[Sodium_noir] OOC: A Show of Hands

[Alyson Young]

I'm interested but troubled.

I have two characters - Korben and Rachel.  Korben is at the start of a 
combat, and unless you've got data on what exactly he's in combat with 
(because I know I don't), it would be hard to move that forward.

Rachel could finish her evening by touching bases with Titus Bane - 
which she was attempting to do.  Past that, though, she had no reason to 
make contact with any other PCs ... and good reasons not to expand her 
social horizons at the moment.

More to the point, it always bugs me when characters make IC decisions 
for OOC reasons.  Like, say I'm playing a D&D character with a good 
search bonus, and I've just rolled a two.  My character doesn't know she 
rolled a two.  She just knows that she searched - which is something 
she's good at - and found nothing.  She has no real motivation to try 
again, no matter how strongly I believe that a better roll might have 
produced results.  Unless circumstances change, the character would not 
repeat the search.

Similarly, if Rachel had a genuine motivation to meet up with someone 
and do something else with the rest of her night, then by all means, I'd 
follow up on it.  But my own hypothetical desire to keep playing isn't a 
genuine motivation on Rachel's part.