@Kanye-Qwest said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
I need to hyper organize all of my photos from the last ten years even though no one but me will ever look at them.
.........it's fine that my laundry just stays in the laundry bag until laundry day.
Something I have also been considering throughout this thread whenever the 'Staff are volunteers!' comes up: volunteer work is still work. If you volunteer for an organization IRL, you are expected to comport yourself as a professional and you don't really get to pick and choose (generally) what you do. You might get to choose a department or request a 'top 3,' but then you're handed work. You do that work.
When we say 'you need to make yourself available to all players, even the ones you might not like,' we aren't saying: 'you have to suffer the abusive players.' We're saying: 'even if that girl is annoying or that guy poses like he's a piece of set dressing, you need to be willing to interact with them.' We're saying: 'even if taking your NPC out to provide that plot hook to the PC that poses that god awful accent isn't as fun as going to RP with your bff for the second day in a row, you need to do it because they asked.'
It's being responsible with your position of power. It's volunteer work, but it's still work. You took on a mantle of responsibility and if you can't handle those responsibilities, then maybe it's time to step down. Anyone can run plot as a player. Almost every single game out there welcomes and practically begs for players to run plot. If you want to run plot with the freedoms to run it however you want and for whomsoever you want... then relieve yourself of the burdens and demands of being a Staffer to do so.
So the Twitch stream I hang out on / interact with is a local guy (met him at SXSW when I got to go) and a number of his regulars are also local. This weekend he's doing a huge 24hr charity stream for Extra Life. Spent all day hanging out in stream.
Around midnight, one of the local guys was like hey, you should come join us at (local office he works at). Turns out he'd helped organize a big game day to coincide with the charity event for his company. Friends, family, etc could come out too. Play games, hang out, etc., and the final sort of party would be there too post stream.
I haven't been feeling 100% (partly mental health partly fibro) but I decided...fuck it. I need to push myself to get out and do stuff more. And despite it being so late. Despite it meaning I've been up all night: I'm glad I did. I've been having a pretty great time.
OTOH we don't wanna lump in 'Janet said something I didn't like two years ago so fuck that bitch I want to ruin her experience on every game ever' with those people.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it.
What if I advertise up front 'This plot will have a lot of horror elements including gore, gun violence,......' (or similar)
And midway through the plot, someone X-cards stuff that was advertised up front and is baked into the plot? That they agreed to?
I mean the few times I've had to say 'hey I didn't realize this was going to trigger something for me, can we scale back how graphic it's being posed please?' (The most recent example I can think of, I had no way of knowing the scene was going to include that particular trigger at the outset) people were happy to oblige and I think by and far most people are.
But I feel like adding on something that says 'the instant you use this everything that was going on noted by the card must stop and/or be negated' is almost like handing people a 'get out of jail free' when we already have, as stated, RP prefs,most STs do state what their plots include, and most people are happy to downplay how things are written.
Because what if someone says 'character death' is their X card? Or 'losing'? Well you've baked in that it is applied no questions asked and we all know people out there who are.....wildly upset by losing in any way.
I can see how this is a great concept for things like D&D Adventures or cons where you're going in blind to a scenario and/or gaming group. But for MUs were looking at a different environment.
Benedict Cumberbatch is an alien sent here to observe and learn from our ways.
While I was online / free more a few weeks back, I often put a caveat in my sign-ups (thank you Fara for the comment option in +events) that I'd drop in favor of people more suitable.
But the first come first serve is maddening. Because I've been there (we all have I imagine) when the same person or few people signed up for eeeeeverything and we just always...missed...the train. Always.
And I've been the ST with a random group that makes no sense who demands I adapt the whole scene.
As someone now who can only play on weekends and where my sign up window is very narrow (not that I'm playing anywhere rn since Notion sadly closed :(), I'd be all for providing a sentence as to why my char fits in. It'd give me a greater opportunity over luck of being present when the event gets posted. And as an ST, I'd like being able to choose from who might fit best.
Would it lead to favoritism? Maybe. But nothing stops people from sitting in RP Rooms and running only for their bffs as it is. So they'd be a real special asshole if they use an open events system just to flaunt choosing their buddies when they could run private events.
40 minutes spent guiding a meeting.
Completely unable to process or follow anything anyone else says the rest of the meeting.
@silverfox said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:
QFT. Seriously, the WORST.
