Best posts made by Ghost

Play what you want how you want, just do so with good intentions.

The moment you start justifying your character concepts based on your gender, race, orientations, RL diagnoses, or religion, you're setting yourself up for being told what you cannot play.

Be creative. Have fun. If you're a heterosexual white woman who was raised Christian and wanna play a biracial male bisexual hockey player with PTSD who dabbles in Gardnerian Witchcraft? Swing for the bleachers.

Fiction is about writing people you are not.

@GreenFlashlight said in Good or New Movies Review:

feel like a lot of the backlash to the new trilogy is based on the audience resenting that they now have enough critical thinking skills to recognize the things they weren't savvy enough to notice as kids.

Interesting thought. I'm gonna ponder it.

Personally, I think moviegoers put too much importance on these franchise films, at least enough that the concept of just hanging out, eating some popcorn, and enjoying a movie has become some kind of armchair avant-garde analysis as to whether or not it met their approval, why, and whether or not they would have done what the characters did. Enjoying a movie isnt about whether or not you'd vote for it on The Voice and ride an entire season of esteem on it. It's about being in the moment, being absorbed by the screen, and letting the story get you out of your skin.

And maybe that's part of the problem; people are so focused on their opinions, their standards, their desires, all stuff inside of their own skin that they can't just let things be. "Omg this $10 matinee ticket was a waste of my time and money." and "I waited a whole year since the last time I was disappointed and a year the time before that and the 7 years since Revenge of the Sith that disappointed me and so did Attack of the Clones and Phantom Menace and OMGFUCK JJ Abrams Star Trek arrrrr".

Man, I thought about this new trilogy and asked myself if I would have LOVED IT if I was a kid and it all happened a year or two after Return of the Jedi. More Luke and Chewbacca, Rey, Poe, Finn, more R2D2...I'd have loved it.

And I think it's kinda sad that for some people that magic is gone for them. I hope they can find it again, but here's a secret: No one's ever going to recapture what they loved as a child if they approach it like an adult.

@Derp said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Staff needs to get better at saying 'this is what our vision of the game is, and the kinds of things that we are expecting. If this is not what you want, then this isn't the game for you.

I really do think the players who join a mush and then run off to some corner to play their private sandbox version of the game do more damage than good. Joining a WoD game and then using it to make an anime character to recreate Tokyo Ghoul, while not illegal, is no bueno.

A clear genre/vision to help make sure everyone is actually playing the same game and the same setting does wonders for cohesion and keeping people from ostracizing others.

Anyone got any gifts over XMas they're jazzed about?

I got a copy of the Conan RPG by Modiphius.

Now it's absolutely time for a TTRPG filled with Lovecraftian worm monsters, booze, nudity, and gore. FOR CROM.

A good bit of GM advice I got a while back was: "A player only gets one character, the GM gets everyone else in the universe". Another bit of advice I got (and followed) is to "remember that the GM isn't a player, but a narrator who helps sell the story."

These 2 pieces of advice stuck with me, and I think they apply to the topic at hand.

My outlook is that NPCs are a vehicle and nothing more. In a game, the PCs are the "main cast members" and NPCs are "supporting cast/extras". So with that in mind, I think it's easy to forget to focus on the players if a GM is heavily investing in an NPC as if it's a PC. There's a difficult boundary there.

IMO, GMs should take off their GM cap when playing, and take off their player cap when GMing. While a GM may get "everyone else in the universe", you've got to let NPCs be NPCs. Sometimes theyre some kind of "mission giver" with an exclamation point above their head, an assistance with backstory, but IMO they should always be 2nd place to the PCs. Otherwise you end up with bored PCs and NPCs who fix all pf the problems.

I don't want to dig much into the concept of "NPCs as romantic partners", but I will say this: I don't think it's a good idea, at least in a mushing sense, for a few reasons.

1. Staff/GM are there to guide the plot and game process. IC attachments of that kind are preferable between PCs. You want the story to be there.
2. NPCs are a commodity to be used, but in a mushing sense, a staff NPC in a deep relationship with a PC can very quickly become a lot of demand on a GM to give highly individualized RP sessions. This can lead to weird things like cries of favoritism, increased strain on staff availability, and TECHNICALLY if it's a staff NPC, then it should be able to be RPed by any staffer/GM. If someone isn't okay with any available GM roleplaying an NPC romantic interest, then it's not an NPC.

Anyway, tl;dr: I believe in keeping a very clear dividing line between PCs and NPCs. You can switch between the two, but can should only fill one role at a time.

I hate it when personality tests come across my Facebook feed:

WHICH POP CULTURE HERO ARE YOU???

