Posts made by Devrex

@krmbm Well I didn't say don't tell people that, I said don't malign folks over it. And yes. To reiterate. My argument, and @derp 's has exactly been: we are only qualified to patrol the game and no other outside venue, we require evidence that someone has actually wronged someone before we bounce them for wronging someone. That's exactly right. That is exactly what I'm saying. Most of the time people leave themselves enough rope to hang themselves with. Or to boot themselves with, as the case may be.

You think it's harmful. I, @derp, @reimesu, have told you of examples where great harm has been caused by being too reactive, too.

So far this philosophy of mine has been equated to being cold and unsympathetic about it and showing no empathy, to never having been abused or stalked (making vast assumptions about what people have been through or not), to just letting abusers run amok like crazy, whatever else. @roz has just told me that people's personal opinions of Derp are coloring the argument, which...really says that a lot of this isn't about the substance of the argument at all, then.

This idea that one can care about creating an evidence-based, process-based space but must automatically swing the pendulum clear over to not caring or not acting or not being empathetic or just letting abusers be abusive then is a false equivalency.

What if the person I threw off my game on someone else's word was you? And it was "I know you can't see anything in this stack of logs" or "I know I haven't provided you with anything to look at at all, but @krmbm is awful and hurtful, please believe me!" What if that person just clashed with you a little bit, and you're not really in emotional or physical danger at all? Would you really feel happy if I just said "You're gone, you said stuff about this other player I like better than you, I'm concerned about their emotional health here so you're gone and I'm also going to label you an abuser when the inevitable questions arise about why you were banned?" You'd really feel that was fair and just and right and how you wanted to be treated?

@krmbm @meg Look, creating a hostile environment, on channels, no less, is behavior that can (and would) be seen and responded to. It probably wouldn't take too long to pick up on it. People being aggressive or passive-aggressively rude for any reason is enough to get me telling them to cut it out even without DNCs or a history of stalking, and if they keep doing it well now they're violating the "You kept on when someone asked you to stop" policy, and out they go.

I really don't understand why we're turning this whole thing of "setting down rules" and abiding by them into "you terrible abuse enablers."

If we wanted to read some of y'all's arguements in the worst possible light, we could say oh ok, so if I come on your game and am only there a month, minding my own business, and someone thinks I happen to be someone who wronged them ten years ago (I'm not, in fact, or I didn't) or because I don't click with you well enough to become your friend then as soon as someone who has played there three months and who you like okay lobbies the accusation I'm going to find myself with my reputation smeared. No stopping even to get my side of the story, or even to verify if I'm the fellow in question.

But I don't read it that way, because I'm not trying to read you in the worst possible light. I hear you saying you really care about protecting your friends (and others) from abusive behavior and cool, we can agree on that, I really care about that too. I disagree on how to get there and why it's important to go about getting there in a certain way, but I'm not interested in maligning you over that disagreement.

It would be kind if you would stop maligning those of us who follow the other philosophy in your turn.

@saosmash That is not what @derp has been saying at all. He said "use the in-game tools which are almost impossible to forge," and "we will patrol this place by this standard" and no more. Not leaping all over someone just because someone said so is not championing the abuser.

@krmbm I don't know what you're getting 12 from, if you're looking specifically at my game I have about 20 right now, and the answer is, "Some I'm happy to get to know and some I prefer to keep at arm's length while serving them equally according to my rules."

It's not a business. My vibe, my approach to running a game, is more...block party. Welcome to my living room. There's the cheetos. There's the Mountain Dew. There's the pizza. Let's play some roleplaying games. And if you act up and I see it I'mma run you outta here with the figurative skinny part of a fishin' rod.

But I'm not necessarily going to extend the same level of trust to every guest at the block party. And even the ones I'd trust with my life? I'd ask for evidence. They also know this about me and respect it. They respect this hard boundary.

