Best posts made by Ghost

You know, I just wanted to take a moment to say that I think the new policies regarding avoiding personal attacks will do everyone better in the long run, and are probably exactly what the hobby needs.

On the Hog Pit
I never really did agree that a place like the Hog Pit was necessary or "for the better". In fact, I think the concept of it was a lot like "The Purge". SURE give everyone a place where they can murder and commit crimes and it'll get it out of their system. The end result, I think, was that it normalized venom and incentivized people to attack one another for others' entertainment, to gain ground with fellow bullies, and to take one's personal issues out on victims for sport.

On going forward
It occurs to me that for YEARS there hasn't been a real gathering for people who MU to get together and be a COMMUNITY that actually enforced...respectful behavior. Sure, the Hog Pit was "opt-in" but it was easily the most popular place on the forum and bleed-over was constant. Every other day it seemed a topic needed to be moved to the Hog Pit because people were being nasty.

In short, ACTUALLY having a place where people can gather as a community to be respectful and (dare I say) neighborly will do people good in the long run. People were -afraid- to join MSB because of the venom, and now with the new policies and attitude in place I think you'll end up getting a lot of the nicer, more constructive types to feel welcome.

No offense to the people who like the L&L games, but this thought came to my head:

LORDS AND LADIES CHARACTER SHEET:

INSTRUCTIONS: Fill in the blanks, then you're ready to go.

My name is __________ of House ________ and I'm fucking __________, but I'm supposed to be fucking __________.

Check THIS out...

New Alien RPG is coming. Why this is intriguing (especially in a mush sense) is because this TT RPG is boasting tools to run 2 different kinds of games...

1. Campaign mode. Long term. Etc.

2. Cinematic mode, which is designed for 1 shots and single nights of gaming.

Cinematic mode may contain some tools and ideas (perhaps even systems) that might work well in some mush event contexts.

Either way, preorders start 5 days from now, and once the pre-order is verified you get the Cinematic Rules PDF starter kit.

Oh...and yes...it includes both "Ripley and the Nostromo" styled setting information (I.e. Space truckers come across alien eggs and Weyland-Yutani fuckery) as well as...

COLONIAL MARINES, BETCH

Squeeeeeeeeee.

In that light, I apologize for calling @saosmash a mean thing.

I missed an opportunity to private message or reply with something like "hey, come on, I'm not trying to piss on something you like, I'm just being snarky about a concept I don't get"

But instead I was like:

I missed an opportunity to present myself as who I am in spirit, and that's 100pct on me.

I think you did a good thing in the end @shangexile . I commend you for that.

@zombiegenesis I think that's an excellently worded summary, to be honest.

Even right now, the people who are still banned (some who are coming back to start trouble) are just gathering and saying nasty things about pretty much anyone who ever told them no or disagreed with them. It's super toxic and it's really not constructive to any sort of rationally comfortable environment that reasonable people would want to be a part of. It's just NOT OK.

I'd originally intended to hang back even if my ban was lifted, but seeing that an attempt is being made to course correct from "unmitigated personal attacks" to "trying to be more positive and foster an environment of respect"? I'm hanging around to see what's up. I'm glad to keep communicating with a vast number of you.

I think the major issue in the end is the concept of "reputational income" and what happens if you have a bad reputation being in this constant "eye of the beholder" state with some very disrespectful, very demanding, and very unfair people. You see a lot of posts from them with the "you need to change your behavior or else..." verbiage from them, and I recently likened it to someone like the mafia asking you "are you sure this is what you want?" after an extortion attempt.

Maybe people can just be regular people, right? With flaws, who make mistakes, who aren't perfect, and who don't need to live up to the demands and expectations of the same 15 or so blowhards with superiority complexes that demand everyone meet their standards or face ridicule/belittlement?

I've chimed off on this before (re: FC sexuality), but I don't think the concern is so much on the sexuality of the character. I think it has more to do with how the character will behave under the control of the player.

