Posts made by Derp

@bored said:

It's not agitation, its lack of equivocation

There's a lot of 'oh well good staffing can make anything work' in this thread, and on this forum in general, but I think that's BS. The sort of thing @Ganymede is suggesting is a) not actually different from how MU* have always worked and b) fundamentally terrible, as the history of this stuff tells us.

Its fine to make adjustments in game, as I hope I've clarified, but the 'casting' analogies are just kindly euphemisms for nepotism. If you don't promote equality at the fundamental first step, when people are joining your game, you set a precedent of favoritism and bullshit permanently.

You sound like exactly the kind of person those screening processes are designed to weed out, frankly. Everything is a personal attack, everyone is an unethical bastard, which makes me think that you've gone out for these things before, flaked the fuck out, and now you're just ranting about how unfair it is that nobody trusts the twitchy guy giving everyone dirty looks with the matches and gasoline. Discrimination! What sort of country do we live in if someone can't walk into someone else's fantasy world and expect to have all of their flaws ignored in order to be on the same level as everyone else!?!

MU's are not democratic organizations, in many cases. Therefore, you also have no right to expect to be treated the same as everyone else, or have access to what everyone else does regardless of reputation or personal history. If that's not a concept you can handle, then this hobby is not for you.

@bored said:

I think if you want to cast your MU like a play, you should consider OTT or an invite-only game instead.

Possibly good advice, given that people have a diverse array of experience in what works and what doesn't, but I think that there's an alternative (and more broadly universal) view that could be taken here, which is: if you're the one putting the time, effort, and resources into the creation of the game, you should be able to set it up any way you want to set it up. If there is not a game that appeals to you, then perhaps consider opening one of your own, rather than demanding that other people make a change to suit your tastes when they're offering a free service. While taking into account advice and prior experience is always certainly helpful to draw on for a pool of ideas, calls still have to be made in regards to theme, vision, etc, and as a hobby we seem incredibly focused on past things. We have an awful lot of baggage that we seem to cart around with us. I almost want to call it a problem, but I've seen good come from it too, so I think I'll call it an issue instead.

Ultimately,though, the folks at the top are the ones that call the shots. People can set up the games that they work to create however they want to create them. That's part of the beauty of the system. The diversity of experience and resources and tools that are out there waiting to be utilized is a bonus which should create more diversity, but ultimately we seem to get bogged down in arguments about the One True Right and Only Way a lot more than we seem to get anything productive done when it comes to trying something new.

@Ganymede said:

@Roz said:

(well, to be fair, sometimes it is)

I'll amend. It's not always because of "favoritism" or "nepotism."

I think the original point I was trying to make, all the way back in the other thread, is that there is always going to be the appearance of (insert noun of choice-ism) even when you've done your best to try and ensure quality. Nepotism and favoritism have this negative implication that unqualified people get those positions, and really, that's not always the case at all. In my case, it almost never is.

I trust the people I trust because I have long exposure to them. I've seen them in action. And yes, I think that qualifies me to make judgment calls about them in those scenarios. But even more importantly, those people are the ones who are always going to be on my radar anyway, even -after- such a decision is made. Because they've earned that amount of my attention prior, and now that my own reputation is riding on their good behavior, I have extra incentive to try and ensure that they continue to meet those standards.

I meant it as a hypothetical scenario. I don't actually make any such calls in my current position. But I at least think that this discussion is an interesting one, and one that should absolutely be had. There are too many 'vibes' in this hobby, and too many things that people see as set in stone based on whatever sort of negative vibe people have about it -- and really, appearances can be deceiving. For every well-reasoned decision, someone is going to see tyranny and favoritism. For every strategic move, someone is going to see incompetence and disconnection.

Sometimes they're well founded, and philosophically they might be sound, but even in some of those cases they're simply not practical. And practicality is important, too. Sometimes, you just have to make a call.

@Sunny said:

Fairness should not be the mark you're shooting for. 'Fun' should be the mark shot for. The people who insist on it being 'fair' are naive AND responsible for all sorts of total bullshit on games. Not everybody is capable of playing a (insert any difficult concept here) and why the fuck should we be forced to let them try?

I like how I try and make mine PC and get downvoted, but you are here to come along and say the things I wanted to say in the first place. Perhaps I should rethink this 'trying to be polite' thing. Your way seems like so much more fun.

@ThatGuyThere said:

What I would do would let everyone have free access to what was allowed. If there was something i thought was rare enough or overpowered enough to not allow into general population i would simply disallow it as a PC option.