Once upon a time I was a very knee-jerk staffer. I pretty much responded, out of emotion, to the first person to come and spin me a story or a line. I'd empathize, I'd think that was so terrible, I'd get manipulated, and my decisions weren't fair or right. And people knew they could play me like a fiddle if they just sounded as though they were in enough pain.

I now have a better MUSH tool (Ares) and a more objective standard and a couple decades of experience behind me and have trained myself to handle things in a different way, and I think the result is I am more fair to all players. All the guests in my living room. And hopefully they are happily eating cheeseballs and pretending to wave swords around or whatever.

I'm a storyteller, that's my passion, that's what I'm good at, that's what I do this for. And I know my limits.

@krmbm And I don't know most of 'em from Adam. See @reimesu 's example for what I'm worried about when I say:

Show me evidence, of a thing that happened, in a place that I control, and I will move hell and high water to keep you safe in that place. Because it's there. It's in black and white. There's the violation, there's the trust they broke, there it is.

But there is that other kind of predator out there, the one that whips people up with lies and ruins reputations because they enjoy using that tool to hurt people.

And the knee-jerk reaction of "Oh my god! You said they harmed you? I will nuke them immediately!" Caters to that sort.

@mietze I want to be clear that I will never shame anyone for giving out their info off game. I've given out my info off game, I've been harmed for it (and I've joyfully made new friends from it). I will however gently remind people that I can protect them to the best of my ability while they are in my virtual "house", but once they are in someone else's virtual "house" I lose my ability to do so. And in your example, they are doing stuff on game already and that's...stuff I will respond to. That's stuff you'll have a log for. A page log, a mail log, a channel log, a log log, you'll have it, and I can go "Wow, yeah, this is Not Okay, we will respond to this and thank you for bringing it to our attention."

But evidence is the standard I've chosen. Evidence, and acting within the scope of my power to act. I personally won't budge from it. Anyone can DNC anyone at any time for any reason, but if they want me to start getting happy with the ban hammer, I'm going to need something concrete to work with.

A MUSH is like any other site.

You set your Terms of Service. And on a MUSH they're hopefully clearer, less ambiguous, and less in fine print than any other site on the Internet.

If someone violates the ToS, you get rid of them. Clear, unambiguous, a standard that is fair to all. Especially on sites that let you collect evidence as easily as pushing a button.

If someone violates the ToS on another site, then it's on the other site to deal. But no site is going to respond based on anything other than a violation of the ToS; and they will use their own tools on their own site to investigate it.

If someone does an RP on Gdocs and moves the log to my site, fine, as long as the log is in line with our theme and PRP policy that's fine. If they want to RP something else-site and don't expect any XP, story favors, or whatnot from it, and then set it up as a memory, that is also fine, it doesn't impact anything. But if something goes wrong on Discord, then they need to use Discord's reporting tools. Or Facebook. Or Gdocs. Or on that mountain with the smoke signals. When they go off-game, they are bound by that space's Terms of Service.

Why we expect more out of MU* runners than we expect off of any other site or service or app you log into is way beyond me.

@arkandel Also for a rundown of things you can play: https://goldencrane.aresmush.com/wiki/crsuggest

@arkandel You'll find that info at this link: https://goldencrane.aresmush.com/wiki/cgspecial

@meg There were several people who helped me get the game set up, and because I wouldn't have been able to get started without their contributions they were allowed to pick one shiny off the list as a "thank you for helping me." One of those four individuals chose an Aes Sedai alt.

Flight of the Golden Crane is a Wheel of Time MUSH set in an alternate universe version of the War of One Hundred Years. War ravages the world, and one fragile alliance defends the interests of the Light against chaos and Darkness: the Borderlands Alliance launched by Shevan Jamelle, once governor of the province of Rhamdashar, now King of the newborn nation of Malkier.

Players will take roles as members of the Alliance and will face threats from within and without. The Blight is wide awake and threatening invasion from the North. Greedy lords and ladies and crazed fanatics eye their lands from the South. Internal threats and intrigues could tear the newborn border kingdoms like rotted cloth. It will be up to the PCs to keep all of these threats at bay.

