Posts made by Darinelle

@Roz said in Arx Alts:

@Darinelle @mail clears out when PCs hit the roster. (Messenger doesn't.)

THEN WHY DID I GET ORAZIO WITH 300 FUCKING @MAILS?! <SOBS>

I'm Puffin. And Sapphire. And Leona (though she's gone for now). And a few others. Oy. So many others. All the Marin'alfar, though I suspect that will change at some point and I'll just play Ayllish and Rhaine and Venteri.

But I'm not Orazio any more (and I apologize for the state of the @mail, I received it that way and never went through and deleted)!

@dvoraen said in MU Things I Love:

If this (below) isn't the result of it, you and I are going to have words!

You're taunting the woman who put the murderclown shardhaven in Arx?

Scheduling A Thing that has a bunch of really fun players on it, and only afterwards realizing that I've scheduled their highly risky thing for 31 October.

Guess this thing just got even weirder.

MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA.

I totally jumped to the wrong conclusion about what this thread is about and I immediately came here to post:

If someone rejects me, even if it's my best effort, I view it as a sign that I should definitely not spend my time with that person and sigh in relief because I don't need to add people to my schedule.

But after reading.... the same response is mostly applicable. If I apply as a character that I want to play and it just doesn't fit theme, or it's too over the top, or the staffers don't know me well enough to know that I'm not going to go FULL SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE on them then that's a sign to me that what I want to do isn't going to be right for the game and I appreciate that in advance.

As a staffer? It's harder, because I swear some people make trolly applications just to troll.

@tek said in L&L Options?:

@Caryatid Okay, so now I'm dying to know the drama that has you rejecting both Arx and Ithir.

I don't know about ithir, but if she's story-starved in Arx it's probably because we're WAY behind on actions and so everything metaplotty is on hold while we catch up. Slowly. Though I can't speak for her and there might be some horrible drama that I've totally missed during my shithole summer. But there is no overlap of staff between the two games.

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.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

RIP Rutger Hauer. Thank you for Ladyhawke, one of the few 80's movies that actually stands the test of time (minus the soundtrack, KQ, I KNOW).

There's a particular type of character and RP I really, really enjoy. It doesn't fit in Arx even remotely, so it's a really big deal for me to have a character now that not only gets to be that TYPE of character, but to engage in some of the quirks and foibles of that arc that just make me happy as a person.

Also - random scenes that could have been stilted, awkward, and basic turned into a really great introduction to two characters, with two RPers who added depth and found a lovely balance between "we just met" and "we're best friends" that resulted in me wanting to see those characters again to learn more, but not feeling like a slog between two people determined to run that gamut in one marathon session.

ALSO ALSO to people who know how to end a scene without belaboring it because they just can't let go. (Which is a love from both Arx and Gray Harbor)

BLEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I hope she was the most qualified but if she WAS the most qualified and you DO hire her I do not envy the conversation you'll have to have with whoever that idiot was.

@Arkandel I'm not sure why you're sighing?

@Arkandel I'm going to comment on this from someone who isn't IN IT but works in Finance (and lord above that field is so old-white-male it's not even funny) and buck the trend a little.

Yes, you should hire someone who can do the job. I would bet real dollars that a woman who seems to meet your criteria will be insanely more qualified than most of the men who seem to meet your criteria, because of the differences women and men tend to create resumes and apply for jobs. THAT BEING SAID, assume you hire a woman because she's the one who can do the job the best and now you're trying to smooth that transition.

First - it's not going to be smooth. Just expect that.

Second - no woman wants to be treated like a mascot. I'm glad you're not planning to do that.

Third - it is not "treating women like a mascot" to have an open, honest discussion with her when she joins your team. Mention things like - "we hired you for your skillset, but I want to make sure we're not unconsciously hampering your efficacy. So I'll be keeping an eye on meetings and groupchat to make sure that you aren't getting talked over, and that when you suggest something we don't ignore it until a man says it, and when you ask questions they get answered. But if I fail, please feel free to either say something directly in the meeting, or if you're not comfortable with that come to me later and discuss it with me."

Openly discussing the elephant in the room isn't making someone feel like a mascot. It's proving that you know what the common pitfalls are, and you're aware of them and working to make sure they're not a problem. Doing it in that way makes sure she knows that she not only has an ally if she needs one, but that you're interested in making sure that the reasons you hired her aren't going to be wasted by the stupidity of men not being accustomed to listening when a woman speaks.

My previous boss had to call meetings for me with our IT guys so that they'd show up to the meetings and not blow them off. My current boss had to sit through IT meetings with me and literally repeat everything I said until people responded to it. And I am not a shy and retiring woman. It has gotten better with time. I call my own meetings with IT now and they show up. When I speak, the ones that have been through these exercises listen and pay attention, and now get other people to stop talking long enough for me to speak. It's a process, but it starts with awareness. Whatever woman you hire will be aware of the imbalance. Acknowledging it before it becomes an issue, creating a plan to deal with it if (when) it is an issue, and then acting on it will be the key to establishing a smooth, cohesive environment.

