Posts made by Derp

@DamnitJim said:

Also possible: The God Machine is the DemiUrge.

From wikipeida:

"In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge (/ˈdɛmiˌɜrdʒ/) is an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics. Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily the same as the creator figure in the familiar monotheistic sense, because both the demiurge itself plus the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are considered either uncreated and eternal, or the product of some other being, depending on the system."

The God-Machine is God's Machine. His robotic smarthome management system. Except it's run amok.

I like this. A lot.

@GentlemanJack said:

@Sponge said

I don't feel like taking away characters or IC things is productive. I feel it's more like sending a child to their room where all their video games and comic books are.

Pragmatically speaking, yes, that's true, but honestly, this one time this ... heifer, changed the house rules on me in order to lord over the sphere as the Best Most Super Powerfulest Snowflake, I really did enjoy nerfing the character and taking away their things to be compliant with the way the house rules should be. She was the reason why the sphere she staffed only had, ohhh, her, in it. Now, it's on me for letting it happen, but goddamn was enlightenment cathartic.

@JaySherman thank you vrey much, I'm glad that you found it helpful and thank you for your time in reading t, since I know I am long winded. This is my training doc if you want to read/comment it.

This doc is awesome. I wish all games used those sorts of guidelines.

@Coin said:

@Sponge said:

Had an idea, I'm not going to execute on it.

Vampire game set in 1920. It runs for a year then goes to soft RP for two weeks to retool.

After the retooling, the year is 1930. The game runs for a year, then goes to soft RP for two weeks to retool...

I've had this idea before, but the transition was a lot longer. You pick an Ancient time. Maybe Rome. Play for a year. Then you transition over to the Middle Ages. Then to the time of the Inquisition. Renaissance. Victorian Era/Wild West. 1920s. 1960s. Today... the FUTURE.

I kind of like this idea. I would play on something like that. But start in Egypt.

@icanbeyourmuse said:

@Misadventure That kind of falls into the zone of unwillingness to disagree with the staff because it could mean bad things for the person helping the review.Besides, there's the risk of 'Oooh.. there HAS to be SOME truth to X event done by PlayerA. I shouldn't trust them or get involved with them.' whether or not the person being reviewed has done anything or not,

This could be true, sure, if the staffer were to give an opinion on it. But it's pretty commonly known who hangs with who on a MU. Presenting it without names or identifying details to a person outside of their particular playgroup and saying 'What is your opinion on this' to get input on something before making a decision might not be a bad idea. If there's no staff position to agree or disagree with, then that's less of a risk.

Edit to Add: I'm still not sure this is a good idea, mind you, but there are practical ways to mplement such a thing if someone wanted to do it.

@Silver said:

Doxxing is exposing the real life identifying information of people in order to intimidate or harass them, such as has been done to some of the victims of the GamerGate fools. Nobody should ever do that, but it's not the same as saying X person has been kicked off the game for harassing other players.

Ah. My bad. I had never come across this term. I thought it was the same as the bboard posts above. Good to know! And yes, that's shitty.

@Sponge said:

Doxxing people is a double-edge sword. Sure, you might be justified in publishing proof of particularly egregious offenses. Doing so might help serve as a warning to potential future offenders and to other game operators. However, as it has been mentioned above, sometimes uninvolved players will wonder if they're at risk for being shamed publicly. Doxxing people invokes fear and it's really hard to point that fear precisely.

So then what's wrong with being up front about this too? Again, you can have levels of disciplinary measures. Just getting talked to about something doesn't have to go up on a board, but a repeat violation getting something like a 72hr ban should go up to that effect.

What's more, though, why can you not simply make this known from the getgo? Make that a part of the accepted terms, or put it in the player discipline documentation that all can see? If nothing else, people knowing ahead of time that this is a thing, and can easily access that policy, means that you weren't just some jerkface who outed their secret while still giving you the ability to be aboveboard and transparent about game events.

I don't see this as losing, and I don't think that players will think that they're living in some spy culture. If you sign up for the game, know that ahead of time, and then earn it? You have nothing to bitch about.

@Misadventure said:

Important thing about theory of mind stuff: others don't have to think like you, so listen to what they have to say about their state. Be aware that where they arrive will not be where you do given a specific set of inputs.

In short, just because it baffles you doesn't mean don't pay attention. Rather it means that everyone needs to get the idea that no one can easily predict how everyone will react to anything.

