Course Corrections

[Auspice]

@Ganymede said in Course Corrections:

@Seamus said in Course Corrections:

The one where the offender is present? If it is an option, maybe that might be the best thing for her and the game.

My responses were to @Ghost's comments, and it appears that it was a past experience on a Battlestar Galactica game.

The person in question is a large part of why I get sort of bristly when the 'omg don't call wrongfun comes up,' because I've dealt with her on other games in which she would blatantly ignore theme to insert her own, even to the detriment of others.

5th World? Scifi, wildly advanced society? She RP'd as a medieval noblewoman who had no comprehension of technology whatsoever. Like, 'could not use a basic touchscreen device,' 'could only ride a horse' even though those things made no sense and the behavior could absolutely derail a scene.

There are times, yes, wrongfun can be called. But there are times when someone can ruin an entire scene by trying to warp everyone to what they want and I am totally allowed to put my foot down.

[faraday]

@ThatGuyThere said in Course Corrections:

...unless they also want to police all such things like say Aspirin (also a brand name though one that has lost trademark protection) instead of whatever the hell drug would be to proper name for Aspirin.

Yeah having played a lot of BSG that's my take on it, both as player and staff. There are thousands of names for everyday things that would make absolutely no sense in a different universe like Star Wars or BSG -- everything from tylenol to kleenex to legos. If we got hung up on all of them we'd go insane.

But setting aside Lego Girl, I'd say in general that a polite "Oh, just a friendly FYI..." would be all right if something were really bothering you. Otherwise I'd just let it go. Involving staff seems like overkill.

[Ganymede]

@faraday said in Course Corrections:

But setting aside Lego Girl, I'd say in general that a polite "Oh, just a friendly FYI..." would be all right if something were really bothering you. Otherwise I'd just let it go. Involving staff seems like overkill.

Let me say, then, that were I the staffer that heard of this, my reaction would be quick and prejudicial.

Like, I may not know much about BSG, but I ask questions and try to learn. Failing to do this is both immature and downright rude, two attributes that I have little tolerance for.

[TiredEwok]

Haha. Lego Girl. She took special snowflake-ism to a whole new level. Am not sad to not see her around.

[SG]

Don't they have cars and cigarettes and televisions and Jesus(I'd have to rewatch the miniseries, but I'm pretty sure Col Tigh drops a lord tunderin jesus or two) on BSG? What's with the hangups on legos?

[Cupcake]

@SG Cars and cigarettes and no Jesus. The major religion of the setting is polytheistic.

[kitteh]

Maybe they really were legos. This has happened before.

(I don't actually disagree, just being cheeky

[surreality]

Re: Lego Lass: I would be tempted to Poe her. By which I mean wall her up somewhere, with the legos in place of brick, in chains. (But I'm having a more bitchy and bitter than average day, so take that with a grain of salt, or salted caramel if it helps it go down easier, your call, y'all.)

I would gently nudge.

Re: style stuff: If the game has a generally accepted standard they want or would strongly prefer people adhere to, they should post it somewhere. It varies a lot from culture to culture in online RP, so people may just have a habit of doing things a certain way and not notice. It may come off prissy to some, but most folks will be grateful they've been spared an unintentional faux pas (and/or potentially getting yelled at or vaguebooked about here).

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@surreality said in Course Corrections:

Re: style stuff: If the game has a generally accepted standard they want or would strongly prefer people adhere to, they should post it somewhere. It varies a lot from culture to culture in online RP, so people may just have a habit of doing things a certain way and not notice. It may come off prissy to some, but most folks will be grateful they've been spared an unintentional faux pas (and/or potentially getting yelled at or vaguebooked about here).

Second Pass (a Pern place which I only found when it was on its last legs, alas) did this and I really liked how they worded it. I was trying to find the link but either its one of the many things my workplace blocks or the website is dead (which would be sad). It stated upfront that present-tense third-person poses were the norm. I think there were some other style things included as well.

[Cupcake]

Aside from the fact that Leggo Girl was just so funny, I find that correcting that kind of thing is a lot easier than the tenses issue. I could see people feeling like their RP was being attacked for bringing it up - but when people continue to pose in past tense around a bunch of people using present tense, is it just sloppy? Is it a passive aggressive fuck you? I don't know.

