So this utterly shitty trailer for a Wheel of Time series was made, just so its shitty producing company can keep the TV rights.
Enjoy (?).
So this utterly shitty trailer for a Wheel of Time series was made, just so its shitty producing company can keep the TV rights.
Enjoy (?).
BITN, although I haven't been active lately, mostly STing.
@Derp In this case you don't know for example that there
I must concur that it's counter-productive to tell people they are part of the problem while they're actively trying to learn more about that problem, and simply state they haven't personally witnessed it happen to others.
My interest here is to figure out why that is. I completely exclude the possibility that it's all a big exaggerated lie - there are too many testimonials, not everyone is some sort of attention-starved drama queen. So that's done.
The only other possibilities I can see are these:
harassment/molestation doesn't happen where I usually play. I'm a middle-aged white guy, maybe I just pick safe friendly venues for my gaming. However someone in this thread already mentioned they are doing their research ahead of time trying to assure the same thing, so maybe that's not a big factor.
it doesn't happen where I am under fear of retribution. Maybe predators like to isolate their targets, which does make sense. But again there have been testimonials here that it does take place out in the open sometimes... still I'd like to keep this possibility open.
I don't notice it when it happens either thinking it's not a big deal or not wanting the social negative effects of standing up for others. This... is hard to fathom - perhaps it's possible to not pay much attention to some minor forms of flirting to understand it's unwanted but there's no goddamn way someone would make a comment as crude as "if you can bleed you can breed" under any circumstances, any at all, and not make me pissed off. But as for negative effects... what are those? I have no friends who wouldn't back me up on that (probably by design), the police would certainly do as well if it came to it, etc.
This is obviously an emotionally charged issue and a sensitive one to discuss. So help me - maybe others in my shoes - see how we can help. Assume we want to help and that we believe this is a real problem, but we can't do something about it unless we can spot its signs.
The where, how, what to look for, that's what I wanted going into this parts of the thread.
But please don't tell me I'm part of the problem. Because that's part of the problem. I will be the moment I participate or condone this kind of behavior, but not before.
@TNP You make it sound like it's a superhero game based on the Kushiel books.
... I didn't even realize I wanted that but now I need it.
@Coin said:
To be fair, dude, I learned what to look for by listening to women tell their stories and taking them as truth. So if a woman says "this dude did [thing] and it made me feel super uncomfortable and unsafe", then I will notice that thing and identify it as something potentially (or definitively) harmful.
You don't need a bullet point list of "things that are harrassment". Just listen to the people who were harrassed and spoke up.
So what is the [thing]?
I've been reading this thread and I'm not disputing anything. For instance when people say they've been groped I believe them because, among other reasons, I can't afford not to. But I can't stop such groping unless I can see it happen, so I need to know the how, where, when of it.
I'd like to think being able to step up and tell a guy who physically molests a woman to keep his damn hands to himself will do more than offer a sympathetic ear afterwards. It doesn't mean I won't do both but the former holds more value.
So yes, I do need a bullet point list. I need more information.
@Cobaltasaurus I've played on Shang during different periods for shorter or longer stints. Conversely it's a fallacy you can't play unless you TS there - I did it for months and had plenty of fun. There are many pretty good roleplayers on that game, it's just harder to track them down since they're bunkered up away from the sheer insanity by sticking into small groups and filtering fairly strictly who gets in. Cliques on Shang are required if you want to retain your sanity.
Anyway though - the pages I used to get and the things I was told completely out of the blue by people I had never even chatted with before were ... interesting. I mean for starters you know how the line we're examining here is between IC and OOC? Some players don't want it at all, and they're very upfront about this fact. The MU* is more of a chat channel to them so instead they occupy this hybrid ... space lingering between the two. I'd get pages out of the blue like "I want you to do <X> to me", where <X> could be goddamn anything imaginable, sometimes barely recognizable as a sexual thing in my book - and those people didn't really have characters, they just had a name and a list of kinks.
I'm not usually one to judge if I can help it but as I am also both unwilling to disregard the player/character separation blatantly and unable to actually do anything to people over the internet, not being a wizard, I was always left extra puzzled by the requests. Either frame them in an IC way or don't, dammit!
What I was very pleasantly surprised by when I joined KD was there was no insanity. I'm pretty sure some hefty TS is taking place - the setting is what it is after all - but it wasn't like that at all. The over-the-top frenzy isn't endemic to sexually themed games, it's contained if staff care to do so. Which is not to say other phenomena didn't occur there too - I did have people lose interest in my PC once they realized he was 'taken' for example - but that's a fairly common thing to encounter in any given MU*; sometimes romantic entanglement RP is a game of musical chairs.
No, people on Goodreads. Rating novels which haven't been written yet (let alone read) with 5/5 is not how it's supposed to work.
You're destroying the credibility of the entire system with the stupid fanboy idiocy.
Do you think MU* can use a version of Tinder? You don't have to ever use it, but if you declare interest in a character and they declare interest in yours it notifies you both!
(I can feel @Thenomain scowling at me across space and time)
Double post!
My absolute favorite function of Goodreads is its mobile app. It lets you scan a book's barcode and add it to any folder you tell it to.
So I can easily scan my bookshelves (which is convenient) but way more importantly it lets me walk into a bookstore, peek at books I might like, take a quick scan then later on at my own convenience look them up to see if they were actually good or just well marketed/with a cool cover before I commit.