Oh, I always take other things into consideration like that. I can totally be ok with people not arriving at the same place. The only thing that I don't really excuse is incivility. It doesn't really matter if we end up in different places, civility is pretty much a must-have, and talking like reasonable, rational adults is something that I expect of everyone, regardless of the situation. (And yes, I am perfectly ok with disagreements, even somewhat impassioned ones, but devolving into rudeness or ad hominem attacks, etc, are a bit beyond the pale as far as my tolerance tends to go.)

@Coin said:

@Derp said:

@Coin said:

@Derp Host it.

I lack any knowledge of how to do this thing.

Learn.

Alternatively, furiously TS someone who knows how.

I can get behind either of those options.

@HelloRaptor said:

@Thenomain

I do prefer that it not be responsible for the modern monotheistic religions that feature angels and demons, but for reasons that my Atheist ass cannot immediately explain, probably having to do with free will.

For me it smacks of the same irritating bullshit that came about with Changeling in owod: Yes, there's already a fae realm, there's already fae, there's already rules for interacting with it. But we're going to ignore the shit that already exists because FAERIES.

Whatever people think about it, there's already info, playable characters, etc tied to demons in Possessed. Angels and Demons already had an (admittedly shitty) entry in books for the system.

"Play our new game, featuring fallen ANGELS as DEMONS! Except not the demons we've already covered. And not really angels or demons at all, except that we'll call them that and they totally act like it and look like it but it's not that other set of demonic things, it's totes different."

They could have called it pretty much anything else at all and saved me about fifty pounds of derision any time it gets brought up.

I can kind of see this, but then again, they're really just another kind of spirit. Spirit is a word that gets tossed around at random, and when they come from different realms and have slightly different traits, you need a way to distinguish them. Abyssal Demons are not Lower Depths Demons are not Astral Demons are not Pandaemonium Demons are not God-Machine Demons. They have some traits that they share, mythology-wise, which is enough to create a loose category of thing. All are called demons. All are technically spirits. All have different game rules. This isn't something new. This is, if anything, just limited human understanding trying to explain something that it can't possibly classify using the traits that they can perceive. I don't see this as a new conflict.

Mecha-Cthulhu?!

@7Wonders said:

And you make it clear that final thoughts are final and that re-hashing isn't in the offing.

Would you allow for possible reconsideration in light of the discovery of incorrect/incomplete information surfacing afterward?

See, I think that the standard model of metaplot kind of works in the wrong direction.

Metaplot - If we're talking about some sort of themely undercurrent to the city that causes the city to have a specific mood and flavor, this is great, but people usually call that theme. If you're talking about a grid-wide plot that everyone and their uncle's goat can get in on, this is where you start to run into problems with management and credulity. Often, there are so many people involved here that trying to get everyone feeling like they're part of the Endgame either makes it laughably dangerous to the point nobody wants to risk it, or makes it mind-numbingly complex for the people running it. But plot seems to be built from this top-down structure, and I don't think that should work like that. Have that mystical undercurrent, or whatever, sure, but don't make it -approachable-. Make it the framework of everything in the game, and use the smaller plots that come from that efficiently.

Character plots should be the focus of anyone's RP. Things that characters/groups of dedicated RP circles (Pack, Coterie, Ring, etc) can get in on. Have these plots mostly run by the players themselves. The responsibility of an ST would be to find and oversee a group of reasonably connected Groups and help them tie their stories together in interesting ways from time to time, and run bigger things that these groups could get involved with from time to time. Don't make it grid-wide, make it 2 or 3 different Groups, each with an ST responsible for them. Or make ST's responsible for certain game areas.

In turn, the St would report to whoever is controlling the overarching mood of the game, and that mood could change appropriately over time. Mystical flows get disrupted and cause weird changes, which could spark all new stories. You don't want to do this too often, because you want players to feel like they can build stability, but you also want to give them something fresh to sink their teeth into.

I feel that building it up from the bottom and just having that interact in ways with the overall atmosphere of the game would A) help with the burnout that people feel when they feel that the fun of an entire sphere/game is their burden and theirs alone, and b) make plots far more reasonable, and give people reasons to interact without having to artificially stretch the stories to include every single person in the funsies. If there are Groupless PCs, maybe assign a couple of them per ST too, especially ones that seem like they could work well with/within other groups.

