Not sure whether to put it here, or in RL sads.

My dog is getting older. His breed is expected to live 12-14 years, and in April he'll be 11. He's starting to show signs of it, too.

Once upon a time, I'd open the door and he'd run out with me, all full of energy. He still goes with me, but he's slower, and you can tell that his joints are starting to bother him. He's not as mobile as he used to be. Jumping is almost ou tof the question at this point, but he climbs ok. Except when he doesn't.

Recently, he's started showing symptoms of dry eye. His right eye looks terrible. I made a vet appointment, but I know that they're going to put him on drops for the rest of his life.

I have mixed emotions. He's been a part of my life for so long that I can't imagine life without him. But at the same time, I know that he'll be gone sooner than I'd like.

Yet I know that he was loved. He knows that he was loved. He has lived the fullest, happiest life I could give him. Which, honestly? Sometimes I could have been better. If it came down to taking care of me or taking care of him, he won out, every time, and yet there were still times that I just felt so guilty because I couldn't afford something he needed.

Anyway, he's still relatively healthy and happy, and I am gonna make the most of that. But it just sucks so much, seeing him get older and start to struggle and look at me with that face that says he expects me to fix it, or help, the same as when he was a puppy -- and knowing that old age is about the one thing that I can't fix for him.

I started staffing kind of on accident. I mentioned that I liked doing build stuff to a member of the (then current) staff. She, in turn, grabbed me and dragged me into a page convo with @Coin that basically said "Can I keep him?" So, I started as a build staffer, and fixed the little building mistakes here and there. After that, I branched out into Werewolf because that sphere was too much for anyone person to handle I even managed to code the barebones outline of a game system that someone else improved greatly upon. And the rest is history.

Power was never a part of the bargain. Except, I guess, me bitching at @Coin and @Thenomain that trying to build as a non-wizard in MUX is fucking tedious, and begging for power there.

Forgot to tag @reimesu in here because it's her find but I was le tired.

skims. makes a face

Yeah, I don't agree with some of that in the context of a MU. Especially the parts where it essentially seems to imply that I have some manner of duty to ensure the mental health and well-being of someone else.

No, I don't. And I know for a fact that I am not the only person in this hobby that has expressed that opinion before. "I am not here to be your therapist" was a rallying cry not even a year ago, and now we're presented with material that says we're essentially responsible for making sure that others can handle stories?

Nope. I am not opening that door. I mentioned in another thread that if players don't like the content of something, they have the option of removing themselves from it. The game should give clear enough guidelines on what's about to come down the pipe, and players can decide for themselves whether that's something that they're cool with.

I am absolutely not going to chase down players and make sure that they're ok after the fact when they have given their agreement to continue in the story by continuing in the story and not saying anything to the contrary, because that opens a ton of doors that lead to uncomfortable places and dependencies and strange, weird relationships that we've been decrying for a decade or more.

You are responsible for you. Period. I'm responsible for making sure you know what's there. How you handle that is not on me.

@devrex said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:

I've played 'em, but I sat long and hard and thought about everything else a villain could do besides kill an opponent, stay mostly in those areas, and really just try to make my mindset that when I make a villain it's just like STing: the character is there for the enjoyment of others.

It's never the villains that you have to worry about.

It's usually the heroes coming in and getting a whiff of anything opposed to their thing with an antagonist tag and swooping in like some kind of demented paladin determined to crush it into a fine red paste.

The villains usually play a longer game. The protagonist factions give no fucks. They just go in and decimate and then pat themselves on the back for staying the 'good guys' after their inevitable baseless murders.

@carma said in Weird or unrealistic gaming... stuff:

Brigid: "I think that's everyone safe and accounted for. Thank heavens nobody was killed in that meteor storm."
Abelard: "I haven't seen your husband. Is he alright?"
Brigid: "Oh, I completely forgot about him. I'm sure he's fine."

We haven't seen your wife in four months, sir, and you've yet to file a missing person's report.

• She's not missing. She's in like -- France. or something. Maybe.

So you have no idea?

• How is this my problem?

Sir, we're gonna need to continue this conversation down at the station...

Not entirely sure where to put this. Not a peeve, but not ... anyway, so this happened to me today.