The other day I lost an earring. Ah well. Found the earring but not the backing.
HOURS LATER I had a crumb in my bra. Reached in to grab.
...found the backing but not the crumb. It's like goddamn Narnia in there.
So I've had a lot of issues with my family over the years (a looooot), but the youngest of my brothers has been trying to have a relationship with me and it's p great.
He's not really social at all, but he texts with me sometimes. Either about the family cats (he'll send me photos of them <3) or about whatever games he's playing (he sent me clips from Untitled Goose Game the other day).
One time our mom texted me separately to say she's never seen him so 'talkative' with someone.
He is a good kid (I say kid but he's 23), we've just never been close since I'm 10 years older than he is. Maybe it just took us both being adults to start connecting in some way. Still, it's been nice.
Seeing those first scenes begin to happen on a game you've spent months developing.
I am so, so happy @Paradox came to me earlier this year with the proposal to open a Stargate game (and he didn't even know that I'd wanted a game just like this for years!). I'm happy we made our goal of opening early August.
To everyone that's joined so far: thank you. The effort put in (and my going whyyyyyyy at errors I ran into) is already worth it. I only hope I can make your time worth it in the plot that we'll be delivering in the coming days.
please stop.
I know you mean well but I can't even manage to eat some days despite everything I do.
No.
I also don't think 'because I want to explore the psychology' is as valid when it comes to roleplay. Because you aren't exploring it on your own: you're dragging other people (sometimes unwillingly) along for the ride.
There are novels that involve teenagers having sex. It's limited because publishers aren't keen on having too much of it out there (and with how people will obsess over underage actors/their characters, is it any surprise? jesus I still remember all the 'I can't wait until she's 18 hurr hurr hurr' about Emma Watson), but it exists.
And the reason it's 'okay' is because it's written purely from the prospective of the teenagers and it's one person writing.
On games a lot of the time it's: Underage PC and Adult PC.
That's a yikes.
And justifying RPing pedophilia to 'explore the psychology' is also yikes because again: you're dragging other people (knowing or not).
@faraday said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
Likening ADHD treatment to lobotomies is not.
this.
I had just explained how I can't function in day-to-day life anymore. How I'm afraid I'm going to lose what is, in truth, my dream job. I can't even focus on the things I love (hobbies). I'm lucky to take care of myself.
and the first reply I got felt like the equivalent of people who go 'people who take medication are stupid! just go for a walk!' to people with depression.
I've spent years multi-tasking non-stop. it has been my only and primary coping method. Just go go go go go go go go go go go all the time because my brain was go go go go go go go go all the time, but it doesn't work anymore. Everything has crumbled around me and I can't function anymore and I came to the one place I thought people understood and the reply I got was 'fuck doctors, drugs are bad, just speed everything up' which was...... what I used to do
so I felt like I was being told I'm just too broken and a failure
@Tat said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:
I often write up set poses for things I'm GMing that night during the day. On a persistent web platform, I can write it, start the scene, and leave it sit there until start time, when the other players can join the scene and see what I've already written while I finish
I do this (when I remember: I still have that habit of prepping a scene set in a text file or GDoc and copy/pasting it over).
I also prepare combat this way. While I'm waiting on players to pose, if I know combat is coming 'in a few rounds,' I can go and configure it and make sure everything is right........ rather than having to call a hold while I do it all in the client, risking missing any questions/etc due to spamming myself.
(Pre-Ares, with the FS3 plugin, I would often use an alt to manage this.)
I’m going to try to post a sort of ‘staff diary’ (I almost called it a dev diary, but most of it will be about people management) here as things go along. Now I am far from the best or a great Staffer, but maybe lessons I'm learning (or reaffirming) along the way can help someone else. I’ve never actually run a game before (I’m lazy and indecisive; I usually flit off to a new idea before I finish one). And while I’m not RUNNING this, Paradox and I are a team. No one is really ‘above’ the other.
Which brings me to point one (warning, this gets long).
Trust your team
Paradox and I know each other well and in the development of SGM, we argued once. I don’t even remember what it was about. I just remember that it ended up being a long discussion and in the end, I agreed with his point.
But how often can we all say that for other Staffing teams we’ve been on? How often do we feel our fellow Staffers are working against us? Stepping on our toes? How often do we have disagreements (on an app, on a house rule, etc.) and it becomes just a big, angry mess?
