Best posts made by Auspice

I love my doctor's office.

I was born with a fairly rare condition. And for most of my life, post-pediatricians, the reaction when I name this condition has been:

even when the scars on my abdomen are in full view. Because the condition is rare enough that you pretty much have to be in obstetrics or pediatrics to have ever dealt with it (or in the case of a gastroenterologist I once met: served as a pediatric surgeon). So many doctors would just think I made up some "medical sounding word" because they knew "everything." There were times this caused severe health problems for me over the years.

So it is a fucking gem in my world when a doctor is willing to hear more about it or is even willing to research it themselves. Those are the true healers, y'know? The ones who know it's impossible to know it all. The ones who acknowledge they are specialists in their field.

The condition I was born with, I only survived because I was born in the exact right place. The surgeon was pioneering ways to save kids born with the condition. He wrote papers on me. I have never met anyone born with it. The closest is I once spoke to someone who had a younger cousin born with it. I've searched online before and the closest I've found is mommy forums with threads and I think the oldest kid on one of those was like, 10.

Anyway. My doctor's office. My doctor, when I went in yesterday, was fascinated to hear about it, wanted to get the name right, and was like 'I have homework to do.' I didn't get my usual doctor (since it was an emergency visit), but my usual doc is even amazing. Like, one of the sweetest people ever. The whole place is lovely. I usually do not like going to the doctor because it makes me uncomfortable to be touched, undressed in a weird place, etc etc... But this office is just... it's welcoming, everyone is so nice and understanding. It deserves the high ratings it has.

They even have an online portal setup so they can do follow-ups at home to check on progress of meds or so you can ask questions that way you don't have to trek back in which everyone knows is a hassle. They basically have figured out this doctor office shit.

A lot of us are still adapting to what the web portal enables in Ares. It's so different from what we've done in the past.

'Whaaat? A player can participate in an on-game scene without logging in?!'
'So I can do my entire scene with someone much like I would in GDocs....and the log is already good to go?'

I'm trying to take it a step further (at least for me):
@Paradox has a difficult schedule for playing and he's been dedicating what online time he has to providing for the players (be it working jobs, running scenes, or just being present). I am a firm believer that staff should get to play, too.
Additionally, I have some players in non-US timezones (Australia, UK, and Norway off the top of my head).

Paradox and I happen to have a very similar schedule right now, so most 'live' scenes are going to be run starting around 7-9p CST. That's not ideal for everyone. I'll be able to run some on weekends earlier in the day, but even so.

As such, I decided I wanted to try running a plot entirely through the portal. I made certain my 'testers' understood that it may be a full 24 hours between poses sometimes (between RL schedules, differing timezones, etc.) and that the scene will be considered to have occurred (game-time) once it's completed (for example: if the scene began on the 8th of September and finished on the 20th of September, they'd consider it as having occurred on the 20th of September).

The reason for this is multi-faceted. Players can fold in 'current knowledge' instead of having to pretend a scene on the 10th hasn't happened because they're still RPing the 8th. Players don't have to worry about 'oh shit I got badly injured......but I RP'd a scene today that-'

I think we can all understand the logic behind that!

I'm only a few days into the first plot run this way, but I have a few observations so far:

Pros-

• As the ST, I have more time to dedicate to my responses. Instead of being pressed for time after calling for an Alertness check, I can take my time to craft customized responses to each person ('Because of your background in X, you see...' 'While gazing off in <direction mentioned in PC pose>, you spot...'
• I can spend time between ST poses/actions considering each PC, what they're doing, and how can I craft this to be poignant to them?
• I have time to adapt my plot outline as necessary ("OK, they skipped past that which means this encounter doesn't happen now, but happens over here instead with this adjustment...")
• I can take more extensive notes.
• Players who don't otherwise get to be involved in plot have an opportunity (and they may also play with people they otherwise wouldn't!).

Cons-

• I have to take extensive notes (this is love/hate: having notes is fuckin' awesome, but if I forget to notate something the likelihood of forgetting it later increases).
• Players might become bored and lose interest because they're waiting so long between actions.

Learning Notes-

• Absolutely encourage players to give you permission to roll for them. Ares makes it easy to roll for someone*, so getting this permission will help expedite things.
• Don't be afraid to 'guide' people a bit. This is something often needed in all plots (how often do you feel like your players are meandering and waiting for someone to make a definitive decision? In case of asynch play: make it for them if they're waffling). This also includes 'tell someone what you want them to roll.' Make safe assumptions. 'I mentioned a computer present, so I'm going to ask Bob-the-Hacker to roll Computers.'
• The sort of anxiety that comes with running scenes is gone. I'm able to take my time, focus, and think things through (vs. the pressure of 'oh god everyone's eyes are on me!' stage fright sensation). This may mean this is a method that would be fantastic for newbie STs or those who are often too nervous to ST (but want to nonetheless).

*I will note that in the current iteration of the web portal, you cannot roll for a PC. You can roll for NPCs (providing the total ability score), but not 'roll Bob's Computers.' The game does allow this, so my workaround is to scene/join the scene in question on the game and make the roll there (roll <name>/<skill>). It'll still apply it to the log, just not as convenient as doing it from the web portal when you're already there.

