Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes

[Kestrel]

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel

I would be okay with that second meta pose but a lot of people would bristle at it. It's entertaining and probably accurate. If you had posed how you thought he was a jerk but would never say so out loud, you are denying the other player retort to an insult. That is not okay.

Is it different if I use my character's silently-held disdain to explain the atmosphere of the scene? e.g.:

When @Thenomain walks up to Kestrel, she just glares. She thinks he's a jerk, but of course she'd never say that out loud. And so biting back her insult, she grits her teeth and says, "Good day... sir."

[Groth]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel

I would be okay with that second meta pose but a lot of people would bristle at it. It's entertaining and probably accurate. If you had posed how you thought he was a jerk but would never say so out loud, you are denying the other player retort to an insult. That is not okay.

Is it different if I use my character's silently-held disdain to explain the atmosphere of the scene? e.g.:

When @Thenomain walks up to Kestrel, she just glares. She thinks he's a jerk, but of course she'd never say that out loud. And so biting back her insult, she grits her teeth and says, "Good day... sir."

Some people like posing like that, some people don't. There's no real standard.

[Lotherio]

@ixokai said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

This is not OK for me to metapose:

@ixokai is one cocky motherfucker. Kestrel just stares at him with a baffled expression when he steps on up to that wall with the clearly stated intention of climbing it. There is no way he can climb that wall — look how short his stubby legs are.

I can't speak for @ixokai, but this sort of meta is acceptable. What he is referring to would be:

Okay: @Kestrel looks at @ixokai , that cocky mother fucker, he steps up to try and punch him in the jaw.

Not Okay: @Kestrel looks at @ixokai , that cocky mother fucker, he steps up to try and punch him in the jaw, landing one straight on his face and dropping him like a sack of potatoes..

This Not Okay is not okay, but not because its a metapose. That's a powerpose. Metapose inserts "meta" commentary, stuff that can not be inferred from words, body language, etc; its meta. Powerpose takes the power away from the character's player to decide what their character is doing.

I'm in agreement on definition, I'm okay with most meta and simply assume if they put it in, there is some way I can infer what was said. There was some distinction made earlier.

Take @faraday's silly dog pose. Maybe her eyes were red, maybe something in her voice. I might return with an 'Are you okay?' I wouldn't pose meta saying how he figured it out, cause that could cross into power (he had heard about her dog from a friend, knew how close they were).

My only problem with meta is they miss out on a ton of RP opportunity, if they tell me why they're crying, or why they think I'm a dick, in the meta, I'm less inclined to do ask what's wrong or see what is the matter. And like @Mietze, some folks will be less inclined to play with them.

[Apos]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel

I would be okay with that second meta pose but a lot of people would bristle at it. It's entertaining and probably accurate. If you had posed how you thought he was a jerk but would never say so out loud, you are denying the other player retort to an insult. That is not okay.

Is it different if I use my character's silently-held disdain to explain the atmosphere of the scene? e.g.:

When @Thenomain walks up to Kestrel, she just glares. She thinks he's a jerk, but of course she'd never say that out loud. And so biting back her insult, she grits her teeth and says, "Good day... sir."

I think it's more common for mush RPers to just go a safer route of expressing the same thing without anything that can be taken as commentary. For example, rewriting it as When he walks up to Kestrel, she just glares, radiating hostility of things left unsaid. She grits her teeth and says, "Good day... sir." In this version it's very clearly something she can do and say, and there's no reading her mind or anything metapose-y about it, but gets across the same gist.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

Metaposing, and even what constitutes meta and what's just additional observable-but-intangible information, is so incredibly subjective that it's hard to give advice about. And it's also an area where it's hard to use other players as examples, because a lot of other players do things with meta that me me cringe, but aren't actionably "wrong." I feel like, if you're unsure, this is a style of posing it's best to avoid until you're comfortable with both your character voice and the preferences of your RP partners. It's hard to go wrong if you err on the more straightforward side, even if those poses might not always be ultra-colorful (and ultra-colorful doesn't always equate to good RP, to me).

