Historical MUSHes

[Smurf Nigga]

I think there's a lot of room for historical MUSHes. I like reading history and RPing in it can be great. That said, I think it's hard to make the games feel authentic since people find it distasteful and backwards to RP as someone who acts like they're from the time and place the game is in.

And I don't just mean cases where it's the norm to be racist or sexist, either, although that definitely applies. Not only might it be a reach for you to regard women and non-whites as your peers, which everybody knows goes against current sensibilities, but you've also got to believe the weird folk wisdom of the era and region. Things like digging holes causes rain and rubbing shit into your wounds will heal them might have to be something your character won't just believe, but will get smug about if some other character challenges it. Imagine having to get unironically condescending IC because someone told your character that the number "zero" exists or that there might be an ethical issue with bum rushing the Balkans for more Janissary conscripts and nubile sex slaves.

And you can't let too many people be skeptical IC, because if you let people do it, everyone will do it in the interest of not RPing as a Bad Guy or a moron. On top of this, basically all historical settings more than a century in the past have this sort of thing going on.

[faraday]

I don't think most players actually want authenticity. Authenticity in many historical settings means you're probably going to have to play an uneducated, superstitious, oppressed person with a short lifespan and limited social and geographic mobility.

"Want to go on an adventure anybody? We'll probably starve, get lost, get eaten, or die of some horrible disease along the way. But hey - it'll be fun! Anyone? No?"

I think what interests people is the more romanticized view of specific elements of history - the freedom of the wild frontier, the genteel lords and ladies, the chivalrous knights, etc.

[A. Meowley]

@surreality said in Historical MUSHes:

I think it would be ridiculous to say that staff allows what I've described because of an inherent desire to be sexist/racist/ableist/homophobic/etc. RL.

Good thing nobody's said that!

[Lotherio]

@faraday said in Historical MUSHes:

Mind the trolls and their bait.

"Want to go on an adventure anybody? We'll probably starve, get lost, get eaten, or die of some horrible disease along the way. But hey - it'll be fun! Anyone? No?"

Aka, Oregan Trail. I imagine a game designed to be historically accurate would play like a classic Chaosium d20 Cthulhu; its not how many people died trying to discover the Northwest passage, its that a small handful made it to tell the tale and keep the story alive.

I completely agree, I don't think most people, players or staff, want authenticity of playing daily life in any historical setting; as much as even on a modern game, they don't want to RP the daily life they're living (ugh, trash collectors running late, my trash is piling up and I have a bunch of boxes to throw away, but a raccoon got into what's already out there cause its so full I can't put more trash bags in the cans, I roll a d20 to see if I can get away with throwing the boxes into the McDonald's bin before a shift manager comes out to avoid an argument).

I think, and could be wrong, one of the noted 'issues' is the disagreement with how authentic or note a place is (even when expressed in theme files). As noted with the pub chan debate on accuracy comments, is that there is always going to be someone that doesn't agree with it being authentic enough for their taste. And like most places, they'll make a point to at least express its not to their taste. Just like has been going on in this thread.

I brought up Magnificent Century on here, cause its sort of the gateway to more Turkish historical drama I feel, or at least opened the gates for others. Many of the negative'ish critiques point out the costumes are definitley not period, from cuts and excess skin exposure to the fabrication needed to make them so elaborate to the material itself. I don't care, I like it, it captures enough of the perception of the period in my mind even if embellished quite a bit. Even the storyline, as much of Suleyman's (Suleiman) life is known, far less is known about what actually may have happened among the woman and the harm; but damned it is good drama - I bought into historical portrayal of the time of Suleyman, and after half the first season finally realized I'm really just watching an historical soap opera and I couldn't stop watching.

Then I ponder if such a place opened and I imagine if it was presented just like the show, how much negative feedaback would it receive from portrayal of costumes, to gender, to religion itself.

I think there is room for fun historical places, its up to players (us, in the hobby, both staff and players) to try to work out some difference and, I don't know, be more accepting of differences in what we want to play.