That would also be the danger of not being a member of a Group. This encourages players to work together as well, instead of soloing it for all eternity.

So... largely, I feel that the current -framework- around which we define plots could be changed, and I do agree with @thenomain. Those times when you and a friend are out doing things, making rolls, and forming a mutual story is just as much creation of a story as what is normally called plot, and should be rewarded for creativity just the same.

TL;DR - +1 @thenomain -- why are we stuck with this model/

@Wizz said:

@Thenomain said:

@HelloRaptor said:

@Thenomain

Except that it's literally a machine.

In reading her comment back over I'd guess she means that if she had her way she'd strip the 'it is literally a machine' from it? Maybe.

You've got to stop flipping between super-literal and being forgiving of context. But yes, I agree. I was offering a gentle tweaking that she is basically re-writing the idea.

I'm coming back with page references and all that later (...probably), but I'm actually like 87% certain @Ganymede is right. I remember reading through a chapter in Demon that explained the God Machine isn't like a literal physical machine somewhere in the bowels of the earth or deep space or whatever, but basically the sum of all of the output from all the occult matrices running across the face of the planet.

Like 87% certain.

It's somewhat contradictory. It does make reference to the fact that the God Machine is really a machine that is embeddd into all of reality, complete with gears and the whole nine yards and so big it can enfold space into itself. I don't think it really ever gives a complete definition that isn't contradictory, but they often do that on purpose to give the St something to use as mystery fodder.

@Thenomain said:

@JaySherman said:

@Thenomain: I've tried to involve my players in game creation from the start, but most of the time they just kind of pull a Patrick and Spongebob, "Daaaah, whadda you wanna do? I dunno, whadda YOU wanna do?" routine.

That's fine. Mark these people as 'here for the new hotness'.

The important thing is that you were establishing a line of communication and giving ideas as to direction, and taking them in return, rather than letting the crickets chirp while OMG WAITING happens. It goes a long way toward people feeling included and a part of something.

And Part 3 - The weird diversity of what's considered acceptable content on things like wikis.

I mean, I get it, in part. People want fairly clean standards to make it all pretty. But some people have no guidelines on it at all past 'no kiddie porn or bestiality' which makes figuring out what is and is not kosher mostly a matter of riding the waves of opinion.

Some allow files to be marked as NSFW or put into galleries/pages clearly marked NSFW. I like this option the best. I wish everyone used it.

Some even have rather conservative requirements, almost to the point where they coul dbe hindersome to specific concepts, such as 'exposed buttocks cannot be shown'. I mean, I sort of get it, but that's a pretty widely accepted form of nudity now. You can even see i on the WB. So it seems strange to disallow it outright, rather than make clear guidelines for inclusion/display.

In-game files are often much less help, as it seems devs are super duper not wanting to touch that kind of a news file generally with anything really helpful or middle ground.

So... that's my opening thoughts. Anyone got anything related to those??

Part 2 of this -- how players tend to react to these things. That continues to baffle me. I can understand the take it or leave it sorts. That is a completely understandable thing. If it does not appeal to you, it does not appeal to you. Even reacting badly IC to IC actions is fine. It's some of the OOC that I dont'get.

Player A (male) ICly flirst with Player B (also male).

Player B gets nervous and dodgy IC, giving signs that this is not for him.

Perhaps player B even is cool enough to go 'OOC - No judgments here, man, but that's really not my bag! I can't get interested in it, it has no appeal for me, I'm bad at it, I have a bad history with it. Nothing against you, but it's just not a thing that can happen. We cool?"

Player A OOC - Oh, yeah man! I apologize for that. I didn't mean to squick you. How about we just assume that my player can figure out without weird empathy rolls that this isn't gonna fly and switches gears/

Player B OOC - Excellent, bro! I can live with that OR Demons are really good liars, so it wouldn't show, but we could maybe have this other thing happen to the same effect?

Player A - Dude, that rocks. So easy!

Courtesy, respect, communication. It goes a long way!

Now, I personally am OK with RPing out alternate things, and figuring out the -why- of it later. Magic does exist. It can affect a character in life-altering ways. Maybe Player B was never attracted to men before, but he feels strangely compelled. So it happens, and he wakes up, and he never feels that way about anyone again, even for that one person. But there was one awesome/strange/magical/nightmarish time... how? Why? Why not?

