Best posts made by Darinelle

@deadempire said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

Where do you find these people? Teach me your ways! I've gotten chastised for... Rping on my alt while with my partner, for TSing on my alt while me partner was in a GMed scene, for my character being sightly rude to her character for in character reasons, FOR HAVING A RELATIONSHIP ON MY ALT...

How long did this relationship continue? Too long. Just. Too long. Didn't get married. Glad I didn't.

Well. For one thing, I don't tend to RP a relationship or even pursue a romantic relationship until after I've some indication that the player is sane. In terms of MUSHing, this means I spend an ETERNITY RPing with someone before I'm willing to move it forward in any way. (As an example, Leona has existed since alpha on Arx, I've been RPing her most of that time, and I have considered a romantic relationship of sorts with exactly -one- person, and that was only in the last 3? 4? months)

But at any sign of jealousy, weird pages about who I'm RPing with, unrespected boundaries, or any weirdness OOC I'm going to be ICly uninterested and OOCly uncommunicative. Ain't nobody got time for that shit.

It means my characters tend to not be romantically entangled, but also when they are the players tend to be ok. Aldrin's player has been my favorite by far though - he continues to be amazing people.

@three-eyed-crow said in Arx: @clues:

My hate-on for orgs that just bank a bunch of clues for people to brief themselves on with no context is vast and I think it leads to problems in terms of people RPing some real whack-a-doo things, but making clues harder to share individually and without scenes would just make this worse.

It leads to character death is what it leads to.

@testament said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers:

@jeshin Because no one would dare have hurt feelings over something a character said in a game.

People have zero chill, even when fictional characters are throwing shade at their fictional characters.

Seeing shade slung around in the condemns was a highlight of the week on Arx. Because sometimes they were just hilarious to read.

Well, but also some of it got totally out of hand for OOC reasons and people were shitholes to each other for OOC reasons instead of IC ones and we found that to be garbage so we turned them off.

Deadlift day. I fucking LOVE deadlift day.

Also puppies. Mine has grown!

From my perspective, "Encouraging Proactive Players" boils down to one thing: Take the idea that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, set it on fire, throw it out the window and let it burn down the neighborhood.

Now you have time to find the people who are consistently making plot for other people, sharing the love, spreading information, and doing things that make a RP sphere great - and you can do something nice for them. Whether that's spending a little extra time writing some lore for them, or creating a horrible character that spends months terrorizing them at random (cough) or taking them on an adventure plot or just giving them a chance to shine - spend time to do things for people who are already willing to use at least part of their time to do nice things for others.

Because I don't know who's playing whom and can't find people, if you're looking for me look no further?

Former:
Firan - Portia, Maegrae, Diana, Puffin
The Reach - Alice, Caoimhe
Arx - Grady, Evaine, Micaela

Current:
Arx - Leona, Puffin (staff), Orazio (not OG-Razi), Justus, Sapphire, Venteri (and all the Marin'alfar) and a few others, all NPCs
Gray Harbor - Caoimhe

Random message from player I haven't interacted with and a character my favorite NPC doesn't know?

Wince.

Cross fingers.

Hope for the best.

And the best is -awesome-. The scene was SO FUN.

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

I'm finding I don't like comment 'X seemed upstanding to me, I would never have expected (really bad behavior) from X' more and more these days.

Feels like it implies that we should expect the behavior of some people or something. It just feel its redundant, we shouldn't expect anyone to be a mass murderer, rapist, serial killer, clown, pedophile, whatever.

Its too much to ask I know, but I'd rather hear, 'I never saw that coming, but glad someone put a stop/stuck up to X's behavior, I feel bad knowing it happened, I'd feel worse knowing it continued'.

I'm dealing with a lot of RL drama about this right this moment. So I'll just say this: If a bunch of people report X for doing something, and you never saw the action? It's because it was totally calculated/deliberate. If someone's just batshit or lashes out, chances are high that EVERYONE KNOWS IT.

The ones who manage to hide it except for their targets? Those are the truly evil people.

I have something special planned for Jimbo.

Constant doom is exhausting, for players and for staffers alike. Giving people lulls between the major events so that they can RP about what just happened, meet new players, get new players involved, and further personal goals is important. Here's what I like as a plot mix:

1-3 large-scale arcs going on in different areas at the same time as a slow burn. That gives players who might not do something about one thing to work on another thing. If Bob and Joe hate each other, and metaplot arc is for Joe's faction, Bob doesn't have any reason to engage. But if there's one for a neutral faction going on at the same time, he does. I like this, especially when they get to that week or two of culminating in a BIG DEAL.

Minor character-development driven plots going on that offer players a chance to do their own thing and develop their own characters in fun ways through events and action and RP with others. This can (and I would hope does) generally include PRPs. The caveat is I want PRPs to be able to be RP'd about outside of the PRP. If I go on a werewolf-killin' spree with my Hunter in a PRP, but then I get back and want to RP about it, I should be able to, not have it be "well, that didn't really happen in the confines of this story."

