Consent and Sell
Consent and Sell, or Collaborative Storytelling
To participate in Velvet Room MUSH is to be a part of a collaborative writing activity. While you're typically only writing your character personally, you're participating in a story with everyone else. You're on the same team, and keeping this fact in mind means telling the best story possible, together.
As you roleplay, it's easy to get into the head of your character. It's the very nature of the activity. They're the 'hero' of that story. The 'villain' over there is the obstacle. Your friends are there to support 'you.' We recognize that method acting is a natural way to roleplay for many people, but it's very important to separate the in-character from the out-of-character. We call this the IC/OOC line, or IC/OOC boundaries.
Antagonism is a difficult job, and often a thankless one. Antagonists drive conflict in the story and set up the counterpoint to the protagonists. They are not merely 'obstacles' in your character's own story, but people with their own goals and reasons for opposing yours.
Antagonists create conflict, and conflict creates content. Content means more scenes, and more enjoyment for all to be had. The mere act of signing up for an antagonist often means they're volunteering hours of their life to run scenes for protagonist players.
So with that in mind, everyone needs to take special care towards the antagonist players, but the following principles also are true for writing together generally.
OOC Behavior
It's important to check in with each other when you're playing protagonists and antagonists together. Telling a good story together means working together, and that means having open dialogue.
When you talk to someone playing an antagonist, it's important to keep your interactions respectful out of character. Your characters may be rivals, but antagonist players should feel like they aren't also taking out-of-character ribbing, joking, and being asked to roleplay when they're not actually roleplaying. And, similarly, antagonist players should remember that protagonists are participants in their stories -- not victims to laugh at.
This isn't to say that you can't do OOC banter -- and a little goofing around is fun -- but remember to see the person behind the character.
When you're in a scene where your characters are in conflict, remember that the players aren't in conflict. Antagonists are often working to tell a story and are juggling a lot of things. This means protagonists should be good sports: don't complain about combat code not going your way, don't complain if the antagonist misses a detail of your pose, and don't behave boorishly about how a scene is playing out.
If you do have complaints -- for example, if your pose is missed or misunderstood by someone in a scene -- raise it politely with them. Raising a concern politely is always the best way to proceed, though sometimes it might need to wait until after a scene.
In fight scenes, antagonists generally know they will lose. When they do win, protagonist players should be gracious. Let the player of the losing character, whether antagonist or protagonist, set the stakes of what defeat means. However, if an antagonist needs to win a scene and the outcome is a foregone conclusion before the scene starts, it is important to say so up front.
Selling
Antagonists are strong within the world of Persona, and they're meant to be. Often they have the power of a cognitive god backing them, or the weight of more experience using their powers behind them. Treating them in your writing as if they're weak or not a challenge is not just rude, but tells a worse story for yourself. Beating up someone weaker than yourself feels like bullying, right?
So write them as strong.
More than that, though, remember to sell antagonists narratively. Having your character guess the antagonist's nefarious plan undercuts the narrative for protagonists and antagonists.
Selling involves avoiding two things: 1. Powerposing 2. No-selling
Powerposing
Powerposing is when you make a pose "closed." This means the outcome of the pose is a foregone conclusion, where one character dictates what happens to the other character. The targeted character is always the one that decides what impact an attack (or an insult, scheme, or plot) has on their character, if mediated through the combat code. We'll talk about the best way to handle that in the section on no-selling.
We'll look at a fight between Junpei and Takaya as an example:
And so the heroic Junpei, with an assist from the mighty Hermes, cleaved through Hypnos with his mighty blade, bisecting the shirtless weirdo behind him and saving the day!
From the perspective of selling, this needs a lot of work on several different levels.
First, calling Takaya a 'shirtless weirdo' is narrative powerposing. Junpei may think that in character, but saying it in the text itself as if it's objective fact is powerposing. It's declaring his opinion as true, rather than your character merely thinks it's true. If it's your intent to convey that this is the character's opinion, then take care to make that more explicit.
Likewise, it's powerposing to pose the outcome of the attacks as absolute fact. It's better to write with an element of uncertainty towards the outcome. This throws the ball back into the antagonist's court to pose the outcome themselves.
A better way to write such a pose is:
Junpei on any given day believes that Takaya is a shirtless weirdo, but today he's really spooked him. He's not sure how anyone can say or believe the things he says. Still, he knows he's gotta stop him. Hermes manifests and weaves around Junpei on a collision course towards Hypnos, and as Junpei himself swings his blade down overheard towards the man behind the Persona, he calls out, "Hey, Sakaki! Batter up!"
This presents Junpei's internal thoughts on Takaya as his opinion, not as objective facts about the world. It leaves the effect of his attack unstated.
No-Selling
No-selling is when the actions and narrative weight of a character are minimized by another. Powerposing can cause no-selling, but a pose can be left "open" while still undercutting a character.
Let's look at another example. In this case, an antagonist crafts a tale of their ultimate attack in a big pose:
The shadow of the tyrant raises his fist, and in response, the cognitive world changes. As the clouds of the sky part, an enormous gauntleted hand descends. The sheer gravity of its fall causes an intensifying pressure that threatens to slam into the teenagers before him, and upon impact, it detonates into a ground-shattering blast that rocks both the heavens and the earth.
