I am REALLY sorry if this is in the wrong place. I'm new here. *Gestures to post count*.

I have recently had a problem with two members (its a small board, we haven't begun advertising yet. I intend to do that here eventually) who said I "was no fun" as admin of my board.

Their reason being, I am extremely strict about god-modding. My co-admin is the same way, though he is on less. The first member who said this said it after an argument I had with him about controlling other people characters. He was talking to me like he was in charge and I had the character who was always god-modding. In my post I had said his character threw a right hook at me, he had wanted me to start a fight between our two characters and so I did. Then in his post he had my chararacter attempt to stab him multiple times and manage to punch him once before he grabbed me by the throat. Then he played innocent with my co admin claiming "I only did it to retaliate to him taking control of my character, so i took control of his character" and so began a huge argument about how that wasn't fair to me, to persecute me for something he had done to a much worse extent. This same person also had two Admiral Ranked characters who weren't members of the two armies that were fighting and could some how out manuever people who were operating at 10 x the normal abilities of normal humans. He ended up yelling "YOU RUIN THE FUN" and stormed off claiming he would never come back. until he came back...in two hours.

The next time I was having a talk with a member who is usually fine from a realism point of view and contribute a lot. (Him being addicted to making characters and all). I hadn't let one of his characters ( A ported character from a video game) have one of his powers, and he seemed alright with it at the time. The next day I asked why he hadn't posted in our short little entertain-ourselves-until-we-start-advertising campaign. He had instead been RPing at a different person's site that day, I asked him why about THAT and he said because I ruined his fun, by not letting his characters arms being able to morph. On a site that follows the basic laws of physics. He instead had taken refuge in another site where the admin himself was a god-modder. He also blaimed another person who had been god-modding, the person i talked about in the first paragraph actually.

So, am I too strict? Have any of you ever had problems like this? Any suggestions?

If I have a rule about godmodding (and I probably do) it's only to cover my butt if I have to tell someone off for being a dick about it. I have no problems with it at all. In fact, I think it's necessary for a good RPing experience.

The main thing with this, though, is that you need everyone to understand that it's permission-based. Some people really don't like others' controlling their characters, so they say 'no, it's not happening'. Others (like me) really don't care about what happens to their characters, as long as they aren't killed. Others don't even care if their character is killed by another player. So if all players in a thread know how far it's okay for them to go with others' characters, things go more slowly.

It does require maturity. Some people hold onto their characters really jealously and won't let anything bad happen to them and others just try to control others' regardless of how they feel.

In your example it looks like you are being a little hypocritical and that he is overreacting. If you wanted to start a fight you could have easily talked and his character could've let a punch loose in his post and you could've said it connected in yours, or your character could've attacked his. I'd actually be on the other guy's side in this argument, though I'd be imploring him to calm down. As admin you need to follow your own rules and if they say 'do not godmod under ANY circumstances' then you probably owe him an apology.

Just my view then -goes to review her rules-

My rule of thumb is that you don't godmod unless you have permission. If you don't have permission, you write a little ooc ammendment to you post acknowledging what you did and your willingness to change it if the other person dislikes the post.

I think you had a lack of communication in the first instance. The implications of you starting a fight are that your character is the one who throws the first punch. Unless you told him that you were going to godmod his character taking that swing, I think he has every right to be angry.

If you did tell him, then it's more of a case of him just being annoying for no real reason.

Your other member sounds like a loser. He's just making trouble because he wants his character's special power and thinks you'll be worried that he might leave your site for another one if you don't give it to him.

Thank you for giving your opinion, and I do respect it. I may be being a bit hypocritical, I understand that. But he is the one who wanted the fight and he insited I start the physical part of the fight in my post. This was one of my level headed characters, so he isn't really one to start a fight. So I had to have him through the first punch.

I do understand what you mean though. I might have been being a bit hypocritical...

I agree that if you don't want to have godmodding, then you shouldn't be godmodding, either.

I actually cannot stand anyone godmodding my characters. Beat my characters--fine. Attack them--fine. But do not control their actions, emotions or reactions to anything whatsoever. Now, I've always had a godmodding rule to protect people like me, but if other people want to godmod in a thread I'm not in and both parties are fine with it, I have no qualms about it.

See, many people define godmodding (if they call it that, which I personally don't) as controlling someone else's character directly (IE writing that someone else's character did something) or not giving the other player a chance to respond to an action (IE they write that their character hits another, not letting other player decide whether they dodge or not). That in itself might add to confusion, if people are thinking of different definitions.

If he did tell you to start it, the...smartest thing to do would be to explain your character wasn't going to hit his, because it's not their personality. It might not be the easiest, as the other player might complain, but that way you can explain that either you control their character in hitting yours, or he does.

I can't stand god-modding because no-one else knows my characters well enough. The only exception is my real-life best friend because we discuss our characters all the time and have been roleplaying together with the same characters for years, so I let her do minor things like Cedric (hers) leads (Marcus) over to the bar because he's nervous or Marc walks to the bedroom and Archie (hers) follows etc.

But we always make it clear why we're doing it, and it never goes beyond a little manouevering to keep the thread going. And we only do it on boards that I run, too. Other than that, no one is allowed to do anything with my characters at all.

I am with Turk on this one, I really dislike it. That being said, some people that I RP with will do minor things as pointed out in Turk's post and I am alright with that. Mainly, I think, you have a keep a check on God-Modding when it comes to combat especially.

That's how I feel about it. In fact, I even WELCOME surprises! I feel like 99.9% of all RP nowadays is so planned out and that's just not fun. I encourage people to surprise me in RP, and if that requires a little bit of the very basic definition of God-modding, then ok. Like Dec said, just don't control their actions, emotions or reactions. I'm a huge fan of the cause and effect clause, but some people aren't, or some people simply don't pay mind to it.

Like, seriously, if we both know our character's are going through the door to where ever, you don't have to stop the RP short so I can write out how he goes through a darn door. If you see my character in an open thread and you want your character to punch him in the face, then go do it--although, do just that. Don't explain how my character has a bloody nose or the look of surprise on his face. Expect him to punch back. It keeps me on my toes and lately RP just simply doesn't do that.

Along with god-modding I tend to get angry at people who defy realism. Though, it always seems to be people who aren't realistic and are also god-modding. The transforming arms for example.

SMC, yes, exactly. I love it when people surprise me. I love it when I find a thread challenging in a fun way because the player throws (reasonable) surprises at me.

Ghost, I agree there. It's frustrating when people aren't mature enough to know that their characters aren't invincible. Now, say a character gets hurt in battle: I have no problem if they finish the battle accordingly and then awhile later in the RP they get a new limb or something. But if during the battle, limbs start regrowing, I get quite frustrated.