While that's certainly an option, it also leads to lots and lots of 'same shit, different day'. Games need those rare and interesting things, sometimes. While vanilla characters using standard options are certainly a thing, and can be done well, sometimes that's not the feel you want at a specific time.

In general, though, this once again comes down to how much you trust the staff, and by extension their judgment. If you don't trust them, then this is the least of your worries. But it's also up to those staffers to scrutinize things more closely, watch for those deviations, make sure that things are playing out how they were intended to play out in the first place and not go off the rails. If things start to go there, yank it back. Staff has to be above board on lots of things in order to garner that trust.

So we can call it lots of different things. Selection processes, intuition. Personally, I prefer 'gut check'. There is no formulaic version to make it impartial. There just isn't. If there is, then it's probably not doing what it should be doing. Some human at a keyboard has to make a decision at some point. Some people will be cool with that. Others won't. But is that reason enough to refrain? Because if that's all that's needed, nothing would ever get done.

@Admiral said:

Nepotism sucks and people who give out positions/perks based on it suck.

The only kind of person who would ask a friend for special favors on a game is a shitty person.

Shitty people are friends with shitty people. Ergo, you're a shitty person if you give your shitty friend the shitty bonuses.

Perhaps. I think it really comes down to the process that determines it. Restricted concepts exist for a reason. The qualifications required to have a restricted concept often come down to a gut check. If the person making that gut check knows you enough to be able to do so, then I would say that nothing unusual lies there. That's how lots of things work. Merit goes a long way. Experience is how merit is determined.

If shitty people with shitty friends are the only people who use a meritocracy, then one could just as easily argue that fools are the only people who allow absolutely anyone to play absolutely anything and risk the whole damn thing going up in flames.

@ThatGuyThere

Oh damn. I guess I'll just have to find a way to live with myself. But I won't think about that today. I'll think about it tomorrow. At Tara.

@ThatGuyThere

While your litany of staff corruption is certainly educational, it doesn't really change the point that nobody ever needs to conform to doing something a certain way just because some people before fucked it up. As mentioned, every game has problems, and there's no set definition as to what counts as 'staff corruption' or not.

For example, say I have an RL friend come onto a game I'm running. I'm well aware that they're informed as to the sphere they're playing in, they're responsible, invested, etc. And they ask to play a restricted concept. I give it to them, because I trust them to run it. I made a judgment call based on my knowledge and experience. Some people would call that a good idea, because I know that this person will behave in a certain manner. Some will flail their arms and scream 'nepotism favoritism cheating motherfucking bastard' because I dared to give someone I know and have ample experience with something shiny. Perspective is important, but at the end of the day, the game is what the game-runner decides it is, and other people can get on board with that or not.

As far as the soup kitchen analogy, perhaps they do. But do they have an absolute right to demand that something change in order to appease them when they're getting something for free, from someone else who cares enough to provide it, when they couldn't provide it for themselves? I say no. Bitchy people exist everywhere. That doesn't mean that the world has to bow to their demands. Games are no different.

To me, I don't think that a well-defined grid is absolutely necessary. What -is- necessary is the history of a place. You can have a grid that is an absolute wonder to behold, but without a good history to back it up, it's empty. Hollow. And if you have a really good history/backstory for a city, you don't really need to have a grid to find yourself immersed in it.

Having a grid just makes it easier to have landmarks common to all, and to create a mutual back story behind things so that everyone is on the same page. The 'where' is only important insofar as supporting a diverse range of play styles and locations people want to go, which can be equally effective if there are a few places with interlinking stories.

@surreality said:

we're some gossipy bitches in this hobby. But truth is, I was privy to more things going on behind the scenes as a player since I was more involved on grid than I ever was as staff

So much this. I have a clue what's going on on the game because I have a PC on that game who is out there RPing and taking in things as they come along. If you asked me what was going on in the game with the information I have as staff alone, boy would I give you a misleading picture of events as they unfold. Most game things don't get run past staff. Conflicts between characters, overarching group plans, etc. None of that comes across my desk until it's time to award xp for things, and even then it's more like 'had a scene, killed some dudes, fulfilled some asps, resolved some conditions'. And in my experience, players aren't terribly interested in sharing a good deal of that information with staff in the first place.

It's later, when I'm sitting down with the other person having a beer and talking about our IC lives, that the deets come out.