All that said, I wanted to share my concept and what I've learned after just a few days of trialing the idea. I'll likely update this as time passes with any other observations / learning opportunities, but since I have players who are really into the idea: maybe you would too.

I just rocked the hell out of that phone interview.

She ended saying she wants to move things forward and to email her with my availability next week.

Fuck. Yes.

I wanna give a shout out to @Seraphim73 for how much I appreciate his going through the combat config we have on SGM and identifying where the break points are. Neither @Paradox nor myself have configured FS3 combat before, so we absolutely missed some things.

I'd probably tear my hair out trying to find everything I missed.

So thanks, man. It is so, so appreciated.

(And also to the players who have put up with 2 of the 3 combat scenes so far breaking.)

I picked up a couple of cheap canvas bins at Walmart (they're like, $4?) to use on the bottom shelf of my end tables since, well, more convenient than just a shelf at floor-height.

Ike has decided they are hers:

I worked, for years, in moderation of children's games and forums.

There were very, very strict rules (on top of COPPA) about not sharing personal information, not sharing contact info, and no sexual roleplay. Did the forums and games probably have teenagers who were having sex IRL? Sure. (The main forum I worked on for the longest time had an average age range spanning 9-15 years old.)

But the rule was in place to prevent grooming. We had a serial user (much like our 4channer here) who would show up and tip his hand within a couple posts as to what he was out for. Did he probably do the same elsewhere? I'm sure. But we sure as fuck didn't let him linger around as soon as we identified him.

I witnessed, a depressing number of times, getting to a post or chat too late to stop kids from sharing their phone number or other RL details (including things like 'I'll be at X place on Y day, we should meet!'). I also witnessed them share adult RP sites/forums/MUs as a 'way to play without the mods catching us!' Was the one sharing the site an adult? Possibly. Probably. But these grooming behaviors are why we absolutely shut down every potential avenue we could.

• I always thought I liked hot showers until I began dating. Now I discover I actually don't like them all that hot in comparison. I FEEL YOU, @Arkandel!
• Truffles (truffle salt, truffle oil, etc.) makes me ill. Not in an allergy kind of way, but in a 'holy shit this is too much' kind of way. I'm a super-taster and it is one of the most overpowering things I've ever encountered. I don't really trust anyone that is not a professional with it as a result.
• I love every cat. Cats > People. I get legit upset if a movie/show/etc hurts a cat. Fuck that show. If it's a person or dog or whatever, I can deal. But if it's a cat? It goes in the "never watch again, 1-star, #donotrecommend" list.
• I have no shame about using walkthroughs for video games when I struggle. I play games to relax nowadays. I don't need bragging rights for a game. I just wanna play and have fun goddamnit.
• I am ambidextrous.
• I can fold a fitted sheet. #probablyawitch
• I taught myself to knit from one of those black-and-white "how to knit" kits in yonder pre-YouTube days, so my 'style' of knitting is a blend of the two -- there's Continental (left-handed) and English (right-handed) -- methods. Over the years many people have tried to understand 'how' I knit and have been unable to puzzle it out. But it works and it comes together, so I just keep doing it because re-teaching myself has failed. But it does mean I cannot teach others.
• I can, however, teach people to crochet and I am good enough at that I have troubleshot crochet problems over the phone!
• I'm immune to poison ivy (or at least I was as a kid; nowadays I'm not dumb enough to test if I still am).

Unless you're a doctor, you should never be using 'pronate' and similar in your writing. It's jenky as all heck.

Repeat after me: purple prose is bad.

If I have to sit and spend five minutes just puzzling out what the fuck your character is doing, it is not good writing.

This sort of crosses into the 'Weird RL' but it was kind of charming.

I have always sort of 'adopted' cats unwittingly. Nearly everywhere I've lived, I've had the area strays realize I am the Local Friendly Cat Lady and just sort of wander on by from time to time. In NKY, my house faced the building next to mine rather than the alley directly, so my yard (slab) was fenced and a safe spot to hang out and get away from dogs, kids, etc. I ended up ultimately, there, setting up a sheet of metal as a shelter from rain and snow and would put out food for the strays.

The best was the time a momma cat brought her babies to introduce them to me.

ANYHOW.

Last night, as I'm dozing off, I hear this loud MEOW from the direction of my living room. I start awake (because neither of my cats meow unless something's wrong), but both my kitties are by my legs and both are staring that way, too. Confused, I get up and head for the living room with them following.

I look out onto the patio and there's this round faced tabby, pawing at a trash bag I'd put out earlier. You see, when I clean, I'm usually wiped by the end of it (thanks, fibro), so I'll set the bag on the patio and take it out the following morning once I've rested. Every so often, I've found little holes torn through it. Well, that bag had no food trash in it and this little tabby was apparently quite cross with me for that. I guess he had decided I'd been putting food out for him.

As soon as he saw me at the door, he looked up and began up his complaints: meow meow meow meow!

Oh, well then!

