Spellbooks and Schoolgirls d20

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 5:52 am

Prak wrote:So then the initial in-group determinate is "being played by a real person." Everyone being in the same dorm, or homeroom, or club, or whatever doesn't mean that they go on adventures together, unless every adventure is "a demon is attacking your dorm!" or similar. And even then, the only thing that determines that the player characters all fight the demon, rather than some fighting and others running away is that they're played by real people who understand that if they don't follow the basic "here is an objective, work together" prompt there's no game.

No.

Just fucking no.

Telling the players that they have to mind caulk a reason for their characters to work together adventure after adventure is just you completely abdicating the pitch portion of your setting design. Yes, it's an RPG and a player's refusal to buy in to the ensemble is a refusal to play the game. But give them a frickin bone! Fucking something. This is not optional. This is fucking step one. If you don't have this, you don't have anything.

Even fucking Vampire had "you're all in a coterie." And that game suffered tremendously from "What do we do nextitis?" And it had a lot of centripital force pulling coteries apart. But at least it managed to have a pitch for why the player characters would stay together. You fucking have to have that. Again and still, this is not optional. This is not a buck you can pass. This is step one.

You don't have this. You don't have anything. Go back to square one, because literally none of the design work you do means shit until you have an answer to what is literally the first question: Why are we here?

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 6:13 am

Frank, is "you all went to a restaurant. While you're eating, an elf walks up and says 'you're chosen to adventure together, here are boat tickets,' you have nothing better to do so you go along with it" an acceptable reason for the party to adventure together on an ongoing basis?

Because if so, I have a hard time seeing why "you all showed up to asses into this school. The admins randomly grouped you together for the entrance exam. Having gone through a dungeon together and helped each other pass a written, you decide to keep helping each other during your time at the school and go on field work together" is less acceptable.

Hell, I'm having trouble seeing why "you're all in homeroom/a dorm together" is a more legitimate in-group determinator than assessing into school together.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 6:24 am

Prak wrote:Hell, I'm having trouble seeing why "you're all in homeroom/a dorm together" is a more legitimate in-group determinator than assessing into school together.

The first is an ongoing and current condition. The second is an event in the past.

Think about games that "work:" In D&D you are members of an adventuring party. In Shadowrun you are members of a shadowrunner team. Hell, even in fucking Werewolf you are members of a pack.

You have to be current members of an exclusive group composed of player characters. Have to. It's an absolutely essential portion of RPG design. If you don't have that, you don't have anything. Literally nothing is what you have until you have successfully defined the current and ongoing group. It's literally step one in the RPG design process and it is a buck you cannot pass.

-Username17

Mechalich · Post by **Mechalich** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 6:32 am

It can be fairly informal though. In a school setting the reason can be as simple as 'you're a clique.' If this is a one-off campaign you can even let the players decide why their characters are a clique FATE-style, but there does need to be a reason (it can be a dumb reason, endless magical school anime have been united around 'we girls think the main dude is hot for no particular reason').

Once that's done though, you also need to tailor the gameplay so that there are excuses for a clique-sized group to do things together within the school context, which probably means assigning a metric ton of 'small group projects.'

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 7:21 am

"We met in a tavern" is an event in the past. "We were hired for the same job" is an event in the past. And yet it's not unusual for parties to stay together past the initial adventure. You're acting like the party ceases to exist after the first adventure they're hired for/thrown into. I don't know if you only ever do one adventure games, or only do long overarching campaigns with a central ongoing objective, or what, but it's not unusual for four to six people to meet up on orientation day at a new school and stay friends for the next four years.

So, yeah, the initial in-group determinator is "you assessed together." And that's no more or less arbitrary than "you all meet in a tavern" and... This is a fucking rpg, not the great American novel. It seriously doesn't need some iron clad "this is why you're together" set up.

Fuck, there is a story trope that is basically "the heroes are a guy approached to defend a village and the first six guys he saw that agreed to help." Lord of the Rings is "a wizard gives a hobbit a ring and says "go destroy this," and three of his friends tag along. They meet a guy in a bar. Then they meet three other guys when a bunch of magical schmucks get together to basically say "no hobbit can do this." They go on an adventure."

