Kushiel's Debut

[Apollonius]

All I'm saying is that having been in the game for some time, it doesn't seem to be the right fit for me. I've expressed my reasons and having chatted with some folks who have now seemingly departed, I'm not alone. There are people who are going to feel that way.

I've perhaps put in more of a negative slant and overstated things more than I originally meant to. I have expressed at multiple times that there is no particular staff malice or gross misbehavior by either the staff or the player base but that the game itself seems to be trending a certain way that isn't my cup of tea.

Sorry I accidentally stepped on the puppy on my way out.

[Sunny]

Not to be a snot about it, but the people who run the game do have permission from the author, and she even links to the mush from her website (as well as a bunch of other sorts of games, because the author is awesome like that)...but with that, it implies that we're going to generally use the source material, rather than rewriting swaths of it.

I can understand that it's not your cup of tea, What I understand less is the specific complaints that you had about staff, in that they stifled things / blocked things people tried to do, or enforced the stagnation. I very much would like to know what it is you feel that they do that has stifled things. If there's a problem there, I am absolutely sure that they'll want to address it immediately. Nobody's perfect, even if I feel like these guys are very good. If you have feedback to give on what is being done wrong that isn't just sort of waving your arms around and saying 'that', it would be helpful. Just because other people agree with the general opinion you hold does not mean that anyone has bothered to bring up specific examples of behavior.

'It's not what I expected.' - What did you expect?
'With it's current trajectory' - What things are happening that lead you to believe it's just going to turn into something that it isn't, right now?
'Staff is killing the game I was interested in playing' - What game were you interested in playing? Politics, clearly. But which political actions were quashed? What line did you try to pursue that you were blocked on? What bit of theme-expansion did you try to do that was shot down?

It's not about stepping on puppies, or it not being the game for you. I'm interested in hearing where you are coming from. I'd like to know, so that if there is something I can do to help the place out, As I said, my experiences have been dramatically different from your own, and I'd really love to try and figure out where the disconnect is between our experiences. My feelings aren't hurt; I didn't bring Emma into it because of my feefees, but because she was a specific example of why I felt like the players have a great deal of agency on the game.

Your previous posts were more than a bit of a negative slant / overstatements, if you go back and read them. They speak of a great deal of frustration, and the lack of producing actual examples when requested and instead going to 'well it's just my opinion'...Great, I understand it's your opinion, but where did this opinion come from? 'Someone else feels that way' isn't an answer: they're not here talking about their awful experience.

[Misadventure]

To chime in, when I asked about something that hadn't been covered by what I had read, I wasn't told where to find it. I wasn't show to the guidelines that exist on the wiki. I wasn't told I could try, but that it was going to be harder to get a pass on. I was just told yeah that's for someone who already knew this before apping.

And NOTHING in the books is that complex.

[Sunny]

Yes, they do have a requirement on some things that you've played on the game for a while first; any of the Sovereign characters, occult characters, that sort of thing. There are others, and I think some of the foreigners fall under that as well. So yeah, I can see them flat-out denying some types of concepts. I definitely expect that did happen, and I wish you'd have just talked to me about the concept and worked through stuff first.

It's why I'm actively so much of a newbie helper; there is a lot of shit to know and navigate, so having someone to help you your first time in is pretty helpful. .

Straight up, Skaldia is blunt. He does not sugar coat anything, and he answers questions with the fewest possible words. He doesn't waste time. It's worth keeping in mind that we blew the game up; it went from a fairly small playerbase to very very active all but overnight. There are just two of them. They're not interested in adding to their staff team, for a lot of good reasons. So he's blunt, and he's also overworked. I've had people show me logs of what they interpreted as him being hostile and every time he's just: this is how it is. We're all used to staff being scared of telling people no, and so they dance around the issues and fuss and so on. He doesn't play those games.

If that's not the sort of person you enjoy interacting with as far as staffing styles go, it's not worth coming in and then getting hurt/offended and leaving. That's who he is. I won't say anyone is wrong for not liking it, not enjoying it. It turns some people off, sure.

