Best posts made by Auspice

@Ghost said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:

Opt-in is a great idea, but it only works under the assumption that players will accept being left out of scenes that they dont opt-into. RP on a MU isnt an entitlement. You can make the argument that in a perfect world everyone is welcoming and wants everyone' input, but the reality is that some games/scenes just aren't what a particular player is looking for and it isnt everyone else's responsibility to change for them.

Honestly, opt-in is how it should be. It's why I always put warnings on my +events if there might be triggering topics. It's how I feel games, scenes, spheres- whatever! should be.

You make the choice to walk in through the door.

Opt-out is a whole other bag and it's a negative vs a positive.

Opt-in is the positive: 'we're all here to engage in the same thing, yay!'

Opt-out is the negative: 'I have decided I don't like this and I want everyone else to stop and cater to me.'

And most of our 'errrrrrrr-' uncertainties center around the opt-out options. X-card-type deals, reporting, etc. Because they can be abused. They can be manipulative. And they cut into that all-important thing: fun. They turn entire games into being about 'my fun' vs 'our fun'

whereas opt-in can be both my and our fun.

If I swan into a scene and part-way through decide I don't like that the demon is attacking my character and it makes her seem like a victim and Suzie Glitterpunch is NOT A VICTIM, I just throw down the opt-out and.......... oh. ST has to change things. Other players have to change things. And then everyone wars with: is she opting out because it's truly triggering? Is she opting out because she felt like she was losing? Is she opting out because she didn't like the way the scene was going?

We fuss and worry over what might get people whispering and it's opt-outs. Because yes, they should be no questions asked, but: people are always gonna wonder. Because there's a whole spectrum of stuff that can trigger someone and some of it is surprisingly tame. And just like there's OMG EVIL NEFARIOUS STAFFERS LURKING AROUND EVERY CORNER .... there's also abusive players who have it in their head that their PCs can do no wrong, can never lose, and must always be seen in a positive light. hell I've encountered more of those than I have evil Staffers.

So my vote, for any proposals, any systems, any whatever: opt-in. Make it player choice/agency as to whether they want to join something and once they're in, they're in. And before the 'but what if something happens that wasn't on the-' Then that's a whole other bag of tricks. That's completely different. That's the same as if a plot is labeled 'Low Risk' and you go in and find out it's 'High Risk, Probable Death' partway through. That's on the ST, that's viable reason to call an all-stop and have a discussion or just fucking leave.

Make an opt-in. Make people running scenes, plots, writing shit for the game, etc., label their stuff clearly.

After today's actions and @Apos' report, I researched into the @Zander account and was able to prove that yes, he was also @anon. @Zander has been banned as well so that we don't risk a continuation of these fun and gamesshenanigans.

@Tinuviel said in Anyone kind enough to help me with oWoD?:

Appearance 5, Resources 5, Dominate 5.

There, that's all you need.

Salem talked when they first met and she talks to him in a sense that I think they talk to one another. He just isn't talking to anyone else.

There was a bit (after another witch died and Ambrose took 'custody' (after a fashion) of his familiar) where Zelda said familiars only talk to their witches. So I think familiars, by and far, work differently in the show than they do the comics/90s show.

But Ambrose is wonderfully poly. I Ambrose so much.

@Pandora said in Model Policies?:

Excuse me while I pull my eyebrows back down from my fucking hairline at this one. Did you just suggest a 'don't ask/don't tell' policy on a MUSH channel?
Where the fuck did you people come from, and please go back.

Citizen, you too may discuss your domestic partner and dependents provided you do not mention your gender or theirs at any time.

(Also banning gender/sexuality/race and social justice basically reads to me like: 'you can be racist all you want and Staff won't care')

@doozer said in Back in my day....:

@mietze I did that with a regular umbrella off the garage. I wanted to be Mary Poppins.

@Seamus said in Firefly - Still Flyin':

While some servers like Ares doesn't really have any 'spy' tools built into it. It's flexible enough that one can be added with a little code knowledge.

You don't even need that.
As I was telling someone earlier, a person can just add a Staffer to their private scene and let the Staffer see the behavior.

My issue with policies like 'We might watch your RP after complaints' is that, as @faraday mentioned, it would also mean monitoring people that aren't under suspicion and it comes with that confirmation bias. (Maybe they just see 'good' scenes. Or maybe they can only observe a limited amount.)

Something like a SUSPECT flag or Rhost's function as you mentioned allows them to collect everything just on that player. It means other people aren't caught in the crossfire.

The first time I ever encountered spying was 'innocent.' On a game I played many years ago, before posted logs were a thing, we found out one day that the HS had been observing, while dark, almost all of our RP (as a small group). It weirded us out. A lot. She insisted it was because she loved our plots and RP and it was fun, but I always wondered (and still do) why she didn't just ask to watch.

What if one of us (we were close friends off-game too) had a major RL issue come up (say, death in the family as an example) and talked about it with our friends via OOC? Then suddenly some third party is hearing about this personal stuff.

And I know, the answer from a lot of people is gonna be 'don't talk about personal stuff on game' but I don't think that's a good response.

