Best posts made by faraday

@arkandel said in Returning to MU*ing, looking for recommendations:

WoD used to not work well for Ares due to its internal combat system limitations?
Has this been addressed or are folks using workarounds?

You can turn off FS3 skills and combat with a checkbox. Ares allows you to plug in your own custom chargen/sheet/roll systems. There's an off-the-shelf plugin that lets you use plaintext or PDF sheets with a simple die roller, which is what most of the Ares WoD/CoD games are using.

The main obstacle is that developing the code for automating a system like WoD is a metric ton of work, no matter what codebase you use. Theno has already put that work in on the older platforms, but nobody's done it for Ares. There are some other potential obstacles depending on how much immersive code you want, but we have a separate thread for that.

@thenomain said in Make MSB great again!:

Fracturing the discussion diminishes it.

So we have the ad thread, for the ad. Then if folks want to discuss the game, good and bad, that can go into a review thread. Unless of course it gets so hateful that it gets split off into the hog pit. Now there's three threads for one game... sounds like fun (not).

Or we could just say that this notion of a sacrosanct "ad" thread is silly and just have "Game Reviews" where folks can start the review with "Look how awesome my game is" or someone else can start a review with "Worst steak ever" and let the discussion proceed.

ETA: I'd be fine with what @Three-Eyed-Crow said about the ad thread just being for an ad, but I didn't think this forum s/w could do that easily.

@Warma-Sheen said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

I'm not sure why my post seemed to be taken as a direct attack on anyone.

There is a pervasive problem in this country (world?) of people challenging the validity of mental health diagnoses. Patients struggle to get doctors/family/friends/society to recognize that their problems aren't just all in their head. That they can't just snap themselves out of it without treatment (in the form of therapy and/or medication). That their diagnoses are legitimate.

Coming onto a forum about ADD talking about how "pumping people with aderall and ritalin" is bad, doctors are unethical, big pharma can't be trusted, some people with diagnoses "likely don't have it", etc. is not just unhelpful, it's harmful. This is not a matter of 'everyone's entitled to their opinions'; it's contributing to the stigma around mental health and that's a bad thing.

Nobody is saying that medication is the only answer, or even the best answer for everyone. There are all kinds of behavioral therapies available. Talking about your experience with them would be helpful. Likening ADHD treatment to lobotomies is not.

@derp said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@Apos It's almost like people would have to learn how to engage in civil conversation with at least a moderately measured tone. I don't see that as a downside.

I think the overwhelming majority of people here are capable of doing so. They just don't, in large part because they aren't expected to. It's like some kind of Radical Honesty experiment. Then we wonder why people get bent out of shape and things escalate to dramallama levels and otherwise-interesting discussions get derailed off into the hog pit.

@arkandel said in Make MSB great again!:

But everyone gets flamed on MSB.

I don't disagree. The fact that you (and most of the people here) don't see that as a problem is kinda my point.

Yep.

@bored said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

My argument is they have a fundamentally different view of what 'constructive criticism' even means.

Look, when people are throwing around insults like "that's the stupidest thing I've heard", "this is exactly what's wrong with MUSHing", "clearly you can't do simple math", "trash like @surreality" and my personal favorite: "clearly you're just an asshole"... none of that is in any, way, shape or form constructive and yet I could go hunt down specific quotes for each and every one of those things from the "constructive" forum. I'm not going to, though. The mods know what we're talking about. I have repeatedly pointed to the Rules of Civil Discourse as the yardstick I favor, and "never criticize anybody" is nowhere in there. You may not think what I'm asking for is realistic, but don't put words in my mouth and claim I'm asking for something that I'm not asking for.

To clarify a few things in response to @ixokai @surreality and @bored

No, I am not saying that people being rude on a forum causes people being rude on games. That's absurd. What I am saying is that a culture of negativity can bring out the worst in people instead of the best, and that attitude can spill over into games as well. Especially when it devolves into personal grudges.