But timing is really important. If we've just spent 2 weeks of intensive RP dealing with a metaplot thing, I need a week or two to relax a little. Take some time off, let my character assimilate what just happened. To RP about it and to think of other things, to do the minor character things (major for my character, minor in terms of influence on the game world) that help make my character richer.

I think in many ways it's not about sheer number of plots. It's all about timing.

OMFG PEOPLE STOP MSGING ME ON FB BEFORE 9AM. I HAVEN'T EVEN HAD COFFEE YET I DON'T WANT TO TALK TO YOUR DUMB ASS.

@deadculture said in The limits of IC/OOC responsibility:

@darinelle To what extent do you consider character vs character interactions to be that? As in -- is actively subverting someone but never actually attacking them physically or socially to be considered CvC? And CvE - where do you draw the line, there? Say, someone wants to declare war on NPC enemy faction Z; this can be a lot of fun, OOCly, and ICly it might be catastrophic for the Allied Forces of Whateveria.

But your character, who is currently invested in rebuilding after a very recent (internecine or not) war, decides to speak out against it and pulls out their troops from the alliance. Is this CvC? Is it CvE? Does this action of your character merit going through due to IC considerations or should it be discarded in favor of the more OOCly fun pursuit?

Also, yes, players are generally blamed for the failings of their characters, it's something we've all experienced to some extent, I think.

Goodness. So any of that can be fine. IC subverting is fine. We'll use Dawn as an example because she was in a leadership position and took a lot of shit but it's also stone age Arx so hopefully no one's still frothing at the mouth over it.

"The Leadership" make the decision to pay the Tiend (which involves human sacrifice, which also was voluntary, which also saved the world ). Dawn decides to go pay the Tiend with a bunch of NPCs. She intended to die herself there, but wasn't allowed to for IC reasons. Someone else went in her stead. So - the Tiend is paid, she comes back to Arx, and EVERYONE IS MAD.

Okay so here's where it gets iffy and where I think consideration for the other player comes into play:

How long should EVERYONE BE MAD AT DAWN?

How long is she going to have to join every single scene in public and get absolutely shit on because EVERYONE IS MAD AT DAWN?

How long is it going to be fun when it's literally one (or two) people against EVERYONE IN THE WORLD before they're going to quit the character?

How much fun is it if literally every scene you are in, someone wants to personally extract their pound of flesh?

That's more what @Kanye-Qwest and I are talking about here. Not that IC is free from repercussions. But that at a certain point as players it's important to step back and say "wow, giving this person shit is hella fun for me ICly, but what fun am I creating for them?" Like - if there's no way past it, and your relationship is never going to get better no matter what they do, maybe just handwave the scene and say "welp, I'm going to hate them forever and there's nothing they'll ever be able to do to make things better." It can still happen IC. You can still work against them. But maybe don't make them sit there and take your character yelling at them for an hour with no recourse or any way to make things better.

If you want a scene with someone, it doesn't have to be positive. It can be negative - but both players need to have some kind of agency and ability to make story, or you might as well agree oocly "hey, our characters now hate each other for these reasons that won't change." Then you can get your hate on in public group scenes (which is fun and hilarious for everyone) while both having some kind of character development and growth.

That's what I mean when I say "consider the player." Dawn went off grid not because she made some poor decisions (which also saved the world so good job dogpiling on the person who did the needful there guys. Hella standup) but because every time someone asked her for a scene it was to shit on her and call her a traitor and be hateful to her, and there's no actual fun that comes from constantly being berated IC with no development, shift, change, reason, or character growth.

Sitting in a clean house, with my dogs quietly laying nearby, sipping a fresh latte I didn't even have to put shoes on to have.

@arkandel

General spelling and basic grammer - important, so much so that I probably won't RP with you regularly if you can't do that right.

Pose length and detail - Don't care, as long as you give me something to work with. Witty quips and their rejoinders don't need a 4 paragraph post wherein they're hidden, but it also depends on the scene. As long as we have hooks and are interacting I don't care as much about pose length.

Tempo - Also don't care, I can always do jobs between poses if you're super slow.

Personal peeves - accents. Please don't. Will RP but makes me sad and probably not on the regular. %t - I won't stop RPing with you but I will grind my teeth every. single. time.

Pose ordering - eh. Round robin so no one gets left out, but once we hit 5-ish? 3PR works better anyway.

And from @Coin - yes. when a scene is over, let it be over. We don't need a marathon 5-hour session every single time. I promise.

Bath bombs. I don't even care if that makes me the Beckiest Becky who ever Becky'd. DON'T CARE.

Lush bath bombs, specifically.

Don't judge.

Or do. My skin feels great and I am chill and relaxed. So you're just jealous if you judge.

My response to this comment is really in line with @Kanye-Qwest here (perhaps unsurprisingly).