Even the Golden Trio of Harry Potter is literally just "the chosen one and the first two wizards he met that were his age and not complete dicks." They were put in the same House, if anything, because they already met the train. Or because little Hermione had a crush on little Harry and asked the hat put him in the same house. Or Dumbledore told the hat "put Harry and the student with the most potential in my old house."

But sure, "you were put together for an assessment dungeon and decided to stick together after because of Shared Trauma/Experience, like normal people totally do" is inadequate.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 7:23 am

The problem here is I think, that you are talking past each other, because Prak is an idiot and can't communicate.

Prak is imagining a hypothetical situation in which when you show up at the school the school just arbitrarily rams people into groups of [exactly the amount of PCs you have] and says "and now you will be bestest buds and work together and pass or fail together for the next four years" like an even dumber version of the RWBY team thing.

EDIT: Nope, he just expects people to stay together because the happened to be sent on a test together once, and never mind that apparently they could be sent on a group test with completely different people tomorrow, they will literally murder those people in their sleep and replace them with their friends from the first test instead.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 7:45 am

No, Kaelik, what I'm proposing is that, in world, in order to get into the school, you have to assess. The school takes people that show up and splits them into arbitrary groups of 4-6 people, and says "here's an exam, and when you're done with that, there's an obstacle course dungeon." And then, once they're through that, like totally normal people in the real world frequently do, they form a small clique that stays mostly together while they're all at the school because of shared experiences/trauma.

And this is less arbitrary than-

"Go destroy this world-endangering artifact." "Can my friends come?" "ffs...sure." Oh, look, four more randos are joining now
I'm the chosen one! Oh, and you're literally the first two kids I've met who aren't wankers! Lets stay together for seven years and defeat wizard hitler!
"Save our village!" "Well... fine. But I'm gonna need six more guys. You fucks, I just met five of you, but you'll do."
"You're all eating in the same restaurant, an elf comes up and says 'you six are chosen, here's boat tickets. Fuck off."

When my set up is less arbitrary than 1) the story that basically inspired the hobby, 2) the specific source material for this game, 3) a classic of Japanese film with two remakes and which has been emulated hundreds, if not thousands of times, and 4) the last adventure I saw Frank, himself, run, and it's a set up, not for a professional published game, but a campaign I want to run for like, 4 or 5 of my friends, I give no fucks. If that's not good enough for Frank, well, I asked for general opinions on some rules variants I was thinking of for this, I did not ask Frank for his specific opinion on my entire project.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 8:02 am

Nope. I'm done with this conversation, because Prak is an idiot.

For anyone else who wants to design a game ever, it is a fundamental requirement that player characters in any role playing game have a current and ongoing reason to continue having adventures together. It might just be that they have a shared mission and a diverse set of skills. Indeed, from adventuring parties to superhero teams, that's usually about as deep as that rabbit hole ever goes or needs to go.

But the fact that it's usually pretty flippant doesn't mean it's optional. It's not optional. You fucking need it. Otherwise there is no game. If your setting can't tell me why there's a cooperative story to be told, it's less than worthless. A waste of my time to read.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 8:13 am

Well, I have one, Frank, and it's less flippant than three very relevant examples and a very common one. And it's realistic, so feel free to stop concern trolling my thread.

Oh, and "We bonded over a mildly lethal entrance exam, and are all going through the same school" meets the exact criteria you just put forth for "anyone who wants to design a game ever"

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 10:24 am

Prak wrote:Well, I have one, Frank, and it's less flippant than three very relevant examples and a very common one. And it's realistic, so feel free to stop concern trolling my thread.

Oh, and "We bonded over a mildly lethal entrance exam, and are all going through the same school" meets the exact criteria you just put forth for "anyone who wants to design a game ever"

Do you know the difference between past tense and present continuous, you stupid fuck?

-Username17

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 11:06 am

Reread this.

The Harry Potter houses are a bad system for an IP-scrubbed roleplaying game. Consider that in Harry Potter itself, there are:
House Hero: Chosen Hero, Clever Hero, Chump Hero
House Villain: Clever Villain, Chump Villain
House Clever: Clever Extra
House Chump: Chump Extra
with Chosen, Clever, Chump being character classes (obviously unfit for a roleplaying game: Chump is Monk-tier, and Chosen plays Fate instead of D&D).

JK Rowling could get away with it because she was writing single-author fiction. Harry Potter roleplayers can use the House subdivision (but not the character classes) because they have huge swaths of material to serve as foundation and foil for whatever characters they want to play.

