Posts made by Arkandel

I didn't know them, but I am sorry for your loss.

@Ganymede Sauron, cat-shape.

@faraday said in MUers in the news?:

Is this really something we need to expend our energy caring about or policing?

The funny thing in this scenario, specifically in Westeros, is we have an excellent example of how it played out.

King Robert's children were all illegitimate, borne of incest between Cersei and Jaime. While Ned Stark was investigating he had to delve deep into the royal genealogy to figure out what descendants 'should' look like. This is a clear indication that as a norm, such doubts weren't being cast.

So should there be energy expended on this? I'd say no. I guess there's some kind of argument to be made if too many characters are of an unexpected race since it'd skew the expected demographics, but a probably better way of addressing that is to give bonuses of some sort to incentivize new PCs adhering to those characteristics.

@Macha The way (well, one way) for to make that kind of stance defensible is if it's also applied to factors other than race.

What I mean by it is the issue wouldn't be racism. Westeros doesn't have that particular problem (it has so many others!). The issue is legitimacy; is Bob actually Joe and Jane's biological son or did Jane uh, mingle?

So if staff enforce this kind of doubt universally, so that each noble family has a rather specific range of 'looks' it can have, then I suppose I could understand it a bit better. Did anyone tell Bob's player he can't play the character because Joe and Jane are canonically blue-eyed blondes but he's desc'ed as a green-eyed and dark-haired dude? Is he aware that should he play that concept anyway there will be some PCs/NPCs who crack jokes about him being a bastard?

If that is not an ongoing thing then neither should be skin pigmentation.

To be honest I never understood the 'purity' angle unless there's a technical, universal reason that it simply can't happen.

For example: If you run an Anne Rice MUSH and you choose that in your setting, due to supernatural reasons, vampires can't have sex ("it won't go up, Cap'n!") then I can't play my vampire gettin' it up anyway. If I did so it'd go against a hard rule (sorry...) that makes no sense to violate. So staff would be justified in telling me that no, I can't do that in RP - there are physical limitations of the universe involved that my character can't supersede.

However even in fantasy realms unless there are similar universal physical limitations in place, people... mingle. Sure, most people in Dorne might look a certain way but even so I'm sure some of them ran into an Asian- or black- or whatever-looking fella/gal at a bar one night and had some fun. Nine months later, look, a kid who doesn't look like the archetypical Dorne person! That youngster might be part of a minority, sure, but why care about that so much in the context of a game that you wouldn't even allow it as a playable concept? It doesn't make sense.

@faraday "<Journalist discovers Shangrila>".

@Ganymede

@faraday Oh agreed on the UI. I am just shocked at the quality of the art folks are creating despite of it.

I think as these tools improve with time we'll be seeing some awesome portraits.

That said, the uncanny valley will probably be a factor for a long time though unless they are a bit cartoony to avoid it.

@Macha It's your grief, not theirs. That doesn't mean they don't have your best interests in mind; in fact they quite likely do.

But no one is in your head but you.

Sometimes it's easier to have another dog around. I personally found it a comfort to cuddle the puppy we had adopted a year before Daphne left, after she was gone. Other people simply never get a dog again, but instead volunteer at shelters to walk and play with doggos instead - an invaluable service in itself - without committing their hearts again.

There's no 'right' or 'wrong'. Do what feels appropriate. No one else's opinion matters nearly as much as yours.

@faraday Have you seen https://www.artbreeder.com/ yet?

There's also a subreddit for it, and some of those people do incredible work. There's a Harry Potter-verse set of posts which are just amazing, in my opinion.

@Ghost said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

Really, if MUSHers wanted to play ACTUAL World of Darkness or Dungeons and Dragons, they'd be doing just that. Where it always got difficult with me is that I'd join a World of Darkness MUSH expecting to play the WoD TTRPG with lots of prose and writing

Sometimes what system the MU* people join isn't what they're necessarily looking for. It's often simply where their friends are playing - or where people are playing.

For example I know folks who're not into either fantasy or Lords and Ladies, but they've been playing on Arx for a while. It happens to be where their social circle hangs out.

This might just be my perspective but I always believed there were just two major issues with PC death in MU* for most people.

1. Ego.
2. Identity/social loss.

The first is clear if players take IC failure to coincide with OOC one, feel very protective of their character, identify with their PC's goals, etc.

The second is almost unavoidable. Your character dies and suddenly you have no ties to your friends. You can roll a new PC but unless it's basically a clone, you might be unable to get into the same plots, IC threads, be in on their secrets, miss out on the TRUE LOVE romance with your favorite partner, etc. Even the name people know you as is gone.