I'm going to maintain that it's not a problem and that it's working very well; I've seen at least one complete meltdown on a player's part and he dealt with that shit so quick everyone's head spun. There was no pussyfooting around; he took the rabid dog out behind the barn and shot it without letting a huge long dramafest happen. Some of us greatly appreciate his staffing style, but it's not for everyone. I've seen a few different logs of his 'bad behavior' (shared by the people complaining about him) and they're full of people being passive-aggressive little shits at him because that's the staffing-mode they're used to, that's how they think they need to communicate. I try and tell people no, don't read into that, don't take it as he's not meaning what he's saying, or he's unhappy, or he doesn't like it. HE WILL SAY THAT if that's the case. If you take what he says without putting in any of your own meaning to his words, he becomes an absolute breeze to deal with.

However, I am biased. Ash and Skaldia, their game, and their staffing styles -- it's all Just Right for me. I am happier on this game and feel safer on this game than I have anywhere else; it's why I'm so comfortable disclosing my alts. I know if any of the fuckers around the community that like to harass me decided to show up there, the moment they caused a problem, that would be that. KD is almost exactly what I'd like in a game; I'm missing my strong political rival (which would be the last piece for it to be perfection for me), but I expect that will eventually happen.

[Misadventure]

Naw, I read the wiki. Its full of helpful info. Except the requirement that you have already played a character before you can play an "advanced" character. I don't play characters I don't want to to earn the right to play one I do. I am fine with being told the app clearly doesn't demonstrate knowledge of the feel or details desired.

On big leadership positions, I just avoid them, and I freely admit I cannot think of a way to show you can do it in an app. Then again, if you don't play one, how would you demonstrate you can? THAT is a good question for every MU*. Make a thread about it!

[Sunny]

A lot of it is in the merits themselves; if you look, they say with some merits (like occult initiation) that they need permission from staff. I think some of the miscommunication comes from that lack of clarity, though. I know clarifying some pieces of the Wiki is on the to-do list; I'll check in with them about making it clearer that there are some character types that either require discussion with staff first (rather than at the end of chargen), or some time-played on the game.

It is an interesting question re: leadership, but it's not applicable to this game. There are MANY MANY leadership positions that are open and available for newcomers to just walk in off the street and take -- just not those with the Sovereign titles over the Provinces.

[Misadventure]

Make the thread! I don't run a place, so my opinion is just academic.

It does strike me as odd that someone is worried about an occult effect or coming from an off the map culture more than a character who is in charge of large swaths of on map territory and RP scenes. Its a matter of scale of effect on players, in my mind at least.

[Sunny]

I don't need to make a thread. I find it interesting, but I don't think it's a problem that has a solution. You can either restrict them and let people prove themselves on not bigshots, or you can let just anyone try and then those that fail, well, chalk it up to a loss.

As far as off-the-map stuff and the occult things....they're keeping the game within scope. That's an important part of managing a game: X is what we are playing. There's a wiki page entitled 'where we are not going' or something similar -- it's very upfront about it.

A friend of mine really, really, really enjoys a more robust economy system than what they have, where he would/could be able to outsmart people with types of crops and win economic and thus political influence that way. That's a fun game! I love those sorts of things. It would be soooooooooooooooo cool if KD had something like that.

It's not the type of game they're running. Just because I want something, or want the game to be about something it's not, they are not obligated to do it. Does this mean it won't be the game for everyone (or even most)? Absolutely. But to present these things as if they are design flaws rather than the person in question being interested in other things, that becomes a problem.

Particularly when there are major problems presented without any specific examples of anything. There's nothing anybody can do about those things, if nobody is willing to say what happened. What the problem is. 'It's stagnant and not political enough' -- okay, please. Just one thing, specifically, that presents what the problem is.

Like, @Misadventure -- what was it that you wanted to play that you were told no absolutely not about?

[Tempest]

I'm genuinely surprised to hear that the game is even trying to be anything besides nobles fucking each other and prostitutes. I love the Kushiel books (the first trilogy anyways, Phedre, fuck yeah), but the setting is way too sexual, I think (or the way it's conveyed in the books is, anyways). Especially since we all know MUs will turn anything sexual. And I say this as somebody who has no problem with TS or sexual themes, but honestly the (apparently incorrect) assumption that this game is basically Shangrila in Kushiel-theme is why I've never really done more than look at the wiki. Maybe I need to poke at it when I have more time.

[Misadventure]

Lords and Ladies is definitely a genre unto itself.