Question one: How would you defend yourself in a dangerous situation?

1. Transform into a giant semi-truck robot and shoot them with lasers
2. Throw a batarang
3. Unleash your adamantium claws and berserker rage
4. Team up with five of your friends and attack with giant lion robots.

FUCK YOU. JUST ASK ME IF I WANT TO BE OPTIMUS PRIME

Eyyyyyy. Resurrecting with new information.

Over the weekend I was privileged enough to get a game in with the creator of "Happiest Apocalypse on Earth". He is an avid fan of the "X CARD" and he described it in a way that clicked well with me.

He said that he finds that players often seem more likely to get grimdark (my fave!) when there IS an x-card on the table because they can do so knowing everyone has the ability to opt out at any time; that the existence of the X-card makes it more okay to make bold/daring IC decisions because theyre comfortable knowing that anyone who doesnt like it can X it.

The X card can make a player less nervous to try things.

I really liked that.

@shangexile agreed. Go away. Your stalkerish behavior is creepy and unwelcome, and the way you're just trying to get a rise out of @surreality is petty.

You should set higher standards for yourself.

Not to dig too deeply into this, but I always find it weird that shaming becomes a topic when people mention discomfort with adults role-playing minors in sexual situations. So I'll say this:

1. Yes, teens hook up. Regardless of teen sexuality it is still both illegal and unethical for adults to retroactively cross that 18 line, so the desire to RP as or with a PC who is a minor in a sexual situation raises eyebrows. Always. That cross to bear is on the shoulders of the pro-minor TS RP; not the person with the raised eyebrow.

2. The game suggests a 12 year old body in a sexual situation. It's within the realm of possibility that we arent talking just about teens, but about potential simulated sex with what appears to be a pre-teen (or, for perspective, a 5th grader at an elementary school). It doesn't matter if the "soul" in the 12 year old appearing shell is that of a 45 year old man because the willingness to engage in fuckery with the imagery of a child is, IMO, fucked up.

3. The unspoken rule of life is "teens bang teens, adults bang adults". The closer you hold to this statement the less controversial said banging will be.

I would like to point out my love of time spent writing with @skew @Auspice @surreality @Pondscum Wendigo @Paris @faraday

By no means a complete list, but its 1030, I'm tired, and I cant remember all the @ tags at the moment.

I had a lot of good times with you guys and you're all very vivid and challenging in the way that a good writing partner teaches you to dig deeper and show, not tell. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, I highly recommend them each for different reasons.

Kind of like working out with someone who pushes you to lift an extra pound in one session more so than you did the last session.

When I write, I don't care about me. I dont care about agenda or what I, myself, want for my character. Instead, when I write I care more about finding the voice of my creation and writing through it. Players like these make it hard to find plateaus where RP stales and becomes rote.

Whenever I dig into this hobby, I always find a lot of comfort working thru people who are less concerned with the direction of plot as they are that it has direction. Cooperative writing requires pushback. I u fuckers. You don't pushback. You bodyslam.

People.

Young people can (and do) Google "online games".

I can tell you from experience that I've known people in the 18-25 range from time to time in this hobby and can tell you why they aren't in the hobby today.

1. Antiquated format versus new: Fan of it or not the younger generation is into innovation. Some into retro stuff like cherry py and retro gaming aren't piling into the hobby as it is, but most 18-25 are into NEW tech. They're into doing more in less time. They're not into slaving themselves to one laptop for 6 hours for a coffee scene when newer forms of entertainment give bite-sized, guaranteed rewards. They're also into...

2. The Elder Factor: ...not hanging out outside of their own age group. The MU community has a big problem with elder guard types being very judgmental about peoples knowledge, experience, roleplay styles, and not everyone is willing to take the time when someone logs in and asks "I'm new, can someone walk me through chargen?" The 18-25 crowd also has their own language older people like us laugh about. Millennials right? Let's target a bunch of post-teens typing in texting lingo and invite them to write long-form novels with us.

3. New people are eyed with suspicion: A while back I had the pleasure of having a few newer players complain to me that people kept harassing them in pages about who they were. They got drilled by so many players as to whether or not they were X or Y player, because the reality is that anyone who claims that they're new gets screened for safety and if they're not doing it right they tend to get avoided. Or...

4. P newperson=What's your kink?: 18-25 people also arent big fans of sexual harassment, nor are they fans of sexual harassment from people old enough to be their parents. Sad to say, there are a number of people who approach this hobby like a swinger's club, and most players have a list of experiences with being creeped on.

