Best posts made by GangOfDolls

WoD Games (nWod unless otherwise noted)
San Francisco: Paris of the West -- sfmux.com:1337 // http://www.sfmux.com/index.php/Main_Page
Reno -- reno.kydance.net:2018 // http: http://reno.kydance.net/index.php/Main_Page
Fallcoast -- fallcoast.net 2009 // http://fallcoast.net/wiki/Main_Page
Fate's Harvest -- fatesharvest.com:6464 // http://fatesharvest.com/w/Main_Page
Garou MUSH -- 205.138.63.222 // garoumush.org (oWoD)
Temptest -- game.tempestmux.com 5555 // website unknown (oWoD)
Sheltering Sky: Colorado by Night -- mush.shelteringcolorado.com 2601 (oWoD)
City of Hope MUSH -- cityofhopemush.net port 8888 // http://coh.spork.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
From the Ashes: Detroit by Night -- fta.darcness.net 2860 (v20/w20/m20)
Let Freedom Ring -- - portent.genesismuds.com 8020 // http://letfreedomring.wikidot.com/ (20th Anniv Ed)
Dark Communion -- Dark Communion (Dark Ages)
Descent -- thedescentmux.com:2860 // thedescentmux.com

Anime
MahouMUSH -- MahouMUSH.com 7342 // http://www.mahoumush.com

Horror/Urban Fantasy/Urban Horror/Sci-Fi (Non IP)
Multiverse Crisis -- multiversemush.com 5001 // http://multiversemush.com/mw/index.php?title=Main_Page (mixed genres)
Dream Chasers MUSH -- dreamchasers.space 4767 (mixed genres)
Mythara: At the Crossroads -- mythara.com 9900
Cybersphere -- cs.netsville.com 7777
Sindome -- moo.sindome.org 5555
HellMOO -- hellmoo.org 7777 // http://hellmoo.org/
Star Conquest -- squidsoft.net 7777
Lost Dominion: lostdominion.org:600 // https://lostdominion.org (Rifts Based Setting)
Neon Moo -- neon-moo.space, port 7777 // https://neon-moo.space/?date=2018-06-22

IPs (Television, Movies, Comics, Etc.)
Blood of Dragons -- bod.westeros.org: 3000 // http://www.westeros.org/BoD/ (based on Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire series)
Marsilikos - Under the Wings of Angels -- marsilikos.silvertree.org, port 1310 // http://marsilikos.wikidot.com (Kushiel's Legacy book series)
Welcome to Lovecraft -- LovecraftMa.com: 1880 // http://lovecraftma.com/index.php/Main_Page (inspired by the Locke and Key comic series)
Road to Amber -- roadtoamber.com 6250 // http://roadtoamber.com/ (Amber book series)
Babylon 5: The Last Best Hope -- babylon.monolithwebsystems.com 2259 // website unknown (Babylon 5 series)
Shadowrun: Denver -- aelfhame.net 1999 // http://denver.wikidot.com/ (Shadowrun)
United Heroes Mush -- unitedheroesmush.com 1999 // https://www.unitedheroesmush.com/index.php?title=Main_Page (Marvel Universe)
Star Trek: Among The Stars -- ats.trekmush.org 1701 // http://www.trekmush.org/index.php/Main_Page (Star Trek)
Equestrian Dawn -- mush.equestriandawn.com 8789 (MLP)
Star Wars: Rebirth Mush -- game.starwarsrebirth.com 9999 (Star Wars)
Tenebrae - the Emblem of Ea -- tenebraemush.net 4001 ((Pathfinder/D&D))
Pernworld -- paper.mudmagic.com 2211 (Pern series)
CoMuX: NuGenesis -- nugenesismux.com 6006 (Marvel Universe)
Inheritance Gambit: inheritancegambit.com:2099 // https://inheritancegambit.com (Marvel Universe)
Super Robot Wars -- srwmush.com 2015 // https://www.srwmush.com/index.php?title=Main_Page (Video Game)
Tenebrous Isles - tenebrousisles.com port 9001 // Website: http://www.tenebrousisles.com/wiki/Main_Page (Dresden Files)
Mutant Genesis MUX: mutantgenesismux.com:2017 // mutantgenesismux.com (Marvel Universe, mutant-focused)
Gods and Monsters MUX: mutantgenesismux.com:2017 // godsandmonstersmux.com (DC Universe, Justice League focused)

