Posts made by Bennie

@skew it's all right! It was just unusual for me to be able to see a wiki and not a game. I thought it was just a break down in the DNS at that point. Sometimes I get cut off from the other side of the Rockies.

This morning I can't seem to connect to BITN. I can surf the wiki. But the login isn't a world I can reach. Is there an alternative IP address I can use instead of bitnmux?

Speaking from the opposite side of the fence. I get super comfortable with how things are, and when someone comes barreling into my screen and accosts me with a "you have to" connection, or otherwise pressures, it can be really off-putting. I am much more in the zone when my character is in a place, and your character arrives, and our characters interact, and if a connection builds off that, fantastic, if not, I'm truthfully sorry.

But I really don't like being pressured in pages, or a job. I feel like, if I maybe made a post recently asking for a connection, that's one thing. But when people just randomly decide that there's going to be one, I get sort of lost somewhere between "You're not the boss of me," and "Get out of my business, gosh!"

I've never had a PC that I've said, "This isn't working," and left either. I've definitely found another window to be in, from time to time. My interest has wandered to a different alt. But I spend a lot of time building something I feel like I can stand for a while.

The internet has changed. Backwards a bit in time, people used Places more often. You could be in a room with 10, 15, even 20 people, such as some sort-of court scene, and nobody burst into tears.

People simply chatted at their tables, read what the person in charge might have said, or the one other person responding to something similar, but the grid room itself never felt flooded or mind boggling.

Fast forward: internet culture is so lackadaisical about everything, people simply can't be roused to use the code, and get petulant about reading anything more than 1 pose every 10-15 minutes. It's unambitious is what it is.

People are so subservient to their own internal whining dialog they would rather act standoffish and bash the scene for size than to play in a sedate, unpretentious way.

• Install places in rooms to be used for large scenes.
• Encourage people to use those places, whether through desc on the room, announcement during the scene, or paging privately to ask people to take their poses to the places code.
• Stop pretentiously soapboxing about 'ow, ppl sux, wah, 5 too many'.
• The end.

I think every game can be more active. I think every game can do more. But I think passing the buck rather than staking a claim and trying to have fun around it is a poor excuse - and an overused one. I admire any game that keeps trying, and I admire the people who keep trying too. Try not to look so hard for faults in every direction.

I know my opinions are always unpopular, but if it is an ignore function that works for messaging so that you can ignore unwanted people sending you unwanted chats, that seems perfectly fine.

If you're going to butcher threads by selectively omitting anyone who displeases your sense of belligerent, self-motivated, untouchable net troll - like you're some tribal dictator with an AK and an indiscriminate trigger finger, or maybe just a Senator from a southern state (bud-bum-bum) - then you're missing the entire point of this being the MUSoapbox, which is about exchanges about both the community and the games we share, moderated already by classy mods who seem to be doing a damn fine job keeping the worst we have to offer at bay.

So if they do make an ignore, I hope it's just for Chats. Which, btw, you can already set-up to not receive if they're bugging you that day.

Is this nWoD1.0(till2omghurry2) or is it oWoD or Changeling20 or what?

Titan AE had a couple of great tear moments.

How will the Wiki work, if at all?

There is something inherently wrong (imo) with how fluid IC and OOC are for some folks.

I treat everything like an actual table, at a convention. I wouldn't take my clothes off there and shag in front of 500 geeks-like-me, so why would I do it on a game? What I do with my character, is just that, something the character is doing. I outright call anyone crazy who says to me, my role-play with you gave me feelings for you. You know we have a word for that, stalkers. Here's your sign. You might need a break. Maybe you should log off for a bit till you're ready to play the game.

We can be ooc, and chat, and make phone calls, and meet at cons, and shag, or whatever you like (hopefully not attempted at the tabletop game we're attending), but keep it separate: IC is not OOC, dammit. That's our relationship you're talking about, not our gaming. What my character is doing is not a part of our relationship. And if it is, if it's twisted-up that way, you're no longer playing a game, you're using the platform for your private whatever Stalky McStalkerstein. Stop pretending it has to do with your character anymore. You stopped playing the game, and went OOC.

I think a lot could be helped if people could just admit when they're twisted-up OOC and no longer really playing the game. I'm certainly not looking down my nose at people that meet online and go off to get married or make kidlets or buy a house together, or whatever, or shag at cons with irregular frequency as their thing. But come on. We're supposed to be logging in to play a game. It's not friggin' Match.com.

I've seen that before quite often. Someone pages you for RP, so you RP, even if it is just baRP. But at some point they either page, or OOC the room, about taking advantage of them, and silence fills the virtual space. "Pardon?"

What I don't get is why divisions exist at all - the conversation is fine, it's the Us or Them that bothers me. If you pose exposing your character, tearing a shirt off, flopping free, or what-have-you, and the next pose you read is not interested, opposed, angry, frustrated, freaked, cop-calling, violent, damaging, involves initiative and combat, or anything else than a free, hot-and-heavy reciprocation of similar, all sorts of things tend to happen.

People page that person for their content. There is something not right that you're being the asshole/bastard/prude/other and wtf is wrong with you, this is gaming, don't you know, why aren't you enlightened, you're so wrong, what a jerk, omg did you just get on the 911 channel? Other sort-of negative OOC response to your unexpected response. You get treated even worse if you just FTB, robbing that player of their sense of contribution. You get treated even worse if you start a Scene stating that nothing related to TS will take place at all, pre-writing it out.

That's my experience. If you are posing something other than participation in the TS that is being presented to you, you're somehow not a whole person, you're defective, you're troubled, you're negatively labeled. You are not a true gamer. Back in the day, this is what felt, to me, like the original division with the TSers. The accused would say, "You're just a TSer." It's a chicken-and-egg argument, I know, you cannot say for certain which came first. But they seem to come about cyclically.