The fact that there is a canon codified way of dealing with sexuality at least means that folks may at least be carrying the specific Kushiel setting along with any usual TS hijinks.

@Sunny I wanted a low level (I think not sure) occult concept. I knew it required staff approval (because that is on the wiki). I was reading the books to learn every angle I needed for the type of play IO was aiming to create. If I had been told I probably wouldn't get it, but to go ahead anyhow, that would have been aces. If I had been asked to talk about what level of actual "power" I wanted, and found the concept out of bounds, that would have been aces too.

As stated, asking someone to prove they can play a concept by playing something else, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Discussion of how often the concept is imagined as having an impact, and to what magnitude (what we call risk analysis in QA), that would be sensible.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Tempest
I don't play on there currently but when I did, TS and sexual themes were present but no more so then you would run into on your average WoD game.

[Rook]

Yeah.... I dunno about Kushiel's being Shangrila. There is a fuckton of difference. On top of the veneer, the players do not act anything like what they do on Shang. There is a serious visible lack of rudeness, self-importance and breach of 'theme' (snicker Shang theme. BUAHAHA).

Every person I've interacted with on Kushiel's was all about the theme, they were nice and pleasant to talk to, and there was RP to be found. As for the TS, not every character on Kushiel's is X-rated, many are R-rated, so I wouldn't assume that all RP there is TS-centric.

[Echx]

@Tempest - the setting is pretty sexual. I mean, the first trilogy of books is basically Sexy Angel France being saved through the power of BDSM. To be fair the game does have a proportionately high level of that going on, because it's part of the canon. But it is not the *only *thing going on.

In fact it's not always as in your face as you might think: I fondly remember an episode of Open Court Night (which is sort of a staff-sponsored Big Group Social Scene, which theoretically happens once a week but has been cancelled a lot lately due to Reasons) where the king kicked one of the marquis (marquises? marquise?) out and banned him from returning because he was making out with someone and not only didn't see how it was inappropriate in that setting, but also totally missed the subtle and then not so subtle hints he was given about its inappropriateness.

Pro Tip: when you're snogging some woman in the throne room and the king asks you how your extremely pregnant wife is doing back home in some not-close province, the answer is not, "Oh I'm sure she's fine" followed by a return to tongue-sucking.

@Misadventure - Their bars for entry are pretty low all around and by and large Ash and Skaldia are, as staffers go, really hands-off: if your concept gets approved, they're only going to step in and police it in really extravagant circumstances. All the up-front discussion in the world about a concept doesn't help at all if it turns out that the (previously unknown) player in question is actually a train wreck waiting to happen, whereas if you've played for a little while and demonstrated that you are not (whatever they happen to be screening for) then the idea seems to be that you've earned enough trust currency to play whatever happens to float your boat inside of their theme pool.

[Misadventure]

I hope all this defense of KD isn't based on what I posted.

I think that Kushiel's canon make PC sexuality more flavorful, a better fit for the given game. Despite that sexuality can make you a GOD in the Laurel K Hamilton Anitaverse, I wouldn't feel the canon helps carry flavor via sexuality in such a MU* setting.

[Sunny]

It has begun! Sharing Ash's post here:

======================= OOC : Open/Wanted PC Positions =======================
Message: 23/31 Posted Author
War Plot PCs Jun 18 2015 Asherat

The time has come for the Royal Army (and a handful of troops from each of the provinces) to ride off to war! This is a plot players have been anticipating for a while, and staff are dedicated to making it as entertaining for you as we can. Over the next couple of days we will be adding a few rooms to the grid for rp purposes for the group who will be traveling to the Flatlands so there is the possibility for variety in scenes, since this will be a longer arc outside the City of Elua. We'd also like to encourage players to consider making alts to join the war plot. If you have hit your alt cap and would like to add another temporary alt just for the purposes of being a part of this storyline, the staff will allow for it, so long as you are prepared to ditch the new character (or one of your old ones if you get attached) once the party returns to the City. Soldiers, whether leaders or just men on the ground, are who we expect to be most involved, though there are other options including some for female PCs. Priestesses, healers, and courtesans from some of the Houses of the Mont are some of the female characters who might have traveled with the army, assuming they were able to do so without being a liability. If you are interested in making a new character to join up, please contact the staff or Reynard and we can help make sure you are set up to do so!