Ribald jokes are the least of your worries. I can brush off a ridiculous joke or a smarmy attitude (that doesn't involve touching, don't fucking touch me at work). But being ignored and talked over in meetings and having to wait for a man to repeat my ideas will destroy my enjoyment of what should be a good job, and honestly it's doing a disservice to the team because you've now hired someone and then forced her to underperform because you won't let her. Don't do that thing.

Watching players make terrible, terrible choices that are going to send everything into a complete tailspin, even though they should rationally know better (and in many cases do).

If everyone is perfect all the time, the story is far less interesting, but hey - we live in interesting times.

@Thenomain I consider "my own time" to be time I am logged into a game but not answering questions directly, not actively working on responses to actions or requests, or otherwise dealing with the Running of the Game. When someone pings me "hey, do you have a second?" when it's "my own time" I say "I really don't, could you please put it in a request?"

Of course, I might still be GMing or answering actions but it's a moment where I mentally give myself the OK to not respond to everything.

@Thenomain You're not wrong, so instead I'll say this:

Everyone should have equal access to the tools used to interact with the main plot(s). Those tools should be resolved, and stories progressed, regardless of how well liked you are or aren't by staff, but rather based on your use of those tools.

If a mage, a werewolf, and a vampire walk into a plot, then their interaction with said plot should be dependent upon their actions and their abilities and their relationship to what's going on. Equal access doesn't mean the same outcomes or story, just that if I say: "The sun is shining and the sky is blue and also there was a huge explosion on Main Street," then a vampire might come and scent the blood and hear the screams of the dying. The werewolf might show up and scent who planted the bomb, and try to track them away from the scene of the crime to figure out who did it. The mage might come and magically try to reverse the damage, or see what happened.

That is, to my mind, equal access.

If I, as a GM, decide to engage with Susan The Good RPer Who I Like about her boyfriend who was trapped in the rubble, and she goes through a plot to search for him, only to find out that he wasn't even there because he was stuck in the Hedge because he's secretly a changeling and now what will happen to them?

That really doesn't have anything to do with the main plot, and it's something I want to tell on my own time. While I'm resolving the actions of the werewolf, the vampire, and the mage, I can still tell this other story as relaxation and refreshment without, I think, veering over the lines of what is ethical. The main plot isn't really affected by Susan's plot. It's relevant to HER, and it's representative of her relationship with me that I'm interested in telling this story, and she gets a good depth of character development for it too, but I don't think it's a problem either.

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

Or even worse, putting YOURSELF through that mindfuck, especially if you're inebriated or have mental health issues?

Which is exactly what happened to you on Arx, since pretty much everything you think was going on wasn't actually going on. The only differential among what staffers can and can't do is that Tehom and NV lock down some of the delete permissions really hard, to prevent staffers like me from inadvertently deleting critical things that force them to revert to backups. But that has nothing to do with view permissions. Oh. And all staffers know who other staffers play and what is an NPC and a PC. Also as a player, if you @sheet char and nothing comes up? It's an NPC. And the PCs you think were staffbits really, really weren't.

I hope that gets you to a healthier place, because the last few days have been weird with you and I'll admit I'm a bit worried. Take care of yourself, wherever you decide to play next.

@Derp

I've avoided responding to things that do not require my attention from players who have been so abusive to me that I would ban them except that their behavior has been limited directly and specifically to me. If staff as a whole have discussed player behavior, and staff as a whole does not ban someone, but I am pretty much done with their accusations and bullshit and madness? Someone else can answer their actions and handle their jobs. Could I do it? Absolutely. But why would I? That's part of why no GM is an island, right?

Regarding equal access to NPCs and such...

My reward as a staffer is getting to tell the stories I want to tell. Those stories still center around players, not my NPCs - but I will continue to tell them with the people I enjoy. It goes in cycles - I'll tell stories for this group, and then I'll tell stories for a different, non-overlapping group when that arc is done, and so on. That's what I do for relaxation. (Other than spend a lot of non-computer time in armor)

Everyone should have equal access to the main plot. That doesn't mean I can't tell stories in my off time. They're like PrPs, but as a staffer I have access enough to metaplot and secrets that it can feel like it's super super super hella important even if it doesn't affect the whole of the game. Sorrynotsorry, I'm not going to stop using my relaxation time to tell stories, and I don't always want to find a different game that will let me tell PrPs as a non-staffer.

If I give a game, say - 30 hours a week of staff time (this is an incredibly low estimate of how much time I spend staffing on Arx) and I want to spend 3 hours telling a story that's basically just lore and a PC's personal story and collaborative RP? I'm going to do it, and I'm not going to feel bad for not inviting Fred Who Makes Every Scene An Exhausting Drag to join it. I'll probably have already resolved Fred's action anyway.

@Coin I see you.

Monday. I see you MONDAY.

I'm not really sure what is happening in this thread but I want NO PART OF THIS.

I have never regretted clicking on a topic more, particularly since I thought "oh, pikachu! I will literally never play pokemon in any version but I love pikapika!"

@saosmash You don't owe anyone your story. It's perfectly okay to just sit there and lurk and know that you're not alone in struggling to be whoever you are.

@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.