So, I don't want to be the negative one, here. I get that a lot of you love this hobby, but the reason why it's not attracting or keeping younger players is also why the same reason why it's not keeping/losing newer players in a higher age bracket. Slapping a fresh coat of paint on it or dying out the gray hair and putting on a Von Dutch cap on your wiki isn't going to attract or maintain a newer, younger player base.

There are some very weird, regularly-crossed, and cultural issues in the hobby that make it somewhat of a Country Club filled with judgmental, particular older people who want more people around so that they can enjoy their Country Club more but aren't really prepared to let these people be who they are. They spend so much time judging and critiquing each other that some new blood would be great...provided that they act maturely, follow the cultural trends, don't make stupid decisions, etc.

So...having said that, I hate being the guy to show problems without offering solutions.

1. Community Standards: Yes, each game has policies. Yes, the games do their best to weed out creepers and racists with arguable levels of support for the LGBTQ+ community. This isn't enough and the community as of current has problems with people being avoided for roleplay outside of clique, etc because the reasons for that aren't tackled. There are some assholes. There are some judgy, pedestal-sitting assholes who clearly haven't followed some people's better examples as to how to be prevalent without being elitist. If you cant figure out how to get everyone playing together nicely now, you're only inviting new people into a dysfunctional household.

2. Do. Not. Monetize: This is the worst idea. The worst. Period. I get that some people would love to have more money coming in, but monetizing for an archaic entertainment format makes it less attractive. It's suggested on Twitch feed advice that it's better to monetize after you have a decent viewerbase, not right out the gate, and this applies here, too. It's a hobby, and while for some people it's 70%+ of their day, its still a hobby and not a job. Don't monetize contributions, advertisement, or bringing new people into the game like some church/pyramid scheme.

3. Build web interfaces supported by code: By this I dont mean a web interface that connects people to the command line environment. Build web interfaces that never get to CLI. If you want the player base to evolve, then the hobby itself needs to evolve. Evennia and python are a good start, but ultimately the command line environment and clunky unix format needs to evolve. Move away from "commands" and do things like create an API interface that will take the arguments from the commands in easier web-based interfaces. THE CLOSEST YOU CAN GET TO A WEB PAGE THAT IS 90% TYPING AND SOME LOGGING, THE BETTER. To evolve, there are simply a number of things that need to be automated, and the things I've seen are a good start, but the constant return back to the command line (even if there is a web interface to connect to it) is rough. Mush clients. Etc. They're godsends compared to telnet back in the day for us, but not attractive compared to other formats out there.

Anyway, this was long, but it needed to be. In my opinion it's naive to take an approach that this hobby is great and you just need to get the word out. I think that's the path of least resistance to tackling issues that are harder to solve. There are other issues that keep people away and keep them from staying. Best to just be direct about that, because hours upon hours of work in one direction may be pointless unless the hobby itself evolves, too. That means taking some of the elder guard out of their comfort zone.

@Bananerz I like how it seems you've prioritized players' ability to create things and explore. I totally wish you well on this.

My two cents

In my experience most players don't directly deal with harassment/creeping by setting quick, clear boundaries, giving warnings, and reporting to staff when harassment continues. IME most players gauge whether or not handling the creeper would negatively impact their ability to find roleplay by means of rumor-spreading, if they're popular with staff, or they'll be blocked from plots. Fear of retaliation is so pervasive in the hobby that most players I've met choose to hide from it or weather it instead of take steps to end it.

If I had a quarter for every time someone paged me with some story about how "X person is stalking them but just leave it alone, one scene here and there and they stop" I'd have a month's subscription to WoW paid off.

So here's the problem:

1. This is a judgy hobby. What you perceive as creepy may be a known IC factor on someone else's part, or may not be considered creepy by the 3rd party you think is getting creeped on. Be careful to not jump the gun.
2. While it may seem friendly, jumping the gun on another player's behalf takes that fear of retaliation decision out of their hands. People need to speak up and ask for help, but really unless it's something really, really, really obviously wrong and you have a log of it, the true weight of reporting harassment falls onto the target player. In theory, complaining on someone's behalf when they don't yet deem it necessary may not actually be on their behalf, but on yours, so best self-check on that.
3. if it's all IC...then let it be IC. Creepy or not, what you perceive to be creepiness should, in theory, be treated with and dealt with ICly. The reason these things get fucked up is because of OOC influences. Pressure, guilt, etc can all be dealt with ICly if it's all IC with far better results than OOC, so be grateful if it's kept IC. Be even more grateful if it's a game that allows for PK.

In the end, I think it's far better to be supportive of people who are being creeped on to be the engine for their own safety.

