Posts made by Arkandel

My real issue with the Ramsey Bolton kind of characters isn't so much that they get to do bad things. Plenty of perfectly normal-looking good-guy-saying-the-right-things characters, both in their applications and on the grid, turn their kinks on or whatever in private.

My issue is that unlike novels or series where such characters get away with it for a variety of reasons - their thematic position allows them immunity, others consider the consequences of attacking them, etc - on MU* that doesn't happen. It's quite frequent (practically guaranteed, even) to see neonates standing up for that cute ghoul who's getting verbally attacked by the mean ol' Elder, or for peasants and minor nobles to stick their noses up at High Lords.

And when it comes to actual villains? To characters who in fact are IC obnoxious or get in the way? I've seen the occasional murder-party form, complete with OOC boasts about how they'd do it. Mind you, it doesn't actually happen often but for many players being the antagonist and seeing that kind of talk is discouraging on its own, which is why not many rear their disagreeable heads (or get to keep them for long).

@thenomain said in Hey you motherfuckers.:

Probably the only sane administrator the Wora line of websites has ever had.

Yes, I'm calling you out, @Arkandel.

You think I'm doing this because I'm sane?

@karmageddon said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

I am not a fan of disposable razors. ($16 for TWO disposable cartridges that leave me stubbly and scraped, fuck you.) Will these blades you linked work in any safety razor?

I believe so. From this link:

A: There’s no question about it: razor technology has changed hugely over time. Double edged safety razor blades ARE interchangeable, and any brand of razor will hold any brand of blade.

Also, this is a good read: https://www.reddit.com/r/wicked_edge/comments/2sj3jg/do_all_safety_razor_blades_fit_all_safety_razors/ .

@auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Are men's and women's razors actually different?

No idea. But maybe this link can help?

It might not be a nerdy movie but it does feature Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye and the Punisher!

Wind River was really good, if you're into Fargo-style crime drama flicks.

@faceless It sounds like you might be the target audience for some of the fancier safety razors then! May I interest you in one of these models, some of which are actually called things such as The King Cobra Classic?

... They work in an identical fashion to their $30 counterparts but!

@ixokai First of all you make sure whether this archetype belongs on your game or not. I don't mean ethically, I mean thematically.

If you are running a game about survival cooperative horror then you can warn players in advance there's probably little room for political manipulators who pull strings; it's just not the MU* you are trying to run.

If you're also running a game like L&L or WoD you need to know there's gonna be a lot of IC questionable stuff you'll never hear about, whether you are trying to police it or not. Two (or more ) people are gonna be behind locked doors getting their kinks on either way, which is quite unavoidable unless you spend all of your time snooping into everyone's RP.

What you want is a concrete plan of how to deal with things after they go bad. Which they also will. Someone will be an asshat as a player as well as a character and push for more than he should, someone will find themselves crossing the line between OOC consent and "wtf, I never agreed to this" during a scene, or drama will rear its head in all sorts of ways. In some cases it might be no one's fault, or it could even be the player in question is doing everything right but pissed someone else off who's raising a stink.

It's that part - the plan - that matters. How you deal with it after it hits the fan, because it will no matter what you do.

@faceless said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@arkandel said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@faceless I personally use a safety razor. It shaves great, and for an one-time investment of under $100 I can get replacement blades for almost nothing. And the razor itself will last for basically your whole life.

Got a link? Googles pulling up some results that I'm not sure if I'm looking at the right thing/brand/etc.

Right now I'm using a Gilette Fusion, which with their disposable cartridge razors, comes out to about 8 for somewhere in the ballpark of $25, I think? I can go through one of those cartridges a week, easy. So something long-lasting and/or cheaper, while not being cheaper quality? Would be excellent.

To be honest I don't think the brand matters too much; I bought one from a small store in a town I was visiting for like $60 like... two years ago? And it's still in pristine condition. It came with a pack of something like 50 blades, and I'm just starting to run out now.

