Posts made by Arkandel

Alright, let's go through my local bestiary.

This is my alpha dog, Daphne (Daffy).

We found her wandering the streets as a puppy, hobbling on one leg trying to follow a random old lady around who was having none of it. She ran over immediately when we stopped the car and called her over, and turned out her feet worked just fine the next day. She's a bit of a bitch with other small dogs (there can only be one cute dog around and we all know who that is) but she's sweet with larger breeds and gets along pretty well with cats. She just... has some anger management issues now and then - fewer as she gets older - where she sees red if another dog gives her lip. And she's terrified of curtains and grates.

Onwards to Ruby.

Ruby is the sweetest, most submissive dog ever. She's a rescued stray as well who basically found us; one evening we were walking home, she saw us and just...followed us there. We didn't know if we wanted another dog yet (Greece has a real stray issue) so we were mulling it over, but she basically sat on our doorstep until we opened the door and let her in anyway. Somehow she got along with Daphne right away - as mentioned earlier that's not a given - which we think is because Ruby's born to be a minion. She constantly thinks she's about to die and her face is stuck in poor-me mode, but she's very pushy for petting most of the time anyway.

And finally the bitch of the family - Rusty.

Rusty's a moluccan cockatoo and she can be the cutest, sweetest thing in the universe when she's showed with attention and a complete raging screaming monster when she's not. Cursed with the intelligence of a 3-year human she will snarl "PRETTY BIRD" at you if she thinks she's slighted, but although her beak can and does frequently crush all sorts of inanimate objects that find their way into it she's never as much as nicked anyone enough to cause even slight pain. She's all talk, but that's a lot of talk. She will also quite happily nestle under my chin for two hours while I watch a movie and barely even stir, only alternating which wing she wants to be petted under now and then.

And that's it, since I've posted pictures of Izzie (aka Cancer Cat) in the past somewhere else in these forums. She's still tickin', by the way, so who knows.

@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.

Updated and excited about my new Jedi on Dawn of Defiance - I never played on a Star Wars MU* before.

I think I'll spend the first scene turning my lightsaber on and off again. Pssshhewzzzzzzz!

I set up a whole regime around walking - it's not the best cardio but it's the safest cardio, so it'll need to do.

What works for me (although obviously it might not be everyone's cup of tea) is gamifying the whole experience; yes, it can be fun since it gives a chance to reflect, think of things - I don't even know how many PrPs I've worked on while taking a long walk - but it can also get boring after a while.

So, these are my tricks:

1. Figure out my limits, both physical and otherwise. For example time is a limit; if going from A->B takes 1.5 hour then going back the same way takes another 1.5, which I might not have. So I need to consider my routes in advance, or count on taking public transit back as needed.

2. Give me something at the end of the trip. For example I walk downtown where the largest Indigo bookstore I know is, so I can sift through new arrivals. Or to a restaurant I really like to have lunch at. It's nice to walk toward something than just aimlessly.

3. Have something to do in the mean time. Pokemon: Go works (it used to be Ingress) but... anything, really. Music is certainly great for this (I suggest bluetooth headphones if you have them, cables suck once you're getting sweaty). Stay safe!

4. Finally... Fitbit is also a blast for all this since, by the end, you can have little competitions with your buddies if anyone you know has it. If you do and you don't have buddies I'll be one! Just ping me.

That's all.

@Cupcake Can you put his dishes somewhere else during the day time or is the problem he's not potty trained?

@Monogram I don't watch any type of fighting sports but I really dislike the hatred and glee that came from that... showing every second of her defeat like it was a celebration.

I get it, she was unbeaten and then she got beaten twice in a row. She's still better off than I am, at least, or she will be after the bruises fade so good for her. All athletes lose eventually.

@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.

@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.

My keyring clip broke. Goddammit, I've had that thing for over ten years and I'll miss that metallic little thing in my pocket. It's been in so many places and now it's at the bottom of a trash can - what an undignified way to go.

May it rust in peace.

@Gingerlily You're welcome.

@Auspice said in RL Anger:

The issue with the 'transactional' part is how... the 'nice' doesn't continue.

The other issue with it is the definition of 'nice'.

I'm not a rapist, I never hit you, I didn't steal your money or take your stuff!

Dude, talk about placing the bar low. That's not going beyond and above, it's the baseline. Hell, probably a bit under the baseline.