They do the combat code, and the protagonist gets the best possible csys result and takes no damage. This is part of playing the game, but how would it make you feel if you got this response?
Joker continues to swing around the open air on his grapple line, making a circuitous route before leaping behind the man, flipping off the line, and landing with his gun already drawn. Holding the firearm steady just long enough to let him know what's coming, he speaks only a single word: "Checkmate." Then he pulls the trigger.
Did Joker even mention the attack once? Did he in any way respond to it happening at all? Not really. That's a form of no-selling in which you do not respond in any way to their attack.
Let's look at another form of no-selling.
The fist starts its descent, and Joker's already in the air, swinging around it with an effortless grace, untouchable, even as the tyrant's blast occurs...
Given the strength of the attack and the antagonist, even with the best csys result, treating it like Joker can do that effortlessly is still no-selling. The combat code may have said Joker didn't take much damage, but implying that Joker easily handled it makes a statement about the narrative weight of our antagonist.
Here's a better way to do it:
The tyrant draws back his fist, and Joker knows on immediate instinct thanks to the battles they've all fought together that something cataclysmic is coming.
"Everyone! Get out of the way! Move!" With a flick of his wrist, he sends his grapple line towards the edge of the arena. As it yanks him out of the way, the Phantoms leader can feel what would've happened if he'd taken even a single second longer.
The pressure draws his line taut, and even as he zips out of the way, the gravity rips at him like a hungry tiger--and that's before impact. The eruption's waves of force disrupt his flight, and he's forced to disengage his line before he's sent careening into the arena wall. Even then, flipping in mid-air to land feet-first, he still slams hard into the wall, and the landing jolts agonizingly up his legs.
Sucking in a pained breath, he glances at his comrades, fearing for their safety, before he kicks off the wall back into action--
This respects both the strength of the antagonist and the power of their attack. It responds to it in a satisfying way, even when they get the best possible result. This respects the antagonist and their player by giving a satisfying narrative weight to their actions.
Narrative Sell
Another important part of selling is the concept of narrative sell. We've talked about this obliquely, but it's worth discussing explicitly. Narrative sell is respecting the story of a character and the emotional intent behind them.
In our example for narrative sell, an antagonist crafts a pose describing their character's background, their motivations, and pour their heart and soul out to the protagonists. They reveal what they have kept secret.
...And a protagonist responds, to take a famous example from Brooklyn 99, with: "Cool motive, still murder."
It may not even be out of character for your character to do so, but it hardly crafts a satisfying response, right?
Antagonists may have motivations that seem absolutely incomprehensible from the perspective of someone who grew up in polite society, but make perfect sense to them in the context of their perspective. So when an antagonist says, 'I want to turn all people into Shadows,' or, 'I want the Dark Hour to stick around, because there is no future for me other than living in the moment'--
Sell it!
Junpei is momentarily speechless; he can't understand how anyone could want this. "Turn everyone into Shadows!? Th-that's just crazy! Why would anyone want to do that!?" The man already said why, he knows he did, but he can't wrap his mind around how someone comes to this conclusion. "Everyone turning into Shadows would mean..." ...everything he likes about this world would come to an end.
The character of Junpei is destined to reject that perspective--that's just who he is--but that doesn't mean you need to boil it down into a simple dismissal. A reaction that engages with it is far more valuable. Selling what the character wants, why they want it, their experiences that shaped how they got to this point, and the emotions that underpin the moment creates a better story for everyone.
It is also important to avoid, in narrative sell, excessive amounts of quips, snark, and dismissive comments. The snippy comeback might be funny to you, but it undercuts the work that an antagonist is putting into a scene. If you must make such a quip, remember that less is more -- and to write a pose that makes it clear that the quip isn't objective truth.
Being a Good Antagonist
Antagonists should keep the concepts of selling in mind. Providing narrative sell, avoiding powerposing, and avoiding no-selling are important. It would be equally unsatisfying for Junpei's player to have Takaya pose shooting him in the head, or for Masayoshi Shido to write a pose labeling Joker as a stupid child as metatextual fact.
Players of antagonists also need to check in with players of protagonists. Antagonism often involves doing something nasty. It's important to make sure that the players of characters targeted by something nasty are comfortable with what is happening. This means having an open dialogue, and making adjustments.
This dialogue will also help tell better stories. Talking to each other lets protagonists and antagonists weave into each other's stories in more satisfying ways. This dialogue isn't just about stopping disagreements, but finding new and exciting things to do together.
Protagonists Interacting
The ideas spelled out in this document are also true for when protagonists interact. No-selling and powerposing between protagonists only stands to make both protagonists suffer. It is important to give narrative sell to other protagonists. Even if Futaba thinks Ryuji is an idiot, it is important for Futaba's player to make it clear that isn't a fundamental truth of the universe.
This is especially important to be mindful of when protagonists come into conflict. We aren't seeking to prove that the Phantom Thieves have more justice than SEES, that the Eternal Punishment crew is so much wiser and more experienced than the Investigation Team, or that Edelgard is correct and Claude and Dmitri are wrong.
Sources
This file was inspired by articles about antagonism from the late Battle Fantasia MUSH and Dream Chasers MUSH, updated to include things we've learned since those were written. We're grateful to them for paving the way forward!