Having your players all be from the same Harry Potter House / Lo5R Clan / Planescape Faction is completely out of the question. Look at the OSSRs of the latter two to see why. People like different stuff. Furthermore, players gravitate to different character archetypes. If your Houses / Clans / whatever are described as even more important within the school environment than character classes, player will try to pick different ones. If your IP-scrubbed game advertises itself with WOW LOOK AT ALL THOSE THINGS YOU CAN BE!!1! AWESOMESAUCE!!1! and then immediately shut people down, they're going to be offended, and rightly so.

You can only demand that all the players be in one faction if it's a side in the main conflict of the game (because it's a cooperative roleplaying game and they all have to be in the same party trying to win). In a World of Warcraft Alliance vs Horde campaign, you can tell players to pick Alliance or Horde as a group (but you're going to have someone playing a Horde-aligned Night Elf or whatever anyway). In a campaign where you're killing demon cattle or demon calamari or Arabian bugs or whoever's Team Monster now, you'll probably get a better game out of allowing them to pick a faction individually. The only reason you can have for limiting players to one Harry Potter House is if the goal is to win the Cup, but the actual Harry Potter books make it really damn clear that the Cup is a bullshit goal, and your players will expect a more meaningful quest, too.

But more importantly, neither your Houses nor any but one of the Harry Potter houses can carry a character story.

"I'm from House Blaster but I'm not a Blaster-class" -- so what? What do Blasters do? Fight duels? Build mana reactors? If it's something that Blaster-classes are better at, then House Blaster second fiddles are not a real character option. If every House has its corresponding class, then you've just narrowed actual character choices to 6 options, which means that in the Game Design Flowsheet you can barely support a 6-player party -- and not well at that, because you already have House Chump, so #6 is going to defect, and, knowing this, #5 is going to defect. The two last picks are going to be Fred/George pairs to previously picked characters. Fred-or-maybe-George is not a good player character, but 2/3 of your party are that. Congratz.

The only House that actually works okay is Slytherin, because they're also House Blood Supremacist, and in a brand-name Harry Potter game with Blood Supremacists being main villains, there's room for several Slytherins with different prompts (I'm an asshole but I'll get better / My parents are assholes / My parents owe an asshole / I'm secretly descended from an asshole and now everyone thinks I'm evil / My vampire boyfriend dumped me for Hilary Duff). All your Houses need to multiply character concepts, not subsume and diminish them.

---
I give you that: following the legacy of D&D, you can actually skate somewhat on "we're friends and we're going to the same school". In both D&D and Shadowrun, the player character motivation to adventure together, to take jobs that come their way without too much scrutiny, and not to fucking betray each other is externally imposed. But after that's settled, they actually have jobs to proactively do. So you're friends, you're in the same grade, and try to not get turned into newts or, worse, expelled (you'd rather be newts than custserv reps).

Now you still need to decide what the fuck it is that you're doing as a group in roleplayed scenes with all of the party present and contributing roughly equally, and then to ensure every character has the ability to meaningfully contribute (and then for the faction system to interact with it). Be specific, describe sample scenes. Write out an Example of Play if it helps. Recall that, e.g., for Shadowrun, "industrial espionage" is too vague and ends up allowing a hacker to play his own unrelated game without being present on location, which (surprise!) is bad for the game. If only one character plays Quidditch, you can't have Quidditch on camera. If it's somehow an indispensable part of being a wizard and everyone can play it, you can, but each character better have a role in the minigame to showcase their abilities rather than a "play Quidditch" skill tax. Whether you're preparing for the next big Test, or solving unconnected mysteries-of-the-semester, or hunting dark wizards, or overcoming random challenges (SURPRISE DISTRICT ASSESSMENT! PASS IT OR THE SCHOOL LOSES FUNDING!), you need to do it as a group.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 3:01 pm

Prak,

Let's say I'm in your game and my real-life girlfriend ssks to join 3 months into the game. How can she join the group if the group was formed based on a past event?

You can have groups of friends form and be the basis of the game (whether they are friends because they room together, or they're all in the anime club or whatever), but you have to decide on how much outside influence exists. If the group has a falling out, what happens?