We’re about 1100 years before the books/television show and that has meant a lot of extrapolating from source material. Thus everything anyone would need to play is somewhere on the site. Don’t know a thing about WoT but have been looking for a high fantasy game for awhile? It’s been set up so you can walk right in and treat it like an original fantasy if you want to.

What can you do on this game?

On this game, you can fight monsters. Protect your home. Repel invasions. Oppose, make use of, or ally with various factions. Negotiate with warring generals, lords, and leaders. Study strange phenomenon. Chase useful local resources that can aid in this conflict. Maneuver your way into earning resources for the people who look to you for leadership. Engage in intrigues with border lords whose ambitions and agendas may threaten the newly forged and therefore fragile alliance. Engage in intrigues to improve your own character’s power, prestige, influence, or position. Track down thieves, Darkfriends, and other bad actors. Build the relationships that make it all worthwhile for your characters, and which lead to rich character growth and development. Face dangers that may test your character’s faith or loyalties. Not all dangers are physical…or obvious.

On this game, story is the focus and players have been given plenty of freedom to make their own fun while being provided with straight shot access to getting into ST plots too. Effort is also made to make player-run plots just as relevant as staff-run plots.

We chose this time period because it offers a range of experiences at a time and place where every single PC action has the potential to be significant.

Come on out and see us at goldencrane.aresmush.com.

@il-volpe Are they saying that? Or are they saying:

"I wonder what would happen if you yourself brought some nice sandwiches to the potluck? If you baked some lovely homemade French bread and got the really good deli meat and whipped it up with a fine aioli and put crisp fresh vegetables in it?"

Would you even care what the Original Sandwich Group is doing at that point, or would you be too busy passing out your own lovely sandwiches?

As another way to look at this:

Sandwich Bob brings 4 sandwiches. It's all he can afford. Only 4% of the attendees get to enjoy his sandwiches.

Joe also loves Bob's sandwiches. He brings some casserole. About 25% of the people there eat the casserole.

Henry loves Bob's sandwiches, and he bakes brownies every month and about 50% of the folks there feast on those brownies.

Jane loves Bob's sandwiches. She has one every time. She also brings that really fantastic dip people like and that feeds a good 75% of the attendees. Jane is staff. She's not the host but she busts butt to do dishes and manage the Google cal and help organize the venue.

And of course, there are more servings of everything else for everyone else cause...the sandwiches fed people.

On the contention that Bob is ruining things for everyone cause everyone is awful jealous of those sandwiches, after reading Jane the riot act for selfishly accepting a sandwich and making sure Bob gets a little dip, Host loses Bob's invitations in the mail.

Joe's casseroles disappear next, cause he was really there for those sandwiches.

A few other attendees really liked the casserole, and Joe, so they go find a different potluck.

Henry holds on awhile longer, but damn, Joe's casseroles were kind of integral to his experience...so he goes where Joe went.

Jane, dutiful soul that she is, keeps on for a bit, because there are other people counting on her and her dip and her labor and she doesn't want to disappoint them no mater how much her own experience has been diminished...but at 1/2 energy. The dip just isn't as good, she delegates some of that other labor to someone else or just doesn't do it, Host has to either pop in and do it or it doesn't get done...

See where this is going? But by god, Host sure showed Bob for his rudeness and the person who complained to Host to make sure Host did that because they felt lonely and left out gets...well...what?

@il-volpe Well yes, obviously if one person is logging on 15 staff alts or OOC bits or whatever then yes obviously that stops being effective, but it's also not the only thing people look at to see if RP is happening. Before logs I hit a quick +where. People in rooms with each other? Yeah okay good enough. On Ares I now scan the logs. Logs happening? Yeah okay good enough.

Which means yeah. They're still contributing. And like @Faraday said, staff creates a framework. It's more like hosting a block party than a cocktail party. And yeah as a staffer I sometimes will check in, you having fun, can I help out, oh you're interested in that plothook go talk to XYZ guy he's got info...but that's all the staff can or should be expected to do.