We know Discord can technically access logs, but we're not going around telling people not to use it.
Google can technically read your emails, but we don't tell people not to send their resumes because 'oh no someone might know where you live.'

What we do is have a reasonable expectation to privacy. Yes, we all know Staff CAN do these things, but we also go in with a reasonable expectation that private scenes are private. That page conversations are private. etc.

They can be logged and reported (just like people can in other programs like, say, reporting someone on Twitter for harassing DMs), but I should be able to login and feel comfortable that no one's gonna creep on what I'm doing 'just because.'

@moth

No, man, I get it.

When people giggle and teehee over the 'I know, I'm just so OCD' because of things like that, I want to strangle them sometimes. Because I don't think they've been awake at 4 in the morning, exhausted and sobbing because they want to be in bed but no, the entire kitchen must be cleaned and organized right now or else. Or late to work because you accidentally got dressed in the wrong order because you're wearing a slightly different outfit and you fucked up the stack so you have to start all over again and redo your whole routine... and no, you can't just remove the last item. You have to redo everything.

And I know for that person, maybe organizing books by color is their OCD, but at the same time maybe... just maybe... they could act like it doesn't make them cute. Because I, on the other hand, have had people mock me and torment me for my need to have things like volume in increments of 5 until I'm in tears and begging them to please stop and just let it be and wouldn't it be nice if I got to be cute for my 'quirk'?

So yeah, no, I hear you. As for the automated interview: I type up a script to read from as I go through it to help me not forget and skip questions because boy oh boy have I been there.

Be mindful of medication/food/supplement interactions.

I'm on synthroid. It was years before a doctor explained to me that I needed to be taking it on an empty stomach and avoid dairy and anything high in iron for at least two hours after taking it.

If you have hypothyroidism, avoid raw vegetables (broccoli, spinach, kale) that are high in iron. Always cook them. Otherwise you can have a negative impact on your thyroid.

(Yes, this makes things hard on those who also have anemia -- like me! -- but an iron supplement with folic acid taken, say, in the evening can help a lot esp. since the folic acid helps with absorption.)

The issue I take with some of the noted 'cutesy' people is that... they don't have any compulsion. They aren't negatively impacted in any way.

It's just someone who likes to have their bathroom color coordinated. It's just someone who enjoys a bookshelf organized by authors. It's just someone who happens to ... also really like attention and has found that the 'hee I'm so OCD!' nets them that attention. I mean, a lot of people like those things! They just have that added 'I want attention from this' component.

So for those of us that aren't those 'some people' and have a legitimate disorder (because OCD goes way beyond 'likes to be organized' and some people with OCD aren't organized whatsoever because their compulsions manifest differently), it's a problem.

People who pull the cutesy shit and do things like that or call their mood swings 'bipolar' or treat any other number of mental health issues as what is, essentially, a joke just for attention... are hurting those who have actual mental health issues. Because it's almost a mockery for us, because it pulls attention to them. Remember: a lot of people who do have mental health issues tend to hide and to put people who are making a mockery of things in the limelight makes the rest of us look bad because look at the kind of people who are getting that attention.

Someone who is negatively impacted in some way... probably isn't out there giggling about it in the fashion I'm referencing (the 'hehe look at me being such a dork/airhead/so fun'). Which is why I'm disinclined to believe those that do.

As a writer (as in: writes for a living):

MUing is not remotely the same as novel-writing and I believe that's likely what the spirit of Lackey's comment was to @Ghost. I have met a lot (a lot a lot a lot) of MUers over the years who fancy themselves writers (penned with a flourish) because they RP.

They aren't. You're not.

With writing (as in novels, scripts, technical documents...) there come things like outlining, editing, having full creative control (which @Pandora hinted has somewhat changed in this shift for an obsession of 'my fun not your fun'). You're writing for an audience in professional writing. Yes, even someone writing a novel. You don't write a novel for yourself (after all it can just stay in your head). You write it to tell a story to someone else.

RPing, on the other hand, is like doodling. Sometimes you might come out with something really great you want to share, but 99.9% of the time it's just fun scribbles for yourself. There's no editing (not in the same vein), there's no outlining (in the grand scheme of things; if you outline your character's entire story and expect to see it happen you're gonna have a bad time), and the story is, arguably (and not in a negative connotation!) just for you.

I like RP because it's lazy and casual and not as structured, rigid, and demanding as professional writing. I also like RP as a test bed. A lot of the time I'm testing writing methods/styles or characters (in my current novel, my protagonist was once trialed as a PC on a game... she's not in the novel exactly the same, but elements of personality and background definitely exist).

@silverfox

I really like that parent component because that has potential to just lead into a repeating system of positivity. The parent gets to hear that from you (the teacher) about their kid and then that probably leads into an awesome weekend overall because they'll then turn around to their kid to praise them... which is probably going to lead into the following week being good, too with the kid coming off that high.

@Ghost said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

@Kestrel said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

Tangent: I will gladly join @Ghost in launching a campaign to burn the played-by trend at the stake. Finally someone said it. Write your fucking descriptions, people.

<3.

It's a very simple way to be a better writer. Each character is its own little writing project to showcase your ability to flesh out the character using your skills as a writer.