So is the problem the TS, or is the problem how it's handled when someone doesn't effectively participate in the TS in the expected manner? Is the conversation really one of censorship and/or liberty? Is a part of the conversation about the health of transparency? (E.g., being transparent about pro TS or against TS having an impact on your community acceptance.)

The Protectorate-level story seems really, really interesting. Especially if you allow 2e Werewolf to add in your sheet's Wolf-Blooded. You could have an entire plethora of related PCs to play in the skin of, and to portray. And that can lead to a very unique experience.

Right now it's a shrieking COI discussion when someone plays related characters. But 2e kind of turns that on it's ear. If you could have 3 or 4 related characters, working with 3 or 4 other people, the volume of stories has a very real possibility of becoming super interesting, because while you might be playing your Retainer, or your Wolf-Blooded, or your Werewolf, or your Totem, you're still focusing on your Territory, and how it relates to those in it, and those bordering it.

And the instant travel part of 2e ties it all together in this enormously interesting way. Can you imagine a game of that size, and then change the scope to add a Shadow of the same dimension? It'd be enormous! Just, enormous! You could have all of Mt. Rainer to your group, along with all the towns around it.

Now, you do have to take a breath and think, that's really sandboxed. So, how can you carrot people into playing in one another's territory? Otherwise it'd be very lonely after a time. Your barp is going to suffer, and sometimes you really do just want to barp. So there has to be a mechanism or a benefit to going to other people's towns and rolling down other people's highways to increase the world building. Maybe the bigger cities aren't Territory and everyone can use them, and certain types of resources only come from there? I don't know. I'm neither intelligent enough to come up with that carrot or visionary.

But a huge Protectorate would be amazing with that layered sheet in 2e Werewolf.

I wait on baited breath for the game that makes a distinction in their systems between an Event and a Social Gathering.

Speed dating, a day at the boardwalk, a wedding, the reception, a dinner, a family picnic, an art show, a new museum exhibit, a trip to the aquarium on coupon day, midnight mass, Changeling crownings, Praxis changeovers, meet-n-greets, girl's night out, strip shows, paintball, rally, summer music festivals in the park, faire, farmer's markets.

All of the above, and more, are fine expressions of what you can choose to do with your time. And every single bit of it should be categorized, advertised, and coded so that like-minded people, who want to express their time in what's essentially a social gathering, be it 3 people, or 300, can do it without:

1. Lying about what it is to the people who are not interested in the social gathering or spending their time on them.
2. Falsely advertising about the danger when the only real danger is catty conversation or people storming out in a huff.
3. Really just want people to watch them, and can't think of any other way to get them other than making it seem something more.
4. Anyone who is a diceless storyteller should automatically be forced to categorize everything they do as social gathering. (Ok that's just a preference.)

In the meantime, an entire other board, system, etc, should be in place for the Event that involves:

Real danger, real use of dice, real consequences, has subject or material that may have been vetted by Staff through their rules on such Events, involves a desire to see everyone have an impact, be they important people (high Status) or not (no Status).. Of greater importance still, there should be a rating for each one that is adhered to strictly, is contained in the advertising, and which cannot be abused:

1. The danger is very small, and mostly inconvenient. Citations by the police for your public behavior, for example. Having to pay to have a window repaired, in another. People talking about you later when the Event hits the rumor mill.
2. A good place for non-voluntary Conditions to be working on you even after the Event, trips to the hospital to get a cast for a broken bone, and so forth.
3. The danger is about as dangerous as starting a Supernatural is. Hunting gone bad, a walk through the Hedge on the path, a visit to the Underworld or the Shadow, treating with a Spirit or a Ghost, Tussles with powers that may break the Oath or the Masquerade or a Cover, but not irreparably.
4. Lasting danger or damage. Aggravated wounds. Seriously getting lost for an extended period, or extended hospital stays, extended incarceration at the local jail, real court dates, real reprimands by superiors, lasting damage to the Masquerade, the loss of Territory, or the destruction of a Cover.
5. Gross possibility of Death.

People's time is precious. Don't waste it. Figure out what you're looking to provide, then advertise it correctly. Don't lie, cheat people, or steal their time. The same holds true in reverse. If the people putting the event on are absolutely not looking for 'drama', then be sure to advertise correctly, and to accept that people who want the 2nd type of Events are not necessarily the people who want the 1st type of Events. But if all the game is providing, is the 1st, and none of the 2nd, maybe start addressing that too.

I hate non-WoD. I actively disbelieve it even exists. Pssh, non-WOD, whatever!

Is this the Hog Pit or Advertisements?

I own every book I have. Some have PDFs for them.

To be fair, I feel like the gaming community caused this in the first place. We all want to work from home and to be freelance writers. We stopped in the 90s wanting to relocate to whatever city and go to the office of. So let's not act surprised when we've gotten down to this model where the businesses really are a few people who teleconference, and the rest are freelancers. It's been coming for twenty years.

It's becoming the norm in a lot of ways. A lot of places have fewer and fewer people in the actual site, a lot more freelance people, we've been cultivating this freedom for a couple of decades. People want to live in Tiny Houses in the mountains and eat turnips grown in their front yards and raise their kids on the great plains now days. So having them all sending in their writing or artwork to some central authority isn't unusual to me anymore. We even do school remotely these days.

And yet they gave them a book with stats.

| If someone wants to play a viking-themed character, why not? Its what they want to do and it doesn't really hurt anything.

It hurts suspension of disbelief.

| If you don't want to deal with that sort of character, don't RP with them.

Not an option when they take over an entire sphere of the game, or more.

| Is a viking really that far afield, all things considered?

Yes, it is.