When its time to party we will party hard (open)[ooc]

[Lord Fell]

I hope to be receiving a response from Dr. Archeville with the details of the Ref decision, addressing the specific concerns I raised in my PM.

[Dr Archeville]

Not really, since you should've sent Avenger that PM. Putting them into one coherent post like that may've helped him see things differently. Particularly your concern with the non-Subtle use of Pomp's Emotion Control.

[Lord Fell]

I find that to be a very odd statement, Dr. Arche, since the very first paragraph of my PM to you explains why you were the only recipient, and invited you to share it with anyone you felt should read it... Since the Ref team seems to prefer all of this to be posted here in public anyways, why don't I just re-post it here?

I seem to have problems using PMs. I initially wrote and sent a PM earlier today to all involved, but I don't see it in my Sent box... which suggests that it didn't get sent. Feel free to share this with all appropriate parties.

I have a serious concern with the way AvengerAssembled has been acting towards me as a player, which has come to a head in this post.

I take exception to the statement that I'm "ignoring" Duncan Summers... my point of view of the conversation Pompadour is having with Mr. Summers is apparently different that AA's perception though. Consider this post -specifically this passage:

"Mr. Mason, this evening has long since moved beyond what I want." For a moment or two, Pompadour could see the humanity there, the deep, bone-weary fatigue on the face of the older man, before Summers began speaking again.

From my perspective, we have two men having a reasonable conversation about an unfortunate incident, trying to work out a solution. It was of great surprise to me that, apparently, Mr. Summers has been intimidating Pompadour.

...however, I asked a few of my fellow party guests. I'll concede that I may have been guilty of selective reading. Cyroa said that AA was channeling a Bruce Wayne from Batman Beyond kind of personality... understated, but still bad ass. Ecalsneerg said that it might not be 'in your face' but it could still be intimidating.

The fact that Duncan Summers is this campaign world's original Batman is all well and good, but Pompadour doesn't know that, why should he act as if he does? As a player, I had no idea that AA was trying to portray Duncan as being intimidating -when in doubt, that's what the OOC thread, or linked Intimidate Rolls on Invisible Castle are useful for.

So, keeping in mind that I'm seeing Duncan as... some old guy that Ace has vouched for in some nebulous fashion... and that he's not being scary, he just wants some damn Ovaltine... I thought my response was pretty reasonable. Again...

Pompadour holds up one hand "You said you'd deal with your students, if that includes a conversation with Miss Manipulator about bullying behaviour, my Nobility or Outrage will be satisfied." Pompadour holds up his other hand, "Although the scenario you painted that puts me behind bars seems pretty far fetched, I can see the damage this night can cause me. My Pragmatic side can see the value of apologizing -provided you're not too particular about sincerity." Pompadour pulls a face. "I suppose I could say that I'm sorry that I stuck my nose where it didn't belong, that's the honest truth."

I think it's pretty plain from this post that Pompadour's being reasonable... he's ready to apologize, he just doesn't want his concern about what Student Body did to get swept under the rug... and to be honest, the character is trying to claim some scrap of dignity, given that he's found himself in the rather distasteful position of being maneuvered into apologizing for someone else' unwholesome scheme.

...And here's a question that's begging to be asked... Why would Duncan Summers be so much more concerned about making Pompadour apologize to the room, than he would be about Pompadour's apparently truthful assertion that one of his students was using her powers in a highly inappropriate way? The answer I'm coming up with is GM vendetta. Of course, AA could point out that Pompadour also used his Emotion Control powers in a similarly inappropriate way (even though he was reacting to Student Body in the first place). But wait... I didn't actually do that of my own volition. I declared it, and I was given a GM caution about the wisdom of that action. I requested more information about how the power would be perceived, and stated that if it didn't work the way I thought it did "then perhaps (I wouldn't use it)." AA's response was "this is how the power works, so now that you have used it..."