My to-read folder is ever-growing but that's a good problem to have.
I've played both MUDs and MUSHes for years.
There's no difference in terms of the roleplay in general; several MUD players I've interacted with were great, creative writers and very enjoyable to be around, and many MUSH players who enjoy twinking systems and learning mechanics could thrive on a MUD.
The big issue is reconciling the combat system with the necessarily turn-based aspect of roleplaying. Fighting mobs is usually quite fast paced and largely automated (backstab orc; bash orc; trip orc;...) and only lasts under a minute if not a third of that, but violent encounters between two PCs would involve typing, and that alone can take 5+ minutes.
I've love to see a MU* engine that can find the sweet spot between the two in an integrated implementation of such mechanics but so far I haven't.
So players always had to choose between using the same rapid-fire system which can result in a PC death in no time at all (imagine losing your PC, whom you've been playing for a year, in under 30 seconds because you got a slight burst of lag) or having a full fighting system you use for NPCs and then something else entirely for PC interactions. It's not... neat.
@Thenomain said:
In the case of most sports, I am a casual fan at best. For instance, I heard someone in basketball retired and a lot of people were sad.
Here, I'll give you a freebie sports tip you can reuse forever.
Father Time has yet to be defeated. All great players retire (*) and make a lot of people sad.
(*) Except for Tim Duncan of course who is an immortal and has yet to hit his peak.
@Kanye-Qwest It's not, IMHO. But it is reasonable to wait until they set before you pose in, in case you're walking into something already taking place you should take under consideration. Waiting on a round of poses seems practical.
EDIT: Sorry - also, large scenes. If a scene already has 3+ people in it, ask before joining. Don't be that guy.
@lordbelh said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:
@Arkandel Seems more of a peeve to me.
I disagree! It's fairly typical (probably even cliche) when a scene starts somewhere with 2-3 people and just as it starts getting some momentum suddenly it balloons to 5-6 as folks notice there's stuff happening on +where and walk right in so it swiftly becomes unmanageable. It's common to see the original participants then going "uh, sorry guys, I can't keep up with the spam, see ya!".
Now, to keep things under perspective here I am not claiming the-generic-you is a monster for popping in without checking first... but check first. It's that or have every scene take place in temp rooms, at which point why have a grid at all?
@deadculture When it comes to MMOs in particular words cannot describe how low priority I place on someone's gender. I have so many other real things to consider - are you a good player? On time for groups? Well geared/enchanted/buffed? Is your DPS/performance good for your role? Do you stay focused through it? Do you follow instructions promptly (for PvP) and/or understand the fight (for PvE)?
The rest is gravy.
On MU* it's basically the same thing. Even if my PC is looking for a romantic partner what good does is that if someone else can't type or spell, or if they can't put together creative poses to make it fun to play with them? I honestly can't think of any good reason I should care, which isn't necessarily about gender parity.
Are you entertaining and sane, dammit? Then we'll get along.
@mietze said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:
I don't know why it's so hard for people to just say "oh darn, this person wasn't able to be here oocly, well, let's just assume they were prevented from acting by something unforeseen until we have a chance to talk."
There are two reasons, one better than the other.
Because said people are jerks.
Because this person is actually abusing the fact they aren't around. For instance I log on maybe once a week but please assume I've been to all the political meetings, and while your PC was at risk of dying in the Slaughthouse of Horror please assume I was also there fighting valiantly at the back. What, it's time for you to put in a spend for Glory 4? Me too! We're old war buddies, you and I.
... I guess I could have summed it up by stating 'people are jerks' and leaving it at that.
Stuck on the subway next to someone who was reading their book out loud to themselves the whole time. Maybe there's a disability involved, I don't know! But at 7:30 am on the commute, arghh.
All that is true but I think we are also shooting ourselves in the foot a fair bit when it comes to most MU*'s ability to scale for more players. What I mean by it is a lot of checks currently in CGen - in my opinion at least - serve a marginal purpose of actually improving roleplaying conditions in the game; the value of backgrounds for example is already being discussed, and many games have consciously decided against further automation for routine things such as XP spends by putting them behind hoop-jumping, requiring justifications (which need to be read after all) and so on.
For instance there's no reason CGen checks, assuming staff still wants oversight over the characters, can't take place after the PC hits the grid; that dramatically cuts down on the initial bottleneck before players get to the good parts and they can be processed when convenient.
What I'm saying here is not that staff who want to pay more personalized attention to characters are doing it wrong; there is certainly a benefit, but it doesn't match the time invested. Obviously if a game-runner wants to do it anyway they should, but if they don't then it won't be the end of the world (*), and the game could handle much greater playerbases than we're used to.
(*) There is one caveat in this assumes having reasonably seasoned players. In @ThatGuyThere's example of a thousand complete newbies busting the doors down to get into text-based roleplaying games there will need to be a lot more hand-holding than we're probably ready to provide.
@Creepy I think the setting is great and ripe for a MU*. A couple of suggestions since you're asking:
Set it in a slightly alternate universe Victorian London - you probably want to avoid historical purity.
Maybe start with a small number of spheres, see how your staff is holding up, what your playerbase wants etc and if you want to add more you always can.