[faraday]

@Lotherio said in Historical MUSHes:

I brought up Magnificent Century on here, cause its sort of the gateway to more Turkish historical drama I feel, or at least opened the gates for others. Many of the negative'ish critiques point out the costumes are definitley not period, from cuts and excess skin exposure to the fabrication needed to make them so elaborate to the material itself. I don't care, I like it, it captures enough of the perception of the period in my mind even if embellished quite a bit. Even the storyline, as much of Suleyman's (Suleiman) life is known, far less is known about what actually may have happened among the woman and the harm; but damned it is good drama - I bought into historical portrayal of the time of Suleyman, and after half the first season finally realized I'm really just watching an historical soap opera and I couldn't stop watching.
Then I ponder if such a place opened and I imagine if it was presented just like the show, how much negative feedaback would it receive from portrayal of costumes, to gender, to religion itself.

I agree with everything you said. I don't know the show you're talking about, but I've watched plenty of historical movies/TV shows and they're all like that. They use the historical time period as the general setting, but it's a rare show indeed that gets higher than "eh...kinda, I guess?" on the accuracy-o-meter.

A movie might get MST3k commentary or people griping on forums about them using the wrong patches on their uniforms or something, but we'll still watch and be entertained. MUSHes don't seem to get the same treatment.

[faraday]

@A-Meowley said in Historical MUSHes:

@surreality said in Historical MUSHes:

I think it would be ridiculous to say that staff allows what I've described because of an inherent desire to be sexist/racist/ableist/homophobic/etc. RL.

Good thing nobody's said that!

Except that they have. Just not in this particular thread.

[peasoupling]

I mean, if you look at it that way, no one wants authenticity in modern settings either, they want to play a romanticized version of the modern world, full of sexy billionaires and heroic cops and thieves with a heart of gold and creepy serial killer cultists, and hardly anyone voted for Trump except possibly the serial killer.

[Lotherio]

@peasoupling said in Historical MUSHes:

I mean, if you look at it that way, no one wants authenticity in modern settings either, they want to play a romanticized version of the modern world, full of sexy billionaires and heroic cops and thieves with a heart of gold and creepy serial killer cultists, and hardly anyone voted for Trump except possibly the serial killer.

Exactly this. I don't see why it should be different for historical places. The OP didn't even ask for accuracy, it just came up as it always does when Historical Game is intoned. I think in part, there are a handful of players that would prefer a game related to just trying to survive in a historical period. Nothing wrong with that at all, it just seems that if a place isn't historical enough for some, it tends to get negative feedback pretty quick on the accuracy meter.

[faraday]

@Lotherio said in Historical MUSHes:

Exactly this. I don't see why it should be different for historical places. The OP didn't even ask for accuracy, it just came up as it always does when Historical Game is intoned. I think in part, there are a handful of players that would prefer a game related to just trying to survive in a historical period. Nothing wrong with that at all, it just seems that if a place isn't historical enough for some, it tends to get negative feedback pretty quick on the accuracy meter.

I would agree with you that modern-day TV dramas and movies aren't any more plausible than their historical counterparts.

The only thing I'd note is that you have to ask yourself why people are playing in a given game. If it's WoD the answer is "I want to play a vampire/werewolf/etc." The setting itself (modern day) is decidedly secondary. If it's historical, though, I think you get more people gravitating toward it because of the setting, for whatever reason. So the more you stray from it, the more jarring it becomes to people who are interested in that period of history. And you run into weird cognitive dissonances like, "Discrimination isn't a thing in this setting but the Civil War totally still happened!" So I think it's a little more complicated.

[peasoupling]

I think some of it does go back to the difference between "if this was rare, it's not historically accurate" and "if this was possible, it's historically accurate".

Of course most people in a medieval setting (depending on the setting) were probably peasants who never left their village. And women were generally under pretty heavy restrictions regarding what they could and couldn't do. And a lot of people who went on adventures died of exotic intestinal diseases.

You can have two very different games based on the exact same setting and, even, the exact same vision of the setting, if on one game, that's all you can play, and on the other game, those are the NPCs.

[Lotherio]

I concur, but with like the discrimination isn't a thing during the civil war. I think most places in the era would be more akin to: this existed its just not something we're playing out icly rather than removing it completely. Just, then the feedback that its not historically accurate comes up. Like someone wants to play the person that takes slave bounties by collecting on the runaway ads (I'll respond to this Andrew Jackson ad, I'm sure he's good for the $50+ expenses for me to find this runaway; we're not really focused on that aspect; yes, Andrew Jackson died before the civil war).

Or even as @peasoupling pointed out, two different games same era even. Those things bad by our standards are more NPC realm here versus, discrimination happened and you have to play that here.

