Posts made by Arkandel

@Roz Ugh, don't even get me started about trying too hard to grab attention.

Have you met the guy who gets into scenes with no shits given about what's already happening in them? Like, he marches in and shoots out a massive multi-paragraph entrance pose where he just tries to take over the entire thing?

Oh, or the sphere channel people who spend thirty minutes circle-jerking each other about how awesome that scene they had last time was and how fantastically intriguing their characters are. When they write their novel they'll definitely put that PC in there (this is no made-up example either) because that's how special he/she is.

I don't have a huge list of peeves when it comes to roleplaying but attention whoring irks me.

@Apos - it depends. For starters it's fairly rare (in my experience at least) for someone to be told directly 'hey, you're not good enough for me'. That's probably because it actually makes whoever goes ahead and say it sound like a total douche. What is being done instead is that such a person is merely passively avoided - which on its own isn't that bad, right? I mean theoretically that'd let that iffy roleplayer either find no scenes and move on thinking this game is dead/cliquish/whatever - we're very good at being blind to our own faults around here after all. Isn't that better since there are no hurt feelings?

Yeah, nope.

The problem here is when you're being 'passively avoided' - say, you asked on a channel and no one said anything - you don't necessarily know what the problem is! Is it you? Are people avoiding you or are they just busy? Or AFK? Or maybe it's your specific character concept which isn't that popular and if you just rolled something else it'd be fine? Or is it that they don't like you as a player despite or regardless of your roleplaying skill? Is it something you said taken the wrong way? Maybe someone's badmouthing you behind your back?

But you won't find out because there is no one specifically you can confront and ask what the reason was they didn't respond when you offered RP and they didn't answer.

But is this either a new thing or exclusive to MU*?

Look, I don't play multiplayer FPS. The reason is that I suck at them; my twitch reflexes are just slow enough for assorted teenagers across the globe to effortlessly shoot me in the head. There's nothing wrong with the games themselves, I'm just not that good at them. I can see why someone might not want me on their team - unless they need a guy whose head is effortlessly shot, I'm not their guy. It's not a personal rejection of me and all that I stand for.

I am however a pretty damn good healer on MMORPGs. I'm experienced, attentive, learn the mechanics, I make quick decisions on the fly. People do pick me for their arena teams because of this and I'm invited to raids.

The same thing applies to any number of other team games from sports to trivia, we pick people who can play them well unless we have a reason not to. That usually means they're friends of ours, or they're entertaining regardless (or because of) their weaknesses or we all suck anyway so that's the baseline or whatever.

So when it comes to roleplaying... well, same stuff really. Text is our medium so if I can't spell worth a damn I won't be deemed good at it by any group which doesn't want me around for reasons similar to the above ones (maybe they can't spell either!).

There's nothing exceptional about our particular hobby, it's still only gaming and as such people are judged based on the merit of their game-related strengths and weaknesses. The guy who can't spell might be an awesome person iRL but so what? Unless we are RL buddies it's irrelevant on a MU* just like it'd be on an FPS or a MMORPG.

Many people online, especially in our hobby, haven't had the best record of being socially accepted or included. On top of it it's exactly those same kinds of people who often seek the sanctuary of us-versus-them cliques (I dislike the term but it'll do), since after all if there's an 'us' then at least I belong!

The issue is further compounded by the fact when you first go to a game you're generally not known. Our gaming identities are a very fluid thing - you may be well known and respected in one game, then you go to another and you're no one at all. It's not an easy transition, especially when harboring a sensitive ego or thin skin.

My personal inclusion tool of choice is the +event command where such exists. I can run plot - that's being included, valued even. And if I'm not feeling the ST thing I can usually find something I can sign and show up for and it's that thing's ST's job to figure out how I fit in there. Usually that's the toughest part - getting in through the door - after which things become smoother since you actually get to meet folks, have something to talk about, etc.

I do agree though that ultimately it's each player's responsibility, no matter what staff or other players do. If I log on and sit in a room staring at who, ignore requests for RP over channels because they're not right enough for me and it's not exactly what I wanted to do... then that's no one else's fault.

I like KD. People are friendly and +jobs are processed quickly. Those are two benchmarks many games fail at.

@Roz He also hits on Sue a whole lot. Do fish do that?

@Cirno Now you're just trolling.

News at eleven.

@Nein said:

The success of the yes-only game will lie strictly on staff and players.

I took the liberty of fixing that for you.

There's no such thing as an autopilot for anything which involves people who need to be managed. If only! No matter what we conceive of here absolutely depends on having good people on both sides of the 'table' for its success.

I commented a couple of times exactly what you're saying, that people are quite friendly and I get offers to RP all the time (mind you, not only from female characters).

I was told it's because I'm a guy - so I'm wondering if there's any truth to it.

This has been brought up by more than one person I've spoken to about the game so I guess it's fair enough to go ahead and ask.