If you paint yourself into a corner, you'll be stuck if something changes that you didn't anticipate.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 5:59 pm

Prak wrote:Frank, is "you all went to a restaurant. While you're eating, an elf walks up and says 'you're chosen to adventure together, here are boat tickets,' you have nothing better to do so you go along with it" an acceptable reason for the party to adventure together on an ongoing basis?

Well no, because most characters need a reason to put their lives at risk following the orders of a crazy elf. Some might do it on a whim, but most won't.

This is why the classic "you all meet in a tavern" and "Mr. Johnson hooks you up for a run" assume that you're all basically mercenaries who routinely do dangerous shit for a payday.

Prak wrote: And this is less arbitrary than-
"Go destroy this world-endangering artifact." "Can my friends come?" "ffs...sure." Oh, look, four more randos are joining now.

That's literally the least arbitrary reason for a party. The world is where most people keep all their stuff. You're going to get a lot of volunteers for such a mission, to the point that you'd have to weed out the dead weight.

[*]I'm the chosen one! Oh, and you're literally the first two kids I've met who aren't wankers! Lets stay together for seven years and defeat wizard hitler!

Rowling does go to lengths to establish that Ron, Harry, and Hermione are close friends. And wizard Hitler is a threat to everyone, besides.

[*]"Save our village!" "Well... fine. But I'm gonna need six more guys. You fucks, I just met five of you, but you'll do."

The Seven Samurai are mercenaries looking for a payday.

[*]"You're all eating in the same restaurant, an elf comes up and says 'you six are chosen, here's boat tickets. Fuck off."[/list]

And that, again, is a bad one, because I'd tell the elf to fuck off.

Because if so, I have a hard time seeing why "you all showed up to asses into this school. The admins randomly grouped you together for the entrance exam. Having gone through a dungeon together and helped each other pass a written, you decide to keep helping each other during your time at the school and go on field work together" is less acceptable.

Hell, I'm having trouble seeing why "you're all in homeroom/a dorm together" is a more legitimate in-group determinator than assessing into school together.

The thing is, adventuring parties are held together by mutural goals. They can be simple, iconic goals such as "save the place where we keep our stuff" or "get paid so that we can buy food and not starve to death" or they can be complex goals like "Overthrow the usurper tyrant and put the heavily inbred prince on the throne" or "Unite the proletariat and establish a utopian communist paradise" but it needs to be a goal that they all share.

The classic goal is the payday. Adventurers work together because they expect to get treasure from their dungeon-crawling efforts and can't reasonably do it alone.

In many cases, survival is a goal. If you're thrown together in a horror setting, you need to work together in order to not die.

Political goals permit more complex stories.

However, goals end. They can be accomplished, or they can be rendered impossible. And when that happens the party naturally breaks up, unless they get a new one.

The payday is a continuing goal. You always need more money. It's the easiest goal to use, because there'll always be a new job.

Factions provide goals.

If you Pledge Zeta Beta Tau then you can reasonably expect your superiors to order you to retrieve a 12-pack of Intoxication +2 from the cave of the Beer Troll and chug the whole thing at once. And then, as you level up, eventually your superiors would airdrop you into into Jordan with rifles and LAWs to perform commando operations in support of Israel during the 6-day-war. Or something like that.

Being in a faction together means that you have to built in quest giver and a reason to do the quests given to you.

Being in the same faction means that the PCs will generally share the factions overarching goals.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 7:07 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
Prak wrote:Well, I have one, Frank, and it's less flippant than three very relevant examples and a very common one. And it's realistic, so feel free to stop concern trolling my thread.

Oh, and "We bonded over a mildly lethal entrance exam, and are all going through the same school" meets the exact criteria you just put forth for "anyone who wants to design a game ever"
Do you know the difference between past tense and present continuous, you stupid fuck?

-Username17

Do you know how real people work and real players play D&D, you stupid fuck?

Starmaker, reread this.

Here, I'll quote the relevant bit that people seem to miss-

I'm approaching the idea as just a way to present a D&D game centered on being Magic Uni students to my potential players. This isn't for publication, this isn't for sale, it just has to pass the muster of a group that is composed of around two decent but cautious (ie, not super opportunistic asshole) optimizers and two to three newbies/novices with a head for some optimization.

Also, I was never planning on everyone being in the same house. Thanks for agreeing with me on that.