Sadly no XP system can fix those social factors.

@Ganymede said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

Reaching the highest level of WoW or Horizon Zero Dawn doesn't make playing the game any less enjoyable, unless you like the challenge of playing at a lower level. And if you do, then I don't see what the problem is capping XP.

What's interesting about those kinds of games though is that, essentially, they are designed around the idea that in many ways the end-game is the game. Leveling, being under 'max level', is kind of a journey meant to teach you the mechanics, allow for some pretty casual fun - often solo - and let you figure out if you like your class.

I don't know if most MU* have that concept at all - mind you, neither am I arguing that they should. That is, MU* tend to let characters mingle in whatever way they see fit; usually that means newbies with oldbies. That said, some games unintentionally pick the 'right' power to play; for example The Reach had so many dinos that many spheres had to throw a whole lot of nastiness at the characters to challenge them at all.

At that point, yes, I'd argue the game had been aimed toward the 'max level'. However the effect that had, combined with death being quite possible (especially in nWoD rules where damage was so very bursty) was that most oldbies just didn't risk their characters. After all they couldn't recreate at anywhere near the same potency if the dice gods gave initiative to some random monster who could absolutely one-shot them.

As a ST I recall quite clearly having lengthy conversations with people who rephrased the same question over and over again without actually saying it outloud: "Is there any chance at all I might die in this PrP?" And many wouldn't join if they didn't get a pretty definite answer to their liking.

@Ghost said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:

3. In RPGs, if PCs never die, then new players will -always- remain X% of XP behind elder players, who will always remain X% ahead of other players, thus there will be:

That is not necessarily true. It depends on the XP distribution system being used in that particular game.

@Macha Everyone deals with grief differently. You should, too. It's valid, and natural. It's even part of the healing process - you just lost someone who mattered to you.

When Daphne died - she was my dog. I have dogs now, and I do love them, but I doubt I'll ever bond with another dog the same way I did with her. And that, too, is okay.

It's not either a betrayal of the puppy who's now gone nor a disservice to ones you may get in the future if your relationship to them is different. You shouldn't feel either rushed nor hesitant about having other pets though until you're ready both emotionally and in terms of what your life circumstances are like.

@insomniac7809 said in Thirtsy Sword Lesbians wins some ENies:

I mean, the title says it all, doesn't it?

I read it as 'thirty sword lesbians' and I didn't know if it was referring to the number of blades or ladies involved.

I'm just gonna leave this here.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/alex-jones-lawyer-sent-text-messages-sandy-hook-parents-defamation-trial-184125918.html

@Derp said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

Until you've been on the receiving end of the results of those policies, you can't really claim enough experience with them to call them compatible. It's easy to say that "they aren't that incompatible." You're not the one constantly being attacked and browbeaten for refusing to get on board with the normalization of ostracization based on nothing more than an accusation.

Do you think I ran MSB for nearly a decade yet I had not experienced personal attacks?

@Ganymede said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

It was decided pretty much unilaterally that MSB would be something it never had been in any of its past incarnations. I've been here for all of them going back tot he original WORA before Nymeria got Tasteless Descs shut down.

As you know, I've been here that long as well.

If by "unilaterally," you mean "without consulting the rest of the community," then that would be an accurate conclusion.

And just to be clear. This is something I supported, and still do.

Just because MSB was ran a specific way by me that doesn't make it the 'right' way. There is no 'right' way to administrate a forum any more than there is to run a game. During my time at the helm folks had plenty of concerns about the Hog Pit, its rules (or lack thereof) and the way personal attacks were permitted to happen.

There is nothing wrong with changing that. I picked my poison. Gany picked another.

@Derp said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

This point has been made many times, here and on the new board, and there's always an underlying thread that people gloss over:
we are not a community.
Or, more precisely, not one community. There are several different communities, philosophies, and ideologies lumped in that 'community', and frankly, some of them are incompatible in rather volatile ways.

On that though we need to firmly disagree.

Of course there are different points of view and philosophies. I don't think they are nearly as incompatible as you make them out to be - otherwise MSB would have imploded years ago.

Creating (or changing) policies creates friction. That should be expected, accounted for and some more patience and understanding would have gone a long way.

In my opinion it behooves anyone in an administrative position to be at least willing to account for the fact they could have handled something differently, to see things from someone else's point of view even if they are prepared to stand their ground, and to be patient when a plan doesn't go well.

However what concerns me here, and I'll be honest, is that you don't seem to think the plan went wrong.