[surreality]

@Three-Eyed-Crow I did up a resource thing for a style guide. It's not a policy thing, but a section of what's more or less 'these are tips and tricks and random bits of hopefully helpful advice from the community'. It has a style guide for stuff like this, also for the norms for ANSI and ASCII use on the game (since this varies a lot from game to game, too), but there's also things like how-to walkthroughs for various commands or adding fun things to builds, etc. It's something I wish more places would do, honestly. The unspoken 'how it's done' from place to place can be a brutal social code to break sometimes, especially if a game has its own really unique or defined culture going for it (which many games, especially the long-lived ones, tend to have).

[surreality]

@Cupcake (Apologies for the double.) I would bring it up in the context of 'do you think you could stick to the tense the rest of us are using, since it could be an awkward read in the log otherwise?' which may get the hint across. Useless if the game doesn't have a logging culture, but it could be a potentially gentler way of broaching the subject.

[Ganymede]

@Cupcake said in Course Corrections:

... but when people continue to pose in past tense around a bunch of people using present tense, is it just sloppy? Is it a passive aggressive fuck you?

It is probably because they are terrible writers with a lack of self-awareness.

[Maira]

Past tense: Maybe it's habit or something the other player prefers. Habits can be awfully hard to break, and if that's how they learned to RP, even more so.

It's probably not about the other players... Thinking it is is a rather silly thing, how many people could entirely consistently change something that dramatic about their RP style just to mess with others? And why would they? That's some determined bullshit right there. People should either get over it if the RP is otherwise fun or just avoid playing with that person if it's just too much for their brains to handle.

[Thenomain]

@kitteh said in Course Corrections:

Maybe they really were legos. This has happened before.

I mean, nobody here is complaining about five people hearing a Bob Dylan song 30,000 years before he was born. Sir Terry Pratchett (RIP) said he tried his hardest to not do things like this, but the idea of interlocking blocks as educational building tools shouldn't be the problem; calling them Lego should be.

[Roz]

@Thenomain said in Course Corrections:

but the idea of interlocking blocks as educational building tools shouldn't be the problem; calling them Lego should be.

I assumed that's what the problem was.

[ThatGuyThere]

@faraday said in Course Corrections:
I agree my issue would be with her reaction not her use of Lego. Her over-reaction to the FYI would cause me to avoid her, her use of Lego wouldn't even make me blink.
After all we are stuck playing these games with a language that is filled with cultural references even ones we do not think about such as calling soft soled athletic shoes, tennis shoes when the IC game culture likely never developed a sport of whacking a ball over a net on a lawn (and then having that sport evolve to being played on clay and hard courts as well as grass) let alone calling that sport tennis.

[faraday]

@ThatGuyThere said in Course Corrections:

@faraday said in Course Corrections:
I agree my issue would be with her reaction not her use of Lego. Her over-reaction to the FYI would cause me to avoid her, her use of Lego wouldn't even make me blink.
After all we are stuck playing these games with a language that is filled with cultural references even ones we do not think about such as calling soft soled athletic shoes, tennis shoes when the IC game culture likely never developed a sport of whacking a ball over a net on a lawn (and then having that sport evolve to being played on clay and hard courts as well as grass) let alone calling that sport tennis.

Yeah, exactly. And I agree about her reaction. To @Ganymede's point - as staff I'd have more problem with her attitude than her use of lego bricks. (..."actually it's a highly sophisticated inter-locking brick system...")

@Cupcake - I think someone has to be pretty oblivious not to notice that everyone else around them is posing in present tense. I don't think that would be something that needed to be pointed out. If they're still doing it after a scene or two, it's most likely a stubborn or passive-aggressive thing going on.

[Auspice]

@Roz said in Course Corrections:

@Thenomain said in Course Corrections:

but the idea of interlocking blocks as educational building tools shouldn't be the problem; calling them Lego should be.

I assumed that's what the problem was.

This was exactly it. She had a tendency to excessively use brand names in poses and we tried to explain why that didn't work in theme. Ghost even tried to craft a large list of alternative brand names for her to use. This was deemed harassment (by her). No one would care if she'd just used 'building toys,' but no, she had to have a character (a marine, on a ship, at war, mind you) obsessed with Legos and everyone had to accept this for her.

The issue wasn't the concept of Legos. It was her need to use the brand name (in IC dialogue) and have everyone else warp theme to do so as well (for them and other such items), for her.

[surreality]

@Auspice Walled up behind legos. Super-glued together. Poe her in your mind. It will make you feel better.