Nobody, and I can't stress this enough, owes anybody their creative labor for any reason, nobody owes anyone a chance, "and hey I apologize but I'm already booked up" isn't something jerks say, it's something people with full schedules say. If you've been waiting and waiting to finally get to sit down with your friend who has just this tiny handful of free hours and his story is important to your story and you sit down harmlessly to have a really story-relevant convo with them being told "Well shame on you for saying that was private" it's like...but...but I can't have that convo with them if other people are around, because we wouldn't, because it's not appropriate for that, because the whole dynamic changes, so you're like...maligning the casual player who has one to three nights a month and you're maligning the player who really enjoys playing with that player...and who might not be as into playing with everyone else if they can't get their story bits with their friend too, but who has more time than friend and will certainly seek out others on other nights of the week.

And it still really does materially work out for the playerbase. @Derp has allowed himself to be drawn in my wake while I say hey let's go follow this plot lead (and RP with other people), here's this guy, I don't know if you'll like him, but if you wanna come you'll welcome...and he goes ahead and does...or some story springs up between us and we do indeed spread it to other players. Things have happened on behalf of other people just because we were given some space and breathing room to play the way we needed and wanted to play.

And for the love of god, saying, "Hey in general this other tactic might be more effective at getting what you want because it makes you more fun" is not the same thing as saying "just suck less." I cannot think of any time in the history of any game I've played on where I've needed to get a bit insular myself for mental or physical health reasons or working-two-job reasons or working-14-hours-a-day-reasons where "just suck less, my guy" has been the actual answer.

@faraday This 100%. There was once a post...somewhere, I don't remember where, where someone said, "You support the game just by logging on when you can because that encourages others that there is fun to be found here, but if they see a dead WHO they'll just assume that's not the case."

Those 4 people are unavailable to the rest of the playerbase if they're "having a private card game" or they're playing off in a room, but if they're playing off in that room using the framework I gave them, not getting in staff's face constantly, are never bothering other players or creating any problems, and one or two of them do in fact branch out and those two stick around in part because they are having so much fun with the first two then win, win, win.

Why anyone wants to shove their face against the windows of the 4-Sammich Club and glare because they might be having some fun instead of going off to find their own fun is beyond me.

@ganymede Right? And people's sandwich-making capacity fluctuates.

@L-B-Heuschkel that's sort of a matter of knowing where your sliders are set...what circumstances are between you and the experience you want...and deciding to impact what you can control.

Which is something I neglected to say in my last post, but thought about later. There are circumstances beyond your control and circumstances you can directly impact. And sooner or later there's nothing for it but to either decide you're going to do something about the circumstances you can directly impact or accept the difficulty mode you're on.

Variables you can't control: other people's time, other people's energy, the way a staff that isn't you runs a game, the availability of games, whether or not a theme is the right theme for you, whether or not the kind of RP on offer is the kind of RP you want. The timezone of yourself or other players.

Variables you can't always control: your own time and energy and spoons.

Variables you can control: roleplay skills, bringing ideas to the table, character design, OOC pleasantness (most of the time), etc. etc. etc. etc.

You've taken the path of impacting a variable you can directly control, and while you may not love that you don't have the luxury of being choosey from what I've seen it works out for you. You've also cultivated yourself, from our past interactions, as a skilled roleplayer and storyteller. Imagine if you were trying to do all that and you had no ideas to bring to the table and you were a one line wonder posing lots of "LB nods," and you hadn't engaged in the character design work to go okay this is the experience I want and this is a type of character that has a degree of likelihood to get me there.

Instead you tackle all those factors and make the game you want to be on besides so you're no longer trapped by the dwindling availability of games or the lack of a game you want to play and for the most part that puts your difficulty level at a place where it's reasonable.

It's an effective strategy, and I am a fan of effectiveness.

