For me, honestly, the squick arises because I have seen the culture horridly botched. Too often. And it may be worse with the Super-Friends atmosphere that pervades some games.
I think the L5R system is awesome, but you would have to do a lot to avoid orientalism from the players.
Actually said outside of work:
Other Counsel: I like how you paraphrased A Few Good Men in there.
Me: Thanks. I was glad someone got it.
Bleed less.
Move more.
Do whatever it takes to keep you off of the dungeon floor.
Just to add to the weirdness, my partner started applying for new jobs. She got an email for an interview, but the employer apparently already decided to hire her. So it became a visit to meet the staff.
If staff does not intend to service a particular concept, then they shouldn’t allow that concept as a PC.
It is an easy fix for this problem.
This should infuriate everyone.
The short of it: not a couple of months before China lost control, Prof. Matthew Kavanaugh at Georgetown University's Center for Global Health Science and Security, along with other authors/experts, published an article in Journal of International Affairs warning of a future pandemic and begging for proper funding to the infrastructure and systems set up by previous administrations to prevent loss.
"Every U.S. President in recent decades has had to respond to at least one pandemic disease. Political leadership has proven decisive. In the coming years, U.S. foreign policy will face at least three inter-related issues: today's major pandemics of AIDS, TB, and Malaria; future outbreaks with the potential to become pandemics; and rising risk from infectious diseases associated with climate change. A review of epidemiologic data shows global progress on each issue is threatened. A coordinated U.S. effort, across agencies and engaged with national and multilateral partners, could save lives and address significant foreign policy interests. Such an effort could boost economic prosperity by reducing disease-related lost productivity, which we estimate at $1.7 trillion, with returns to investment in pandemic-related global health efforts averaging 17–20 to 1. Foreign policy focus on pandemics could also address economic and social inequalities and support climate adaptation and mitigation. Pandemic-related global health spending is 0.19% of the U.S. budget—a figure that has been flat in recent years even with growing needs and significant potential gains from investment."
In other words, despite the media's reporting, it seems pretty fucking clear to me that people have been warning about this for years.
I have literally never said that and will never say that.
But I only have four sandwiches. I can spread them around as best I can, but I refuse to be told who I give them to. That said, where I am right now I came in with no friends. I give sandwiches to whoever wants them. I am lucky if someone takes one.
I still only have four sandwiches. And there is being an awful lot inferred from what I said that simply isn’t what I ever intended.
@Rinel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
That's not much consolation to people who can't get any.
Thank you, but that's not really what I was getting at.
There really is no food shortage. There is plenty of food at the supermarkets. There is plenty of food out in the countryside where folks are selling direct. While there may be a disruption in the supply of THE MEATS, it's not like there aren't other choices out there -- and remember I'm that weird bitch that needs meat nutritionally to live.
Seafood? Plenty of that. Not-meat? Lots of that. But looking elsewhere would hurt companies like Tyson and Perdue, enough that the former took out a full-page ad to "warn" about a potential food shortage that, as I said, simply will not happen.
Sudanese refugees have no access to food. We in the United States have access to plenty of food. If the refugees came over and saw what we had available, they would disbelieve any alleged food shortage -- and that's what I'm trying to get at.
Except that's not all il-volpe said.
Players will have the unreasonable expectation of fairness. They think that if they interact with the game correctly they’ll have as much chance of fun as anybody else, and the systems will work for them the same as for others. The latter can be approximated. The former is impossible on an open MUSH but you must make a run at it and expect some pushback when you inevitably fall short.
If something is impossible, why should I attempt to make it possible? If fairness is an unreasonable expectation, why should I cater to it? And if the reason is only "because this is what you signed up for as staff" then I can easily avoid additional stress in my life by not signing up.
As has been said a hundred times in a hundred different ways, finding staff who are reasonable, diligent, and trustworthy is an extraordinarily difficult task for someone running a game. People who fit this mold have other important duties and responsibilities in their lives. They are generally unwilling to take on additional duties and responsibilities to run a game that includes players who have unreasonable expectations or demand that they make the impossible possible.
Here's a "revolutionary" question that has helped guide me in my past decade of MUSHing: am I being fair to staff?
@TNP said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Make them a mix tape and send it to them anonymously: Music to Fuck To.
The Used's 'Buried Myself Alive' is playing on the radio
Her: Didn't we have sex to this song?
Me: Yes.
Her: (laughs) We had sex to a lot of emo music.
Me: Yes.
Her: Ever wonder why we got it on to music about bad breakups?
Me: I always figured it was because we had low expectations.