I always feel like "PB over description" is a missed opportunity to actually treat the hobby like it's a writing hobby.

I wanna read, god damnit. Tired of seeing all these actors and actresses and want my mind to make new faces.

I don't mind PBs and would prob still use one. I hate writing descriptions. I hate how static they are (which is why I pose my character's current appearance in near every scene). I hate trying to convey in a succinct way what my character looks like. I hate how, pre-PBs, some people were so obsessed with being the PRETTIEST that their descs became purple prose filled blocks of text that you could barely navigate and often described some horrendous inhuman thing because they lost the plot midway through but could only continue forward with their thesaurus-abusing narrative.

I'm happy to have PBs.

@paris said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

but looking back it'd always happen when my family life was at its worst and I'd be internalizing a lot of stress. I'd end up awake 24-48 hours straight just cleaning, organizing, rearranging furniture, itemizing everything... because since I had no control over THAT part of my life, I was taking control of THIS part of my life.

Every time we're starting to struggle financially, I have to do a grocery. I am not at ease unless there's enough food in the house for at least four meals. And not like just annoyed, either, terrified. I feel like if I can just feed us that night, the next day will be okay. If I don't, calamity!

Growing up we always had enough food, I will say. We were never badly off (even if my dad liked to act like we were because beyond food and a roof, he never wanted to provide for us kids; we had to wear holes through our clothes, we only got taken to the doctor for emergencies, etc....... he had a really, really healthy retirement fund cuz he wanted money for him and my mother). It was the fighting. They fought. He was abusive to her. Abusive to us.

But I understand THAT because of how my twenties were. I was poor. Then my marriage was a mess. So oh man do I understand that. I keep my kitchen hella well stocked now. Every paycheck my routine is: pay bills, get groceries. Even if I probably have enough to last until the next paycheck, I get more. And not just the routine milk+bread+eggs, I make sure to pick up stuff for a couple meals, too. I went way too long while married with bare pantry and an empty 'fridge. The security of a stocked kitchen keeps this part of me calm.

Here's the thing....

(and I doubt I'm alone in this)

Even pre-PBs, I didn't read descs.

So many people wrote meandering, confusing descs that left me

The best I could glean would be, for example: 'ok, female and.......... red? hair?'

So I like PBs. I like PBs because they're a better descriptor of what your character looks like than your words are. Most of you can't write what a person looks like for shit with your 'lithe lean voluptuous curves' and 'limpid verdant pools'

Random kitty moment:

Ike is usually a very very good kitty. Like, she is the goodest. Just well-behaved and perfection.

But today, as I was refilling the jar of kitty treats, she got up under my hand and shoved her face in to begin chowing down as if it was just cat food (their bowls are full, mind you, so she knew exactly what she was doing).

As I scooped her up to pull her away, she just sat up in my arms and began purring because she was so proud of herself.

That brat.

I played an anime game when I was a teenager. Anime pbs totally fine there.

And I think that's why I take issue with them on other games. If I'm playing a BSG game and there's random Lolita anime girl......it throws me out of things so bad.

Keep the PB at least somewhat realistic for things for the love of God. Like I get that it can be hard to find a PB in period clothing for a medieval game. I don't care if they aren't.

But a video game or anime char on a real world game just really messes with me.

So, when I was a teenager, I always carried a deck of cards everywhere. I taught myself a number of little tricks (only one 'magic' trick, but mostly just what is termed as 'cardistry') since... y'know, pre-YouTube days.

This turned into collecting decks of cards. I have probably... 80? or so decks now. Vintage decks, decks from places I've visited, decks from places other people have visited and sent me, etc etc.

Recently, I've gotten back into trying to do things with them and I've been actually learning shit. This began with buying a bunch of cheap Bicycle decks, but I finally went and bought an actual nice deck of cards and on top of these things being just downright gorgeous (theory11's Monarchs), they handle just... so much better. I'm able to do some moves and all that I'd been struggling with on the much more slippery bikes.

It's just fun to be learning (or re-learning?) a new skill/hobby and also to have that moment of 'Oh, shit... the things I were struggling with were partly due to the tool, not me.'

ETA: for anyone else who loves playing cards, theory11 produces a ton. The Monarchs are just their signature deck. But... they have a deck they produced with NPH that is also a puzzle. I have it on order because HOW COULD I NOT

tbh he reminds me of the 12-year-olds on XBox that think they're big boys because they know how to pair a 'your mom' with a few swears.

ETA: they're the kids who think you leave the match because you're 'triggered,' but it's because they've spent half the match standing in place as they mash out an insult on the keypad. The same thing happens in Rocket League: the worst player in the match is the one who spends the whole time insulting everyone. You don't opt out of another match because you're triggered, you opt out because you want to play someone who is actually worth the effort.

The cost of a wedding is pretty much a really great down payment on a house.

That's how I view it.

It's why the first time I got married, it was essentially just a potluck in a park. I doubt I will ever get married again, but if I do, it'd be at most a similar thing. I don't see a one-day super expensive party to be worth it. I'm sorry to anyone who does, but I'd rather put the money towards something that I and my partner can enjoy together for years to come.