I'm not saying MSB or even WORA is all bad. Both have done good for the community in terms of "outing" bad behavior. I'm just arguing that this good could be done without the mud and hostility.

• Good: A whole bunch of independent 1-star reviews of a game complete with logs and/or specific anecdotes of bad behavior. That's a public service.

• Bad (IMHO): Somebody posting a comment about bad behavior, and twenty people who don't even play there jumping in with torches and pitchforks, arguing back and forth, and the thread ultimately devolving into f-you GIFs. Then the bad staff on the bad game goes back to their players all "Yeah whatever, those MSB guys are just a rabid mob, ignore them and trust me."

For every person from MUSHland I know who posts or lurks here, there are ten more who are all: "Oh hell no" because of the negativity - either witnessed first-hand or by reputation. I think that does, ultimately, undermine the credibility and the good the site can do.

I was never a member of WORA. I created an account, logged on once or twice, was horrified, and left. MSB is better than that, but it's still very negative. Frankly a lot of the people I know who are members here - myself included - are too afraid to post new discussion threads because so many of the threads turn hostile.

Literally nobody is saying "no bad game reviews" and literally nobody is saying "only kumbaya, rainbows and sunshine are welcome, if you have anything negative to say - zip it".

All some of us are asking for is a forum with civilized discourse, where acting like decent human beings toward each other in a vanishingly small hobby is required and not laughed at as some quaint little idealistic naivete. This is the same sort of behavior we say we want on our games, why not extend it to the centralized out-of-game community as well?

But whatever. I'm done tilting at windmills for awhile.

@ganymede said in Pandemic Era Issues:

but also “smart” enough to know that ivermectin is being studied closely

We've had prominent podcasts, politicians and even some doctors making headlines promoting it as a "miracle cure" despite all scientific evidence to the contrary. It's not like the average American is going to take the time to go check the New England Journal of Medicine to see what they have to say on the matter.

I'm not angry at the people being misled, I'm angry at those who are deliberately misleading them for financial or political gain, and the networks and apps that are enabling them.

@ganymede said in Review of Recent Bans:

but perhaps you are very sad because you're seeing people on both sides who are worthy, valid, and smart at loggerheads. This puts you in a difficult position because you want to enjoy the company of all, but feel you can no longer do so because that might be seen as "taking sides."

I will chime into say that this is how I feel. I have good friends who were banned and good friends who remain, so I feel a bit caught in the middle.

I missed most of what transpired because it was in the opt-in groups, so I am not competent to speak on the merits of any individual ban.

Speaking generally, though:

On the one hand, I believe in the "house party" analogy to forums and games. If you are at a party, and the host asks you to refrain from doing something, you refrain from doing that thing. If you do not, that is a valid reason for you to be asked to leave. Full stop. There are plenty of us who had thoughts and feelings about what went down, yet still managed to respect repeated requests from admin to not throw more gasoline onto the fire.

On the other hand, I realize the above philosophy is not traditionally how MSB has been run. Especially in the Hog Pit, which basically had "call out perceived bad admin behavior" emblazoned on a banner across its door. So I can also understand how people who felt that something untoward was happening felt justified--perhaps even obligated--to speak out despite requests not to.

So mostly I just wish things had gone down differently, on both sides. It sucks to see the community splinter in two because we are not a big community to begin with.

Nevertheless, I support the changes to the code of conduct. I have long been a vocal opponent of the Hog Pit, believing that there was no way for a constructive section to effectively co-exist in a place where people were so used to mudslinging. Bad feelings and behavior constantly spilled over. I am somewhat skeptical about whether people will stay, having lived through similar experiments with ES, IGU, and even my own Ares forums, but I applaud the effort.

Back when I ran Sweetwater Crossing (a western), the policy allowed PCs to have modern sensibilities (making them outliers for their day and age) but permitted IC discrimination as long as it was kept IC.

