose interest in playing along. They're only human.

I do think that overall, this whole discussion has been much more nuanced than "People IRL act like X, so they should act like X in game too." Maybe there were a few posts like that, but the majority of posts here have made me aware of different perspectives on the matter, and I hope more people read through this thread because of that.

Grizzly, that's a pretty discouraging thing to hear about with the NPC, but I'm glad you shared it. All I can personally do is trust and assume there were factors going on in the background which I won't ever be aware of, which justify and contextualize that sort of reaction to deadly torture.

But I do agree that just because an NPC was seen responding to torture and abuse in such a way once, doesn't mean we should do it every time. Taking (clone)death and torture seriously is part of the theme, and we work together to cultivate that theme, right?

Also, there might be a threshold where, if enough characters are no-selling and/or laughing/joking/flirting giddily while being brutally tortured, then it just loses it's perceived value as a noteworthy character trait. If Brons Charleson, Cee Lan Veef, Lint Leastwood, Fenry Honda, Ian Olontè, and Johnny Whiteshroud have all had their limbs dissolved away in an excruciatingly painful process that takes five hours to complete, and they have all taken the time out of their busy time being tortured to compliment me on the way I did my hair while giving me a big smile, how is it any kind of noteworthy if Weli Allach asks me for my number while going through the same? Sure, that's 7 people out of 77 million... And I don't think we're there yet right now. But I'm saying if we let it get there, it's maybe not gonna be a very interesting trend that negatively impacts everyone's RP.

My perspective on this is as both a new player and character. I have zero interest in preserving the life of any other character who acts violent towards me. There is zero upside for me. The only thing that leaving another character alive does is to perpetuate a struggle that I might not end up on the winning side of next time.

My perspective has been formed by the amount of no selling that goes on. It is impossible to be on SIC for more than two or three days without coming across characters whose story is effectively, "I just got out the vat. Yup, I did something bad and I deserved to get vatted in the first place. Yup, I'm back to doing that exact same thing right now." That's the OOC perspective.

The IC perspective is that it is absolutely stupid to leave anyone alive who would be a threat to you. Even if you beat them today, what prevents them from coming back tomorrow with more friends, or better weapons, or a different, more effective strategy?

If the answer to that is, "You have a clone / bank account / fall back position" then we're right into the meat of the torture discussion. Either you care about what you have and you are afraid to lose it, to the point of giving into torture. Or you know that you have a fallback position, and you kind of shrug it off. At a certain point, a character just wants it to be over. If the torturer does too much permanent damage, the character is likely going to prefer a new, vat grown body to their old, scared and perhaps permanently handicapped self.

Then there is the messy middle ground where IC and OOC meet. OOCly, there is a limited player base to pull from. Therefore you want to encourage people to stick around, and not necessarily remove any and all threats as soon as they make themselves known. Doing that well requires trust. Trust is short supply in a game like this. Even if YOU are willing to make the "dumb" choice to let someone live, are they going to return the favor when the shoe is on the other foot?

Which brings us right back to maturity. And the need for a top down "solution" to this. Long lived characters and staff run NPCs have resilience. The resilience allows them a wide range of options for dealing with threats. By the very nature of choosing something like kidnapping or torture in lieu of clone death or perming, they are sending a message. They are communicating "I am powerful. I am SO powerful, that I am not going to kill you... this time."

I think it falls upon the less powerful characters to realize that they are being given a chance. Even if that recognition is OOC / meta, it still needs to be recognized. It needs to be recognized that they are being given the opportunity to hold onto their character.

As for RPing torture itself, that's a personal preference. I'm in the FtB camp. I have zero interest in RPing out someone else's sadistic fantasies of inflicting pain on a helpless victim. Just OOCly give me a list of what you want to know, I'll ICly give you the relevant answers and we'll move on. I personally think torture falls up there with kiddie porn on the list of stuff that is morally reprehensible and shouldn't be given a forum. But that's just me.

Also, I fully agree with the points crashdown, Reefer and Crooknose have made. While I do not think anyone should be forced to follow someone else's script or to give out specific information, we should all try our best to take these situations seriously. I don't think that any of our characters are not immune to fear and pain. Just to you best to react reasonably to fear and pain in a way that you feel fits your character.