I mean, could you have some folks that want to play out the discrimination and the underground railroad and playing out the running and making it to Canada if they want ... and some folks playing there are slaves but owner/slave relationship stuff that isn't as bad as some people thinks (and I don't even mean historical drama accounts, I mean like Finding Your Roots genealogy accounts where the slave is freed and they live together, taking each others names, and having many grandchildren). Not saying I would even try to play out the later, not my place to be in some RP situation like that to begin with.

As staff, I know i'd be open to players playing out either situation if everyone was on board, that is consenting, but maybe the part of it that comes up is the consent issue. Like everyone wants to be the hero, so the underground railroad meets with resident uber rich guy who pays away all possible obstacles and robs them of the story, not historically accurate but plausible for some people and if their PC is rich, they think its solution. Or inversely, someone wants to be the 'bad' sort that is the obstacle for others stories and the relationship story against perceived notions of the situation, someone is playing the racist and decides they want to just be a jerk to the story continually and the originators are just getting tired of all the hurdles the other keeps raising.

This is why I upvoted the Horror Mu* stuff, and it coming down to players not being jerks to each other. There is a rich array in any historical situation that challenges our modern conceptions of history even. Like we want to say civil war era did have discrimination and a few well known racists, because it helps us make sense of it; we don't want to hear, this man of color, a free man living in the south, supported the Confederate army, because it doesn't make sense to our pre-conceived notions. Some feel if the game plays up the former, its not really a fun escapist game, some fell if the game plays up the later, its really doing injustice to the actual injustice done during the civil war.

We just all have different opinions heh:

Hello. Welcome to the Portokalos family and welcome the-the Miller family. I-I was thinking last night, um, the night before my-my daughter was gonna marry, uh, I-an Miller, that, um, you know, the root of the word Miller is a Greek word. Miller come from the Greek word "milo", which is mean apple, there you go. As many of you know, our name Portokalos is come from the Greek word "portolakli", which means orange. So, okay, here tonight we have, uh, apple and orange... we all different, but, in the end, we all fruit.

[Ghost]

@faraday said in Historical MUSHes:

@A-Meowley said in Historical MUSHes:

@surreality said in Historical MUSHes:

I think it would be ridiculous to say that staff allows what I've described because of an inherent desire to be sexist/racist/ableist/homophobic/etc. RL.

Good thing nobody's said that!

Except that they have. Just not in this particular thread.

Wow. Totally forgot about that thread.

The way I see it is this: You can't have it both ways.

If you have a historical mush without also incorporating both the negatives and positives of the era, then it's really not historical but more a period-piece with adapted/selected themes.

But if you role play an idealized version of a specific era (I.e. a good example is the movie Overlord, which had Bokeem Woodbine playing a black NCO over white troops in the invasion of Normandy, which never happened historically), you can still enjoy the game, but it's technically not historically accurate.

Sure, some covert assholes are gonna be like "Hey I wanna drop n-bombs (not because I'm racist but because it's HISTORICALLY ACCURATE AND THIS IS THE LACK OF HISTORIC ACCURACY I ZERO IN ON)", but implementing modern themes for OOC comfort to avoid negativity TECHNICALLY detracts from the purpose of roleplaying out a historical era.

I guess philosophy-wise, the whole point of history (or revisiting it in fiction) is to acknowledge the good and bad of the era and to write a story that is fictitious but could have happened in the era. Doing so allows us to revisit the setting and use the negativity of the era as a constant antagonist to the protagonist.

In short: Adrian Brody in THE PIANIST would mean little without the theme of racist, fascist Nazis sacking Poland.

I can see both sides of the argument. My preference would be to actually bind to actual historic accuracy but mandate the themes of expected PCs and leave the racism/bigotry to NPCs/enemies controlled by staff who will do so with dignity.

ETA: You can RP a game in an era where people owned slaves or women had no right to vote, but you keep the game manageable by simply requiring that all PCs are not those who believe in said bigotry. They could want to abstain from the topic, outright DISLIKE the bigotry, or ignore it altogether and focus on other themes, but never be a proponent of.

[Cupcake]

I think there can be a happy medium. I've played minorities/women in historical games on more than one occasion, and I welcomed roleplay that reflected the intolerance and unfairness these classes have suffered. However, there's a point where it's not acceptable.

Like, I'm okay with my Victorian era female Indian medical doctor (shut up, @Ghost) being held in contempt by the white people around her and not wanting to utilize her services. But I wouldn't be okay with my Wild West Jewish seamstress being called "kike", etc. There's societal disdain and then there's overt abuse, and the last does not contribute to a fun rp experience.