When I think "make it fun for me!" as a GM what I mean is... please, please GOD if you want a scene with me, please make it interactive. Put yourself into the plot. Bring your A game. If you want to do diplomacy, BY GOD DO DIPLOMACY. If you want to negotiate, NEGOTIATE. If you want to set the world on fire, SET THE WORLD ON FIRE BUT FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY DON'T TAKE MY TIME AND THEN SAY "Well, you tell me what I should do to win my objectives, ok?"

No.

JUST NO.

Come up with a plan. Come up with ideas. It's ok to run them by me. "Hey, I want to do X, and I was thinking about doing it by Y series of actions. What do you think? Is it super crazy or super /genious/?" I spend so much time telling people's stories, and making up lore, and answering their questions. But for it to be fun for me means it needs to be collaboration.

It's the difference between a request saying:

"I am lost, so I am praying to the gods for guidance on what they want me to do next."

and...

"I am lost, and I have thought about doing X thing or doing Y thing or maybe doing Z thing, and I think I want to do Y but I know I should do Z, and I struggle. So I'm praying for guidance."

Both are requests for guidance. One requires me to pull a plot out of my ass to help you fulfill your clearly unspecified character goals. The other is concrete. It shows you're willing to put into it what I'm willing to respond with. It's much easier because it gives me hooks. It shows you're invested and involved. You're interested. You're willing to put in the time. And you're willing to tell me what makes it fun for you, so I don't spend all my effort thinking of something I think would be cool, only to find that no, that really wasn't what you were hoping for.

This one time, someone did the 2nd thing and I wrote something like 3 pages of story/lore/backstory for them, because they were so invested in it that it inspired me. That was fun. That was a lot of fun. I want to help make story - I can't do that if you won't give me hooks.

From a GM side it's kind of the equivalent of the person who "plays things close to the chest" and so never shows an emotion or any vulnerability but also never gives any hooks at all. Or the one who sits silently and drinks in a tavern full of people and never engages. Or the one who hovers outside a conversation but never gives any hooks to involve them or interact. What possible reason would I have to seek out those characters? I don't have anything to work with, and no sign that there's any collaborative roleplay even possible.

But the same thing translates as a player. If you're expecting to show up to a scene and be THE SUPERSTAR and then have everything revolve around you 100% of the time, you're destined for disappointment. Sometimes it IS all about you, but those times are exceedingly rare and they should be. So if you show up to a scene with 5 players, be ready to allow it to be about everyone else about 80% of the time, and you get 20% of the action and maybe that's you in the spotlight for a major decision, or you landing the killing blow on a monster, or your sarcastic quip being highlighted in the next GM pose - but give hooks for other people, and give them room to do their thing too.

I could go on. There are so many ways "Make it fun for me!" can be interpreted, and so many ways to do it that I just am consistently baffled by people who are no fun at all to RP with - there are SO MANY WAYS TO MAKE THINGS INTERESTING FOR OTHER PEOPLE AS WELL AS YOU.

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

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

When I was 19 I fired a text off to my step-dad explaining my rampant suicidal tendencies, my actual attempts at suicide, and essentially saying "I don't want to live like this anymore, please help me". I didn't have the courage to call him on the phone, so, that was probably a very scary afternoon that he got that word salad of a message. Luckily he wasn't born into the carnival that the rest of my family was so, he took me very seriously and set me up with a psychiatrist immediately.

I don't know why this hit me so hard today but god bless your stepdad.

+1 on this one.

The only therapist my parents ever took me to was one who was faith-based in the same faith I was struggling with and also a friend of the family so guess how much I ever talked about anything?

Yeah.

So. She diagnosed me with OCD based on a 5 minute multiple choice test and then kept asking me how I felt about my family life and my faith. Predictably, nothing got done and now here I am in my 40s trying to deprogram and figure out anything because of deep-seated trust issues and rampant paranoia. Threads like this where people actually get help and live better lives are what encourage me to keep trying.

Players with integrity.

Players who are willing to have a scene with an NPC and not get upset when they don't get every question answered.

Players who get a surprising result to their action, a result that is negative, and instead of melting down they turn it into an opportunity to add depth to their stories.

Players willing to treat serious things seriously even though it's objectively FUCKING HILARIOUS.

This is literally the best thing I've read on the internet in days. It makes me happy, but I want to say something here as a cautionary tale (learn from my mistakes):

Pick a deadline. If you go through with this - and I have done this and hated myself, and I have done this and gained amazing and wonderful friends from it so I totally think it's worth it - you will be highly invested in someone you hardly know. Pick a date by which they should either be kicking back some money to you, or moved out. Or say - we'll re-evaluate the situation monthly, and if we decide it isn't working out, you'll have one month to find a new situation or right the one we have.

Boundaries are important. I'm not going to lecture you on helping other people (bless you) so much as suggest ways to avoid feeling bad in the long run, or alternately feeling like you're being taken advantage of, or even just mad at yourself for not standing up for yourself as much as you needed or hating yourself for having to have tough conversations you hope you'll never have to have.

Did I say you're awesome? You totally are.