A Meta-Friending/Clique Discussion.

[Emrsnn]

It would be lying to say that I don't benefit from or even enjoy the feeling that people treat me like I'm in some way "vetted", however the bottom line is that new players don't hold the privilege of having some well-known "main character" personality that they can retreat to when they're tired of being excluded.

i dont even have the creativity to make a successful main character, i simply rip a name from elsewhere that i think sounds cool, and then work on game mechanics rather than some kind of personality

Just to clarify, I'm differentiating between "character that I main" and """main character""" here. I'm referring to characters that are around often being treated like they're the main character of the story, or that what's happening to them over the course of the round is the main plotline. I feel that sort of treatment should be reserved for antag plotlines (Which, I admit, is a bit of a flawed philosophy given the recent uptick of antags only interacting with their OOC friends, thus creating the same issue- even if it appears to be out of fear of getting validhunted)

I appreciate that you brought up character personality because after I sent my first reply, I had the thought that generally, characters that are more built around what their backstory or lore is- as opposed to characters built around personality traits or how they interact with others- are less approachable to new players. That's not to say that characters shouldn't have a backstory- all of my own even have at least a brief one- however, if their entire existence is dependent on being some other character's son or some mysterious lore thing that they make the topic of every conversation, it could give an impression to new players that they just don't know enough to interact.

I think the question that we should be trying to answer here isn't "how to we get rid of cliques" but rather "how do we turn these cliques into friend groups that work to include others." (and if you're feeling particularly social, Actively approaching others as opposed to simply being approachable.)

p.s. yeah science seems to be a bit of a magnet for trouble and a hotspot for ahelps, but that could be a whole thread on it's own.