I have no issues with a female Captain America or even a gay Captain America (there might be a compelling story to tell in Steve Rogers arriving in the modern age and realizing that he can be gay in 2017 with a certain amount of respect that wasn't prevalent in 1941).

I like to think that players would approach those gender/sexuality issues as a means of compelling story.

HOW and EVER...

I think the real concern people have is in a Captain America transported to 2017 as FUCK EVERYTHING THAT MOVES BONDAGE SEX SWING NEVER INVOLVES IN ANY STORY AND SENDS EVERYONE DICK PICS Captain America, thus really putting aside any meaningful role playing with the character concept in favor of using the character as a sandbox Shang Alt.

We'd seen mentions recently of gay fish Daken uncomfortably hitting on people IC and OOC, and mentions of Sex Magic Sorcerer Supreme Dr Strange.

So, in summary, I think the concern is less on gender/sexuality of the FC and more on whether or not they'll be used like a Harvey Weinstein extension of the player's whims, thus becoming more of a distraction than a contribution.

Friend's wife and fellow D&D group member has gone from ER to ICU to ventilator and sedation. Double pneumonia. Her Covid experience is going the wrong direction. Fuck this virus.

I've already got one memorial to attend after this nightmare ends so please do not go through airports unless it is absolutely necessary. Do not go to bars and restaurants unless absolutely necessary.

It's been made pretty clear by now that this virus doesnt care how little you're afraid of it. Dont fuck around and find out.

Counter-opinion:

There were different themes in behavior that I saw leading up to the bannings, with some people being far more disrespectful and venomous in their approach than others. Heck, I was even DM'ed to be informed what a slimy piece of shit I was, though in jest I was doing a little tongue-in-cheek trolling of the situation, myself.

If the focus of the forum going forward is to try to be respectful and positive, then some of those entitled personalities are best left off at that new forum they made (where when I was linked to it already saw personal attacks, fuck-marry-kill lists with actual people being listed as kill, etc). This forum isn't a paid-for service where users are entitled to getting what they want, nor is it required to maintain a level of "trust" even when "trust" is often mistaken for "doing what we say we want or else".

I recommend people who don't like it to let it go and glomp about it at that other place that's going to return to the same toxic behavior patterns.

@Auspice said in Disabilities and Mental Illness as Character Traits:

I also don't feel comfortable when someone has a disability for their character and they always have an 'escape' written in (is wheelchair bound, but can walk sometimes, is blind, but can see shapes and light now and then... etc.) that always comes into play when it's... convenient.

I hate that shit, mostly because the player took extra freebie points for being blind, but then doesn't roleplay it. Or, they took the points for taking some kind of BLIND flaw only to negate it with cybernetics.

It's like: "Dude, BLIND means CANNOT SEE. If your guy has cybernetic eyes, they can see, and therefore are no longer BLIND. If you can barely hear and then get a hearing aid or cochlear implants, the -4 to awareness checks doesn't apply."

But yes, I agree. Disabled but not is a peeve. It doesn't make me uncomfortable, I just think it's stupid, metagamey, and usually tied to jerking around with a character sheet.

But let's get to brass tacks, here.

House of the Dragon has GRRM's name on it. GRRM is an executive producer, writer, etc on it. GRRM has spoken positively about diversity of casting and has said he plans to introduce more BIPOC characters in upcoming novels...whenever those get finished. If GRRM felt it was so important that the Velaryons couldn't be black because of all of the reasons @Nymeria states that they simply cannot budge on non-white characters in their MUSH, he would have fought it tooth and nail.

It's not the ACTUAL CONTENT CREATOR who is taking a hard-line stance, crying about "woke SJW bullshit", saying racist things, or literally making the news for their toxicity. It's a pair of people who have decided more than once to gatekeep/act like the owners of someone else's actual work and do toxic things online in the name of someone who doesn't support their behavior.

With that in mind, I cannot say why I would allow those people to affect my legacy by remaining involved with them, why I would in any way support their MUSH, and hope that they get fired/cut loose to be left as a couple of MU hosts running a text-based chatty game in a world that they don't own.