@Carex said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

Instead, if you find out your kid is playing a blood-slut for some vampire on a MUSH or a werewolf or whatever you could show interest, ask them why they play that. Why is it fun. Hell, you could even (And I know this may be shocking to some parents) join them in their hobby!

So...

...ask them why it's fun.
...ask them why they're playing a blood slut.
...JOIN the minor in playing a blood slut, TSing online with legal adults.

I got a suggestion on what to ask.

"Do these people know that you're a minor?"
"Where are your logs located? I need to provide these to the police."

@tek said in The Dark Side of online Role-Playing:

@Ghost Also, if your 13-year-old is RPing some seriously fucked up sexual shit, that's a sign that they might have been traumatized or victimized already, not a sign that they're "just not as innocent as you think". @Carex has this weird fucking hangup on innocence, which is a major fucking red flag. It's not about innocence. It's about what is developmentally appropriate.

EXACTLY

And if it's possible that they were previously abused and are continuing a cycle of sexual abuse with adults online, then stepping in could actually mean helping them end a cycle of self harm.

These are not "roleplay preferences", people. These are someone else's kids.

If you have knowingly TSed with a minor, shrugging it off with "Hey, this is their freedom of expression. It's their right to choose; who am I to intervene?" then fucking shame on you. You're a pedophile who chose TS and their own kink over worry about sexually exploiting a child.

If you're reading this and you know this pertains to you? You are a pedophile who committed a felony. I hope you rot in jail.

@L-B-Heuschkel Yea. Solo writing can be very lonely. I've struggled with that silence. That's why theres so many groups about contact and support to keep people motivated.

Yanno, I might even suggest a sub-board about writing on this forum. I think one truth is that MUers may consider this to be writing, but if they actually want to write something to get published there are a number of very common things in MU that need to be unlearned altogether. Stuff like:

• Scenes in a book are not tennis-style all of the time. Characters in a novel dont take turns or rotate on a token ring
• Chapters have a focus going in. If you take 22 pages to get to the point, you may lose the reader
• Purple prose poses that are 9 paragraphs long need to be unlearned. The more impact in the less word salad is often the better. Hit harder, not lengthier.
• Learn to write more from the character's perspective with less focus on impacting the other player. A lot of MU text is very self-aware of its own audience

I think a forum/thread focusing on writing and writing advice would help encourage people who want to try to get published to do so, but also help them be prepared for it. Popular MUer != Good Writing Habits.

@Pyrephox said in Emotional bleed:

@L-B-Heuschkel To some extent, there are several different issues:

People who use "have some ooc/ic separation" to be dicks in a way that would STILL BE A DICK even if we were sitting around playing cards or a board game. Like, rubbing someone's face in a loss, targeting another player to ruin their experience, mocking how someone plays - being upset about these things says nothing about one's ic/ooc separation, and trying to hide behind "oh, you just don't have good boundaries" is dumb. Bad sportsmanship is the center of it.

People who use "everyone gets attached to characters" to be dicks in a way that is manipulative and creepy, and yeah, would still be a dick if you were playing, idk, Warhammer tabletop or something, and decided that your faction was objectively the best and threw temper tantrums whenever you lost. They use their "attachment" to demand, overtly or covertly, that the game and other players conform to that attachment - I think my character is awesome, so I demand that you treat him/her like they're awesome, or my heart will break and it's all your fault.

I'm someone that tried to maintain a pure separation between IC/OOC, so I'll chime in here.

As someone who has been threatened, threatened with self-harm, yelled at by players for their emotional/marital health, had to wriggle out of uncomfortable RL attachment issues, been told "I love you" out of nowhere, been the target of trying to breach RL separation with promise of sexual favors, repeatedly dumped into situations that were I need you to do this for my RL needs, etc etc etc....

I came to the belief that at all times the best policy was to make it clear the following:

• This is a character, like a character in a book, that I am writing
• I am not the character. I will make decisions based on what I suspect the character's focal point is.
• YES there may be some thoughts and/or language ICly that derives from my own style of speaking and/or thinking, but that's not because the character is an extension of myself, but because from a writing perspective it just kind of happened that way. I am not my character. If anything this happens as a failure to find the PC's "voice".
• Do not contact me to try to coerce or guilt me into the character making specific actions
• I can, and will, exercise my right to play, drop, or delete the character for whatever reason I think is appropriate

I came to that point because, frankly, I was sick and tired of people accusing me of off the wall shit or make me feel like their emotional health depended on my attendance and/or action through a PC. Which, I'm sympathetic to people who are at that place emotionally, but the only way to keep myself sane and healthy was to accept that if anyone is like that towards PCs in the hobby, it's probably not because of one player's existence; if it wasn't me getting that attachment it'd be someone else next week (or maybe I wasn't the only one getting that level of heat at the same time).

