Posts made by Arkandel

There's no group of people more persecuted than white Christians. They're out to get us!

Source: I'm a white Christian.

I find it highly unreasonable for anyone to be offended by 'happy holidays'. I mean come on, it's a wish. Take it for what it is and move on. If I know they're Christian I'll throw in a "Merry Christmas" as well because why not?

@SG said:

I find it happens sometimes even with rules and dice. Especially with people who use purple prose and pose walls of text about how seductive/intimidating/awesome their character is despite them having no codified stats supporting such poses. It really irks me, because they then start spazzing out about how I'm a roll player and not a role player. They often really lose it when I suggest they play the role listed on their sheet.

There's no way to reconcile different playstyles if people aren't willing to compromise and meet each other halfway. Neither way is wrong - some folks hate systematized social interactions (or even any kind of mechanics taking away from players' freedom to pose what fits a scene) and others dislike the subjectivity and deadlocks which can come from someone's unwillingness to suffer setbacks or 'lose'.

It all depends on what kind of game you are playing. MU* can't be all things to all people, choices need to be made. So if you're somewhere meant to be played with dice and codified stats on sheets then either tolerate it or walk away. Other games are meant to be RP heavy and dice are only there to settle disagreements.

It's important to note comic book writers aren't remotely free of controversy and accusations of having their own agenda either. In fact nothing could be further from the truth.

We need to keep in mind that for many of these the character(s) they're writing aren't theirs. They get to play with someone else's toys for a while but many writers are simply given a chance on a title (say, a Green Lantern arc) and they use it as their vehicle to prominence if they can get editors to go along with it (say, if the GL sales are low). Then when they go and villain-ize or kill off a character people care about in order to introduce their own replacement under the hero's name, nerdrage ensues.

The times that's happened over the years are numerous. The Spider-clone saga, Kyle Rayner replacing Hal Jordan, Azbat, etc. Just because a writer wants to tell a certain story it neither means that story is good nor that people want to read it. Or that it's not and they don't.

@Bobotron
There's ways of dealing with power disparity; usually through tactics and good writing. For example, there's plenty of times that lower powered opponents have been able to fight more powerful ones, like Hawkeye and Black Widow tag teaming Hulk in the Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes animated series.

It's easy in material where the writer defines the circumstances based on the story he wants to tell. If you're writing on behalf of Black Widow and Hawkeye you can have page upon page of them stalking the Hulk, dancing out of the way, sniping at his eyes and leading him through traps to slow him down. Then again if you're writing on behalf of the Hulk you can have him clap his hands and knock them both unconscious in one panel.

In roleplay once dice get into it... things are far more predictable.

@Ganymede said:

Sometimes, the best staffers get a hold of spheres full of toxic people, get overwhelmed, and cannot get the situation unwound.

My experience is this is the product of higher-up staff handling the responsibility of running a sphere to someone but not the authority to sphere make changes there.

So they are essentially allowed just enough leeway to get in, spot the issues then summarily become frustrated enough to burn out or resign. Then the circle perpetuates.

@Ganymede said:

@bored said:
But that gets into the whole 'don't hire shitty staff' (and perhaps more important, 'actually fire your friends when they turn out to be shitty staff') thing.

Presuming that the friends are objectively shitty and I had authority over the good staffer at issue, I would simply step in and fire his or her friend(s).

Although the cases do exist when someone exhibits overwhelmingly shitty behavior they are somewhat rare unless things have been allowed to spiral completely out of control.

An issue here is that 'shitty' often translates to "I don't like them" or even "I should have had what they got". So in a game where there are multiple groups and no one enjoys universal support - a very common scenario - there won't be a smoking gun, and thus it all comes down either to who you listen to or who you care to displease the least.

Neither of those factors is desirable as a benchmark for players' value since at that point the criteria - by definition - are political rather than objective.

@bored said:

But that gets into the whole 'don't hire shitty staff' (and perhaps more important, 'actually fire your friends when they turn out to be shitty staff') thing.

Sure, but what is the point of having good ('not shitty') staff if you can't trust them to make decisions like that without accusing them of favoritism?

@Ganymede said:

Hold a second. I never said that I would only pick people I know and like for important roles. I said I would likely prefer them.

Speaking of fairness though, it's also a great deal more honest for staff to hand-pick people they think will do an important position justice than to open it to 'everyone' and only pick the ones they wish anyway.