If someone beats, stabs, or shoots you until you are at the brink of death, consider roleplaying that your character is afraid or in pain instead of acting indignant, bored, or demanding that you be killed.

I don't know if you've ever been beaten unconscious IRL. I have. I didn't wake up with a list of demands or start spitting on people.

Even someone whose entire life revolves around violence should at least be shaken or dazed by serious trauma. That doesn't mean you need to start crying and begging for mercy but like, at least roll around on the ground and groan or something rather than acting like the attacker is merely inconveniencing your character.

Please pay attention to characters condition at the end of their descs, even if they are not. If somebody walks into a bar barely clinging to life, maybe suggest that you're not going to do anything with them until they see a doctor. Or assume that they are delirious from the pain and need a doctor. Or whatever you feel is appropriate. "Hey mona, this is the bar, not the clinic. You should be two blocks down from here."

If another character is playing up their injuries, do not ignore them. I have run into situations where my character is badly beaten or clinging to life,and some other characters try to have normal conversations with them. The other characters wanted something from my character so badly, that was all that they could focus on.

Every damn time.

Why am I roleplaying with you if you are not roleplaying with me?

What's worse is that because of this, when someone does take it on the chin and act like it, everyone treats them like they're a huge crybaby because they've all seen other people just smirk and laugh it off.

A character might be committed to something enough that being murdered and ceasing to exist and having a clone that thinks it's still them but isn't created in a lab is not the biggest deterrant, but it should still be giving them some kind of pause.

This isn't me grabbing up someone and pulling their eyes out for funsies, it's poor sports abandoning RP when they stop winning.

And even if you don't want to RP with me, ...sorry? Go play a different game. My characters are a part of this world and logging in means potentially dealing with them.

This was bad for them for sure. People who could have walked away with a black eye and a cool story were being murderhobo'd because I was just so tired of the no-selling. This is what I was talking about with the 'I don't owe you RP' thing in the victimhood thread.

Now that I'm back I've tried to give people a better experience but like, it is never ever ever worth the bother. People mouth off, you smack them down, and they just go right back to it and act like you didn't do anything to them. I've seen multiple people IC complain of 'being rooted in place' after having all of their bones broken because the only way they're conceptualizing the loss is as an OOC inconvenience.

So...why play a violent character if all it's ever going to net you is a bunch of chucklefucks pushing your buttons to provoke a reaction and then totally ignoring all consequences when you spend time and energy to give them an appropriate in-character response? You get no rep, no fun, no story. It just leaves such a bad taste in my mouth.

That's a sad situation. I've been having fun now that I'm back but I've noticed so much of this and the other day someone took it so far that I was left wondering why I even bother. You're not roleplaying, why should I?

Not to sound too preachy but if you have some RL stuff to deal with, step away from the game. It's not a safe space, it is not a friendly environment and trying to get other people to ICly give you a break because it is not fair. You see RL bleeding into your IC, @quit, take your time, handle your life first, as it's way more important anyway. And if you @quit in your home, you will be safe from consequences until you are fit and well enough to handle this stuff again. People understand OOC happening, so if you are not online, no one is going to mess with you too much, most of the time.

The worst part for me, about people not selling death, is that my PC is quite averse to killing/torturing whatsoever. So if you are on the end of it from my PC that means you have repeatedly asked for it and refused attempts to resolve this without having to go down to violence. And then, despite all of this, I still get those suicidals who just use a PC as booth replacement, but I guess without having to write a note. It is not an enjoyable job to handle.

Players treating certain characters like suicide booths is annoying. Players ignoring threat and injury and having their characters behave in needlessly provocative ways despite all attempts to change their mind with violence are annoying. Characters waking up from having all their bones broken and bitching that they can't walk to the bar or screaming 'just kill me' are totally out of character. It just feels like OOC trolling that certain players are expected to spend time and resources moderating IC and it is a drag.

And the next time someone irritably OOCs me when I take a swing at them I am probably going to think about turning that into a necksnap with no further RP.

Here is my take, and some constructive criticism for both sides.

Before engaging in any torture whatsoever, definitely pause and ask, "Hey, this is about to get real torturey. You down with that or should we close the curtain for a fade to black."

