Best posts made by Arkandel

Guys, let's take old generation racism out of the dead folks' thread. You can always create its very own! Thanks.

@Lithium The problem with all this isn't that you are wrong. It's that you are neglecting to mention the fact staff has repeatedly said as much - they are having issues finding people to handle jobs, and are unable to meet the volume of +jobs.

In other words we haven't been promised anything else than what we're given. If you don't like it you can walk away - I don't mean that in a flippant fashion or as a flame but .... what do you expect them to do?

The cards are on the table. Stay or go.

One of my guildmates' new alt on WoW today...

@Miss-Demeanor said:

From what little I understand of hearing you guys talk about coding... yes, yes it is. Code does what IT wants until you bribe it into temporary submission and it WILL get you back for that thing that you did to it five years ago.

Code is a genie. It will do what you tell it, exactly as you tell it, and if you leave any loopholes it will fuck you over. Else it won't.

@SuperiorHuron said in RL things I love:

Today, for the first time since May, my husband is flying home from Canada. It may be only for a few months, but he's coming home.

That's amazing!

I don't actually know, are the borders open (and are they open both ways)?

The worst reason - and unfortunately, a very common one - is "it feels too powerful".

If there are numbers involved them do the math. It shouldn't feel like anything, you should be able to demonstrate the problem. If you can't or won't do the math, but numbers are the problem, do not house rule it.

@Ganymede Does it get better after episode 3? It's as far as I've watched and I found it a bit too kids/YA-oriented for my tastes but I've heard really good things.

@Auspice
26. Have you played any of the following kind of games? Check all that apply.
Table Top RPG
Card Games (VTES, RAGE)
Freeform LARP
MET (Minds Eye Theatre) LARP
None of the above

We're not even on their radar.

Being in line at a Subway restaurant (eat fresh!) waiting to place my order. Two people ahead, no biggie. One of them places an order for eight sandwiches.

Argggghh.

@Auspice It amused me when they asked where we watch movies/shows and one of the options was "free" stuff on the internet, including the quote marks.

@Ganymede said in RL Sads:

Look, some people deserve to die, all right?

Oh for sure. And you know what, if it's their choice and only affects them then so be it. For example if people choose to not wear a seat belt and get shot out through their windshields if there's an accident then... well, so be it.

But unlike Covid-19, not wearing a seat belt doesn't affect me. It doesn't affect senior members of my family, their coworkers, people on the same bus or who happened to be at the same store when they got in there with a mask dangling underneath their noses.

@Admiral said:

The only way I'd do it is if you let me change most of the theme and mechanics so that rather than playing as John who is subtly influenced by the ghost Bill, we made it so you're playing as John-Bill, the product of the merging of John and the ghost Bill.

But that's not following the WoD paradigm at all. In all of them there's a dualism between what you were and what you could become; the Vampire struggles with her Beast, the Lost have to not become what they hate, Werewolves value Harmony, etc.

There's no conflict in what you describe, it's already done. Even worse, it's done by the time you get out of CG, so you don't even get to RP it in the first place.

It's absolutely bonkers to me that freakin' Diego died and it's not an enormous thing in the media. I found out from a random post after several hours.

In football (soccer!)-loving countries he was basically a living God. No pun intended.

@surreality said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

Of course they can create the game they want. I was simply confused on why ask an opinion if you already know what you're going to do.

I don't do design by committee when the committee is a free-for-all. That way lies madness. Never have and never will. That doesn't mean that engaging in conversation about how other games have handled this (we've had historical games, how have they tackled it?/why do people feel the way they do about the Shadowhunters setting?/Do people typically want games to be sanitized for modern sensibilities?/etc.) isn't illuminating.

That's a common misconception, yes. It's one thing to ask for input and pool cool ideas together, which especially for a place like MSB (or even a smaller collective of friends over Skype or whatnot) can be great to bounce ideas off of, and another completely to actually try and design anything in that way.