...jesus.

A parent posts that their autistic child was potentially groomed on the internet by an adult, and chose as a parent to report it to the authorities. Rather than care and concern for this person and their special needs child, some people are seriously instead directing this as an opportunity to critique how they choose to implement their duty as a parent to protect their children?

The fuck is wrong with you people?

I dont think it's ever been so clear to me that some people in this hobby are just probably safer being corralled into this text-based second life than they are trying to behave like real world human beings. Jesus wept.

Forcing "purity" (interesting term for the topic, isn't it?) in an RPG is a slippery slope.

Sure, Genre-wise you don't want Luke Skywalker using 2022 tiktok meme examples in RP (he's supposed to be from a galaxy far away in a long time ago), but there's a pretty big line between "Creative preference" and "tyrannical GM nonsense". In the case of BofD and these two mentioned in the topic, their angle is that they view themselves to be an authority on the setting and they're literally inviting people to play content they view themselves to be owners of. So I don't get why people even bother to play that game, because ultimately it comes down to playing "house" with a couple of kids in their backyard and they'll make you leave if you're "not doing it right".

Why bother trying to be creative or create ANYTHING in an environment with someone who will tell everyone what their characters are, what they think, what they would or wouldn't do, etc?

These people are all "No" and not "Yes, and". They're not even "maybe, so" or "No, but". At the risk of sounding snide, they're literally using someone else's literary work and reputation to build themselves as an authority on the content and gatekeeping the shit out of it...and one of their preferred gates to keep is that BIPOC aren't in the ruling caste, make racist jokes, and consider black characters in the setting to be a matter of "woke cancel culture".

So, constructively, this should all be a lesson on do's and don'ts when it comes to understanding a few key things.

1. if you don't want people to try to create their own things and having a stake in it, you should be solo-writing it and not running it as an RPG where you falsely promote the concept of logging in to have agency over...well...anything.
2. Yes, it's true that players/fans blur the concept behind a character's skin color as being indicative of support for ACTUAL people with that skin color. Is it a minefield? Yes. Is it 100% about the content? No. It's somewhat shades of politics, social issues, etc blurring it's way into content. Still, it's best to understand this and take at least a "maybe, but" approach.

You could create a setting where 1000 all-white families boarded a spaceship and colonized a planet, and after 200 years there are 10,000 people who have ONLY mated with people on that initial all-white spaceship, and people will STILL be like "...can I play a black character?" and your answer should always, ALWAYS be to question why the fuck you decided creatively that everyone in that ship was white to begin with. What's up with that?

Also, since I've been made aware just how much people from another forum are watching this forum (eyeroll. Totally not bullies!), I think I should say:

I don't deny that I haven't always been positive. HOWEVER, I'd like to point out that it's been a long, long, long, long time (I can't remember an instance, but will never say never) since I came out to bully or belittle someone to be mean or punch down on them. I have, however, regularly punched back at bullies and mean people (especially since I quit the hobby and was no longer able to be retaliated against) because there were and are a number of disrespectful, pushy bullies who like to belittle and punch down on people for sport. It was in my opinion that some of those people deserved to get clapped back for those behaviors. Sometimes mean people need to be pushed back.

I'd like to see a community in the hobby where those elements (or the urges to clap back because people are being mean) aren't necessary where I can make friends and swap ideas.

@ZombieGenesis said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

Remember that there are actual people on the other end of these usernames. We often take the fact that we can see the actual human for granted and say things to or about them that we would never do in person. I know that's true of the internet, but I think it's especially relevant to here.

Just stop being judgy. Period. One of my biggest peeves is when someone does not like something, and they take on the mentality that it shouldn't exist. If you don't like something, ignore it. Don't attack it. Don't try and scare other people away from it.

I REALLY liked these.

I've thought about the first a lot through my time in the games. "I have no idea who this person is. They could be male when they say they're female. They could be older than they say they are. They're strangers." So with that I came to the realization that they could be more or less mentally/emotionally stable than me. They could be putting more or less stock into the game's outcome than me. I have no idea who this person is, what kind of life or day they've had, and what their emotional strength is...but I DO KNOW MINE.