Me: peruses inbox at work (for a government agency)
INBOX: Top email subject line: INVITATION TO SHANG
Me: chokes on coffee, looks horrified, like WHAT THE ENTIRE FUCK. Tentatively click on e-mail.
EMAIL: INVITATION TO SHANGHAI BALLET
Me: OhthankyouJesus.

@faraday said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

I think that instead of expecting people to compromise on a game that we're doing for our own enjoyment, we just need more recognition that people play these games differently and that's okay.

@faraday said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

I think it's best if folks do try to meet in the middle a little.

I think that both of these points are valid. But I would also like to add a third:

Staff needs to get better at saying 'this is what our vision of the game is, and the kinds of things that we are expecting. If this is not what you want, then this isn't the game for you.

Lots of the fights that come up on games is because there is no clear vision for what the feel of the game should be. Take WoD for example. You have a werewolf. But what feel for werewolf? Some people are gonna try to play Garth from Supernatural, campy and awkward and human and relatable, and another is gonna try to play The Howling. Those two playstyles are not compatible, and are going to create dissonance in your game. So you need to clarify which one you want to see.

Same goes with how horrific said horror game should be. Some people are gonna play Supernatural. Some people are gonna play Nightmare on Elm Street. And when those two playstyles meet, you get the bitching about agency and triggers and such, because nobody ever laid those lines down and said something like "this is a game where you can expect to be victimized regularly by supernatural forces, so this may not be your kind of game."

We really need to get better at figuring that kind of stuff out, because that's where a lot of the divides tend to come from. Games trying to cater to as many people as possible while not giving a clear indication of what players can expect to find (or not) and what staff are expecting to see. Thus, you get your various tribes that each talk shit about the other and never RP, because they both think they're absolutely in the right.

This one is relatively easy:

RP is hard to find sometimes. Everywhere. People can have a lot of biases.

But in my experience very few of them revolve around gender identity and orientation.

You are more likely to miss out on opportunities for bad spelling or poor grammar or times not matching or people being wary of strangers pr people losing interest in a particular game than for a non-cishet character.

So if it gets to that point, and you find yourself lacking? It's almost assuredly not because the char is trans. That is very, very low on the list of common issues.

@Ghost

Dude. No.

Stop.

@reimesu

Pretty sure that was just a weird badly programmed AI. I deleted the posts because there was nothing substantive there.

I think that AI can serve useful functions, if used as a tool and not a crutch. AI can really help you solidify grammar and specific writing practices, help you learn to engage in a conversation (especially for pick-your-second-language chatbots or whatever), and just help you get more comfortable with putting words on a screen. It won't ever really entirely replace the creativity of a storyteller, but it can help a storyteller improve their craft.

@Macha

Glad you found something that fits!

I think I've told this one before, but I tried at least three names in my original attempt, and all of them were registered as taken. So out of frustration I just typed Derp into the box and, lo and behold, that one took.

No idea who that is, feels like a bot, but I don't have the time or the patience for it so banned.

Sorry.

@Hella

You say this and then you end up with Dirty My Little Pony. Careful what you wish for.

@Ghost

It's probably fine. @Reimesu and I certainly find it suspicious that the specific questions being asked seem like they would come from the playbook of Andrew Tate, but the underlying point of 'are the rules enforced equally' is at least a fair question. Which is why I answered in the specific way I did, despite Tapewyrm's objections to the form of the answer.

If this is part of a legitimate inquiry? Great! The questions have now been asked and answered.

If it's some kind of setup for something silly, then I think that we've shown as admins that our tolerance for such games is incredibly low.

We'll see! I'm optimistic but cautious.

@Tapewyrm said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

@Derp said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

@reimesu

Exactamundo. That's why I'm essentially asking you if you are sexist against men, as part of my assessment of this environment. I don't want to be among people who think it's okay to denigrate masculinity but won't accept any criticism of female behavior in turn. I don't want to have to listen to people whining about mansplaining, toxic masculinity, or male privilege all the time, especially as means to win an argument, as is the case I find in many online spaces. If that's not you guys, then all you had to do was say so when I specifically asked if you clamp down on gendered insults towards men.

In short, we don’t allow serious insults to anyone, for any reason, in any context, anywhere. It’s a blanket statement of policy that applies to everyone equally. Hopefully that is clear.