Is it easier to find roleplay as a male/playing a male character on KD?

I suspect @Cirno will get a kick out of this and/or never let me live it down.

So we were in an informal tech meeting at work talking shop and the topic was which operating systems developers were using. Someone pointed out Windows was in the minority since most of our workstations are running Linux along with two Macs.

Since having to support different operating systems, warn about critical vulnerability patches being out etc is a pain in the ass I responded by saying out loud, "it's so annoying how annoying having even a minority using Windows is! In fact it's annoying we have any minorities in the office at all."

Then we all stop talking for a couple of seconds before everyone (well, everyone else, those assholes) starts yelling "HR!".

Yeah.

You're welcome.

@Roz said:

@Arkandel said:

People who grade books yet to be published - usually quite highly - on sites like Goodreads.

Yes, I'm looking forward to Doors of Stone too. But it has a 4.45/4 stars rating with 1500+ votes and not one of those people has read it. It just makes the entire rating system unreliable.

Some people do actually get ARCs and review based on them, but it definitely doesn't account for all of those.

Yeah, I can see a dozen people having read previews or chapters but even assuming every single one of them did grade accordingly there are certainly outnumbered by all the expectation-based votes.

@Nein said:

I've been in factions (spheres, I guess?) where a friend circlejerk was in charge, voted themselves into positions of power and faction leadership/sphere admin, and used it to benefit themselves. Oh sure, they generated RP - mainly for each other. Everyone else was invited to participate as handclapping peasants to observe their greatness, or have the privilege of being beaten or downdressed by their characters. OOCly, they dangled rank, XP and advancements over the heads of everyone else in the faction and if they didn't like you or you questioned their behavior, you either had to allow yourself to be publicly humiliated ICly and OOCly across the game, self-flagellate or be content to be a low-ranking peon cut out of most scenes.

Unless brought up, there is no system to perfectly mitigate the risk of unfairness. For each clique like you describe - which I don't deny is A Thing - there is a story about staff alts running a sphere, or favoring their friends, or being completely rudderless because no one cares to be in charge so they just... float up there where nothing ever happens.

Also let's not neglect to mention that it's extremely difficult to sufficiently discount partiality in such issues. Is it a clique that's taken over the Carthians or is it a very good group of players, generating a ton of roleplay? That often depends on whether you are yourself included or you're watching this from the outside in - or, in some cases, even if you like those people (or their leader) which can paint your perception. So from a game-runner's point of view what would you rather have, a group of say ten players enjoying themselves immensely or a handful of dissatisfied stragglers finding reasons to feel miserable?

I am by no means saying charismatic assholes haven't ran spheres to the ground like this! Not at all. Only that even if you do have staff authority to act on this, as administrators in traditional games do, it's not easy to know who to listen to or what the best course of action is.

I insist this system does it better though for a simple reason: that by empowering and coopting factions to the players, they are given the incentive to do something there. It's for them to do with as they will. The Carthians aren't a staff-controlled thing As Described In The Wiki where they're squattering, it's theirs. They can do whatever the fuck they want within the sphere and game's greater context. Try to run it as a democratic utopia (and fail utterly because you're all bloodsucking fiends pretending to be fair) or a fascist regime (and clash with the Prince's cronies who're worried this might be a hotbed of insurrection). Whatever it is, creativity usually flows better when it's the least restricted and characters do what they should do best; pose, and let things grow from there.

Maybe. In theory. But that's the intention.

Systems should not be responsible for the people who use them. I've found that's a good guideline for political or even religious groups iRL and it certainly applies to MU*.

The traditional models including CGen background checks and justification-limited spends are not to blame for the butthurt petty dictators with a finger on the ban button if anyone so much as agree less than enthusiastically with them, who cannot admit to making mistakes and who are fueled by their own ego than the desire to see their own game prosper.

More liberal models allowing players more leeway are not to blame for the happy-go-lucky staff who create a less than glorified sandbox and sink into a spiral of depression and drama when they encounter the occasional bad player because they're incapable of saying 'no' in case they aren't as loved any more.

Yes, as many have noticed some of the examples in this thread are stretching a good bit. "What if almost every player is a walking nightmare?" isn't a common scenario but it's a good exercise to theorycraft the system a little bit. What's more realistic to happen is that, indeed, a charismatic player takes over a sphere with their cronies. It is, it can happen. We've seen it. We've also seen staff alts taking over spheres, we've seen a lot. No system is immune from bad people, both in the game's administration or the playerbase. You can't fix incompetence, real-world companies have been trying to come up with rulesets and guidelines to do that for years.

What this all comes down to is what game we like to play or run. Some of you have made the very legitimate claim that well, you wouldn't like a game like this. You have your reasons for doing so - it's fine! I think though we should examine its principles under the assumption it's not meant to be ran badly, since then of course it'd all devolve into sighs and an MSB 'what were they THINKING?' thread.