Playing a female ranchhand, I was fully prepared to deal with era-appropriate discrimination. I saw that as an important thing that shaped the character and something I didn't mind exploring - even as a woman iRL. It was actually a little jarring when she would go around talking about her struggles in a town full of PCs who had no problem with her whatsoever. Off-camera discrimination just didn't resonate with people.

On the flip side, a situation arose where some PCs wanted to form a lynch mob to get an African American PC who was romantically involved with a white woman PC. Holy cow was that a horrible situation. Yeah, it's historical, but it was really uncomfortable (as, probably, it should be) trying to moderate that kind of thing. Not only did it pit the characters against each other, there was no small amount of anger and "You're a horrible person!" at people for playing within the game's setting.

So I can see both sides of the argument ... not wanting to sugar-coat history vs. not wanting to throw the worst parts of history into peoples' faces. But for me personally? I prefer fantasy/sci-fi settings where the discrimination is because "You're from Tauron" and not "You've got dark skin."

Credit: Marhsall Ramsey Facebook

@rnmissionrun said in Alternative Formats to MU:

I honestly do not think that simply moving from MUSHcode to Python (or Ruby) will make it 'orders of magnitude' easier. Sure, it might help some folks, but IMO if you don't have the aptitude for coding, simply switching languages isn't going to make any difference.

I stand by my statement based on my 30+ years experience as a professional programmer who has some experience teaching code.

As @surreality mentioned, there are tons of sites out there with good tutorials to teach you how to use Python/Ruby. Literally millions of people have used them. There are sites like stackoverflow.com where you can search for help and people answer questions for fun. And the complexity of the syntax just doesn't even compare.

And let's say you're someone like @Ganymede who lacks the time and/or inclination to learn how to code. That's fine. So you need a coder.

How many MUSHcode experts are out there? A dozen? There are tens - maybe hundreds - of thousands of Python/Ruby experts. You're FAR more likely to be able to find a programmer pal who knows one of these languages, or someone who's willing to learn.

If you're unwilling to use the out-of-box functionality, unwilling to learn to code, and unable to find a coder, then I can't help you. Nobody can.

What I can do is make it so that some percentage of games can be created with zero code (where presently even just setting the dang thing up is a technical hurdle, let alone customizing anything) and make it far easier to learn to code. The latter should, in theory, also make it easier to find a coder.

@meg said in Alternative Formats to MU:

Lol. I once showed a real coder (a man who has worked as a systems architect in C, C++, and C# and node.js and all kinds of languages for 20+ years) some MUSH code and he stared at it in horror and couldn't figure it out.

Yeah, I've shown MUSHcode to many of my colleagues and the reactions are either dumbfounded horror or hysterical laughter.

That's not a knock against MUSHCode, by the way. It was a marvelous technical achievement in its day, like assembly languages. But that was 30 years ago and times have changed.

@arkandel said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

Which in-game rewards (positions, XP, etc) will the game offer? How are they going to be distributed and why?
How do we engage players in structured plot (PrPs, staff-ran scenes)?
How do we match reward to risk?
How do we handle character death?

So for an example of what I mean about apples vs oranges, here's how it is in the games I run:

Story is the only reward. There are no limited/special positions; XP is automatic and flat; there is no "cool kids" faction that gets all the story; etc. Staff-run plots are frequent and open to all. PRPs are encouraged, just don't break the game. Since there are no OOC rewards and no unconsented death, the risk/reward balance is not a thing.

You could do all of this in a WoD game too. Or a Star Wars one. Or literally any setting. Put all the PCs on the same "team" (all Gangrels, all Rouge Squadron, etc.) against some antagonist and structure your PC positions and central plotline to maximize opportunity to participate. Leave the special top tier positions to NPCs and keep PCs on a more or less level field.

I'm not saying this is the only way to run a game, or even the best way. I'm just trying to point out that many of these problems that seem insurmountable are actually facets of the game's design. Change the design, and they will be minimized or even eliminated.

I don't think you can make a game where all/most of the players want to fail. But you can build a game that embraces that tendency instead of trying to fight it.