In fact if you want extra madness try running a MUSH by committee, then you'll know true misery! We tried that back in the late nineties and, being fools new at this MU* thing, we figured democratizing staff processes was the way to go. The stalemates we had! The staff politics alone were enough to make me cringe even now since votes were taken during meetings where everyone who wanted a say had one, leading to some of those things lasting for easily five hours. We even had votes after which, people quickly realized, would go their way easier if meetings were scheduled in the first place during times or days the opposition wouldn't be able to make. So much fun.

Anyway. Yeah, asking for opinions is great but the buck must stop with one person or at least a small well-knit group of them. Anything else is insane, not because folks aren't well meaning but because, if nothing else, it adds a terrible amount of overhead and makes everything go slower.

Generally speaking staying fit isn't hard. You watch what you eat a little bit (sweets are bad, cut down on bread/fries, eat more protein and fibers) and you exercise in whatever way makes sense to you (the best workout is the one you can do). It baffles the mind there are so many special programs and diets out there because fundamentally it's not that complicated a matter.

But that doesn't make it easy. It's all about consistency and we all got things going on in our lives to distract us.

My workout isn't that long and the gym isn't too far from my house - 30-40 minutes of freeweights than a 10 minute walk back, done. But when I stay late at work and then I'm tired, I'm hungry, I want to watch something on TV and on top of these things I know I need to be in bed by midnight. Well, that gives me a 5 hour window tops and part of it is eaten by the commute. So that one hour or so the gym-slot occupies on my calendar is literally 25% of all the free time that I have in a day.

Consistency is the hellish part.

@Roz said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

Like, maybe give a little benefit of the doubt here and don't jump to the conclusion that what I'm talking about is showing every player who criticizes my games the door?

It's true we MU*ers are a trigger-happy little community, aren't we? Giving the benefit of a doubt either way doesn't seem to be what we do best. Perspective staffers are polishing the banhammer around here for every slight, players (myself included) often post about how we'd leave the moment we perceive whatever rubs us in a particularly bad way... sometimes, just going by forums such as this, you'd think we can barely tolerate each other at all, and only do it begrudgingly when it'd be too much trouble to part ways.

The truth is probably - as usual - somewhere in the middle. I've never seen a game ran exactly the way I'd want it but I've been quite happy with several, at least for a while. And there are staff members out there who run games I've no desire of playing but who I have enormous respect for.

We just take ourselves a bit too seriously sometimes, you know?

@Ganymede A special treat for you.

https://v.redd.it/okso1fngrhf61

The first EVER cat video. Colorized and speed adjusted.

@Thenomain said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

But once you start inviting people into your home and letting them invite their friends and advertising on Craigslist that people can stop by your home, the amount of control you have is decreased, by social convention. The responsibility of a club owner for their guests is much higher than the responsibility they have to guests at their home.

When you're staff you're responsible for the overall health, theme and direction of your game; I don't need to tell you that, though. The only way you can exercise that responsibility is having sufficient control over it - you're correct in that it doesn't take a tyrannical despot to do so, however.

I think where some staff members fail at is in overcompensating. One doesn't need to compromise their entire vision for their MU* if they collaborate with their players - they can enrich it instead. After all there's only so much creativity (and time!) a single person or small group has, whereas the MU*'s history is coauthored by its characters; again, though, you already knew that.

What's therefore frustrating is when such administrators turn themselves into brick walls where nothing not of their own making sticks. There doesn't need to be back-and-forth, they don't have to take every suggestion, but listening to fair points or constructive criticism pays off if for no other reason then at least because it helps players feel it's their game, too. And that facilitates their own investments in it.

I've been in pet-project MU* and... well, I had mixed results from them. Some parts were great, some less so. What I do know is that if I feel staff wants to default to their-way-or-the-highway then I also immediately assume a reserved stance from my end; I will not volunteer to go above and beyond anything that's not guaranteed returns for my investment. So they can have their precious walled gardens but I'll pay the smallest price of admission in it as well - I think that's fair enough.

Does that make sense?

@Faceless You just described my ideal environment to run scenes in.