Staff knows what the boss thinks? I mean, sure, I can give you a rough idea of what @Coin may say on certain topics, but that's just because ... well, he's pretty up front with what he thinks about things. That has nothing to do with a staffer's perspective, and everything to do with just having some experience with the guy. I could have told you the same things as a player. Hell, we don't even always agree on things (feel free to ask him, we've had long and drawn out conversations where I've essentially said you're nuts and he says * maybe but that's the way it is*, and we sure don't get special treatment. I've had conversations with him wherein me and my pack got certain things excluded just because it -might- seem like we got a favorable thing going.

And you know what? That works for me. It works for me because in the long run, @Coin trusts me to make a lot of judgment calls. And I trust that he'll run a fun game that I want to be a part of. And the players on that game (as far as I know) trust me to make those decisions too, and to level with them about why I say 'no' when I do. It's all about trust.

And really, I'm in agreement with the statement that just because you had a bad experience with a staffer eleventy-million years ago doesn't mean that all staffing paradigms have to shift to take into account everyone's past experiences. If you're that scarred by some horrible experience, perhaps this hobby is not the right one for you. And while I generally agree that politeness goes a long way, I don't agree that the customer service mindset is the one that should be fostered. You aren't customers. You aren't paying for a service. Your taking advantage of something that someone is doing for you in a non-professional capacity, and expecting it to be run like customer care gives a false sense that people are entitled to certain things that they simply aren't. 'No' is a word that has to be used. Not 'I'm terribly sorry about your inconvenience, here is the thing that you requested and a bonus on top of it because of your trouble'. The guy at the soup kitchen doesn't get to make a fuss because the volunteer serving him soup didn't smile enough or splashed a little on the side or looked at him in a rude manner. Neither does the average MU player.

It's just the way it is. Nobody here is paying staff (staff are, in fact, paying to make it a thing in most cases) and nobody that I know of is currently charging players to be there. So a lot of this, to me, sounds like a silly argument regardless of past experiences of other people. If you wanna run a game differently, more power to you, but acting like it has to be a certain way or everyone else is just an asshole seems a bit wanting, you know?

@mietze

Perhaps not, but overly stringent COI things are part of that slowdown, and burn-out and such were being discussed there as well.

But if you want to address some other points of it, things like this disincentivize people to participate in anything above a player level. There is always some amount of that with a staffing position, but as others have said, most of the interaction between other players and yourself had something to do with domain stuff -- and if you were locked out of that, then there was basically no reason for you to play other than to just chat with friends.

Staff incentives have been debated back and forth to death, with good points on either side of the line. Philosophically, there's a reason to take both approaches. But in more practical ways, it behooves everyone to try and keep staff active and happy and invested in the game, an investment they cannot make if they can't partake of something on the same level as the players. That's where your burnout comes from. That's where you have trouble finding replacement staff. That's where a lot of the problems that have been discussed come from.

Which again, circles back to my original point -- you have to trust your staff. You have to trust them to have a good time and still behave responsibly. You have to trust that they're in it to make sure that other people are having fun. You have to trust that the minute you turn your back they're going to continue doing exactly what they were doing when you were there, and sure, occasionally run a quick little audit of, I dunno, job logs or something to see what's going on where just to assure yourself that it's all on the up and up. But policies like this are self-defeating.

So while philosophically, yes, there could be a reason to do this, you're going to find it difficult to find someone so committed to this principle that they're willing to sacrifice their own fun and do a shitload of what's being described as government bureacracy style work in order to keep their moral compass pointed in a specific direction. And lo, problems arise. So the practical approach is really the only one that's feasible in the long term.

This is one of those rare times when I'm in agreement with @Surreality. Implementing a policy like that not only sends a bad message, it slows down what could otherwise be a considerably faster process, especially if you have a small staff where each staffer focuses on specific areas in which they are more knowledgeable.

Not processing my own jobs, sure, I can get behind that. (I don't think this is entirely necessary in the case of xp spends, really, as current setups have beaucoup documentation of what goes where and when and how, and this can even be handled by automation in lots of cases), but those of my close associates? Yeah, I'm gonna do those. Why? Because having to flag someone else down and explain to them exactly what they're looking at and how it came to pass and what the various rules surrounding it are is a huge pain in the ass, a considerable drain on both me and the person I have to flag down to do it, and is generally more work than it's worth. I'm trusted to use my judgment. I've told people 'no'. Even close friends. I've processed jobs for people I don't personally like as fairly and consistently as I would for other people, and when I thought my judgment was questionable, then I would absolutely go to another person and give them a rundown to get their ideas on it.