Fantasy/Medieval Settings (Non IP)
Arx -- play.arxmush.org port 3000 // Website: play.arxmush.org
Valorous Dominion -- 71.171.93.80:1510 // http://valorous.wikidot.com
The Enternal Crusade - mushhaven.com port 1220 Website: eternalcrusade.wikidot.com

Other
Match of the Millenium -- motm.kicks-ass.net port 2002 // http://motm.kicks-ass.net/ (Arena/Fight Tournament Theme)
License to Kill -- portent.genesismuds.com:2077 (Espionage/Spy Themes)

Adult Themes
NaughtyMuffin MUSH -- muffinmush.club 2469
Penultimate Destination -- penultimatemush.com 9500
Shoujo-Ai MUSH -- yuriba.com 4201
Shangrila MUSH -- shangrilamux.com 9999
Terminus Faire -- terminus.mushpark.com 9999

Some Guidelines:

• Completeness: This is by no means an exhaustive list, if I've overlooked a game it wasn't intentional and please reach out so I can update.

• Game Quality/Content: I cannot vouch for any of these games in terms of content, staff quality, activity levels, plot quality, player behavior, etc. Good luck and put on your helmet.

• Websites: Some were not available in all cases or I couldn't find them, if I missed yours my apologies and let me know so I can correct.

• Notes: I may have gotten some genre notes wrong or connection addresses wrong - please reach out in PM or correct on this thread

• Sources: I pulled from Mud Connector, the MSB threads, and Mud Stats - 2 of the 3 of these sources are not always reliable in terms of refresh data but I did attempt to connect to most of these places to verify that they are up and there are people logged in and active -- i.e. no 3 people connected and idle for 6 days, etc.

• Cadence: I plan to periodically update this list with new games/removing closed games as time allows.

I was actually really excited to play but being one of those players who has a full time job where I can't login from work, my plan was to work on my application as soon as I got home.

I feel kind of weirdly ... punished or something that I can't be online all day. I already struggle with this or have on other games where the light speed nature of those games leaves players struggling to balance and keep up. There will be other games and its not the end of the world and this does suggest that I'm a poor fit for a game that seems to move too fast even at opening.

I was just digging the theme and legit excited. So yeah. I'm bummed.

It's not that there are PCs teenagers with an abject lack of social skills and a refusal to get along with other people IC, there is a niche in this specific theme that caters to that. There is, however, something to be said regarding the art of playing an asshole that makes it enticing to come back and find out all the interesting reasons why they are a magnificent asshole.

The source material has plenty of magnificent assholes but we see their humanity because the show writers craft those little views into their humanity on purpose. This is in order to make us invest and make us care what happens to this PC because they are going through something that we wouldn't otherwise know about if the writers didn't show as a series of flashbacks and narrative exposition.

The closest thing on the game to that is Memoirs section and maybe some people read those, but just as easily most people don't read them and especially won't read them if the Memoir is about a PC that has run them off.

The art of magnificent assholery is poorly understood and the players who are taking it too far, who think they're building an air of mystery that's meant to intice us to come back and peel away more of the onion? They are often creating a bar so high that not even the people that can sing the high note in the Star Spangled Banner can get over it. And the reality is -- no one with a little self-respect for the way they want to spend their limited free time to play in a game after a certain point is going to enjoy bashing their head into the same wall over and over and over again just to flatter your mean as fuck with no apparent upside PC.

If you're rude and shitty once IC and there's no interpersonal basis for it, I certainly write it off to IC forces beyond my control and insight. If you're rude and shitty a second time IC, I start to wonder what's up this. If you're rude and shitty a third time IC, I am likely going to assume that you are just an asshole, you don't want my PC to build rapport with yours and whatever reasons that may exist for why you are a shitlordly dillhole in this game are now in the 'I don't give a fuck' bin OOC.

There is such a thing as being too precious with your exacting interpretation of a terribly behaved person in character and it is sadly often the case, that the players doing this are so fixated on how precious they are being that they fail to see that they are now actually alienating players.

And this can actually have a negative impact on the cooperative elements of the game, especially if those same PCs stand in the way to another PC's ability to interact with plot or affect story elements.

@Ghost

***=Spoilers And Salty AF***

I think one of the ways bleed is avoided is to also do a radical self-inventory of things you do not want to RP about.

