Best posts made by bear_necessities

Just wanted to give a bump to this and let everyone know that the rest of October is jammed with events (at least 1 a week until Halloween). November is likely to be very similar. There's also a semi overarching plot that's begun regarding a tech company that is starting to make its mark on the small town.

That being said, we've got an active 'black hat' group making trouble on grid! There are a handful of active cops & medical people as well. And lots of shop owners/townies to make life fun! We're a good group of solid RPers who are laid back OOCly. So if you're looking to find a place with a chill OOC community where you can have lots of fun Rping, stop on by

@GreenFlashlight said in Landlord Bitching:

You ask what the alternative is to letting millions of people die of exposure every year, and my mouth drops open a little bit because I can't for my life imagine why you think that is an unavoidable outcome rather than one cultivated by greedy fuckwits who think that owning land is more important than human life.

That is not what I asked. I asked what is the alternative to renting (and/or buying) a home.

What you envision is basically a utopia.

I have a home that I rent to a military veteran. I suppose I am a greedy fuckwit. I make am at a net loss every year on the home because I rent at a below-market price and do the repairs requested of me and provide free services. I do this because he's a good person and has a family and deserves a place to live that isn't going to cost him an arm and a leg. His rent pays the mortgage and I'm building equity in a house that I hope will someday pay for my children's education.

I cannot give my renter this house rent free because it isn't possible. I still owe money on the house. So while it would be nice and wonderful and indeed idealistic if everyone in America could be freely given a home, it is not realistic.

Saying "fuck landlords" as a blanket statement is misguided, it discounts people who are trying their best and who are trying to do a decent job. Finding humor in people who's livelihoods are being destroyed by this because they are landlords sucks and I honestly don't know what was funny about the original post.

There's nothing funny about it. That guy rents an apartment building and he probably has loans that are owed to the bank. When he defaults on those loans, the Bank will take the property and all of those people who unified to not pay rent will be out of a home. These are actual serious prooblems that can't be fixed by saying "fuck landlords, everyone deserves a house for free".

Seconding Calaveras. We are very active in the evening, though you may need to take the initiative and ask for scenes sometimes!

Really there's no better time to join than RIGHT NOW! There's going to be at least one event a week through the entire month.

Bonus: We're all pretty awesome.

There was definitely A+ storytelling going on tonight. We have a few people who do awesome scheduled PRPs! And there's a couple of us that will do impromtu stuff on the grid

We are also very active during the day but I thought someone above said they were evening players lol

@thesuntsar said in Calaveras: Adult Fiction Drama MU:

@krmbm legendary hitman turned professor of history

@surreality lol I just struggle to think of a situation where I would go... you know what this plot needs? My NPC's dick

@Carex I agree with @mietze . It sounds like our game isn't for you and that's OK!

@krmbm I think you hit the nail on the head. It is about the optics. It is important for the health of your game to use your NPCs responsibly, ensure they have access to the PCs they need access to, and are giving plot equally regardless of relationship to specific PCs.

The best way to do that is to use NPCs sparingly, ensure they are used to progress the plot, and use your PCs to play all the mini golf you want

@SixRegrets You can customize stats and attributes on FS3 pretty easily so I think that would work for what you want.

Anyway, this sounds fun and I would play.

@Sparks said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

@bear_necessities said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

This isnt a pearl clutch. I will just never understand why staff feels the need to utilize their NPCs to have "romantic plot" or bring a child into the world or fuck somebody (which again, does that benefit the game or at least a certain group of PCs? Because it sounds like it benefits 2. The PC you are boning and the NPC).

So, let's say you're in a modern setting but where a lot of the conspiracies around secret societies are real. The Illuminati, the Templars, and so on. And there's an NPC, a senator who is a mid-level member of the Illuminati. And he'll do favors for the PCs, pull strings to get them resources, but he always asks things in return. And owing him open-ended favors is... unsettling, because sometimes when he calls them in, the people who are called come back subtly different.

Now, here's your character, who needs a piece of information they know that NPC has. The price, however, will be too high. So your PC decides to seduce the NPC senator. Maybe this is because they think if they succeed, the NPC will feel more inclined to do them a favor without demanding one in return. Maybe this is because they think if the NPC takes them back to a hotel room, they'll be able to take his phone while he's asleep, use his fingerprint to unlock it, and get the information for free.

