The 100: The Mush

[GirlCalledBlu]

@Ghost said in The 100: The Mush:

Hindsight20/20 leading off with that would have been more constructive and made me look less like a trolly cunt.

Here's my problem with what you said here, @Ghost...

Not once in this entire thing did you ever present your arguments in a way that was constructive. You've been VERY clear your job here is to basically point out all our flaws as some huge PSA to the community. And then, when we opened a private game, you decided to point an ugly finger our way as if we were doing something so outrageously heinous, that it would result in the END OF ALL THINGS.

This was never about wanting to help us as Staffers "change." And, to be honest, I have yet to fully unpack why you have decided we are the WORST STAFFERS OF ALL TIME, OMG -- which is exactly how you have presented us (until now).

TFW was an original theme, and we had developed a lot of it before it opened. It was not a blank canvas for people to paint their own vision on. When there were blank spots, we totally tapped players who would have a horse in that race to help fill those blanks. Demanding player input on everything was not feasible for that game's theme, because we had so much of it already developed when we opened. So, if that is truly what is bothering you, is that we did not ask you for input, then I have no idea how to tackle that. It has been over 2 years since the game closed, so I honestly cannot remember if you ever came to us and offered possible additions to theme.

But as you have said, you seriously need to change your approach, because I personally found nothing you said constructive, and everything you said a direct insult to us as players and staffers. And I cannot tell you how many times I asked people who know you, played with you, or had any general interaction with you what exactly we did that resulted in you thinking we took a massive dump in your oatmeal.

You keep bringing up that we pigeonhole games to be about our PCs... but, honestly, I can't even think of one instance where TFW was 100% centered around Ellinor, Devon, Letha, or Lionel. Or where it was about Nikomachos, Victor, Jeremy, or Drake. In fact, we tended to treat our PCs like total shit as Staffers (i.e. Nikomachos's dad being discredited, thrown under the bus, and his family being painted as unreliable Knights). Now, I'm gonna say that my goal with a character is always to tell their story with them at the center, but I tell that story from my CHARACTER bit, and not from my STAFF bit. So, yeah... my character's aren't flat people who are just there along for the ride or to be the supporting cast. If you got some examples to throw out where we turned our characters into the Biggest Damn Heroes on the MUSH, please let me know. Maybe your perception of what happened is far different than mine. You can either do it here in a public forum, or you can PM me, but honestly... I'm tired of this bullshit.

So if you truly want to help us BE BETTER PEOPLE (since we apparently are the worst), then be as constructive as you think you should be.

[surreality]

<raises a hand> As a person who has been publicly mocked for being weak/whiny/too childish/etc. on these forums over the years and on various games for requesting that people not strangle my characters (because they think for whatever reason it's hot in scene) after nearly being strangled to death in real life, I'm going to ask that we really not go any further on the personal trauma front, unless it's somehow directly related to something that happens on a game.

And yes, when I got ranted at and mocked for that, it actually was pretty fucking triggering for a few hours, and I chose to step back and calm down before doing anything else, so truly, fuck whoever it was (because I am not going to even bother to scroll up) saying these things should never have the power to do someone actual emotional harm that might make them less than perfectly functional for a little while.

In short: yeah, there are circumstances in which game shit can fuck with somebody. Anybody who considers that 'totally unreasonable' as an example of such can, frankly, blow me.

[ThatGuyThere]

@tek said in The 100: The Mush:

@Sunny If they were hurting people emotionally OOC, that's abusive. If they were controlling and pitting people against each other, that's abusive. Making a private sandbox? That's not. Sorry.

How do you know that are not hurting people emotionally. Making thinks private my necessity means excluding people. Being excluded even in a mostly meaningless situation can hurt. I am not saying i would use the term abuse but it is not an incorrect by definition use of the word.
I agree Ghost when t way over the top on his points earlier now you are doing the same.
Note I also wholly support someone choosing to make a private game.

[tek]

@ThatGuyThere The above example by @surreality is something I'd consider abusive. Someone going "everyone is saying X about you and I think you should know" is being abusive. Someone making you feel like you have to walk on eggshells around them is being abusive. Exclusion sucks, but I still don't think that falls into the realm of abusive or unethical. Yeah, I went with the nuclear option because I wanted to fight hyperbole with hyperbole and I probably went a little too hard, but I stand by my intent.

Edit: Yes, I am publicly acknowledging that the part about just being able to log off was wrong and shitty. That was me being a fuckface. But I feel the rest of what I have to say stands.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I LOL'd for real when I went looking for this thread, briefly couldn't find it, and then realized it was started as an advertisement for The 100.

Oh, the twists and turns of...6 months of time.

[Sunny]

@GirlCalledBlu

I've already gone into detail in this very thread about the issues I have with the staffing and style that the two of you go with. I think a sandbox game is one of the roads that you guys can go to avoid the problems, you're doing it, I don't have a problem with that at all. But @Ghost, nasty as he's been about it, does have a point. I witnessed the stuff he's complaining about personally, on The 100. I think you're a lovely person, your husband as well, but I don't think either of you should ever, ever run a public game with just the two of you. You have no balancing factors, no one to reality check you, no one to bounce stuff off of. You provide an echo chamber for one another. Not always a problem with everyone who does these things by themselves in a pair, but in the case of the 100, you shut out and shut down a portion of your playerbase because of it, and y'all made some really, really bad decisions.