Here's my list:

Romantic infidelity
Body horror
Racism and racial violence
Pregnancy

And then you tell people your list at the outset.

There's this idea that you have RP everything thrown at you even if it's a total shit sandwich that doesn't do anything for you or your PC and politely be on board with having a bad time so someone else can have a great time. And if you don't like something, you have to play through it in-game even if it's objectively harmful to the player.

To which: hell no.

There's a huge difference between moves and countermoves in an IG conflict and your PC is bested or you just don't like the outcome versus being subjected to being a punching bag for IG events because it's great fun for someone else at your expense. People can intelligently tell the difference and those who try to use this an excuse to not 'lose' in game are in the wrong for attempting to manipulate an outcome.

If you're at all a human being and someone says: 'hey, I can't RP about this subject' or 'this is taking a turn to a place that's really hard on me and I can't do this', then you give them an out while preserving the IG outcome.

Edit: a word

I work with a lot of Slavic people at my job. I enjoy this. I especially enjoy the Polish lady whom, if you so much as sneeze at your desk, stalks you all over the office until she all but physically picks you up and places you on the sidewalk to make you go home. You must stay away for 3 days at minimum. Do not try to come back.

Ilu Madeizja. You're doing God's work.

@tek said in Emotional bleed:

@GangOfDolls Now to be fair, in the right setting with the right oversight, that could be helpful. However, a recreational game with people who didn't sign up to facilitate your therapy is NOT the place for that shit.

I generally tend to take a harder line in that I don't think it's generally ever healthy to do this, from my point of view. The therapeutic process requires a lot of oversight that you can't get in a game setting.

But more over, if you're doing this in a game setting, then you're doing it while interacting with other players and whether they know it or not, that's really not a fair position to put anyone in. Even if they consent to it because I don't believe this is actually something anyone can fundamentally consent to because the underpinnings of it are unethical. It doesn't make anyone a bad person. It just makes it a bad action.

This is different just exploring a thing. Exploration of human behavior and meaning is way different.

@tek To add to that, I've tended to notice it be more of a thing when players are trying to work out/unpack/give themselves a short course in self-administered therapy about something they're struggling with via PC as a proxy. This is almost always a total recipe for intense and ugly disaster.

Oh, yeah, I do see your point. And it may just be a matter of play style. I've played some major dicks in my time (as have we all) but as I get older and crankier, I do find that sometimes its not always in the interest of a game or a character to lead with uncompromisingly aggressive behavior IC when the PC on the receiving end hasn't done much other than be there at the wrong place, wrong time. Like sensibly, even people who very traumatized and behaviorally stunted, do not as a whole walk up and emotionally roundhouse kick a total stranger for just sort of standing there.

Provoking that kind of reaction is another thing, totally.

There's a charisma and chemical alchemy in a way to playing a PC who goes out of their way to be mean to strangers usually because their approach is very nuanced and you see the humanity underneath this PC that makes them charming and ultimately relatable. And I think for some players, how they think their PC comes across and how they really come across, are very different and they don't see it.

TL;DR: Dealing with a jerk necessitates an upside to dealing with a jerk. No upside? People will avoid your jerk.

I think forgiveness is important. There are certain people and things in this hobby that I've forgiven, both because there have been apologies and definitely there's been no apologies. The first is nice- sometimes really nice, if for no other reason that you feel seen and heard about how something was hurtful when it didn't need to be. The second is more of a function of needing to just move on in life. Here again, I'm not waiting around for someone to pony up on apology but you run the risk of getting stuck in a sentiment or a feeling that doesn't do anything productive and just makes you feel like shit.

I also think sometimes you do things that are upsetting to someone else and apologizing isn't enough or for whatever reason, trying to offer one is the wrong idea. I think in those cases, if it's not enough or you just think attempting to apologize is going to be more harmful than helpful - you just have to agree to learn something from it and not repeat that behavior.

I've been in this hobby a long ass time. I started mushing in my late teens as a way to escape an abusive situation at home. I had a lot of coping and survival mechanisms from my real life that I imported into mushing because I'd gotten by in life on those so why not in virtual space. One of those things was trying to overly manage other people's feelings. Children in abusive households often become hyper sensitive to everyone else's emotional barometer and when things are too hot or too cold, they work hard to please the situation. I am/was certainly no exception to that experience, I'm a grown ass adult but I still catch myself doing it.