This has the obvious effect of displaying kindness to the player, of course, but other effects as well. It separates murderhobo from Vera for the other player. (sorry Vera, just using you as an example). When the torturer and the player are more clearly separated, it reinforces the narrative that you two players are cooperating for a story, even if one character is 'winning' and the other is 'losing', per se.

The most important thing (after kindness) is how this will help a player with a victimized char progress from one state into another. No-selling is, from what I can see, Denial. Not rich RP with nuance yet defiance, but straight denial. If the player finds themselves in Denial and doesn't process that or even realize it, their char can't move past it.

Now for those involved in torture RP. As a way to get the most out your time, and IMHO have the best time getting tortured, I suggest dipping heavily into Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief. Maybe as a player you're experiencing them too? Let's take a look.

Duke Puke says, oocly: "Torture upcoming, wanna RP through this or prefer FTB?"

.oO(Oh shit. Okay, check all the exits, flee, flee, nope, got a signal? no? this is totally unfair, dammit. This can't be happening.)

DENIAL!! (Not just declaring something as untrue, but the refusal of something requested, whether it's realistic and fun RP, or an IC secret)

Newbert says, oocly: "Cool, whatever, let's rock and roll, boyo."

Duke Puke sets his medical tray down, telling Newbert, "You vill tell us your mona's progia number, von't you?"

RPing denial can be varied and nuanced, dull and obvious, or even crazy fun.

Newbert snorts, "Can't hurt me, baka, I've seen lit'ly e'rythin' ever. Eat a bullet, rimrag."

Or

Newbert shouts, "I EAT PAIN FOR BREAKFAST!"

Newbert thrashes around in chair, straining futilely against his bonds, shouts for help, and keeps shaking his head, muttering, "This can't be happening."

ANGER (If you're angry at the player, maybe that's natural, but not conducive to great RP. Take a breath, relax, play your char as is, not as is ideal. Anger IC can be a blast though. Channel that.)

Duke Puke smashes all three of Newbert's phone's on the ground, laughing maniacally, before telling him, "I have made three wonderful Sicads about you, with so many puns in them!"

Newbert says, rolling his eyes, "Just kill me baka, can't get nothin' off me."

Or

Newbert glares angrily at his broken phone chunks, "One of those was an Eleven! And why is your accent so inconsistent!?" Newbert tries to kick at Duke Puke, "When I vat up, we're gonna find you, and destroy you, somehow."

BARGAINING (Okay, so maybe you don't want details about your bone sounds, the color of viscera, or some weird, twisted semi-creepy stuff. Bargain. As in asking OOCly, "Can we fade the Gore but keep the dialog? Or maybe we could get some xhelp to weigh in on if I could stand X or Y with these boss stats and prior experience?" Always a good go to ICly, too. Mona's # is precious, maybe some cash will settle this?)

Duke Puke removes a brown-spotted, bulbous pear from his medical tray, three blind nice, and a marker, "Prepare for utter agony, Newbert B. Trippen."

Duke Puke proceeds to vividly describe how his High School dance should have played out if God were fair, with detailed monologue, using nice and Mr. Pearface as props.

Newbert says, "Pfffft. Did you hear me? I said PFFFT. That's twice now."

Or

Newbert begs and pleads, offering various reasons why Jennifer might have just not noticed Duke Puke, or maybe Capt. Jock is a nice guy if you get to know him. "What about my locker code, fool? I got fifty stacks in dere. I'll give ya that, you let me go. Chill, yes?"

DEPRESSION (So maybe your newbert is gonna die. It's not to a rat! Or a dog! And all your custom gear and loot is going to a PC! Not an NPC. It may have taken a long time to get your things, but it truly could have been worse.)

Duke Puke cries with his face in Newbert's lap, looking up at him with malevolent eyes, "We were in Loooooove!"

Newbert sighs, "Just kill me dude."

Or

Newbert groans in utter frustration, tilting his sweat-beaded head back to exclaim in a raspy, desperate voice, "Duuuuude, please just fucking kill me. Please! This tangent is clearly not worth the effort and has some serious flaws you'll only notice long after committing to it!"