Your workload may be a bit larger, but it’s worth it. I don’t mind working jobs. I don’t mind running plot. I don’t mind answering questions. I know Paradox has my back and I can trust him to make whatever decisions needed when I’m not around.
We also share the work. Almost daily we have at least a brief discussion of ‘If I handle X, can you handle Y?’ We have a massive (I think it’s up to 24 pages now) doc on GDrive that began as our ‘bible’ for the game and has remained a place to work out ideas and get one another’s input.
Be willing to be firm
I’ll be honest: I hate telling people they can’t play a character concept. Especially when it’s a reasonable one (‘I wanna play a runaway teenager who stumbles across the SGC and they let him join a team!’ <- not reasonable and also thankfully not an idea anyone has proposed!). Unfortunately, there may be a multitude of reasons for saying no.
Maybe there’s too many PCs who already fit that type (and we’re already struggling to provide enough for them to ‘do’). Maybe it just doesn’t work in theme (or won’t work ‘right now’.).
It sucks to say no and potentially lose a player, but every game is going to have a box (some of them bigger, some smaller) that people have to fit into. Ithir, for example, isn’t going to allow someone to come along and play a dwarf. It’s a game of elves. The dwarf might be a totally reasonable concept otherwise, but it just doesn’t work for the setting.
It’s one of the parts of staffing that sucks, but it has to be done. That leads me into…
Transparency
It’s often a reflex to page someone off-channel to let them down. In my mind, it’s ‘I don’t want to risk embarrassing or upsetting this person in public.’ It’s not that I’m saying anything especially cruel, but as an anxious person I fall in that category of ‘I want to fail privately.’ (Not that I’m saying this is a failure.) But there are decided benefits to keeping it public.
Your players learn. They learn that these things aren’t allowed and they learn why they aren’t allowed. This is empowering for them. It gives them a better understanding of the game (maybe they were planning a PRP and learning that X isn’t allowed and why X isn’t allowed is helps them plan) and gives them a greater confidence in answering those questions from guests and new players.
I also recommend adding any decisions made to an FAQ. I know a few games out there have been doing this and I think it’s a fantastic idea (that I gleefully stole). One-offs, decisions made, etc.: put them somewhere findable.
Empower your players
I touched on this one a little above, but I wanted to expand on it. Often on a game, I’m never quite sure what I can do. Is it okay for me to say… Is it okay for me to assume…
There are a lot of ways to empower your players and I’m not going to cover them all (I couldn’t! I’m still discovering them myself), but I wanted to call out a very big one.
Let them handle things.
Now this might make sense on the surface, but it’s really a (overly) simplistic way of meaning give them the keys to handle things ICly that their PC could handle. If you’re running a PRP and notice that one character (in a military scenario) isn’t doing their IC job, tell their superior. The Lieutenant may have been too busy to notice the Corporal was fucking off. They may not know that what the Corporal is doing is out of line. Or, perhaps, they knew but were uncertain if it was okay to say something.
All it takes is a page. ‘You notice that Corporal Fuckup is fucking up.’ And leave it at that.
Then Corporal Fuckup isn’t being called out OOCly and Lieutenant now knows: Staff is OK with me handling minor disciplinary matters IC. Now, while my game isn’t full of troublemakers (phew!), there are a few (ICly so, not OOCly). And I have people who are in leadership roles that are embracing their place to ‘handle’ things.
However, I’ve still made it clear to everyone that if they don’t feel comfortable handling something, they are more than welcome to approach Staff and we will via NPC.
But what it comes down to is empowerment. Not just in scenarios like the above. Make sure your people know what they’re free to do. I personally feel this is a big reason ‘sandbox’ games succeed and more niche games don’t. People end up twiddling their thumbs too much of the time because they don’t know what they can or can’t do.
Lastly…
Be human
I had a few names for this part. ‘Be honest,’ ‘be willing to admit when you’re wrong,’ but it really came down to this: be human.
This is still just a game. You get to be a person and have fun, too. Which means you can be human. You can joke with your players. You can admit when you broke some code (happens to me often). But you should also admit to your own mistakes.
If something you’ve done has a negative impact on a player, apologize.
Invite feedback on the course of things (plot, overall story, etc.). If it’s not working and people aren’t having fun? They won’t always tell you in obvious ways (hi, super guilty of that myself!). But if you make it a dialogue, they’re more likely to do so.