One of those things that's an extension of all this is passive aggressiveness. For me, it stemmed in being ultra terrified of any sort of confrontation. In my young life, confrontation wasn't about disagreement - it was volcanic displays of fury that sometimes got the cops called. So, the next and only thing to do was to swallow your feelings, avoid confrontation, and pretend everything was just fine. Regardless of being aware of where it comes from, it didn't serve me well for a long time in the MU* wider world. I certainly ruined some otherwise positive and happy online 'working' relationships and friendships because I was ultimately too terrified to just say something that might be upsetting.

I've been through a shitload of therapy as an adult because I got tired of feeling like garbage about this. I have much more clarity and self-awareness around this behavior but because I'm a flawed human being, I still feel myself slipping back into familiar territory. I'm generally much better about it and behavior in general. As much as anything is a work in progress until we no longer draw breath.

But there are cases where I can't find the person in question that I didn't behave well towards because time and the closure of games. In some cases, I've no idea if these people even remember those choice moments - they probably don't and chances are, that momentary blip of conflict was just that for them. But believe me, I remember those blips.

There are cases where I think I know how to find people from the past but I'm not sure they want to hear from me. I don't want to invade boundaries just to offer an apology as that seems like anti-thesis of the point. In both those cases, all I can really do is not repeat my mistakes and missteps, even if that player never knows about it. I guess that's how you prove that you're trying and hopefully succeeding at being sorry for what happened - by trying to avoid repeating the same pattern.

Yeah, when I use the term 'urban', I speaking more generally to that kind of genre than the setting. There are plenty of small town settings that still fit this bill - it's really more about modern setting, modern anachronisms, and modern concerns vs. lords, ladies, and flouncy dragon drama.

It's also the case that the last major WoD game opening turned out to be a giant turd and there's just no other alternatives at present that aren't fresh or hiiiiiighly problematic.

The application cap - which I think they announced in advance - turned out to be one of the few smart decisions the game owner made. San Francisco was an unfortunate train wreck because its owner is just kind of a spiteful, controlling jackwagon, who depending on who you ask may or may not be a thief as well. That kind of poison in the core of an otherwise promising premise is never going to really recover as long as the association remains. I think if other people were to run it, it might recover but I'm told that's likely never going to happen because the owner won't part with it (but won't run it either) so it lingers into a slow death.

I know Miami has been in forever development but as time moves on and the refrain of 'we're working to make sure everything is really set up before we open' gets fainter and fainter - it does appear momentum has been lost and that chances of it opening are uncertain and looking grim at best.

I have no idea what's going on with Reno-rebranding-to-Portland.

Even if this is WoD adjacent at best, there's a market for WoD and next door to it in resonate feeling in this community because of the theme and in spite of the dense and often bullshitty mechanics and poor prospects at this moment at time.

It's a great time to be offering something along those lines but the start up "capital" to get a game going requires time (people can find that), a place to set up (people can pay for that), and coders who can knit the backend systems together (this is often the hardest part to scale). Because there are so few coders in this community so they have the ability to be choosy about the projects they want to work on and the people they want to work with and the complicated history of a lot of these former partnerships on other past games means that some coders won't work with game owners and vice versa.

Just easier said.
Hard to do.

To add to these:

Set expectations in advance. It's best to be up front about threat levels and pose time limits in advance. Seriously, if the scene is going to be super hard and will probably kill some PCs, don't downplay that fact. It's super not fun to have players come to scenes who aren't paying attention and start losing their shit OOC when they realize they're in over their heads. Similar if there's PC death and they really thought this was supposed to be a social scene. Set explicit upfront expectations about this stuff in advance.

It's okay to limit participation. I've been on games where STs don't feel like they can say no to everyone who wants to come to a scene or they feel like packing people in like the plot is some clown car is some sort of proof that they're a good ST because they're so popular. No, not even a little. They are actually usually very bad STs, even if their storyline is good. Packing PCs into scenes like their sardines is disrespectful to everyone's time and participation. A few rounds of social RP with 15 people takes hours to get through. Combat is a 12 hour nightmare. Don't do it. Trust me. 5 people max is a good crew limit.

Don't progress the plot until it's baked. You don't have to go from Scene A to Scene B if you feel like the plot hasn't seen advancement. It's okay to do several Scene A scenes around one plot point until you feel like the story should move on.