And the blades, especially compared to fancy multi-blade razors cost nothing. For example this is the first 4+-star match from Amazon which features 100 blades for like $10. Even if you only use them once (I use mine a few times before they are dull, but your beard might vary ) they are absurdly affordable. And I love the shave they give.

My advice though, make sure to get something that comes with a base or stand... just to protect the blades by not resting them against the counter.

To me the multi-blade stuff are just gimmicks. We fall for it because they look cool in their cool packaging and their cool commercials.

@faceless I personally use a safety razor. It shaves great, and for an one-time investment of under $100 I can get replacement blades for almost nothing. And the razor itself will last for basically your whole life.

I don't know about you but I'd watch the shit out of a sitcom of @kanye-qwest being married to Mr. Rogers.

@faceless said in Staff and ethics:

Now someone gets banned because their character was being a creep? I mean, some people play creep characters. Do you think Ramsay Bolton would have been as interesting a character if he wasn't so terrible? People play characters in MUing all the time that use their genitals to get what they want; male and female alike. These are fictional characters. Sometimes they aren't the best of people. Sometimes they're simply flawed people.

Just as a clarification on my end... you'll get different opinions on this (and already have ) but as far as I'm concerned as long as every player involved in a RP is a fully consenting adult and it's all done behind closed doors I don't give a shit what happens to/with their characters.

When I'm referring to creeps I specifically mean creepy players. That means no springing stuff on people, guilt-tripping them into it, pushing and nagging until they give in or... well, anything of that sort. If both people are into it, go for it.

@faceless Although you are correct in that "don't be an asshole" is generic enough to mean different things to different people, I hardly think anyone believes harassing players (for example) doesn't fall into that category. In fact in several threads we've seen perpetrators are usually either unaware what they were doing was unwelcome or they admit doing so right away.

There are three things I don't like about more concise sets of rules:

1. They tend to be very TL;DR-y. Like they'll span two pages of thickly written text, trying to include all kinds of clauses and exceptions... and no one is gonna read this stuff. Actual assholes don't need to go over several paragraphs to check if "spamming every female player pushing for TS" is against the rules, they already know, and the average player already barely reads room descriptions or even poses as it is, so expecting them to read a contract-like wall of text... it won't happen. So who is it for?

2. They tend (in my experience) to invite rules lawyering trying to wiggle through the cracks. "Hey, I know that policy says our characters can't engage in rape but it wasn't my character, he was possessed see?". In these cases staff will resort to tell them to cut the bullshit anyway, so... why not go to that to begin with? We can't possibly pre-emptively think of every scenario someone will try to be a jerk.

3. Unlike RL laws, policies protect no one. Staff has complete authority in every case whether they exercise it or not. Essentially every case comes down to staff using their judgment. I can't think of a single scenario where staff should do nothing to correct someone they believe did something bad because 'technically' he didn't according to the current policy.

The advantage of having rules though - for me - is that it lets me see what staff's vision for their game is. That's the main one. "Don't be an asshole" tells me nothing.

@dontpanda said in Celebrities that are Dead To Us:

And here's the kicker: That's not even the end of the list of stories that couldn't possibly be true except it's Mr Rogers and they totally all are.

So while we're on the subject of rules... do you think it's better for staff to create a detailed set of policies, or keep it to generic "don't be an asshole" guidelines?

@ganymede said in Celebrities that are Dead To Us:

Scarred to the point where the person is considered dead, right?

I didn't pick the thread title. But well, to the point where I no longer enjoy their work the same way, or see it differently, perhaps. I mean that's the association; it's not like I knew Kevin Spacey personally before any of this. If I no longer like what they do there's no relationship at all since... what else is there?

Look, everyone can have their opinion on this. That's fine. I think it's foolish to truly admire anyone outside of your immediate, touchable group of friends and loved ones, even though it may be noble to aspire to be like someone else.