Have fun out there!

[Sunny]

Okay. This bit is a more personal of a need for the game. I really need someone to come pick up one of my characters' primary political rival. The character comes with a playgroup and a base of power, and an incredibly interesting dynamic with my PC (at least in my opinion: they get along very well, they're on the same page about most things, but they can't both have the title). If this is something that might interest you, pretty please let me know. My PC is currently using a tactic that is going to have her eventually cementing things in her favor if I don't get the big powerhouse of a roadblock in. -.-

[Sunny]

Posting from the gaaaaame that just went up.

Message: 23/32 Posted Author
STAFF WANTED SUMMER UPDATE Jun 25 2015 Asherat

You guys have been great about responding to our STAFF WANTEDs, whether out of deep love for pleasing us or sweet xp incentives. Either way, it is time for an update, so an update you get.

Presently our Provinces seem balanced enough...what I'm noticing is gaps in the Great Houses there, and they need filling for lots of reasons. I know a lot of our newer players prefer working with 'blank slate' families and making them your own, and I totally understand why. However, I'm going to be trying to get some movement in the families that are 'established' (Bear in mind that if they were established and very ACTIVE we wouldn't need to do this, so there will still be a lot of freedom in who your char is and how they fit in.) As such, present incentives/wanteds are:

Mereliot: We have had a bit of movement here but this family should be a powerhouse. Make it so. +20 for doing just that. It's a very cool house with control over Marsilikos and a lot of potential for different flavors of rp. (affinity with Eisheth, seafaring types, foreigner lovers or whatever else floats your boat)

L'Envers: The sovereign rulers of Namarre, there is potential to get involved in all kinds of political rp, and for upward mobility too, depending on how ambitious your character is. Also the connection with Naamah can add for color. +15

Trevalion: The sovereign rulers of Azzalle, this family has plenty of potential power to use in play, and upward mobility is possible as well for the ambitious. Join up! +15

Morbhan: This Kusheline house still needs more people to make it more robust. Here we have some potential faction v faction play (a rivalry over a Sovereign Ducal spot lost to the family that characters banding together to regain would be awesome. It's also highly likely that a Duc will be available in this family, so get in while the getting is good. +20

Shahrizai: The current Sovereign rulers of Kusheth, this fam is popular in the books because it created the star villain, and because they have a reputation as a whole for clannishness and hunger for power. The Dauphine's son and heir is a Shahrizai and her husband is a d'Aiglemort, so there is potential push and pull there as well, their relationship with the crown is interesting and can be explored in many ways, as can their relationship with other houses. Being a villain just because you picked Shahrizai is NOT necessary...affinity to Kushiel doesn't automatically make one twisted, that is a personal choice. +20

Rousse, Rocaille, Fiscard: All Greater families that hold duchies but do not 'rule' them, they need some fleshing out as well, and some are currently empty. Check the wiki and talk to staff. +15

Note that what we are -mostly- after is political chars, but it isn't all we are interested in. Expanding the families so that the political characters that DO emerge from the woodwork have people to play off of is important too. If politics isn't your jam, still consider these options, a lesser noble among any of these groups would have plenty of potential rp.

As always thanks for reading and for being awesome. All former incentives are closed, and these are your new ones! Or make something totally different, all you'll miss out on is some of my fawning and some extra points in chargen. Most of all have a blast with whatever you create!

---

[Gingerlily]

So since I have decided to be a poster and not a lurker, lured out of my shell by intense discussions on other threads about unfindable flags and RPI muds, I'll go ahead and introduce.

I'm Asherat on KD. One of the two-person staff team, though Skaldia is the big kahuna. I'm blown away by the interest @Sunny generated here and elsewhere and how the game has dramatically grown since the spring. Those of you who joined us, I hope you are having an awesome time. For those who didn't find it their cuppa, It's a bummer to hear but I get it. We like what we like. Please if you need something in game let us know, we try to be super responsive as staff, but we're a two man/woman operation and sometimes busy weeks slow down the cogs.

Thanks for checking us out if you have!

[Sunny]

@Gingerlily

Get out of my thread, bitch!

@ Everyone Else
See? I am NOT her. Isn't she lovely, though?

[3543thrh67]

@Gingerlily I was lured by @Sunny. She wouldn't let me nom her for good things, though!