@Ganymede said in RL Anger:

This is a nice sentiment, but I find it is wholly false. In my experience, the way people think about you changes fast. The whole thread of discussion is absolutely stupid, but I've tried not to comment on it. (In my opinion, there's no such thing as involuntary celibacy.)

The stupid part about the subreddit is that they view relationships (or even sex) from a purely transactional point of view and they complain about the unfairness when there's no buyer for what they're selling.

Stating "I'm a nice guy, why won't she put out?" is a fallacy; no, they're not nice. They're pretending to be nice in order to get something out of it, and that's the opposite of niceness since they're tying the outcome to the act. Now, I'm not even saying this is anything unique because while dating we (mostly) all put up our best behavior; we'll clean up our apartments better, avoid farting or going into our more controversial hobbies ("hey baby, I'm playing a Ventrue Elder on RfK, you wanna come to my apartment and I'll show you my +sheet?").

And don't even get me started on the argument over sluts who don't put out.

@Gingerlily said in Kushiel's Debut:

Do you code yourself?

@Ganymede runs code, it doesn't write it.

@Gingerlily said in Kushiel's Debut:

We -are- interested in hearing from players who left and are considering returning to share what it is they'd like to see more of, so that if politics or conflict or even more monster fights are something they wished they'd seen before we can try to accomodate.

What I'd like to see is a decentralization of leverage in general. It's probably endemic to lords and ladies in general but there comes a point of rank saturation after which any impact to the game's political landscape must come through a finite number of positions, and if you're not (or positioned near) one you can easily find yourself locked out of anything cool going on.

If I remember correctly you guys already had a system of available 'actions' per week, so leverage that? For starter make task delegation a necessity for everyone regardless of rank, then that way you have "spy masters" who actually need little birds (and whose players are then more likely to go around recruiting their friends to play them). Make resources really matter - you can be a military leader but you need to pay your men so where's the money coming from? Etc.

Then reward activity. Make the spy/banker who's at it actively produce more, making them more valuable to their allies.

In other words turn as many characters into assets instead of just... existing.

I ran into the worst subreddit in the universe (*).

So, /r/incel, which stands for involuntary celibacy. Think of a place a ton of people gather to bitch about not getting laid although they really want to despite being nice guys, the sluts who're not putting out and the guys (called Chads) who're stealing those sluts' sexual favors away from them.

It's somewhere between horrifying and hilarious. Mostly horrifying. Damn.

(*) There's probably worse but bear with me here.

@Gingerlily Look, here on MSB we've seen nepotists, petty tyrants, cheaters, doxxers, bullies and inept fools. Sometimes in creative combinations of those things.

You got stressed due to a busy life and outreached your grasp by running plot wrong. You're a goddamn monster.

@Coin Nice try, as if you have friends.

@GangOfDolls Oh, one more thing. Arx is based on a different codebase than most MU* so you might find it unfamiliar for a while, and certain traditional commands are missing or are differently implemented.

KD is basically using World of Darkness 1.0 rules as its system.

@GangOfDolls Yeah, KD is based on the Kushiel's Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey, so while I found people were pretty accommodating with players unfamiliar with the source material (I was still reading it at the time) it can be intimidating to a newcomer. And those are some mother-loving huge-ass books.

Arx is its own thing, yes. It's inspired by grimdark fantasy books such as Joe Abercrombie's works.

I don't think you need to worry too much about knowing the material going into it in either case. Plus I'm sure someone from here is going to volunteer to give you a hand starting out in 5...4...3...

@Brave-Saga-MUSH said in How To Advertise?:

I know that this location would be one place to advertise and I know sharing ads between MU*s is another one, but is there any advice anyone could give? Other locations that could be used? I would love some suggestions and I am even sure that there are probably some new folks out there that could be wondering as well.

My advice is this: Advertise when you are ready and know what you're going to offer, and when you're going to offer it, but not before.

Most projects fall apart well before they come out of the "hey, I got this idea..." stage. And we, fickle lot that we are to begin with, have seen way too many projects disappear well before fruition.

So find the people who'll help you staff it, make sure you got the technical infrastructure taken care of (i.e. you got a host, someone to code, if you got a wiki someone to set it up, etc) then when it looks like you're actually going to open in a matter of weeks tell us why we should want it to open even sooner.

But yeah, if you want to advertise this forum is as good as any. Good luck!