ACCEPTANCE (Maybe, if you don't get the result you want from your RP partner, you just have to accept they either do not RP this well, your reward shouldn't be hung up on them, or you haven't gone full Sindome cyberpunk torture to the max. Alternatively, victims, sometimes shit sucks. When you finally do get yours, and you're the badass walking down X street, how do you want your victims to react to your RP when the situation is flipped? Give a penny, take a penny. Torture it forward. That kind of stuff.)

Duke Puke wields his corpsteel katana, telling Newbert, "Now that I've wasted enough time, my accomplices are in place, and I can begin phase two."

Newbert hangs his head in acceptance, jerking it up to ask, "Wait, what?" Before the katana falls.

Later...

Pukeface Jones hands Newbert a pear, a phone, and a pair of pants, explaining, "Quick, call yer Mona. Duke Puke has flipped on everyone. we need your help taking him down. Everyone's help."

I hope this had been genuinely productive and helpful and not an unnecessary waste of everyone's time. At the very least, amusing. Delete if just in poor taste. No-selling hurts the person no-selling most, by eliminating their role-play options, the game's quality, and their next sleeve's lifespan.

I think it is important that people keep trying to see that getting owned in a crazy efficient manner usually involves RP leading up to it and is a great catalyst for RP following it. Even if you don't get to throw in all the poses you want before the attack is over.

Tree: Great post. I like how you are providing ideas and actionable things that players might choose to take up and might help them and not just complaining. Thank you. And to be honest, you can go through the same process even if it's a more brief session following a beat down on the street.

As others have said, it's probably a good idea for you to think about how your character would react, realistically, now. BEFORE you are in the middle of the RP being pushed on you. Think it over. Have a plan. It's much easier to accept and deal with these things if you already have a general idea of how your character is likely to react.

Beyond that, if he had lived and was released I am confident that his life would be changed - even if he miraculously returned to full health. Maybe he avoids the people who messed him up. Maybe he moves. Maybe the next time a witch hunt starts to form, he moves out of town in a hurry - whatever the cost.

I will always be a proponent of player agency over their characters but I am also a proponent of flawed, human characters with weaknesses and strengths and who have reasonable reactions to bad things that happen to them. So think about this with your character as it WILL come up. You will get insulted, bullied, beaten, injured and maybe even tortured. How will your character react to these things?

While everyone wants their character to be the baddest of the bad who can deal with anything thrown at them, like Giles dealt with pressing, those are, in my opinion, boring characters. Let them be flawed. Let them fail. Let them betray someone even if they didn't want to sometimes. At the least, let them react to physical pain and mental trauma.

Sindome is a cyberpunk RPG. Not an anime RPG (though some great CP stories have come to us in anime formats) or a Looney Toons RPG. I only ask that you stick to theme. :-)

There is no plot that was made better by no-selling.

Every time you stymie someone's efforts -to- progress a story by wanting to be Billy Badass and neutralizing -any- kind of outcome, you're killing a narrative.

"Or, I recommend a GM to get involved and give the victims a bit of 'carrot' post-RP. A mistake in the bank like a fifteen thousand or so being transferred to their bank account, finding better things, promotion, etc, giving them the incentive to spill information ICly, despite their lives being ruined."

GMs don't make obvious tangible rewards for getting fucked over, but they do take note of the players who will take things on the chin. It isn't an obvious exchange, but they do go "Hey, that person got their shit kicked in without being a fuckhead about it afterwards" and the incentive is that they can trust them with cool plot later on, knowing that they won't be a cockhead about an outcome that doesn't favor them.

And other players notice as well. I avoid people who want to antag and needle but give no sort of hooks in return. If I fuck with you and you have a laugh while fucking with me back? I'm going to pull punches. If you die and say some shit like "Well thanks for noticing me enough to kill me", I'm going to pretend you don't exist and you can have fun RPing in a vacuum when other people get sick of it.

Your reward for being chill and narrative driven is... other people being chill and narrative driven.

Players who get guns pointed to their head, while critically injured, and just grin and say "we live in a society". Or players who die one, two, or three times, and just brush it off while saying "oh lol it's just 5k". Please read this entire thread. Please remember the effort that's gone into giving you a cool death.

While it's up to each player how they react to situations, it might be worthwhile to codify some basic ideas of what characters are experiencing when they die, that might even be offered up as an OOC tip the first time someone hits the red scroll.