Posts made by Apos

@Pyrephox said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

"writhing loincloth" remains a phrase that lives in infamy in my memory

There should be a game of guessing whether a phrase comes from TS, or lovecraftian horror, or both.

@Sparks said in RL things I love:

@Auspice a couple of months ago we interviewed someone for an engineering position. She's brilliant, and a superb engineer, and absolutely deserves the job, but I won't lie: the fact that she's a gamer and plays D&D did figure into my "hire" vote for her over other candidates, too.

(Especially speaking as the DM who runs the company D&D campaign; one of my co-workers left and the party was down a cleric!)

"She's an excellent culture fit and can definitely heal."

@Cupcake said in When To Stop Listening To Those Voices:

If you feel you're being ignored or only minimally acknowledged in a scene, is there a healthy way to assert yourself to remind others that you're present? If you are consistently unacknowledged, how do you express your concern in a way that doesn't immediately lead others to conclude you're trying to hog the spotlight?

I know for massive scenes it's okay to page someone with an inquiry - the may have missed it in spam. I never assume in such circumstances I'm being ignored if it happens once or twice. But if I'm in a scene with half a dozen people and my poses aren't being acknowledged at all, or possibly consistently by the same people, am I just not giving enough?

What's the scene about, and what are the other players in the scene enjoying about it? How will your pose further that and help move things along? Write with those in mind and they'll probably respond to it.

It is very simple to get people to want to spend time with you, by being extremely generous with your time, and making it be about them, and helping them have fun. It's just the simplest things can be very difficult to do, and require an intense commitment of time and energy.

Think of this way- some of the most utterly toxic, worst examples in the hobby are very popular because they realize this, at a fundamental level, that if they just keep giving and giving their time often to an unhealthy extent, people will appreciate that, and they can use that to then justify the unbelievably shitty things they do afterwards. Someone donating their time and energy is appreciated to such an extent that a large amount of people are willing to overlook truly atrocious behavior.

It's fine to say you don't have the time to invest in things, or you just feel too tired or unmotivated to do so. That's okay. There's no shame at all in that. Just understand that it's a very clear path forward if you ever feel disassociated with a game or RP group or whatever.

It is simple. Don't think too much about your own character. At all. Think about what the people you are going to roleplay with enjoy, and what are scenes and interactions that go towards that. If you find things you enjoy that other people enjoy, they will want to rp with you.

If you have no idea what the people around you like and dislike, then I think you should find out.

@Pandora said in Do You Do A Writing?:

Then there are the comments so full of flattery and praise when they ask for an update you just don't have the heart to say you've completely lost interest in the story, so you just pretend you didn't see them.

You're all writers here - anyone have any tips for trying to get back into a story you just don't feel connected to anymore?

Usually comes when what I think should happen bores me or I find uninteresting to write. So I make myself not write what I think I should, but what I would enjoy, and then see if I can reconcile it.

@misadventure said in criticism not allowed in ad threads is only enforcing a false positive, prove me wrong:

@apos I can confirm there are several people, myself included, who no longer find it productive to even mention criticisms about games you and Hellfrog are involved in. Those players either attempt to avoid your attention or opt not to play games you have significant say in.

Is that something you should consider?

Sure but I'm not involved in any games but Arx. I didn't know anything about Spirit Lake until this its ad thread was posted, and I do not have time for other games. I think if they are avoiding Spirit Lake because they mistakenly thought I was involved when I'm not says more about them than it does about me.

@thenomain So say you have a friend that keeps doing yelp reviews about all the bars they get thrown out, and they almost always start with, 'So this is mostly my fault and I got drunk but let me tell you what an asshole the owner and bouncer was'. At some point you get concerned, and I'm having to be That Asshole that is telling you that no man, everyone I know was like, 'oh, it was Theno'.

I really think you should just reflect on that, and I think if you keep going, 'well they had bad behavior so let me talk about that' you are just doing yourself a disservice at this point.

@thenomain No man, I read it, but the problem is you keep giving yourself some wiggle room here with, 'well both sides'. And I think it's very, very, very important you divorce that. I remember that thread with a blow up on a star wars game in CG with Soresu I think it was, it definitely happened on Arx, and it happened here. Don't give yourself mentally an out by saying they were partially at fault.

@thenomain said in criticism not allowed in ad threads is only enforcing a false positive, prove me wrong:

No game creators should get a free pass from criticism. No criticism should get a free pass from criticism. The problem with Soapbox is when it becomes unconstructive, and what we consider unconstructive will always waver.

I had a shitty experience on a game. 90% of that was my fault, but the 10% that wasn't was confirmed by others. Should I not say anything, knowing that there's bad actors lurking on a game? (In before people tell me that I should be better at saying so. Thanks, I know that.)

I think the 10% is extremely generous to yourself, and while it's gracious for people to always say, 'everyone involved could have handled it better', I honestly do not think that is likely the case there. When I heard about a problematic guest on SL and why, like 4 people simultaneously correctly guessed it was you. Yes, you are saying it's mostly your fault, but this is almost uniquely you. This isn't a 'both sides erred' thing, this is you were problematic, and you were asked to go, and they were right to do so because you would have continued to be problematic. The last part is important, because saying you own this is great but if you repeat the behavior over and over what does it change? They have no way of thinking you aren't going to be difficult in the future, and they would be right to part ways with you. I know that's hard to hear but I think it's a lot healthier to reflect on that than start giving yourself a little bit of wiggle room with, "well they could have been nicer."

Sure. They shouldn't be though. They were right to be strict. Being gentle gains them nothing but stress for no advantage whatsoever.

I can understand people being disappointed, but I'm honestly impressed they imposed a cutoff. Takes a lot of guts to do that, knowing the kind of griping it'll get. It is to their credit, and speaks to people being willing to make hard choices to keep the kind of game they want.

I think it's only interesting in so much where you can say, "Hey want to play a video game?" to someone completely unfamiliar with MUs and it doesn't come across as misleading.

@faraday said in What drew you to MU*?:

@tinuviel I think that's pretty much game design 101. If a significant percentage of people are interested in X, staff is probably going to do more X. If hardly anyone is interested in Y, staff can either try to figure out why and adjust it (if it's something they think has value) or ditch it. That's not something unique to Arx or Blizzard.

Yeah I mean, there's a ton of stuff in Arx that I have no personal interest in, but I know people do, so I make sure it's supported. Every staffer and game runner is just going to have their own metrics on whether something is worth it, and how much they are willing to deal with to support stuff they don't personally care about. It's just pretty basic stuff, though I think we see a lot of clashes over people upset that a game runner isn't making a niche interest or pet project part of their core design when it's obvious the runner doesn't like that stuff.

@wizz said in Who are you?:

• I love, love trying new food. Bizarre Foods is like, my one reality show I love. Favorite cuisines are fairly spicy or just interesting, like Indian. "Weirdest" thing I've ever eaten was probably balut, and I felt awful about it and had to eat it with my eyes closed.

I'm filipino and I'm pretty sure that balut isn't really meant to be eaten and is just used to prank people. Don't believe their lies.

Pretty decently sized blind population that plays MUs through accessibility features. Can't think of a video game where that's true.

There's a lot of great collaborative roleplayers in the hobby. Probably more than anyone realizes. And every once in a while there's a scene where just everyone is on point, and it makes me remember why this format for roleplaying is my favorite.