It's a roleplaying game. Exploration of different character concepts is, for me, what makes it fun. For some people, that's not where their fun lies. No shame on either sides, but there could be more civility in the matter.

So to take this back to the actual topic of the thread, sexual themes in RP, I admit to not really understanding how and why some things are allowed, some things are banned, some things are stigmatized more than others, etc. Just to get it out of the way first, so that I can go into other points and hopefully people won't focus on this one specific aspect -- re: rape RP? Eh. I can take it or leave it. It's not personally my bag, but I can see ways in which it can be used to further someone's storyline in a way that they find enjoyable, especially in regards to being pressed into a situation worthy of 'adapt or suffer'. It could make an excellent Awakening to Pandaemonium, if that's what the player wanted, or a fantastic trauma for the First Change to occur. If this is what you wanna get out of RP, then this is what you wanna get out of RP. If you have someone willing to help you with that story, more power to you. But it should probably be at least moderately consent-based if it's just a random physical act with no character development options agreed upon by the character. And that is the extent of my opinion on that particular line of thinking. Ergo, moving on to the things I find more interesting!

NOW, for the more interesting stuff, which I will likely break up into a couple of different posts for reasons of length:

There are plenty of other things that sexual content can be used for in RP, and not all of them are just writing porn on screen. Now, before we go further, let's assume the standard MU line that:

All players agree that they are eighteen years of age or older and understand that Mature themes and content are going to follow from this game:

With that out of the way, let's talk about some of the ways that sexuality could be used in a game.

As a character development tool - Believe it or not, this can be done. This can be done to fantastic effect. I've taught entire arcane philosophies (the philosophy of the Adamantine Arrow lends itself particularly well to this) through the use of sex, tension, and the exchanges of energy, with or without the accompanying magic and drugs. It's completely do-able. Hell, it's more enjoyable, more personal, and more spiritual in that sort of setting, IMO, because it stresses the fact that there are facets to the occult that stray outside of the readily obvious, connections that can be made between Thing A and Thing B in ways that can inspire both pleasure and pain, passion and fear. So, to respond to @Thenomain's thing earlier, you absolutely can do this and still be mindful of the Abyss. You can even use it as a way to teach about the Abyss. And you can do it in ways that don't even remotely border on the Abyss. It all depends on what you want to inspire.

As a means to an end - Sex can be used, in story, in a wide variety of settings. Perhaps your character is not above using sex to blackmail another person with the videotape that you made of it. Perhaps your character likes you pull the honey trap maneuvers and use it to leverage your own goals into place. Perhaps your character really needs some sort of escape, or you have some sort of hedonistic vice that lets you benefit from this while exploring your character's psyche.

Whatever the case, you can surely benefit from this type of RP, and given how geared the WoD has been toward sexual themes, even strange and deviant sexual themes like the girl that basically dry humps her brother while feeding off of him (true story. Vampire 2.0, I'm looking at you), so incorporating any of these into your own RP should not be stigmatized. It's just as valid a part of the game as any other, and seems to even be actively encouraged because of the mood that they can evoke. At the end of the day we're all adults. We are at least old enough to be able to find Pornhub. The fact that someone gets a blowjob on screen, or poses a supernaturally sensual encounter, is not beyond the realm of reason.

@Coin said:

@Derp Host it.

I lack any knowledge of how to do this thing.

@Misadventure said:

Miestz, how will anyone learn without real world examples?

This is how our legal system works, you can see how it was applied to others. I have no interest in shaming anyone. I want people who behave well enough to stay and play, and people who don't to not be playing.

Also, it gives you (and your staff) a certain level of accountability in order to ensure consistent rules are being followed, and that applications of those rules are universal and not subject to favoritism. This gives you a visible feedback with your players letting them know that the rules are the rules, and there are no exceptions to the rules, not even for Staff-Friends. If your players don't trust you to be fair and consistent, then your game will suffer, so while people might feel like they're getting 'bitched at', in the long run the benefits of this course of action far, far outweigh the costs. It shows that there was an issue, you acted on that issue in a fair and consistent manner, and allows you, your staff, and your players to be in on the resolution of that action by witnessing that it was enforced.

Man it would be cool if there were a small MUSh somewhere that basically only existed for the purpose of spanish-learners at differing levels being able to communicate with each other in a controlled environment and get constructive feedback about both formal and conversational spanish. usage and skills.