Best posts made by Ganymede

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

But can you see how the environment fostered by this particular etiquette standard might come across as very nerve-wracking and unwelcoming?

Not really.

I try to imagine what it would have been like if you and H just showed up at the scene, only to see everyone else bolt. I don't see that as coming off as inclusive either. Communicating one's personal preferences ought not turn someone off, in my opinion.

But we all have preferences. I don't like PennMUSH, for instance. I really hate it. It's not rational. I also have a thing for redheads. There's probably some rationale to that, but I don't know what it is.

You know what gets me about the response, though? "Our available attention." What the fuck is that supposed to mean, right?

@tehom said in Mercenary Entrepreneurship:

The next time anyone bitches about lack of documentation for Arx I'll threaten to hire Chet to write it all.

There are threats that cannot be withdrawn.

@Arkandel said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

For instance there's no reason CGen checks, assuming staff still wants oversight over the characters, can't take place after the PC hits the grid; that dramatically cuts down on the initial bottleneck before players get to the good parts and they can be processed when convenient.

There's plenty of reasons not to do this, actually. I can think of:

1. Blocking prohibited PC types, such as children and anthropomorphic skunks.
2. Blocking revenge PC types, created to PK specific folks.
3. Avoiding retconning scenes involving the above.

These sound like good reasons to implement a system that allows you to check over PCs before they hit the Grid.

@wizz said in Mercenary Entrepreneurship:

Chet has a history of coming here when he's off his meds and pretty rapidly unraveling into incoherence.

It's when he unravels into ableist, sexist bullshittery that I have to do my fucking job here, and everyone knows how much I love doing that.

@Arkandel said in Plotted versus plotless scenes:

... these kinds of social scenes can happen organically but plotted multi-part stories absolutely cannot.

Why not?

On Fallen World, I'm running a local drug ring's take-down. It doesn't have shit-all to do with the game, but it's an opportunity to meaningfully RP. Sometimes I'm running the scene; sometimes it's someone else. We pass the time pleasantly, and recently pulled someone else into it.

It's organic because it just happens. It's plotted and multi-part because it is.

I mean, it's really as simple as "Shrike is an Arrow that enacts street justice! Come join!" And we get our kicks by just playing pretend.

@insomniac7809

My response to your comments are these videos by a YouTube critic who does an excellent job breaking down all of the themes in the series.

Why Catra is important.

How She Ra Gives Us Hope.

Lessons, shortly:

1. Abuse is a cycle with causes and sources.
2. Abusive cycles can be broken.
3. Abuse is about treating people like things and objects.
4. Villainy is about perceived safety.

The videos are really worth the 45 minutes to watch.

Also learned that, according to Stevenson, Light Hope and Mara shared something more than a working relationship, and the evidence is sitting there in front of us. And this just adds to your point about sentience overcoming functionality.

@Arkandel

People need to get their heads on straight about conflicts (because there is none at the moment), but you have to be careful to keep the matters in both scenes separate from one another, so that players do not inadvertently create their own conflicts.

If the PCs in the first scene and the PCs in the second scene cross paths, then the players are creating their conflict, not you. But you need to make it clear -- if this is a possibility -- that there may be an alt-conflict down the road.

@sunny said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

I SKINNED MY KNEE. WHO FUCKING SKINS THEIR KNEE AS AN ADULT?

Does rugburn count?

@Lord-Renegade said in Plots for Spheres:

My problem comes when staff has this "grand vision" and any player diversion from said vision is ignored, or otherwise discounted. Akin to writing a book rather than actually building a story with the players one is leading.

There's two kinds of railroading: (1) where there is a definite, express, or obvious sequence of events to the story; and (2) where the storyteller shuts down any method or tactic that does not lead to the desired outcome.

It's the difference between having to take out a squad of bad guys to get to the goal, and where the GM has put you in a narrow corridor that forces you to open a single door and confront the squad head-on.

She-Ra Facebook Fan Pages: "Look at all of these creative drawings of love between the characters in this show! I love this message of love and understanding! It's amazing!"

Avatar Facebook Fan Pages: "Aang is the best; Korra sucks; and the final scene of The Legend of Korra made me cringe."

Toxic fan-dom hurts, man.

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Where's your RP at?:

Even The Greatest Generation suffered from lack of characters I cared about at various points, and I had far less fun in those campaigns. It worked best for me when people REALLY gave a shit about whether or not their character lived or died. Which, I'm fine with building something up just to have it torn down. That's tragedy, but tragedy can be great drama, and I enjoyed playing it. But some people didn't and idled out when their favorite characters died, and I can't say they were wrong. Not only was their investment gone, I can think of several cases where the campaign was lesser without that character. Not that player. That character. In persistent environments, relationships are what makes this stuff meaningful, and when that's gone it's not easily replaced.

I want to hook onto this because this is something that I thought long and hard about when pulling my game system together.

See, TGG was fun because it was fast-paced, and there was a high chance of death. It made success feel more successful. I get that. But what if death was optional? What if the point was to win or lose a battle, with consequences based on the win or loss, rather than death? What if the risk were more "global"?

On RfK, if you lost a political gamble, you didn't necessarily die. You probably owed some favors and were constantly worried about getting killed. But you were still in the game, and could claw your way back up. So, you lost the battle, but you don't lose your investment (entirely).