‘Hey, what do you guys think of this storytelling style so far? Anything I can do that’d make it easier or more fun? Anything you hate?’
A lot of us in this community are little bundles of anxiety. And we’re almost all of us creatives. Creatives, generally, hate criticism. And so us little bundles of anxiety are afraid of upsetting someone. It means it’s all too common for people to suffer in silence on a game because ‘Well, I enjoy the story, but…’ ‘My friends are all there, but I just wish…’
Which brings me to one last thing: If someone comes to you with a concern, acknowledge it. Even if it’s something you can’t fix right then and there, you can make sure they feel heard and you can maybe even lay the groundwork for handling it if it becomes a full-blown problem.
Example:
Player A approaches you and says ‘Hey, Bob paged me with something that made me uncomfortable. I think he was joking and it hasn’t happened since, but it’s been bothering me.’
You could just reassure them it was definitely a joke and Bob’s been fine as far as you can tell!
Or... you could reassure them that you heard them, you’re sorry it made them uncomfortable, and you’ll be keeping an eye on things.
In addition to the above, you could post a general reminder to the game along the lines of: ‘Please keep in mind that not everyone has the same sense of humor you do.’
I lied
I do have one last bit: have fun.
Make sure you enjoy your own game. Have a PC. Be open and honest about what you involve them in (‘Hey, I see you’re running a plot and there’s still room: I’d love to go! If someone who can fill the role shows up, I’m happy to drop out.’), but be involved. You made the game for a reason and it wasn’t to lord your Staff power over people.
You’re a smart person, you can do it without being abusive about it. Enjoy the fuck out of your own creation: you deserve it.
Told my coworker in his amazing fallen/dark angel outfit (black wings, feathered/studded military coat, full makeup, fishnets + knee-high 3" heel boots) how I admire his ability to at least appear so casual/comfortable in aforementioned heels.
Him: "My philosophy is that it's better to look good than to feel good."
Me: "I think mine is the opposite."
Him: "Well, I'm vain. So very, very vain."
I was writing a reply to another post and realized that my thoughts on this subject may be better off as a new discussion.
We encounter a lot of Intellectual Properties that seem like they'd make a great game, but they end up floundering. And why wouldn't we look at our favorite books, movies, and shows and not want to play in them? It's what we do.
As being discussed in the Carnival Row thread: theme is important.
Your setting is the IP itself (Carnival Row, Harry Potter, Buffy, Battlestar), but the theme is the question that needs answering.
How do we defeat these cylons?
What was life like as a student during the rise of Voldemort?
The problem with some IPs is that the theme question becomes fuzzy. Take Dresden Files for example. I fucking love this series. A coworker and I chat about it daily (I'm taking my time on the most recent book; he's about 7 books in). But I've had to admit to myself: it doesn't make a good game.
The reason is that when you take away the set dressing, it's just another urban supernatural game. You might as well be playing 'WoD with limitations.'
And while I've, for a long time, felt that's because some things lend themselves better to plucking a metaplot out of the air (Star Wars: pick an era, you have an antagonistic force baked right in), I think it's actually a much easier answer:
Is the entire story contingent on a single hero? Or is it about a group of people?
Buffy had a cast we all loved, but when it came down to it: it was about Buffy. Take her out and the whole thing falls apart. She was the star the rest of the solar system revolved around.
But take the Magicians, for example: their world lends to conflict. The last season of the show is a wonderful example. We saw groups outside of the main cast affected by the magicians vs hedge witches and magic shortage. Affected by and working to resolve, both.
The story exists without the star. This is the case with something like, say, Star Trek. Take away whomsoever you might think is the star and the story continues.
Now, that doesn't mean the others are bad stories, but it does mean that (IMO) they make the challenge of building a game that much more difficult.
You need to have that theme question. And when I consider the fact that I can go on Generic WoD City Game #17, a Dresden Files game, or a Buffy game, and make the exact same character on all three ... the theme falls apart.
It's why I absolutely believe that metaplot has to come with the game. It doesn't have to be a metaplot you roll out as massive, world-altering chapters (like Arx does), but it has to be present because the characters (and players) need something that keeps them within the world and makes them feel relevant.
But for me, the very first question when approaching an IP: is this setting suitable for an ensemble cast? In a way that enables each and every person to have an impact as opposed to being simply an observer?