As for what people are doing, this is D&D with a framing device. Basically, take the standard D&D game, replace the tavern with the college library/common room/dining hall, and the shady guy who hires you with teachers who assign fieldwork, and the town in town based adventures with a large campus.

deaddmwalking wrote:Prak,

Let's say I'm in your game and my real-life girlfriend ssks to join 3 months into the game. How can she join the group if the group was formed based on a past event?

You can have groups of friends form and be the basis of the game (whether they are friends because they room together, or they're all in the anime club or whatever), but you have to decide on how much outside influence exists. If the group has a falling out, what happens?

If you paint yourself into a corner, you'll be stuck if something changes that you didn't anticipate.

Let's see, spitballing here... her usual group of friends that she does fieldwork with all died on their last trip, so her one of her teachers pulls your character aside and says "Hey, help this student out, ok? I'll give you house points." Or if your character and hers are connected in game, then... "Hey guys, this is my girlfriend, she's going to come with us for fieldwork." Given time and an actual need to work in a new player, I'm sure I could come up with more.

hyzmarca wrote:
Prak wrote:Frank, is "you all went to a restaurant. While you're eating, an elf walks up and says 'you're chosen to adventure together, here are boat tickets,' you have nothing better to do so you go along with it" an acceptable reason for the party to adventure together on an ongoing basis?
Well no, because most characters need a reason to put their lives at risk following the orders of a crazy elf. Some might do it on a whim, but most won't.

This is why the classic "you all meet in a tavern" and "Mr. Johnson hooks you up for a run" assume that you're all basically mercenaries who routinely do dangerous shit for a payday.

Yeah, it's also the hook that Frank used in TotFIE.

[*]I'm the chosen one! Oh, and you're literally the first two kids I've met who aren't wankers! Lets stay together for seven years and defeat wizard hitler!
Rowling does go to lengths to establish that Ron, Harry, and Hermione are close friends. And wizard Hitler is a threat to everyone, besides.

That doesn't change the fact that the reason the Golden Trio is together is because every compartment but Ron's was full, and then Hermione is like a crow and magic being performed is her shiny thing. Yes they're friends, but that actually furthers my point, because my in-group determinator hinges on "you guys became friends and stay together because of trauma-induced bonding." Hell, the Golden Trio doesn't even really bond together until after the troll incident, which caused them to bond over "holy shit, we didn't just die!"

So, here's the way I see this.

This is D&D, the PCs just happen to be students at a magic university rather than sellswords wandering from bar to bar. They have to pass an assessment to get into the college, which takes the form of a low-level dungeon. Naturally, the characters bond over this. Once they get in teachers are going to assign fieldwork, something like "I want everyone to bring in a sample of Ifriti Orchid on Monday," or "I want everyone to bring in the heart-essence of a fire elemental creature by Tuesday." The players aren't necessarily in the same classes, but they can meet together and go over their fieldwork assignments and figure out somewhere they can all get what they need. Then they go on a standard D&D adventure, but the payday is the stuff they need for their assignments. Now, nothing requires the groups from the assessment to work together for their entire academic career, but they already know each other from the assessment, and they know what each other can do from the assessment.

Maybe I'm a weird introvert, but unless I hated everyone I assessed with (ok, fair chance), when I needed a group of people to go do fieldwork with, I'd call up those guys I already had to work with.

Granted, it occurs to me that I am being something of a weird introvert, and it might actually be more natural to form a study group within a given class. But, ok then. The In-Group Determinator can be "you're all taking at least one class together and need fieldwork partners."

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 10:39 pm

Is this really a big deal? The reasons for sticking together have been pretty half-assed in most D&D games I've played, and as long as there wasn't an active reason not to work together (like incompatible character personalities), nobody had an issue with it.

Zaranthan · Post by **Zaranthan** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 11:10 pm

No, it's not. It's a perfectly serviceable excuse for a single game and people keep carrying on about how it would never hold up as a standalone product even though that's not what we're discussing.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 11:57 pm

Pretty much.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Sep 29, 2016 2:36 am

Actually, in that case, you're better off not having Houses at all.

Potter style houses serve a point in potter style stories. Rowling had them specifically because she was emulating British YA boarding school novels from the 19th century.

I presume that you don't particularly care for a genre of stories that was unique to England and fell out of favor during World War II.
As such, there is no logical reason to have separate houses at all.