In the few cases I've come across where I was in a situation where I questioned the mental/emotional health of a player to the point where I questioned their safety...it made me question how important it was for me to be RIGHT and instead question how necessary some argument or disagreement really was to me. Most of the time, even when I knew I was in the right, I just walked away.

The other players are people too, even if they're just text. Life is better when everyone treats each other like people with feelings.

WHICH LEADS INTO THE OTHER POINT ABOUT NOT BEING TOO JUDGY.

The same concepts apply to being over-judgmental. That could also be very rude or damaging to someone who you don't even know who they are. I've seen players made fun of like they were stupid for having bad spelling when in reality the player was very nice and spoke English as a second language. It's simply not necessary to be over-judgmental.

@macha Hey you dont gotta explain yourself. I think you're going to find that that pressure to "capitulate with our collective stance" is just a pain in the ass, and once you start negotiating it it'll never ever end.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is the best cop show since the Wire. Fight me.

Also, I am aching to make a WoD hunter/police crew based on the show*.

ETA: *in a tabletop game.

@Arkandel theres a call for you on line 2. He says he's Kenny Loggins and something about the Danger Zone?

• Each player is responsible for seeking out, partaking in, and choosing where and when to involve their character in roleplay. IC decisions need to be dealt with ICly.
• If an IC relationship requires OOC promises, personal details about the player, details on a player's ooc fetishes, preferences, or kinks involves feelings of jealousy or need for closure, and if PC falling out of IC monogamy is not handled ICly but as an OOC issue...then it's not an IC relationship. It's online dating with sock puppets and cybersex.

Let's do this.

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

I think the problem some players run into, is that they're more than willing to be 'part of the team' like you do in TT, but then they end up in scenes with players who.. aren't. It makes it hard to do anything impactful when someone else is always going in, guns blazing.

Can confirm. I know I've had that feeling before, personally.

Like a TT player I'd try to stay in my lane and not try to Hog the scene, but then someone(s) would just bowl over that goodwill, try to do everything, and try to Hog all the attention/xp. Left me feeling like my fairness and trying to be conscientious of others was being taken advantage of. I know it made me passive aggressive more than once.

Another note:

I'm so fucking glad to see TV shows casting strong bodied women as strong bodied women.

I'm referring to Cara on Mandalorian and Draper on the Expanse, specifically. Sure, Milla Jovovich is strikey, which is exactly what a thin, scrappy, modelesque chick would have to do in a fight, but I'm so tired of bikini models getting cast in roles where their body type is all wrong. Cops, Marines, Soldiers? This ain't just cardio, there's a lot of body training involved and most female cops I know are tough, buff, and can take some shit.

So to see characters like Draper, played by Frankie Adams (who is 5'11" and is a healthy body weight and build) play roles that are supposed to be these badass women that guys like me would be smart to listen to when they say "get behind me and let me take care of this" is great. My family has girls who played boys high school football and do MMA. I'm glad to see actual tough girls in tough girl roles.

I read an article where Gina Carano (Cara in Mandalorian) was saying that she's grateful to Mando because she was getting passed over for action roles because she has big arms, big legs, and she was told that she wasn't the body type they wanted for the role.

Fuck that. I dont care how machismo I want to feel at any given time. I wouldn't wanna fight Carano, Frankie Adams, or Ronda Rousey and wouldn't feel one bit bad about them putting some dude in a bar who is giving me shit into a chokehold.

Positive improvement.

@Lain UPVOTES

I've had issues like this on tabletop night:

The undead tentacle monster roars in your face and you are shaken for 2 rounds
But my character isn't afraid of it
It's a writhing mass of tentacles on a moldy bone frame. It's scary
My character has a +24 attack roll and does 12d400 mega-damage, he isn't afraid of shit.
He rolled over your will save, you spent all your points on combat stats
This is bullshit.