Either way, this is a situation where the PC seeking romance/sex with the NPC serves the story; the PC can gain something which advances their storyline. If they were trying to get that information for a plot involving multiple people, it advances storyline for multiple PC's!

Or maybe the PC has been pushing something politically which a sinister secret society wants stopped. PC knows they want this, but has refused to be cowed by their demands, to a point that the society has decided to act. The NPC is a master assassin hired by that society, and wants to get close to the PC in order to poison them in private; once poisoned, they can blackmail the PC into doing what they want by withholding the antidote. Try to force them to turn on their allies and serve this society's interests instead. And what better way to get them in private and poison them than to seduce them?

Here's a place where the NPC seeking sex with the PC serves the story.

There honestly are reasons where it can serve story. I'm not saying it always does when people do it, but I think it absolutely can.

Counterpoint: why would you use NPCs in the last situation? This could be easily accomplished and provide a better story for PCs to have the "master assassin" charge a lower level PC assassin to do this in order to prove themselves or move up in assassin society? Now you are providing story for multiple PCs and not making your npc a pivotal part of the story.

@Pyrephox I think "changing the world" is something I really get stuck on. Like what could I do as a game admin to make you feel like you are changing the world?

Isn't this basically just a discussion of "yes and" and "no but" storytelling again? In GH, some of my better plots are about the minor detail that my players jumped all over that, during the time, had no story attached to it.

I will tell players when they are beating a dead horse though. Or when they are going the absolutely wrong way. I think you need to be honest with your players in order to keep a healthy community going. I don't want to waste anyone's time having them rp dead ends, and I don't want to waste my time either.

@Ominous said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Yeah, humans only tends to cut out like 50% of the possible players. Or, you end up with some subset of humans standing in for the speshul elf people.

Just based off of the current population of human only games, I'm gonna have to disagree on that one. But I too would like a human only game

@Auspice said in PC vs Player Assumptions:

Yes and no.
What if you see a log go up and it's Player A talking to Player B about a plot scene and Player A is giving Player B all the wrong information?
Or Player A puts in a follow-up to research something and they're going on all the wrong assumptions?
This isn't just the path they're following in the plot scene, but everything they pursue after it.

I don't comment on IC information handed down unless they are getting theme wrong. If a player puts in a job based on wrong assumptions I will address the wrong assumptions at that time if necessary. I mean, people make wrong assumptions irl all the time and still come to the right conclusion.

You always have to come at something asking yourself how you would want staff to address if you were the player in question. Like, I dont know the exact situation here but just don't waste players time. Rp is a huge time suck, I dont want to find out I've been rping about the wrong thing for 4 weeks because staff didnt know if I was ICly or OOCly dumb and didnt want to interfere.

@peasoupling Ah yeah that makes sense!

I will say that I think there's a strong demand for human vs evil games, if evidenced by Gray Harbor and Spirit Lake's population. Gray Harbor still averages 50+ players a night, Spirit Lake's right up there with 25-30. Those are both very healthy populations for a MUSH, and suggests that people want those sorts of games.

I don't personally want to play a horror/supernatural game where PCs are werewolves/vampires/etc. I will play a game where those creatures are the ENEMIES, but the second you stick werewolf/vamp PCs, it becomes like.. World of Darkness Lite. If I wanted to play a WoD game, I'd play one Gimmie some supernatural horror where I as a normal (or slightly powered) human have to fight the bad guys and I'm all over that!

I'm still admittedly not fully comfortable with the web portal. I don't know if people keep the channels up all the time when they are on the website? But I think that what @Auspice is experiencing is just kinda standard mush stuff.

I can't see how opening a scene with a hook would HURT. @krmbm and I threw out an idea a long time ago about going some kinda random scene set generator in some of the more public rooms to help people who do the whole "wanna rp? What's your idea?" Sort of thing. Never got around to it because we are swamped with 500 other things but that might be a good idea too?

Magicians game set in Fillory, not brakebills

Are any of you parents? I mean, letting your kid do whatever they want online to "learn about sex on their own terms" can be extremely harmful. I wish my parents had noticed the signs that @buttercup posted when I was a kid - I wish they had talked to me, instead of letting me "learn about things on my own terms" and trusting me to be responsible.

It isn't abusive to monitor your child's online usage to make sure they are using the internet responsibily. It is not ABUSE to talk to your child about sex and the dangers of people on the internet. None of the things @buttercup mentioned are inheritently abusive UNLESS YOU USE THEM ABUSIVELY.