That's part of the job. As much as people think that it would be great to run things with an amount of oversight that would make 1984 look all freewheeling and loose, it's simply not feasible. You have to trust the staff. If you don't trust the staff, don't hire those people. If you can't find a handful of people that you would trust to help you run a game, then perhaps running a game is not for you.

@TNP said:

@JustNobody It's time to unfriend RFK and change your relationship status. Delete the contact info from your phone and erase that last recorded message. No one wants to hear how you've been spoiled forever for all other games. It's time to move on.

@TNP said:

@JustNobody It's time to unfriend RFK and change your relationship status. Delete the contact info from your phone and erase that last recorded message. No one wants to hear how you've been spoiled forever for all other games. It's time to move on.

I mean, that's really how I think every time I hear stuff about RfK. I'm sure it was great, and people loved it, but like... it's over now. And while it was probably fun while it lasted, the fact that it didn't last kind of shows that the method involved is unsustainable, right? So, I mean, I figure there are three options:

1. Someone make a copy of it. No, really. All the things that you loved, take that to another game. Do your thing. If someone feels up to the challenge of maintaining that pace, then by all means. Just, you know, be prepared to transition through two or three (dozen?) of these things before someone finds a pace that's sustainable.

2. Find out what was cool about it, and try to incorporate some of that feel into other things. The pace RfK used was unsustainable, but that doesn't mean that there can't be a happy middle ground in there somewhere. FIgure out what you want to see, and then be that change. Work from the inside to build it up. Try and bring about a culture shift.

3. Accept that gone are the glory days, and nothing will ever be the same again. Color will be pale, food will be bland, passion will be dulled. Because this is, IMO, a lot of what I hear. It's understandable of course, but also irritating for the other people who are doing their best to keep games going, you know?

My two cents.

@AmishRakeFight said:

I'd like to see more games set in the American Southeast that doesn't rhyme with Pew Moreens.

Utah, for some reason, suggests potential but I think its mostly because that's a state that was founded on utter batshittery as a religion. It makes it easy for almost any wackadoo premise for why this town is soooo evil, guys! as a setting.

Yeah, but by that standard, so does Rome. A trojan prince gets exiled from his home and follows the guidance of his benevolent mother-goddess to a spot where he sires twins that are raised and nursed by a wolf that eventually go on to found the city of Rome, which later becomes the capital city of a jewish mystery cult that spans the world...

@Bobotron

I would legit play the hell out of a WoD game set in ancient rome. Maybe around the time of the rise of the emperors, all of that political awesomeness. I think that particular punic war was set just before then, so I'd be down for that too.

For World of Darkness, especially in a MUX, it has to be a city with a population capable of supporting the player population. A global city, a large metropolis of some kind. The Reach in its small-town feel was largely unplayable for that reason. Everyone and their neighbor was a supernatural of some type. Normal mortals seemed to be outnumbered.

Boston could be fun, if it weren't already taken. London could also be fun, if -it- weren't already covered in one of the vampire books, though it has a bit more flexibility at least. Los Angeles is a good city to use for just about anything, as it has universal appeal for both mortals and supernaturals.

Though I do agree with @Pyrephox. Whatever city you make, remember that it has to exist in the setting that you're playing for. If it's a WoD city, then it has to be the WoD version of that city. It has to be... well, dark. Dangerous, slightly sinister and mysterious. It has to have that danger, that draw, that thing that says "come explore my secrets, and hope to get out of it alive".

Werewolf will be re-opening to apps sometime tomorrow, currently taking 5. If you're looking to play a werewolf, be sure to have an app ready, as they're first come, first served.

@TMG

I never had an OOC problem with you. You were cool as hell. The few IC problems with you were actually things that I greatly appreciated. We were playing Arrows, an incredibly philosophical Order with a great many ways to approach the same problem. When ideas conflicted.... well, that's pretty much what that philosophy was designed to do.

It always lead to a ton of interesting RP for me, both with you and with other people. My Mage had students that he'd teach a certain way, which in turn was borderline in conflict with the ideas that the Adamant Sage was putting out. I think, over time, folks have come to expect there to be a lot of kumbaya going on (which there never is, and frankly probably shouldn't be), and as much as we complain about cliques, people seem to forget that not only are they natural, most players on a game are a part of one, somewhere along the lines, because there is never a majority opinion so large that it's clearly the one, true, right, and only way.

Anyway, sure, maybe you had some faults, but you were also fairly good at keeping things organized and providing RP ideas, even if you weren't aware that's what you were doing (and kudos if you were aware that's what you were doing).

Also, Nano. Also, finals. Also...