I dunno about that. For example I read a lot of what Isaac Asimov wrote when I was a teenager, and it shaped me to a significant degree. He wrote about the inefficiency of violence as a solution to problems, using logic to achieve your goals, aspiring to build our knowledge of the universe around us as a way to live our lives. I admire him for that.

And I may be a cynic when I say that no one -- no one -- is beyond reproach. Everyone has sinned; everyone is vulnerable; but not everyone matters and not everyone is caught.

You're the one who brought up scale! I have no illusions that say, Asimov was perfect, but it's one thing to think he might have cheated on his taxes (or whatever) than that he kept a collection of human faces in his basement.

No one is beyond reproach. The higher they soar, the farther they fall.

Unless you are Fred Rogers. That guy was the goddamn epitome of human morality.

@ganymede said in Celebrities that are Dead To Us:

This is a hot topic for me because a lot of my political friends are lumping everyone together, while some of us "moderates" are saying what Jules said in Pulp Fiction. What Franken did, relative to Cosby, ain't the same sport.

Absolutely. But what (I think) we're discussing here is whther a celebrity's image in our eyes is irrevocably scarred by something they did.

So sure, what Cosby did is way worse, and there should be a sense of scale at least legally, but when it comes to me admiring someone it's not like I'll ever go "well, he only raped one person". You know what I mean? The bar was set pretty high.

@saosmash said in Celebrities that are Dead To Us:

Franken really bums me out too. I'm so bummed. And George Takei?! I'm really et tu brute about all this.

My understanding is nothing's been proven and Takei has vehemently denied it. I still expect to see more than an accusation before I cross someone off my list.

@kanye-qwest said in Celebrities that are Dead To Us:

Kevin Spacey, Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Louis CK....that last one hurts me. I was a HUGE fan for years.

You know what bugs me about Louis CK? For starters that he knew better - one of my favorite bits ever was one about rape, dammit.

But the other thing is... he's a really good writer, and his apology was pretty accurate and spot on, so I don't know how much of it is him and how much it's him trying to salvage his career. Other celebrities have PR teams, but the difference between some MBA drone and a top-notch writer is immense.

@tnp said in Celebrities that are Dead To Us:

Old news but I never bought another of his books after discovering just how big a bigot (among other things) Orson Scott Card is.

Yeah, it ruined his books for me too. Not as much for the moral factor (some terrible people create great artistic works, and not just in literature) but because now when I re-read Ender's Game I start wondering about the author's agenda when I should be seeing characters' points of view. It just wrecks the whole thing.

@kanye-qwest said in Staff and ethics:

At first we weren't announcing bans, because of privacy and respect to the banned parties. But then we realized people were just disappearing and it was confusing

Okay, fair enough. In fact I should have chosen a more generic, non-ultimate example.

What if the accusation was something not as serious but for which discipline had to be dished out anyway? For example Bob abused OOC information to some non-terrible degree, and he had to be punished a bit - he got docked some XP, lost an IC position, stuff like that.

Do you go public with the details? Are they only announced to Bob and Jane (the parties directly involved)? Is the naming-and-shaming just added punishment on top and thus should be avoided, and if so do you miss out on the opportunity to have others who might be involved in similar shenanigans warned by the example?

@surreality So for example what's the correct generic approach to a scenario like this:

• There is an allegation that Bob is harassing Jane. Staff investigates.

1. Bob is found GUILTY and bans him. Does Staff announce that he's banned? Do they explain why? To what degree? To whom - is it only to those involved or to the public?

2. Bob is found NOT GUILTY. Does Staff announce there was an allegation at all? Do they reveal the reasons why they concluded that? If so, same question as above - to whom?

This is sensitive territory. You want to be mindful of privacy, to steer your culture correctly, to be sensitive to potentially wronged parties, etc... there are a lot of ways this can go bad.

What's the right way to do it?