[mietze]

What I expect in a scene are things I can react to. Unless you are going to open up to my PC about your past or give an in for me to inquire (looks like/bags under the eyes/visibly upset) then it feels like you just want spectators rather than give and take. It's not a cardinal sin or anything. And there are appropriate small scenes for that (one on ones or very small groups where everyone's familiar). But it can definitely be intrusive outside of that, at least for me. I love taking an interest in other pcs. But i enjoy that with interaction not spectating. That's more a personal peeve of mine though.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel

I would be okay with that second meta pose but a lot of people would bristle at it. It's entertaining and probably accurate. If you had posed how you thought he was a jerk but would never say so out loud, you are denying the other player retort to an insult. That is not okay.

Is it different if I use my character's silently-held disdain to explain the atmosphere of the scene? e.g.:

When @Thenomain walks up to Kestrel, she just glares. She thinks he's a jerk, but of course she'd never say that out loud. And so biting back her insult, she grits her teeth and says, "Good day... sir."

This personally doesn't bother me at all, because you aren't posing anything internal that is off limits. As long as there's some VISUAL cue for whatever the internal thing happening in the pose is, it's fine.

note, I also pretend there are visual cues in twinky metaposes people do, where they might say "Kestrel hates Thenomain, hates him forever. She smiles brightly, "Hello!"

I will cheerfully pretend they were gritting their teeth and making it obvious the smile was fake, and play accordingly.

[Groth]

Another common and usually considered acceptable form of meta-posing is the author narrative voices, for instance.

Groth-Golka was sitting on the university lawn splayed out on his picnic blanket with his choice array of liquors stacked neatly into his backpack just like most of his fellow students this time of year, it was after all the 30th of april, the national holiday of getting drunk.

[Thenomain]

@Kestrel

As said by others, that pose skims a line. If you retract the internal monologue in that particular case, I would expect it to be fine by most people. There would probably be other ways to set the tone without using character brainwaves.

I rely on offering internal monologues in my poses, and I rarely hear a complaint.

[Lotherio]

@Groth said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

.... it was after all the 30th of april, the national holiday of getting drunk.

I'd play on that game.

[lordbelh]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

When @Thenomain walks up to Kestrel, she just glares. She thinks he's a jerk, but of course she'd never say that out loud. But it shows, it really shows. And so biting back her insult, she grits her teeth and says, "Good day... sir."

That's how I'd do it, if I was writing that post. No ambiguity about whether you can react to it.

[mietze]

Yep. I'm all for not having to molest a thesaurus to come up with ways to indirectly communicate things. If your character is visibly upset/obviously contemptuous, ect then I think it's awesome to pose that directly. To me, that's not really meta. (though as you can see folks have variant interpretations!) It gives me the choice to decide if my character notices/how they react. It does not forcefeed me explanations. Maybe ICly my PC has an idea and can ask or goad further. Maybe it's a total WTF so it gives an opportunity to wonder/seek out more, ect. But that's an /invitation/. If there's no invitation there, only commentary or background, then I tend to feel pretty steamrollered.

I also think it's neat to differentiate even in scene. I might have a public pose for my PCs that are harder to read. If someone is in the room that knows them well, then I might @pemit something telling (especially in large group scenes). That way I can acknowledge multiple levels of intimacy (not the sexual kind) or incorporate things I know the other player likes that's personal to their PC without rubbing it in everyone's face or cluttering up a ginormous scene with stuff that's really only targeted towards one or two people.

That just feels oocly friendlier to me. I do try to pay attention to every other PC in the scene, so that I can incorporate stuff into smaller scenes with them later if we have a chance to play again. It's such a treasure when that's returned, or done back!

[Ganymede]

@mietze said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Yep. I'm all for not having to molest a thesaurus to come up with ways to indirectly communicate things.

Unfortunately for me, having a large vocabulary was all I could offer.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

• Metaposing — which means the opposite of show-don't-tell, and apparently is sometimes acceptable, sometimes not

Generally it is more how you metapose then that you metapose. For example on some of my characters especially those that are not sociable ICly I tend to make a lot of Meta pose pointing and laughing at my own chars type of comment and I have never had a anyone complain. I also tend to in some cases meta-pose the thought process behind my chars actions, I do this because to me the audience is the other player not the other character. Though this is a taste thing some like it some do not so mainly it comes down to finding people whose styles gel with yours.
The one type of metapose that everyone will hate on is the snarky metapose where you use it to hurl OOC insults without having to deal with an IC responce, such as ,Bob thinks Joe is an idiot but answer his stupid question anyway, "Yes, I am from Nantucket."