So... what I see as the problem here, is firstly that AvengerAssembled has dropped an inappropriately heavy hand here. He's saying, essentially that he's bored of trying to use in character conversation to force my character to apologize, and he's just going to issue a GM ultimatum to make me do it. Now, beyond that... I have felt for some time that AA's had an ulterior motive with the direction he's taken this thread. I honestly feel that the Player wants to humble me (the player) by proxy through my character. This goes way back to The Chain and the Lightning thread, where... I handled, as a player, quite poorly "Jack Faretti's" intimidation. I agree I was wrong there... but I also felt that I was being subjected to what Barnum describes as PC bullying there, too... Yes, Avenger can use his PL11 character to scare the pants off of my PL6 character -as if that is a difficult feat... and use GM fiat to have environment SFX punctuate his characters scary moments with stuff that his character can't actually do (some people may, in fact recall an angry conversation in Chat where I demanded to know what power Avenger has that lets him cause all the lights in a night-club explode).

In a conversation with another player, who may not want hir name dragged into this discussion, sie agreed that something seemed odd about the way Avenger has been directing this thread (in relation to my character, at least). I stated to that player, that I predicted that AA was going to play the heavy here. Instead of just having Duncan agree to Pompadour's single stipulation (talk to Student Body about bullying (which Duncan already said he was going to do anyways)), and point out that Pompadour needs to apologize to the party at large for using Emotion Control on the room (although, as I've pointed out, I didn't actually do that). I predicted to my fellow player in Chat that rather than be willing to allow Pompadour any face-saving concessions, Avenger would take the heavy handed route.

My guess was that he'd resort to having Duncan Summers use intimidation. Declaring that Summers was always using Intimidate went above and beyond my worst expectations. I remarked to my chat friend "rather than be bullied into doing anything, I'd just as soon have Pompadour force a window and go down the side of the building." Now, because of AA's ultimatum, I may very well have the character do just that. On the other hand, I cry GM foul. If AA can't run a thread in an unbiased manner, without resorting to throwing ultimatums at players, then he shouldn't be running threads. I certainly don't want to be in any more threads he runs, starting with this one. I'll more than happily take my character out of it, but I think it would be more appropriate for Avenger to step aside, and allow a different Ref to take over the thread.

Because the copy of this in my PM box doesn't include html code, I had to redo that, so the formatting might be slightly different, but I didn't change any of the wording, spelling, or grammar.

[Dr Archeville]

I find that to be a very odd statement, Dr. Arche, since the very first paragraph of my PM to you explains why you were the only recipient, and invited you to share it with anyone you felt should read it...

I see nothing there indicating why you did not attempt to re-send it to Avenger.

[Lord Fell]

It's now a moot point, but as I said, I seem to have problems with the PM system here. If there's a way to forward messages, I'll be damned if I can figure it out.

[Lord Fell]

...and a post exiting Pompadour from the thread.

[Heritage]

War, the party is at the Plaza Hotel, which is part of the Pyramid Plaza complex, which means slick metal and sealed glass but sadly no balconies. We've all wanted to go outside and been stymied the same way :(

[Warmonger]

Doh!

[N/A]

Heritage, the whole "open your mind" thing is just fluff. You don't actually need to "open your mind" to receive Mental Communication.

[Dr Archeville]

Quuuaaaiiid....

[Heritage]

Just for clarification's sake, the assault rifle Grim made is a non-functioning prop that could never fire, but could well get her in trouble with security guards... :?

[Avenger Assembled]

Is she maintaining the effect, Heritage, or was it just a momentary shift in the middle of the conversation?

[Heritage]

Is she maintaining the effect, Heritage, or was it just a momentary shift in the middle of the conversation?

It'll be gone in her next post.

[Avenger Assembled]

They're looking her way, but they know she's a superhero.

[angrydurf]

So is there more people want from this? Things seem to be petering out.

[Heritage]

So is there more people want from this? Things seem to be petering out.

It looks like maybe it should be closed; your last point might make a good stopping point, actually.

[angrydurf]

Alright then I think I'll call this one and say lock it up unless we hear otherwise before a ref gets to it.