@tinuviel said in The trappings of posing:

Just because something is the norm somewhere doesn't mean we have to just accept it, of course. Bowing is the norm in Japan whereas a handshake is more common in the United States. Adapt to where you are, or look like an idiot.

To a point, yes. But MUSHing has a crap-ton of unwritten rules and a crap-ton of people who are quick to leap to "OMG you're the worst kind of idiot" just because somebody does something differently. And then we wonder why so many newcomers are turned off.

@Derp said in MUers in the news?:

Racism. Is. Wrong. This is not an argument, this is a statement of principle.

100% agree.

But... some settings may have systemic prejudice. It's hard to skirt around in historical settings. Sexist gender roles in LoTR are pretty key to Eowyn's storyline. Shadowrun has its own form of racism (actual races, elves/dwarves/etc. not skin tone). Even a setting like BSG has oblique references to real-world ethnic discrimination.

All of these things are Wrong with a capital W, but that doesn't mean there should be a blanket prohibition against all Wrong things in storytelling.

I think it matters how it's handled. And I think there's a core difference between a world where you're injecting unnecessary prejudice based on your own assumptions/biases, and ones where the prejudice is more explicit in the setting.

@derp said in A new platform?:

This hobby isn't about shiny things. It's about communication.

And if you look at Slack, or Discord, or Facebook Messenger, or this very forum we're talking on, or literally any other modern tool centered around communication you'll see that it's a graphical shell around, yes, text. Nobody is saying we're going to take away the need to read and write in a writing game. That would be silly. But we can absolutely (and IMHO must) change the fundamental tools that we use to do that reading and writing.

@l-b-heuschkel said in Redbird's Playlist:

Pretty sure there aren't any things you can only do on the web portal. There are things you can only do from a traditional client.

It's not a technical limitation, it's a cultural one. You can play synchronously in a grid-based scene from the web portal and asynchronously in a temproom scene from the MU client. What matters most is the culture of what the majority of players on that particular game prefer. I've been on plenty of dead pennmush games, but nobody's like: "Wow, nobody's doing anything. PennMUSH really sucks."

@arkandel said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

I think this is an unfortunate side-effect of accounting for assholes.

Sure, it gives you some a-hole insurance, but not everyone who can't reach a compromise is a jerk.

Yesterday my son wanted to go to the pool and my daughter wanted to stay home. Neither is right or wrong. Neither is being a jerk. In your example from earlier, nobody's a jerk for wanting the one-and-only sheriff position. There are just times when compromise doesn't work.

I still believe MUSHes are better off when staff tries to avoid these zero-sum scenarios, but sometimes they arise despite your best efforts. Heck, even on BSGU I had players pissed over A getting the "killing blow" on Cylon147 instead of B, whether L should've been able to sneak into M's barracks room to prank them, why X got a medal and Y didn't, etc.

But this is just basic human nature in action. It's perfectly natural for B to want the glory of the kill, M to not want to be made a fool of, and Y to want a medal. The majority of players approach MUs as wish-fulfillment fantasy, whether we like it or not. Personally I don't find that a problem, and prefer to focus on the poor sportsmanship aspect. I.e., I don't care if you want a medal, let's find a way to get you one. But you don't get to act like a jerk just because X got a medal and you didn't.

Just once, it would be nice to have this debate without folks rampantly demonizing and attacking the other side.

Not everyone who favors social combat is a Creepy McCreeper who wants to go around intimidating or typef—-ing everyone they meet.

Not everyone who favors agency over their character’s thoughts and actions is a selfish sore loser who doesn’t know how to play by the rules.

There are extremists on both sides, yes, and to dismiss that with statements like “literally no one is saying...” is a cheap shot way of undercutting legitimate concerns.

But even so, the majority of players fall somewhere in the middle. Wouldn’t it be nice for a change to look for common ground and ways to compromise instead of flaming each other?

Lol wait... I forgot where I was for a second. Never mind. Carry on. I’ll be at the bar.