@il-volpe If you aren't (fun/a good fit for the game/on a character that matches your desired RP experience the way you hope it does) then (time/energy/theme mismatches/anxiety/circumstance/plot issues) doesn't help.

It's a pair of sliders and the way each of those sliders are set produces some level of difficulty between Casual Mode (getting RP is as simple as reaching out your hand) to Nightmare Mode (everyone goin' "oh, look at the time").

@il-volpe I mean...the statement is just basic truth regardless of who it comes from. That there are variations in skill level when it comes to evoking a character, setting up situations that are compelling, creating a vibe, etc...that's also just basic truth. That some have more "coin of the realm" (ideas) either due to base talent or experience or the willingness to cultivate...also just basic truth. Or OOC self-management skills in re: coming across as someone who is not likely to become a headache later by blowing up into some big emotional OOC mess because you forgot to pose whether or not you liked the fruitcake they clearly posed putting on the table or because Any Number of Other Reasons Big Emotional Scenes of Some Uncomfortable Variety take place.

None of this is a commentary on you btw, these are very generalized observations.

The good news is, there's always room to learn, grow, to learn new techniques, to improve OOC emotional regulation or negotiation skills...or to find people who are on your wavelength. Everyone has somewhere they can grow. I sure as hell have multiple places I could stand to grow.

And the flip side of "wow I have an anxiety problem" is "wow a staggering number of people in this hobby share the anxiety..." which is also good news, because it also means that there are others just waiting to be met, too. Not all of us can get along, or like each other, or get each other, but there are usually oh, probably...four or so floating around, at least, who can get each of us.

So I mean you know, IDK about top of your game, so much as not getting discouraged, staying chill, looking for new ways to become effective at generating what you want out of the experience and both finding your folks and staying open to finding your folks without falling into the uh...MUSHer's Swamp of Sadness, so to speak. You'll never feel as wanted or as sure of yourself as you or anyone probably wants to feel...but you can probs focus on providing entertainment so that you in turn are entertained, and that is a more reliable metric than whether or not the brain weasels are fed.

@il-volpe He said he branches out, and he does.

As it happens, @Derp was the one who approached me back when we met, not the other way around, even though of the two of us I'm typically the more gregarious one getting out there with a larger number of people.

He very clearly had a process, one that included reading some of my logs and asking other people he trusted about their experiences with me, but he did reach out. Characterizing it as if he just never ever ever meets anyone new is a misrepresentation.

Economy of energy and time is definitely a thing.

@arkandel Used to be the former, but then I ran out of steam. So much steam. And had enough scenes that way that just became painful.

And the sort of...dark side of becoming a heavy duty ST for me was the more I did it/do it the less and less I feel comfortable going into a scene without being able to offer an RP hook, without knowing what the scene is about, without having a whole-ass pitch that is basically often like a mini-ST'd scene in and of itself. I feel like if I can't offer that I don't even feel like anyone would want the scene anyway. So yeah, sitting there going: well, shit, how can I conceivably bring this noble and sailor together is legit part of my process, and the sad fact is if I can't figure it out I don't ask.

And don't tend to feel comfortable asking the sailor to come up with something or even to brainstorm, especially if I don't know the sailor player. It's not personal to that guy, it's not anything about whether he's fun or not, it's just I don't have an "in" and What Makes Story Sense is a big part of how I work...and definitely not asking other people to do the creative labor to put me in a scene with them, that burden's on me. Now if he asks? Comes in with an idea? I'm there, absolutely, and happy to do it, but it doesn't happen very often cause, I mean you know, not everyone is a storyteller at heart, and that's allowed, and those that are, well, they're also allowed to have as few ideas for that scenario as I do.

And once the scene is going, if I sense even a little that my scene partner is not having fun that becomes a whole deal TOO, so I feel responsible for making the scene just really really peak fun, and if I can't reassure myself that I Can Make Fun Happen it's really hard to ask even the people I do know and love RPing with.