[surreality]

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel

I would be okay with that second meta pose but a lot of people would bristle at it. It's entertaining and probably accurate. If you had posed how you thought he was a jerk but would never say so out loud, you are denying the other player retort to an insult. That is not okay.

Is it different if I use my character's silently-held disdain to explain the atmosphere of the scene? e.g.:

When @Thenomain walks up to Kestrel, she just glares. She thinks he's a jerk, but of course she'd never say that out loud. And so biting back her insult, she grits her teeth and says, "Good day... sir."

This one, if directed at me, wouldn't bother me at all, actually, but YMMV.

Why: the inclusion of 'she thinks he's a jerk' is very different from, say, just 'he's a jerk'; one reflects character opinion, the other is name-calling in editorial commentary. There's definitely a difference between the two. While I may not be able to respond to it IC directly, there's no actual insult being slung in my direction, there's just a character's opinion being presented.

[ThatGuyThere]

@lordbelh said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

This is something I'd agree with, but it also runs directly counter to the idea you have to ask before joining a scene (asking means you can be denied, which means people can totally have private scenes anywhere they like.)

To me the asking to join is not about getting permission, but about acknowledging there is a scene in process and being polite. I would consider anyone who said out right no to the question to join more then a bit of a dick. that still said i will tend to minimized interaction with those that don't ask. It is one of those polite non questions that helps social situations function. Like the How are you doing? to a stranger in RL you aren't seeking a real answer just giving them polite acknowledgement.

[Kanye Qwest]

@ThatGuyThere
You are so delicate!

[mietze]

@Ganymede said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Unfortunately for me, having a large vocabulary was all I could offer.

I....kinda like your large vocabulary.

[ixokai]

@ThatGuyThere said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@lordbelh said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

This is something I'd agree with, but it also runs directly counter to the idea you have to ask before joining a scene (asking means you can be denied, which means people can totally have private scenes anywhere they like.)

To me the asking to join is not about getting permission, but about acknowledging there is a scene in process and being polite. I would consider anyone who said out right no to the question to join more then a bit of a dick. that still said i will tend to minimized interaction with those that don't ask. It is one of those polite non questions that helps social situations function. Like the How are you doing? to a stranger in RL you aren't seeking a real answer just giving them polite acknowledgement.

Me, I always ask and I mean it when I ask; there's multiple reasons why someone might not want me to join. One of the biggest being that the more people there are in a scene the harder it is to keep up with the scene. Sometimes I can RP but my attention is divided, so having a scene with maybe 2 or at most 3 people works ideal. I still pose at about the same speed, can still do the stuff that requires my attention, and we're fine. But in such a situation a 4th is just more then I can handle. If you just come in and RP in this situation, I'd exit the scene.

Now, if one's in a public place, there's no obligation to ask, but I consider it polite to do so. I know if I'm RP'n in a public place there's a chance someone can come in, and they're free to do so, even if it goes over my attention limit and I must exit.

Granted, I almost never say no, even if I don't feel up to a scene that includes X odd people. My fun's not more important then their fun so I try to deal with it for a bit then withdraw, usually.

[ThatOneDude]

@acceleration said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

IMO, the etiquette rules are typically harder to get a grasp on in MUSHes because MUDs have coded constructs to enforce the rules and are typically anti-OOC-chatting-while-playing. MUSH culture is highly dependent on who's playing the game and who you're playing the game with. Some people want minimal OOCness, on the ball posing, and are willing to get into PVP conflict. Some people don't want that at all and are likely to metapose or provide running OOC commentary. My advice is RP with different people and see who you like playing with. Unlike in a MUD construct, it's typically easier and even maybe encouraged that you avoid people whose company you don't enjoy.

What about those times when you find you dislike the company of more than 90% of the people you run across?! Does that mean its PS4 time?!