I keep two bowls of food for my cats in separate rooms and they sometimes have fits of ignoring the smaller one and eventually, it gets stale and I have to throw it out (the thing that may have begun this whole situation!). They'd been doing just that this week. So I went, grabbed the bowl, and set it outside the door. Mr. Roundface promptly went up and began chowing down while my kitties watched from inside.

When he was done, he looked up, walked around the patio slab, meow meow meow! and wandered off.

I guess I'm just glad the food is being eaten rather than going to waste because my two are picky af.

Sometimes I'll think about how fun a scene was.
How heartwarming a scene was.
How sad a scene was.

I never think about the players behind the keyboard, just the scene itself and the characters involved.

The exact same, at least for me, goes if I think about a relationship and how romantic or sappy or yes, even sexy a scene was. I can reflect on how hot a scene was without any regard as to the person behind the keys. I don't know you, I don't care, I just thought the way our characters woke up tangled in the sheets in a shaft of sunlight was pretty awesome.

Has anyone else watched The Dragon Prince on Netflix?

It fills the missing part in my life from Avatar (it's done by the same people, y'all) and oh man, this show does diversity right. It just... is. Like, it's just a part of the world. It's not jam-smushed in your face like a lot of network television tries (and often poorly I'm looking at you CW with your 'oh hey this character who has been straight the past X seasons is suddenly awkwardly gay').

I wanna be Amaya when I grow up. She's amazing and I fucking love how she fights with her shield. Also, poor Galen. Who somehow manages to be ridiculously polite and optimistic despite his circumstance (I love him and his freckle-y face). .... really I could gush about like, 90% of the characters.

But Bait is no Momo gdi.

@silverfox said in TS - Danger zone:

So I don't think there is ever going to be a resolution for this.

o/~ Communication o/~

'Hey, I'm sorry, but I need to call a pause here so we can hammer some things out.'

If the other party isn't cool with that, they fucking suck.

Had a phone interview yesterday. Not 'dream job' territory, but at least in 'pays better than what I was making and has benefits' which is totally 100% acceptable (more than, tbh).

Just got an email that they want an in-person interview on the 25th. Wish it was sooner, but hey!

@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:

(@bored was kinda right when he said this feels like I'm running a survey here)

TS with NPCs or during PrPs. Where do you stand on this? What I'm thinking is PrPs involving one ST and one player but y'all might surprise me.

FTB. On both ends.
As a player it'd just feel clinical.
As an ST - I ain't got time for that.

@dev

I honestly feel like everyone in the US should be required to spend a certain amount of time in some customer service job, be it retail, food service, or a call center (since not everyone can physically handle retail/food service as those are more physically demanding). Just some job that makes them serve the public and interact with the public. I think it'd reeeeeeally change peoples' perceptions and interactions with the world at large quite a bit.

I ST'd for the first time on Arx today. And everyone enjoyed it. Or at least claimed they did.
(I'm sure they did.)

I didn't get a diagnosis until I was 30.

I grew up with a father whose opinion of mental health (and related) matters ran from:
'You'll get over it.'
'You're doing this on purpose to ruin the family.'
and forcing me to go through exorcisms because demons.

Finding out I had ADD and am on the spectrum... explained a lot. I mean, it doesn't fix things, but it helped. Because I stopped feeling like this worthless loser who couldn't handle what came naturally and easily to everyone else.

I have to have music while I drive or else I get distracted. I have to keep lists (lists upon lists upon lists) for everything or else my day-to-day life falls apart. I have so may coping mechanisms at this point.

I still haven't tried medication for the ADD. I only just got on anxiety meds last year (after so many doctors insisted that I just needed to 'give the anti-depressants more time'). I did try talking to one doctor briefly about it, explaining how some days I just can't fucking cope and how I was afraid for my job (some days I'd do great; others I'd get jack and shit done because of an inability to focus on any one thing at all) and her response was: 'You just need more sleep.'

I haven't had the emotional strength to go through that again (and right now I don't have the insurance, so...). My ADD isn't a 'lack of sleep' goddamnit.

I'm also offended this guy thinks the only reason people could be opposed to an app like that is 'you don't like black people having sex and would be OK with a WHITE WOMAN being just for sex purposes' (paraphrased)

dude, spend like, a week on this board and you'll see we take issue with people trolling narrative-focused games just for sex, period. It's not the sex that's the issue, it's the 'fuck everything y'all are doing here, I got bored on Shang'

I don't care what your race, gender, or sexuality is. If you barge into a narrative scene all 'HURR HURR IGNORE TEH BAD GUI LET'S ALL FUUUUUUUK' I'm gonna be pretty fuckin' annoyed.

@Darinelle said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

@saosmash You don't owe anyone your story. It's perfectly okay to just sit there and lurk and know that you're not alone in struggling to be whoever you are.

I can't give this a single answer because it depends, a) on the scene, b) on the person.

@Paradox and I for example can take weeks to work on scenes because they're not a priority and he's heckin' busy IRL.

A backscene will also not be priority and thus take longer.

On average I'm usually in the 'a pose every 15-20 minutes' or 'every couple hours' depending on the type of scene.