It's not always about Cliquey Elitist Snobby Mean People, sometimes it's anxiousness or creative exhaustion or a number of other issues which can arise.

@faraday Agreed.

Of course, I'd also tell staffers, hey, don't craft plots that depend on any character type. Make a fire ant hill, drop it in player's back yard, and make it actionable by anyone who thinks to do something about it.

Like who cares if the person who turns the hose on the ant hill is working XYZ fictional job? There are probably some jobs that are helpful for handling certain types of problems but it doesn't really matter. What matters is they have the will, heart, and willingness to pay attention and use the tools to get something done.

This does not negate my shopkeeper comment of earlier.

Because what happens there is this...I'd run the Dungeon of Doom for the shopkeeper if they send in a +request saying well I'm grabbing my spelunking gear and going, but they usually wait for the Dungeon Delver characters to invite them along to said dungeon, and no responsible Dungeon Delver would do that. You, the staffer, cannot force Dungeon Delver to make this super irresponsible and stupid decision that goes 100% against who their character is which is: bringing Shop Bob the Noncombatant to The Dangerous Place.

And you can even say "Well maybe Shop Bob goes of his own volition and just runs into them?" and that's not what (in my experience) Shop Bob wants either. In my experience what is wanted is to feel wanted and staff...can't...do...that.

All staffers can do is: provide opportunities for story-based RP, provide frameworks using best practices that allow people to grow their own RP when the staff-RP on offer does not suit, adjudicate the rules when necessary, and answer +requests in a timely and fair fashion when players make use of the tools.

This discussion has gotten far afield of my original question but...I think it's just important for players to realize that even the best, most dedicated, fairest staffer in the world cannot provide folks with a tabletop experience on a public MUSH. A private game where they've hand-selected and invited their playerbase, chosen how many they're going to try to serve, yeah okay, you can get close and maintain all the nifty character development advantages that tabletop can't always offer. But a public game? It's just not possible. What is provide-able is a MUSHing experience, and on a MUSHing experience it's really important for players to meet staff halfway.

@il-volpe I'm not 100% sure I agree with this. Of course this is what players want and it should be facilitated and I'm down with that, but the ST already is running events and running scenes and offering hooks and doing a million pounds of work. Trying to figure out who is remotely qualified to be there and paging them and drawing them out when they're just sitting there seems like a bridge too far to me.

This post says nothing about Brigid's onus to sign up for the +event that's already on public offer to every player in a faction. Where is Brigid's responsibility to read the hooks that are being put out publicly and to +request a scene where she investigates or impacts those things? Why isn't Brigid using the tools?

I say this as an ST who has legit @mailed players going "I notice you haven't played much, are you okay can I offer you something" and getting, "Oh I'm totally fine."

I say this as an ST who has legit @mailed hooks to people and had them straight up ignored.

I say this as an ST who has basically listened to the same people complain endlessly that they can't get in on anything...but they won't sign up for events, they won't proactively poke at anything, they won't put themselves out there. They expect...something, I don't know what, a level of handholding and spoonfeeding that means I now am not giving my energy to the people who really are willing to pay attention and jump in.

I say this as an ST who has literally given personal attention or personally GM'd scenes to people where they like...got to friggin' James Bond their way to information that was pretty vital to the story only to be told, "I haven't gotten to do do anything important."

When do we say, well, Brigid, you had the option to go to World Saving Night and you did a social scene about salad dressing instead and how is that on us? At what point do you go, "Okay, well, you got to objectively do this thing and you can certainly do more but managing your feelings and FOMO is maybe not my job?"

Not trying to be antagonistic here, I just feel a fair bit of frustration sometimes at the amount of effort that I at least, personally put in to trying to get people involved only to run into just all of these things and just this idea that players have no responsibility for managing their own experience. Like it's one thing to say, "I play for moments where I get to do high social drama" so that I as an ST can try to offer more high social drama stuff, it's another to say "if Brigid never shows up to anything and is mad about it this is somehow my fault as a GM."