(Honestly, if I were doing a PPZ game, I'd make race less important (because when the undead want to eat you, all humans taste the same) than class. Because I am certainly NOT permitting some Chinese trained lady's maid to my whist party no matter how well she's developed her five finger death grip.

[Arkandel]

@Ghost said in Historical MUSHes:

In short: Adrian Brody in THE PIANIST would mean little without the theme of racist, fascist Nazis sacking Poland.

Sure, and it's true that a lot of themes could be very interesting to explore if they weren't almost definitely going to be completely derailed by idiots who essentially glorify the horror, trolls who just want to get a reaction and the SJWs they would be getting the reaction from.

... But that's a very big if unfortunately. And while The Pianist is a static work of art that narrates events within a specific context and tells a specific tale. MU* simply don't work like that due to their interactive nature.

Hell, it might not even be possible after the fact (let alone in a vacuum) to tell if it was staff who had bad intentions to begin with or if a player or group was responsible for messing it up for the rest, or even if the theme itself poisoned its own well then things got progressively bad as time went by. But, again unfortunately, it's pretty much a matter of time before these things go really wrong.

[Ghost]

@Cupcake said in Historical MUSHes:

Like, I'm okay with my Victorian era female Indian medical doctor (shut up, @Ghost) being held in contempt by the white people around her and not wanting to utilize her services. But I wouldn't be okay with my Wild West Jewish seamstress being called "kike", etc. There's societal disdain and then there's overt abuse, and the last does not contribute to a fun rp experience.

WATIDO?!?!

Nuttin for me to shaddap about. Play what ya want.

What you really really want.

[surreality]

@Ghost said in Historical MUSHes:

it's really not historical but more a period-piece with adapted/selected themes.

^ Is the best one is going to get, to put it bluntly, without shit-tons of research that nearly no one does.

That doesn't mean the adaptations must completely erase things from the setting to make it unrecognizable, however, which is what people have been advocating for with the insistence that if you don't, you clearly just want to get your *ism on.

Some people zero in on that, which no one denies. They are, however, fairly rare and obvious.

It's the claim that has been regularly made is that anyone who is willing to allow these elements of the setting to exist is doing so for that specific purpose -- to be 'one of those assholes' -- and that's just bullshit nonsense.

The players who zero in on the *isms with no regard for the fun or sensitivities of other players are the ones you show the door.

[Ghost]

@Arkandel said in Historical MUSHes:

... But that's a very big if unfortunately. And while The Pianist is a static work of art that narrates events within a specific context and tells a specific tale. MU* simply don't work like that due to their interactive nature.

I agree with this 100%.

Take these movies about racism, etc. Will Poulter played a racist who said a lot of nasty stuff in Detroit, but he was hired to do so and part of a production company that had lunch with him, took breaks with him, and there had to be trust between actors. He wasn't calling people those names off-camera.

I don't see mushing surviving these concepts unless at the very least it's an invite-only MU where everyone knows going in that some players will be dropping N-bombs, but there's enough OOC love that the other players are well aware that it's a role and not covert racism spank-banking.

On an open door cattle-call mush, not so much.

[Lotherio]

@Cupcake said in Historical MUSHes:

female Indian medical doctor

Susan "Bright Eyes" La Flesche Picotte

Yes, the term Bright Eyes was appropriated by a white band that included @ghost's favorite Omaha personality.

[Ghost]

@Lotherio said in Historical MUSHes:

@Cupcake said in Historical MUSHes:

female Indian medical doctor

Susan "Bright Eyes" La Flesche Picotte

Yes, the term Bright Eyes was appropriated by a white band that included @ghost's favorite Omaha personality.

Wow.

I genuinely thank you for providing me another new entry into my MAAAAAAN FUCK THAT GUY notebook.

[Arkandel]

@Ghost said in Historical MUSHes:

I don't see mushing surviving these concepts unless at the very least it's an invite-only MU where everyone knows going in that some players will be dropping N-bombs, but there's enough OOC love that the other players are well aware that it's a role and not covert racism spank-banking.

Not even that exception will work. Who is the 'license' going to come from ? For example as a white guy I can't just permit someone else to drop N-bombs even if I'm playing a black person on the MU*.

Ironically there's room for spank-banking (literally!) in sex-oriented MU* where that's kind of the point. I'd never be offended by just about anything on such games, and I couldn't tell you why.