Envision a Battletech game, where the worst that happened was that you get taken out of a battle because your 'Mech shuts down. If you're trying to prevent the Clans from taking the capital of your planet, well, son, you just lost, so the chances are greater that the Clans will win. And if the Clan wins, well -- game over. Or maybe you move to a different planet. But the game's history changes, and you were a part of it -- on the losing side.

Maybe next time you win.

That's the sort of game I want to build.

@derp said in RL Anger:

They aren't acting against their self-interest. They're very much acting in favor of it. Although we assume the existence of the program is a long-term benefit for them, that is hardly guaranteed.

I concur, but write separately.

Those living hand-to-mouth are worried about the short-term. Lowering taxes addresses a short-term need. Many of the positions billionaires take regarding budgets and strict spending correspond with their beliefs, which correspond with their lifestyles.

It's hard to sell a person on the idea of investing when they don't have enough each paycheck to pay the rent and eat.

@faraday said in Course Corrections:

Really? Them using an innocuous phrase like "gunmetal gray" or "okay" is impacting your enjoyment of the game? Really? I mean, if so okay, I'll take your word for it. It just seems strange to me, that's all.

The example here isn't the greatest, I'll admit, but I know that fantasy games are a bit tighter on theme than others, for reasons. But, if I may:

• I explained (spoilers) that BSG takes place thousands of years before Earth history, so trademarked names, pop culture references to stuff like Star Wars, haven't happened yet. So I politely clarified that this isn't in Earth's future, but it's past.
• She barked at me via pages for harassing her (this was approx 10 pages, and she hadn't told me to stop paging her, there was no bitchy language), and then complained about me to staff.
• Staff reached out to me and basically told me "we agree with you but to keep things calm, give her some room"
• I gave her room, moved on.

Again, for me, I'd have less of a problem with the use of "LEGO" than I would with reporting me to staff for trying to keep the theme/setting intact by offering helpful pointers, only to be told, in so many words, to suck it up princess because I want to play fucking LEGOs instead of engaging in the already-set theme/setting.

I mean, I play on BSG: Unification. I have to consciously not toss in references to Prentice-Hall or Houghton Mifflin Harcourt when talking about my PC's penchant for textbooks, or Shakespearean quotes. But I try because I know that the pop-culture references aren't really found in the BSG world.

Because if you've played with me on a WoD, I like to pepper my poses with counter-interpellative cultural references and memes for humor value.

@crawfish

I love your Haakon painting, but I always sort of saw him as:

@Arkandel said in Identifying Major Issues:

I'd say the biggest problem, and I include myself as part of it, is we're reluctant to try something new.

Speak for yourself, bucko. Otherwise, I concur.

Many interesting ideas are failures to launch, usually for the lack of a pocket coder to do some customization although that's not the only reason... and going through all this, investing tons of hours and sweat into the gruelling process making a new MU* is only to see 10 players on at launch can be heartbreaking.

In my case, I'm the only one working on my project. @Thenomain has looked at it and offered suggestions, but I'm toiling in the paper mine. Building and describing a system from the ground up is a slow grind of love, not a quickie.

I think it'd need to start with coders.

I think you'll find that the known coders that frequent here are pleased to assist once you pique their interest and agree on a step-by-step plan to execute.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. That's the easy part.

You think so?

Getting a game started may be easy: there's a lot of available code out there and people knowledgeable in how to implement the code.

But seeing a good idea through properly is not easy at all. @Faraday has spent years with her code and system. @Thenomain has spent years developing his code. @SunnyJ has been very meticulous with Fallen World. Fate's Harvest took 2 years to pull together. I can't even imagine how long it took for whoever to code SW:DoD or SW:FoH.

If I had an issue with games these days, it is that they are rushed. A Beta open is to detect bugs, not to open a game and add content, ideas, rules, history, etc. to it. My main project has been in development for 4 years, but that has been accelerated recently.

@wizz said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

80%-90% of all profiles here that aren't weird Trumpsters all revolve around rock climbing/snowboarding/outdoor stuff or being a gym rat and I'm just not into it. (I enjoy hiking and camping occasionally? But it's sort of their entire lifestyle and I wouldn't be interested or able to keep up.)

If you're looking for someone, maybe you should just try the traditional method? It's not easy if you aren't outgoing or enjoy going to bars, but I prejudicially (I know, it's not right) believe that a lot of people who crow about their hobbies and beliefs in online dating profiles are unsufferable.

@derp said in Positivity Going Forward...:

Now there is an alternative. People have choices. Two different cultures can come out of it. Or, if not that, then at least there are options and redundancy for if something terrible happens to one or the other.

This.

I was approached about giving a copy of the database to Tributary, a long-standing member and someone that I trust. Her concern was that we would let MSB and the Hog Pit die or get deleted. This is part of the reason why we decided to switch all of the boards to a mode that can be viewed by anyone, with or without an account. The folks at Brand MU Day (I think that's what it's called) therefore can link to threads here (I think) or otherwise cite to them.

But we don't need to compete. We just want to head in a different direction, that's all. I think people can enjoy both places for what they provide. Who knows? Maybe a third group will pop up.

@arkandel said in Good TV:

I mean compare Loki to Superman & Lois, even though it's easy to argue Superman is a far more important property for DC than Loki is for Marvel.

@faraday said in Positivity Going Forward...:

I applaud the shift to a more positive environment, but I'm skeptical as to whether the community has the bandwidth to really support multiple forums.

For all that you do and have done to make the hobby better, that you still can post up here from time to time indicates to me that the community probably has more bandwidth than it takes credit for.

@solstice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Finding out someone who preyed on you as a child is now part of your community again.