[Ghost]

@tek bear in mind that imposing your aggression on others and forcing them to use words and definitions of your choosing, lest they be presented with ugly mental imagery and wrath of your choosing until they comply...falls under the definition of abusive behavior. Using power to force and control the way people speak is very aggressive and dominating.

The reason doesn't matter. It's bullying-type behavior and is a set of bared teeth to anyone who might dare challenge you or suffer a fight.

Use these words...or else.

You hypocritical twat.

[surreality]

That's... not really what I was getting at. I'm saying: unless it's directly related to something that occurs on a game, parental/institutional/domestic/etc. abuse really are apples to oranges here.

Abuse of policy is a thing.

It isn't even necessarily something that'll ever do someone any harm; sometimes it's even for the best. (Banning someone who does something truly horrible or damaging at that point instead of waiting for 'strikes' to accumulate if the game has a 'three strikes' policy occurs to me as an example of what I mean by this; it's still technically an abuse of policy.)

I think @Ghost is specifically addressing abuse of trust. I've never played on one of their games; I have no idea personally, or from experience.

Creating a sandbox seems to be the right call here. I know that personally I'm going to be running a beta some time later in the year that'll be invite-only through beta; that's the same kind of thing. If anyone finds that somehow abusive? Oh, well. But I don't think that's what he's getting at, but rather a sense of joining a game and expecting that things are going to work differently than they do in reality, without any warning to that effect.

[ThatGuyThere]

@tek
I said in my post I would not call it abusive but the fact remain you and I do not decide what words can be used. It was used in a correct way.
It was not hyperbole when Ghost used the word, it was a stretch in my opinion true, but I would rather him stretch every word ever then say be silent when someone plays word usage police.
Was it used in the way you would? I think that is an obvious no. Was it used in a way that I would? Again no.
Was it used in a way that deserved him getting harangued by you? I think that is a no again.

[DownWithOPP]

@Ghost said in The 100: The Mush:

Use these words...or else.
You hypocritical twat.

And there goes the moral high ground.

[GirlCalledBlu]

@Sunny said in The 100: The Mush:

I think you're a lovely person, your husband as well, but I don't think either of you should ever, ever run a public game with just the two of you. You have no balancing factors, no one to reality check you, no one to bounce stuff off of. You provide an echo chamber for one another. Not always a problem with everyone who does these things by themselves in a pair, but in the case of the 100, you shut out and shut down a portion of your playerbase because of it, and y'all made some really, really bad decisions.

Fair enough, @Sunny.

You're right-- we do, do that.

Thank you for the constructive feedback.

[Karmageddon]

@DownWithOPP said in The 100: The Mush:

@Ghost said in The 100: The Mush:

Use these words...or else.
You hypocritical twat.

And there goes the moral high ground.

It never was there to begin with. Speaking as someone who regularly gets hung-up on semantics, I agree that there is a spectrum of abuse and that @Ghost's use of the word wasn't incorrect even if I feel that only some, but not all, he's been railing against meets my definition of abusive in an online environment.

I also agree that @tek said some shitty things, which she seems to have recognized and apologized for.

Since then, however, @Ghost waltzed back into a thread he said he was done with (good thing we have no shortage of salt for all the margaritas we have to drink now, AMIRITE?) to get all rabid the moment he saw people were coming to his defense.

For someone who claims to be well-adjusted and not caring about online bs, he's really failing in demonstrating that.

[surreality]

I'mma just go on record and say that having spoken to both of them generally on and off, both @Ghost and @tek are both pretty cool people, explosions or not.

[Sunny]

@GirlCalledBlu said in The 100: The Mush:

@Sunny said in The 100: The Mush:

I think you're a lovely person, your husband as well, but I don't think either of you should ever, ever run a public game with just the two of you. You have no balancing factors, no one to reality check you, no one to bounce stuff off of. You provide an echo chamber for one another. Not always a problem with everyone who does these things by themselves in a pair, but in the case of the 100, you shut out and shut down a portion of your playerbase because of it, and y'all made some really, really bad decisions.

Fair enough, @Sunny.

You're right-- we do, do that.

Thank you for the constructive feedback.

You're welcome. I truly do hope you guys go on to do new projects -- just pull in a third / fourth person to play with you (ideally, someone good at administration) and you'd probably be golden. You tell great stories! And you really are nice people that I like.

[Karmageddon]

@surreality said in The 100: The Mush:

I'mma just go on record and say that having spoken to both of them generally on and off, both @Ghost and @tek are both pretty cool people, explosions or not.

They might well could be. I'm only commenting on what has been presented in this thread. I'm under the impression that they both mean well, but that doesn't change how they've presented themselves or how I've interpreted those presentations.