I think that list above is healthy, sets fair boundaries, and is a good mantra to follow. IC/OOC separation avoids bleed, and I think it needs to be a practice (like meditation or yoga). After all, plenty of actors have mental/emotional issues because they committed too much to a character. Why should amateur "roleplayers" on the internet be any different?

I believe survival/apocalypse games are better suited to smaller groups, pockets of separated small groups, or need to have strong rules about danger/mortality the larger the group gets.

See, humans at one time farmed and had to set watches to keep wolves from eating people in huts, right? But the problem I see on most survival/zombie/apocalypse games is that character types are regularly chosen to fill niches until the characters themselves negate the survival aspect of the game. By this I mean: Is it REALLY a survival game when you have fifteen soldiers, a former Navy Seal, three doctors, one veterinarian, a brain surgeon, four people with agrarian science degrees, a botanist, three midwives, two stable masters, two blacksmiths, seven leatherworkers, fifteen carpenters, two daycare workers, a horse whisperer, two poli-sci majors, six former police officers, and one massage therapist AT THE START OF THE STORY????

Survival/apocalyptic stories are not about guy broke his leg, call the doctor, but instead they are about guy broke his leg and we don't have a doctor. They are typically about regular joes (or to quote All Flesh Must Be Eaten: Norms) and only a very few vital (maybe 5% of the population) people with very useful skills. The stories are about overcoming these adversities and surviving while unlearning old useless skills (JAVA PROGRAMMING!) and replacing them with new ones (EATING MUSHROOMS AND NOT DYING).

So the main issues I have seen are characters who are too useful, and not enough emphasis on how such large groups are able to survive without fatigue from lack of resources. With so many capable characters, the end result is like No Return Mu: "That sucked, oh well, let's just rebuild houses and start new hospitals! We have oncologists!"

TL;DR version: Big groups are okay so long as they're not filled with fucking experts in survival-useful skills, and so long as people realistically roleplay the struggles of survival, rather than hand-wave the actual survival part.

I don't play "100", but are there a lot of characters with super-useful skillets despite being teenagers?

My space hipster character is named Ezekiel "Megaphone" Wyatt, a level 20 barista who specializes in ancient Earth cassette tape entertainment. He can, at any given time, produce up to ten copies of Sonic Youth, Radiohead, or Pixies cassette tapes. The kicker is that you have to be cool enough to provide your own cassette tape player to use them.

He has thirty cassette tape players, but fuck you, they're vintage.

He has a -5 to all dice rolls to avoid being punched in the face.
He has a +10 beard.

He is the Captain a space freighter named the:
Captain Jane: Also known as the day where people gathered under the sun and witnessed a sonic explosion of such great magnitude that systemic racism was never again seen PART SIX.

Yes. That's the entire ship name, and when he asks for landing clearance on space station, he whiteboy raps the request in the style of De La Soul.

Edit: His preferred war cry is: KMFDM TECHNICALLY ISN'T MUSIC.

As one of the players who can lose a character and feel nothing, I figure in the least judgmental way possible I should sound off on why that is, and wherein may be coping mechanisms to handle losing a character.

I've always kept my eye on what the character represented, which, in my estimation due to the vaguely ooc elemented sense of things in MUs, was a sort of narrated sock puppet to play make believe with other marionettes. In all my years of MU it was fairly constant to make new characters as games opened/closed in short notice, so I realized any emotional impact I had due to character loss wasn't because the character itself impacted me, but because it represented some kind of anchor into the social aspect, connections to other players/characters, and therein lied emotional needs I wasn't addressing.

This may not be you personally, but Andrew Robinson played Garak for years, delved into makeup to the point of wearing Garak's skin, thinking as Garak, and the degree of fan love and energy generated from simply being Garak. I guess for me I never felt I ever did something so important or so deep with a character that letting go of them was all that difficult, but losing access to the human connection to another player was often more difficult.

So when I let go of a PC (which 95% of the time was due to me leaving a game or the game closing) my thought process was: Will people forget me? Will I find RP? Will I be able to find RP and social time with another character or will they focus on other people instead and it'll be hard to...not feel lonely?

So I feel (for me) it was important to focus on a bigger question: "Am I mourning the character or is this vaguely personal feeling related to me, my insecurities, and my need for a social outlet?"

With that thought in mind, I realize on an introspection level that I never really mourned a character, but instead mourned time spent with other people; be they a temporary warm body willing to make me feel like my presence had value or be they an actual friend that I liked spending time with.