If you need someone to play an Elder in your sphere then the call for who it will be is made by staff. Let's take a quick look through them to examine which the saner option from this list is (and please, if anyone has alternatives feel free to add them):

• Pick the best player from those applying, in your opinion.
• Exclude good players you know because you happen to know them, thus penalizing them for it.
• Randomize the selection. Roll the dice!
• Don't have an Elder at all.
• Have Elders played by staff.

The second and third options are silly. The forth penalizes the whole game in the name of fairness, which I think is a poor trade-off.

The last option has been used on some games. And yet on those the number complaints aren't eliminated, they are simply different ones. After all staff are often too busy to play with any consistency and the character's player is still being hand-picked, only instead of a 'staff friend' it's being given out to 'staff'. Just how that a significant improvement nepotism-wise is beyond me.

Alright, fair enough. That's an important feature.

@Monogram said:

I use Potato. I like it, it reminds me a lot like SimpleMU. And I would go back to that if it was ever updated, but that seems pretty unlikely.

What features does Potato have that SimpleMU doesn't?

@DnvnQuinn said:

Is this thread still a thing?

You posted on it, thus perpetuating its thingness.

A couple people think it's a good idea, most of us think it's a terrible idea and the reasonings behind it (It's a play! Theater! I'm a director and my word is law!!! Or the I trust my friends and know them better than random peoples!) are terrible and the other side think they're reasonable and in the right.

So what you are saying is that you represent the majority and those who think this terrible idea is anything but terrible are deluded and only think they're in the right.

Do you have arguments to support these assertions?

Reading this, nobody is being convinced of anything.

Welcome to MSB.

@bored said:

It's not agitation, its lack of equivocation

Let me try to be more specific if you don't mind.

There's a lot of 'oh well good staffing can make anything work' in this thread, and on this forum in general, but I think that's BS. The sort of thing @Ganymede is suggesting is a) not actually different from how MU* have always worked and b) fundamentally terrible, as the history of this stuff tells us.

Aside from personal experience, if reading these forums can demonstrate anything it's that there's absolutely no 'how MU* have always worked'. We've seen so many different approaches by games - some of which failed spectacularly - there's no way to realistically stick any label on them all and call it a day.

In this case I'd argue you would have a hard time showing either that every MU* has tried to engage in favoritism (for instance, RfK seems to have gone to extremes to avoid exactly that, and was actually criticized for it at times) or that history tells us they've always failed - since even say Firan lasted for many years and engaged hundreds of players. If only every game failed like that!

I think the debate of whether games should be run for fairness or for fun is a far more interesting one than whether Gany is a tyrannical despot, you know? ... I mean obviously she is, but she's our tyrannical despot.

@bored, you might be taking the discussion personally. It's either that or I'm misreading your agitation levels.

It's a debate about MU* ethics. We're having those all the time.

@Griatch said:

There's also BeipMU which I've seen people use.
That was a new one for me.

Its site wins the web-ghetto award for the day!

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:

People go where their friends are

Bingo.

No larger factor than this exists to account for a game's playerbase. The trick is getting them there in the first place and stay long enough to make the initial investment.

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:

It's really all about consistency, if there's a game in a theme people like and no other choices. I will leave a game fun by total, fucking assholes, but a stunning amount of people won't, as long as the damn thing is up and running.

How do you explain Fallcoast/TR then? By all accounts it's a festering wound, but it's not the lack of alternatives which keeps it popular - no other theme offers more choice than the nWoD.

@bored said:

Sure. Your game, your dime for the server, you can do anything you want, include being a nepotistic scumbag.

Because that's what you're going to be when you decide to play director, cast your stars, and then oh yeah, we need some extras too.

This bullshit gets you one thing. It gets you Firan.

Not quite. Lots of game have had narcissistic despotic owners over the last couple of decades - most of them were incompetent and, as such, died the quiet and quick undignified death they deserved.

Firan did not. It ran for a long time, attracted a lot of people and some of them must have have fun. That's not a sign of incompetence; you can argue its bullshit and many people will agree, but not that this is what this is the game it gets you.

It takes the combination of consistency, skill and effort to make a successful game no matter if you're an asshole or not.

@Griatch said:

Ah, I see. What is the advantage of the registered version? Or will it simply stop working after a while without the key? If so we might need to scout around a bit when setting up our future testing grid (heck, I don't even use Windows... )

The spellchecker was the only thing that comes to mind. Everything else, including spawned windows (a necessity for some) are included in the base version IIRC.