Posts made by Arkandel

@Cupcake said in Course Corrections:

So if you see another player doing something - well, not WRONG, but maybe not so right? Do you offer corrections? Do you go through staff?

• A player uses past tense in poses, when the general consensus is present tense. Do you say something?

Going through staff for this is a massive overreaction. They're not doing anything against the rules or immoral, it's just a slightly different style of writing. If it bothers you simply don't play with them.

• A player ICly says something or poses an unthemely reaction. Do you say something?

How unthemely are we talking about? An actual example to set the frame of reference is needed, since this is one of those things that can go on a scale from 1 to 10.

What's the best way to approach this kind of thing without coming off like a dick? Or is the not-dickish thing to do is try to ignore it?

Well, that depends on the circumstances. If it's someone you feel kinda comfortable around you can approach the issue in a roundabout way ("I rarely meet people who pose in the present tense, that sounds weird to me!") sort of passing it as a joke-but-not-really, for instance. Or you could scrap it as a case of playing styles being incompatible and just avoiding them in the future if it irks you too much.

But again if the 'unthemely' parts are particularly aggravating then you might need to escalate the reaction, depending on what they are.

@Rook I reserve the right to be arbitrarily hypocritical. This is MSB.

Edit: Also I'm already a fool. Ask anyone.

@Rook said in Roleplaying writing styles:

I learned a style, influenced heavily by the 'mentors' that I looked up to in RP as I started out my RP 'career' to be something of the following:

I actually think this may be the determining factor for the majority of us. How we learned to play initially or at least where we played the most in our early times seems to greatly determine the style we prefer; people who got their start in chat-based games (web chat forums, IRC, etc) appear to prefer brevity and faster poses, and people like me who happened to play where longer verbose poses were valued have in turned learned to value them highly as well.

Do you folks think that's a fair generalization?

@surreality said in Strange Game Dev Inquiries from surreality (condensed):

We've had this discussion before, and I grok your stance on it, @Arkandel. It is a fascinating philosophical argument to have; it's also completely irrelevant when compared to the practical truth that human beings are more important than any 'surprise plot twist' somebody has in mind on a pretendy fun time game.

Sure, but I don't see where you are disagreeing with me.

@Arkandel said in Strange Game Dev Inquiries from surreality (condensed):

Rating areas is a good step (if you walk into an IC brothel you might see someone's breasts, the horror!) but it won't fix the underlying issue which is what staff will get/be forced to see and handle. I guess we can also rate PrPs - if I plan to run something where canonballs are going to tear people's legs right off I could warn participants ahead of time?

I outright said people should warn about their scenes' content ahead of time, and that my concern then becomes staff having to witness it either way.

Granted, often that 'way' is the creepy voyeuristic boasting kind ("so I had teh sex after shapeshifting into a gorilla, would you say that's more rape or bestiality? I ask so I can file an aspiration") but that's all I said. There's no question in my mind springing surprises past a certain line is a no-no, no matter the plot value.

My new kitten has zero fucks to give. Seriously, he ran out or he never had any, I don't know; he just knows no fear. He's sweet and likes other animals, but he doesn't fear anything.

So my two dogs like him (although he's a bit much and they're tired of his shit by now so they kind of avoid him mostly) but my older cat hates his goddamn guts, and beats him up every time he's near... and he just doesn't care. He just goes to her, again and again, like it's a fucking game they're having a blast playing ("she really loves me! Ow. She really does! ow").

So I'm pretty sure if that moron ever does manage to sneak outside - he's meant to be an indoors-only cat but he doesn't like that, and all it takes is one momentary lapse to break out - and meets a predator he's gonna go right up to it. Meh.

@ThatGuyThere No way. Every time I delve into youtube I lose my faith in humanity.

The outright racist, hateful things there... they're not even pretending to be decent human beings. N-bombs at each other, fat shaming, open homophobia... and over literally anything. It can be a random completely uncontroversial interview for a movie and WHAM full-on racism.

@Thenomain I thought you didn't read comics?

@Alamias said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

@Arkandel said in ...post-Rebirth Universe not the New 52. What do you mean the Flash is Barry Allen? No no, I'm out.

Isn't the post-Rebirth Universe Flash Barry?

I've read Rebirth and I don't know! Is both Barry and Wally Flash? This is becoming a Spartacus situation.

@surreality said in Strange Game Dev Inquiries from surreality (condensed):

Despite the dearly loved 'don't make us care about your TS' files and policies on Reno1, there were some people on the game, including some staff, who could not for the life of them leave the subject alone... ever.