The main reason to have seperate houses in a school game would be to serve of political factions for built in conflict. But without that function, they don't do anything but provide extra bookkeeping for the players.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 29, 2016 2:46 am

Ok, fair point. I'm still leaning towards having Houses, but as a source of customization and a minor bonus, but I'm not sure about that.

I'm looking at how to handle the casting roll without using skills. The idea of class-based disciplines and a pool of points that you buy discipline ranks in is interesting, but beyond school-based disciplines for wizards and Druids having air, animal, earth, fire, plant, and water (and maybe healing and summoning for parity).... I don't know how to split up Bard or Cleric or any other spells beyond by School or Archetype.

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Thu Sep 29, 2016 3:48 am

Prak, you've already admitted to Magicians influence, and it was near the beginning of the thread that you emphasized you wanted universities rather than boarding schools. So why not just go with that and make the PCs the only members of their year in whatever Greek House they're in? They can have whatever trivial benefit is necessary (shit, make that the house that gives +1 to adventuring and the other houses give +1 to staying at home for three years researching or something), they can take different classes and have different specializations, all while being the only people in their year that live together and the only people who live where they do who are in their year.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 29, 2016 3:51 am

Yeah, I was sort of thinking about the houses in that way, too. I'm a bit hindered in the university stuff in the fact that all of my college experience is in for-profit vocationals and community college.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Sep 29, 2016 4:04 am

Zaranthan wrote:No, it's not. It's a perfectly serviceable excuse for a single game and people keep carrying on about how it would never hold up as a standalone product even though that's not what we're discussing.

Well here's the thing: Prak came to us for advice and is building enough fluff and crunch that it'd be rather silly not to use it again; if not for a separate group, then for a longer running campaign. Even if Prak only uses it for this one group, it is the aim of the Den to make things as air tight as possible, so the designer/player/MC can go a couple of layers down when asked "why this" before answering "fuck you, that's why".

Prak's current idea is a layer removed at best from "fuck you, that's why" for explaining why the party is a party. That's fine for a single session, but Prak rolled up for a campaign, par. It would be a good idea to have something the players can sink their teeth into narrative wise, especially if the Sorting Paddle puts them in a situation where they go to different houses/dorms afterwards.

And yeah, the thing players can sink their teeth into could be Prak's cock, but you don't need the Den for that, so why bother?

momothefiddler · Post by **momothefiddler** » Thu Sep 29, 2016 4:29 am

Prak wrote:Yeah, I was sort of thinking about the houses in that way, too. I'm a bit hindered in the university stuff in the fact that all of my college experience is in for-profit vocationals and community college.

Same here, but, like, you've never been to an English boarding school either, right? Take everything you would get about Houses from Harry Potter and get it from The Magicians instead.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 29, 2016 5:45 am

Still don't understand what makes "you guys all sleep in the same area" more of an air-tight in-group determinator than "you guys all risked your lives together to get into this place."

Also, my friend with much more and much more legitimate collegiate experience told me that the friends doing fieldwork together model is actually pretty true to graduate work.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Sep 29, 2016 6:07 am

Prak wrote:Still don't understand what makes "you guys all sleep in the same area" more of an air-tight in-group determinator than "you guys all risked your lives together to get into this place."

Also, my friend with much more and much more legitimate collegiate experience told me that the friends doing fieldwork together model is actually pretty true to graduate work.

Risking your life once with people doesn't necessarily create the long bonds necessary for a crew unless they're able to keep in touch, via proximity or other methods. Sleeping in the same area over a long period of time allows people to create those long bonds.

And fieldwork is a long process. You're with those assholes for at least three to six months and they have your (academic) livelihood at stake. There is nothing wrong with having friendship formed in fire, but motherfuckers need common interest and an in-group determinant too. If Alice and Bob are thrown into a dungeon and Bob gets eaten, Alice will be traumatized but she's not going to become besties with Carol and Dave just because they saw him die too.

You're putting the cart before the horse, is the issue here. Even the Magicians had Quentin, Penny and What'sherface grouped because they were skipping a grade together. They then set up Physical House, which is a frat that forms a common interest and gives the party something to do.

You need a reason for the party not to just be together, but to stay together. And again, if the answer is "because I said so, hail Queer Satan" then why bother asking us for advice?