I'm legitimately surprised that she held on as long as she did as 2 years with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer is fucking heroic.

My only real concern with the dog pile is that it unintentionally shoots in the face the spirit of what's trying to occur here.

Which is, people trying their best to account for past weaknesses of character or personal failings.

There are ways to apologize properly but often the circumstances that allow for that have to be optimal. In the case of things that happened online and especially a long time ago on a game, the ability to find the people involved is probably slim to none unless you're still in contact with them and chances are, you've already hashed out the issue enough to continue speaking to one another.

Or one hopes.

Will people be bad actors? Sometimes.
Will people use this as a way to preen? Sometimes probably from time to time.
Will people use language that's imprecise in their fumbling attempt to apologize? Yes.

But I maintain that the spirit vs. the letter of the law of what's trying to occur here is perhaps more important than the crafts of verse. Sure, yes, its fine to take issue but I would also consider being generous in spirit enough lest you scare someone off who intends to use this forum to make amends or privately contact someone to make an attempt.

A former co-worker's daughter ran up to a tied-up dog at a public park (the owner was pouring sand of their child's shoes) and launched herself at it, trying to pet it. The dog- now spooked by a five-year-old it doesn't know invading its space without permission or supervision from the owner- reacted accordingly: by biting the girl in the face.

She's fine, other than a small scar above her upper lip which will probably get smaller as she gets older.

The co-worker tried to sue the dog owner for costs for her daughter's therapy due to the trauma, medical bills from the ER trip, and future plastic surgery to get rid of the scar. She was so smug and dramatic about the whole thing, you'd think her child was sucked into a wood chipper by her telling of it. The owner countersued.

My co-worker lost and ended up having to pay the dog owner's attorney fees. I feel bad her daughter, who is only 5 and wasn't taught that unfamiliar dogs aren't yours to pet at will. I'm not pleased the kid got hurt; but I was pleased that my co-worker's bad parenting cost her a lot of money.

A friend forwarded this kickstarter link my way today for Bluebeard's Bride, developed by Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, Marissa Kelly, and Sarah Richardson. It's a horror RPG/twist on a fairy tale and I thought it might appeal to some looking for something new and interesting in the horror RPG genre.

Project/Premise Blurb:

The Bluebeard fairy tale is simple enough: A young bride is wed to an ugly, but powerful man with a blue beard. On their wedding night he must attend to other urgent matters. He gives her the keys to every room, inviting her to explore… but one room in his house is forbidden. The bride eventually falls prey to her curiosity and opens it, discovering the gruesome sight of former brides who had been murdered... evidence that reveals her husband to be a killer of women.

When you play Bluebeard’s Bride, you aren’t repeating the dark events of that morbid tale. You’re following the skeleton of that story to tell a new one covered in your own bloody fingerprints. The Bride’s story is unpredictable and engaging, leading her down a dark path to an unknown future. Your fate, the terrible contents of the final room, may not yet be fixed, but every step you take moves you closer to your doom.

I don't know any of the game developers, personally. I just thought it was a pretty neat concept that could be pretty fun and some here would find intriguing. ETA: Also as a lady gamer, I like to support lady gamer projects.

Full Kickstarter info, including a lot more about the game mechanics here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1921129910/bluebeards-bride

Also chiming in to say modern day.

I think one of the weaknesses of a 'historical-era' game is that the Magicians as a setting goes out of its way to point out the olden times were real bad times in terms of civil rights and social politics. I'm not keen on a setting that enables racist themes to be more acceptable by dint of it's historical context, etc.

I love this hobby when you find a PC or a group of PCs who just vibe on your RP style or story preferences and a certain kind of narrative magic takes over. The creative high for that is what I think a lot of people chase.

And why we put up with so much terrible behavior and poorly socialized players because the high when it happens makes all of that not necessarily worth it but... easy to ignore or tolerate.

For me, the pitfalls are all about real life. I got a real life jobby job that likes to make me travel in often far, often exhausting ways with no predictable cycle. I love my job to be clear (most of the time) but it doesn't owe to a lot of regularity. So, I have to find games that can work with players who can't be on all the time. And that is not the majority of games, and that's when I don't love this hobby very much - the exile like feelings are magnified by negative experiences with staffers and players and poorly run games.