@surreality said in Indicating Discomfort in a Scene (online):
By the logic you're using here, on every WoD game, when someone asks me if I would like to meet them for RP, I should be prepared to spend half an hour explaining to them what I do not want to have happen during a first meeting over lattes at the local coffee shop, from drive-by shootings to rape to witnessing child murder to being drugged by something that will turn me into a grue to <let this list just scrollllllllllllllll> and that I not be anally violated by an entire pack of werewolves wearing spandex and doing a WWF hand-slap whilst calling out 'TAG ME IN, BRO!', and then be prepared to be met with a similar list.
If you are uncomfortable with being violated by a pack of were-bros, then you probably should not be on a World of Darkness game.
That said, I disagree; that's not the logic being employed here in the slightest. How people decide to take responsibility for their own well-being is up to them. If RP Prefs are used, that's one way to alert others. You could also interrupt scenes when they get too intense, and politely bow out.
Really, though, it is my privilege that I've never been in a scene where I've felt the need to log out or leave. Ever, in 20+ years. Whether I ask to FTB or just play through, I've been around people reasonable enough to respect that. When I've been informed of those who are not, and I'm staff, I'm not shy about showing them the door.
So, the side topic is: what do you do about people who don't respect others' discomfort? My answer: show them out.
I would probably report that harassment to his boss, but I'm a no-nonsense kind of person.
@surreality said in Indicating Discomfort in a Scene (online):
I adore the shit out of you, @Ganymede, but -- and this is not an insult -- this is a very different personality type from yours in many cases; you're very self-assured, confident, and willing to speak up. Not everybody is comfortable with this in the same way, or in the moment, and this is all I mean here. I can get why this seems really alien to you that people aren't just doing this in the way you're describing they should. I really do agree that people should be willing and able to speak up, but -- and this is critical -- people have different comfort zones here.
I get what you're saying. And you're right: there are different comfort levels. But if you are not comfortable with speaking out, you can't really expect change. And I know -- I know -- this is like I'm blaming a victim, and, in some cases, that may be the case.
So, tell someone? Anyone. If not staff, maybe another player. Please. When I've staffed, I've tried to be vigilant, but things fall through the crack. I regret decisions to not act more than decisions to act.
@Macha said in RL things I love:
I second that. ... fucking go, Gorsuch?
I wasn't too surprised that Gorsuch wrote it. He's a textualist, but a pragmatist, and the writing was on the wall. The instant the Sixth Circuit applied Title VII to sexual orientation discrimination claims, the game was over.
"An individual’s homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions ... . That’s because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.
. . .
“We agree that homosexuality and transgender status are distinct concepts from sex ... . But, as we’ve seen, discrimination based on homosexuality or transgender status necessarily entails discrimination based on sex; the first cannot happen without the second.”
This so beautifully sums up what I have been thinking since I wrote a damn paper in law school on the topic. You cannot discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity without discriminating based on sex. And it all comes down to the premise beyond Title VII's sex discrimination prohibition: that part of a person's identity has nothing to do with whether they can or cannot successfully carry out a job's duties and obligations.
@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:
However, by giving players "agency" over their characters, you allow them to cop out of the real outcomes of the dice rolls, by coming up with cute and interesting ways to evade the point of the rolls at hand, and ignore the context that their characters are put in.
I know. I recognize that this is a possible outcome. But if it happens, would you ever play with that person again? Would you report them to staff? I would.
Maintaining a player of "agency" is negative when used like this, but it is positive and important when you have a player trying to use Intimidate or Dominate to get into someone else's pants or skirt. And for all the times I've had some player punk out of a legitimate social roll -- which happens regardless of whether the stats exist -- I'd rather that happen than to hear that someone rolled to seduce an unwilling player's character, and then had that enforced by staff who were "just following the rules."
As an improv performer, I'd frown at the douchebag who acts inappropriately to intimidation, but I'd seriously beat the fuck out of anyone breaking the cardinal rule of "don't be a fucking sexual predator."
@Lotherio said in It's where you putcher weed ...:
Now the skit will be in my mind all night thanks for the thread title.
I don't give you what you want.
I give you what you need.
@Tempest said in The Metaplot:
The problem arises when people expect the entire game around them to cater to the thing they want to do, and they get mad when it doesn't.
Nah, this is the real problem, @WTFE.
I'm playing on two games where the Metaplot is all-encompassing and inescapable, and no one seems particularly perturbed by that. Sure, the setting revolves around the Metaplot, but that's just good implementation. You couldn't escape The Descent's metaplot, and you're not escaping BSG: Unification's metaplot.
Not alive, at least.
@Derp said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Dear Douchebag Attorney,
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT
Oh, wait, I know the Civil Rules.
Sorry.
No, thank you. Raising the dead isn't something that I would want to torture staff with.
@Ominous said in RL things I love:
That gif has a severe deficit of feline presence that we have come to expect from you. Here is a suitable replacement.
Agreed.