[bored]

I was on TFW and played with the staffers elsewhere. They're nice, enjoyable people to RP with outside of a staff context, but probably a bit self-centric in it. In this light, them sandboxing is actually probably the correct choice (although I think it also implies a certain admission of guilt regarding TFW's original incarnation). At least they're being honest with the fact that they don't really want to share except with a few close friends.

That said, I really want to focus on this:

@Ghost said in The 100: The Mush:

@Kanye-Qwest Don't be like that. I have said repeatedly that staff should definitely RP on their own games and enjoy the work they've put in. I'm just saying that staff shouldn't pigeonhole the entire game to being about their PCs and need to understand that by opening a place of RP to the public, there is an unspoken expectation that the roleplayers that they have opened a play space for are joining the game to matter.

By matter I mean: beyond assisting staff PCs in being the big heroes, and not being unwittingly delegated into being supporting cast characters.

People join these games to get camera time, have arcs, and feel like they're causing an impact on roleplay, not to be listed in IMDB as "Guy in Coffee House #3"

(Last bit about homebound people removed, as not terribly relevant)

I do think there's a trend in a lot of these games (quick setup FS3 L&L games especially, though not wholly limited to them) to end up in this trap, probably not wholly because the staffers are evil and abusive, but because there's kind of a blind spot to how easily you end up there. It usually goes something like:

1. Well, the King and whoever else will be NPCs (run by us) because we need them for plot
2. then we create a bunch of tiered houses, the topmost leaders of which will be NPCs (see #1) or maybe top-tier feature PCs
3. their kids (and maybe some of the lesser house leaders) will be PCs
4. most of 2 & 3 will nonetheless still be played by staff (because they need real PCs too not just NPCs), and friends (take your pick of between first-come first-serve when their friends know first and casual nepotism)
5. Thus, the majority of actual, Joe off-the-street players will get third or fourth tier characters at best

I've seen this pattern on every game in the genre I've interacted with in the last several years, and have heard about it on other places besides. It's a real issue, and I think staff really does need to consider it when they're designing a game: you need to make space for off-the-street players to be important and impactful. If you're not doing this, whether by intention or accident, you may as well at least admit to what you're doing and retreat to the pillowfort.

[Auspice]

To add onto @Bored's issue and where I think the sense that these folks (Seraphim and Blu) have their char's at the center of things... and is something I've called out other people on-

A lot of Staffers will run a scene 'from' their character. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, said character is either high ranking or the other people in the scene sort of cower to the side and 'err on the side of caution' into letting said Staffer PC call all the shots.

I think this is where the sense that 'maybe they shouldn't play' comes in. However, I think it's more simple than that:
Don't run important scenes from your PC.

Run one-off combat scenes, sure. 'Training' scenarios. But if plot, especially metaplot is involved, leave your own character out and run from the ST bit. Because otherwise, it does come across as having your char in the midst of things. Part of that is because, as @bored referenced... Staff PCs tend to be in important/high-ranking spots (for the reasons provided) or you get players not wanting to risk upsetting the ST, so they just fall in line.

The latter is easily resolved by just not sending your own PC on an important scene. Have a varied staff. Let other Staffers run things. Attend their events if you must. But I think something a lot of us need to learn/realize is that when running the game and manipulating the plot... we may be giving up the chance to be a part of said metaplot. And, tbh, I see no problem with that. Play other places to get the 'just a player' feeling. Staffing means giving up on small things... being in the midst of it all is one of them.

[GirlCalledBlu]

@Auspice and @bored

I agree with the two major points you both had here.

L&L games draw players in who want major political power. TFW was a war game with a L&L component, and you're not wrong that L&L games have a certain set-up to them that might not work, but all of them have. I don't have a feasible solution to that, beyond staggering where positions of power open and provide more easily-accessible ladders to those lower on the totem pole.

To Auspice's point...

It is hard to separate the Staffer and Player bits at times. I try my best, and I have purposefully moved entire page conversations that started on my PC to my Staffer. But, doesn't always work and I think it is an important thing to keep track of.

[surreality]

<waves the 'just my opinion' flag>

I think one of the most important aspects of a good leader is that they create opportunities for others to shine -- as many others as possible.

The best 'leaders' I've ever played were essentially what people would think of as support personnel. They got the busywork bullshit out of the way or handled it in order to create space or remove obstacles that might otherwise be in the way of them doing so.

This doesn't mean giving people everything they want, because some people are unreasonable attention hogs. It also means telling those people no in order to allow the people who would never ask for attention opportunities to allow their characters to shine, too.

The tl;dr of this: a good leader wants everyone to have their turn to wear the tiara and will endeavor to create opportunities for this to occur. It's leadership as service, as opposed to leadership as power -- even if power is required on some level in order to accomplish the former, from time to time.

[Auspice]

@surreality

Whenever I've had a char end up 'in the lead' (on military type games), they always end up issuing out stuff for others to do. And being in the middle of the pack.

I've never understood the 'I'm the leader so I'll be in the front!' anyway. How can you properly manage your whole team that way?!