Best Of

Vows Broken — A scandalous, deeply controversial show that provides a fairly accurate insight into the intricacies of Shen culture. It follows the story of a young Shen woman from a highly wealthy Great Family, who is betrothed to another young Shen from another Great Family. In the early episodes she does indeed wed him, but it's made clear that they don't truly love each other nor have any chemistry. She then begins to plot her escape from Janilyn, spawning numerous love triangles and then trapezes. The show tends towards the dramatic with multithreaded plots of betrayal, assassination and shady back-dealings, including a now-famous scene in which the Prime Elder is poisoned at his dinner table mid-speech, which has turned into something of an intergalactic political meme, code for wanting to silence a figurehead you dislike.

Although praised for its costume, set design and musical score (excluding one rather unpopular episode in which they chose to overlay a vital scene with an aetherscape-inspired composition), it is extremely unpopular among the elderly Shen demographic, who think it promotes a very immoral message to younger Shen and represents a dangerous break from tradition.

Needless to say, it's much more popular consequently among younger, less traditional Shen, and has an intergalactic reputation for being daring and binge-worthy.

It is based on, but has since departed from the plot of a datashard.

Back to Earth — Popular in the Belt, a science-fiction show that reimagines the departure from Earth through a highly fictionalised lens, in which humanity's survivors utilise a combination of time travel, intergalactic politicking and guerilla warfare to escape captivity, salvage the earth before/after its destruction (time travel) and conquer the galaxy, fighting Empyreals, Shen, Nabians and Vonikin Krel alike. The show has been highly criticised outside of the Belt for poor portrayal of other cultures, for its implausibility and numerous plot-holes.

Can you imagine Orrin clicking option 2? haha 

Poet said:

Don't get me wrong, I want to win. I also want everyone to have fun, and not have half the game IRL pissed off at the other half. But it needs to make sense RP wise, while also not setting everyone off.  RP wise Poet would murder the lot of you without a second thought if you got in her way, and then scan your INRs to make personality constructs of you.

Finding RP justifications to not do something for the sake of not totally shitting on someone's playing experience can be just as fun for me as finding reasons to do something for the sake of my own character.

Ikchor said:

I don't care if I lose, I just don't like losing for really dumb reasons. I've had other people on my "team" cause us to be on the losing side because they either a) completely lost the plot thread for whatever reason or b) tried to use the plot to railroad their own wants/needs when it did not suit the plot at all causing us to lose badly.

Yeah sometimes getting blindsided just sucks. 

Sairys said:

Personally, I've seen the "depends on the scenario" / "rp fits the game" become an excuse elsewhere.
People saw/see the most fitting thing as one particular group losing or having something bad happen to them that they recover from. Even positive things would have negativity heaped onto them so they weren't as much "wins" as they were "consolation prizes".


So yeah, I think everyone should want to win, I think there should be clear moments where everyone shines, and if its necessary for a group of players to lose then I think the negatives of that should be salved(?) into neutrals/positives as much as possible.

Instantly makes me think of long stretches in Achaea where one side just got the crap beaten out of them. (Though I knew players on both sides who could turn lemons into lemonade, they were generally the exception to the rule and a lot of times things weren't fun at all.)

And like @Cubey said, getting curbstomped, especially, can just suck. A good game and a good player base with decent leadership finds the balance and can keep that from happening. 

Personally, I've seen the "depends on the scenario" / "rp fits the game" become an excuse elsewhere.
People saw/see the most fitting thing as one particular group losing or having something bad happen to them that they recover from. Even positive things would have negativity heaped onto them so they weren't as much "wins" as they were "consolation prizes".


So yeah, I think everyone should want to win, I think there should be clear moments where everyone shines, and if its necessary for a group of players to lose then I think the negatives of that should be salved(?) into neutrals/positives as much as possible.