The way I see it is more universal than just sex.

There are people who don't want to be exposed to many different graphic things. Yes, to some this is sex itself, or at least some of its less savory practices like rape, and I can understand that. I can also understand players who don't want to be exposed to fucking torture - or gore - though if it's posed and goes into detail, yet I've seen my fair share of poses detailing the flow of brains or entrails coming out of human bodies. The same principle can apply to graphic murder; the list goes on.

There's just something that doesn't sit well with me when we take a collection of terrible acts and put them into a hierarchy. This is too much to allow at all but that isn't.

Rating areas is a good step (if you walk into an IC brothel you might see someone's breasts, the horror!) but it won't fix the underlying issue which is what staff will get/be forced to see and handle. I guess we can also rate PrPs - if I plan to run something where canonballs are going to tear people's legs right off I could warn participants ahead of time? - but I'm not sure what solutions exist here and how many provisions games in general ought to offer their players to protect them from seeing things that trigger their particular sensibilities.

Before anyone takes offense at any of the above by the way... all of those acts are terrible. I'm not trying to trivialize anything. But what about roleplaying them?

@Three-Eyed-Crow

1. tinyfucking, hee.

2. I think long policies in general attract idiots who try to find the loophole. "Don't be an asshole" should about cover it.

3. Let's face it, we (*) do care about tinyfucking. This is known.

(*) In general, exceptions exist. The majority if you will. Us.

@Rook Yeah @Thenomain, wth man!

I've read some TS logs over the years. It don't impress me much.

-Arkandel, elitist to the naughty end.

@kitteh said in Strange Game Dev Inquiries from surreality (condensed):

As a current mermaid player

I totally read that the wrong way.

@Ominous Nope! It's this: https://www.goodreads.com/series/64473-the-broken-empire

Two trilogies are finished by now, each independent...ish from the other and quite different, both excellent. Even as a read I highly recommend them.

@Alamias said in Roleplaying writing styles:

I can be guilty of longer idle times between poses, even a one line pose, because I tend to play from work so I have to focus on that as the primary. However, I do let it be known before hand that I am playing from work, and will possibly have these idle times, to let people bow out of a scene if they think it will be a issue for them.

If you let people know you are absolved of all sin.

Unlike commenting on youtube videos, which is unredeemable and I still can't get over.

@Seraphim73 said in Strange Game Dev Inquiries from surreality (condensed):

@surreality Sorry, I was using metaplot imprecisely. I meant 'larger stories, generally run by Staff, that tend to provide the majority of inertia to a game experience.'

There's the opposite of that, too.

"We don't allow Pure to be used in PrPs as they're reserved for the Big Staffy Metaplot".

<staff proceeds to never run a scene with or without Pure in it>

@SG Come on man, youtube video comments is the closest thing I've seen to hell on earth.

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

Yeah, this is why I don't think these boards are actually very good for the infancy stages of a game. I think it's more important to have a group of players picked to invite (maybe 5-10) for some kind of alpha testing. And if the idea works for a few months, open it up once you've got a core you know will stick.

For the early stages of a game I think involving more than 2-3 people is doing it a misservice. Just... too many cooks will spoil it.

A tightly knit group, whether they'll be involved in later stages or not to finalize some early decisions and set the tone, should do it. But I'm a fan of tiny staff teams anyway.

What MSB is great for is if you know what you want but not quite how, and you want to brainstorm on specific things. That's where it shines.

@SG At that point I'd just walk out or at least stop posing. If a scene isn't fun what's the point?

@Paris When Neo - my german shepherd - was young we used to go on long walks, always on a leash of course. Even at just under a year old he was a big male, and although I was making every effort to socialize him I still didn't know how far I could trust him. I mean he had never done anything wrong but a dog that strong can do a fuck of a lot of damage in a second if something goes wrong.

So anyway, I was in a neighborhood in the city pretty far from where we lived when this 8ish-year old boy ran out of an apartment building yelling "Rex, Rex!" (Rex is a German shepherd character in a popular TV show in Europe), launched himself at Neo and wrapped his arms around his neck.

Now, thankfully Neo just went '...wtf?' and took the hug, whatever. He really was a really chill dog who liked children. But what could have happened then is pretty scary to me.

The worst part? The kid's fucking parents were watching this from their second floor balcony smiling and cheering for how he loves animals. Aw, how cute!

Motherfuckers.