Best posts made by Ghost

@hobos One thing I AM very disappointed about in recent pop culture is a word you used: edginess. Allow me a short soapbox here.

Edgy is a term I'd seen thrown around a lot while MUing a few years back, and I've seen it used over the years in greater increments. While there's nothing wrong with something that is "edgy", it's usually thrown around in a connotation of "this person is trying to be edgy for edgy's sake". This approach usually comes with a biased opinion of the writer, the content, or the intent behind the content that is wrapped in the bias of the person using the term "edgy". In most cases, the person using the term "edgy" doesn't delve into WHY the content is the way it is before judging the person an edgelord or the intent behind their writing.

Example: A long while back I was apping for a character on "Fifth World". I noticed that 9/10 characters on this "lords and ladies" game were basically "Prince/Princess Perfect" with variations really based on what weapon they used. "Princess Perfect the Knight" and "Prince Perfect the Archer". So I decided that when I made a character I would make "Prince...who had a lot of privilege and thus became a drug addicted sorcerer who would rather club crawl than face his lordly duties." I simply wanted to make something flawed that wasn't perfect and my creative mind went to the concept that the idle rich in the setting are no different than any other setting: privilege and lack of equal amounts of risk for illicit activities. I wanted to challenge myself by writing a character that was deeply flawed, somewhat unreliable, but a talented sorcerer and thus useful.

So...I made the character. I had scenes. Then, a few years later an allegedly (airquotes) good person on the Hog Pit started joking and guffawing about my character and how I was an edgelord, trying to be so edgy, and it was so embarrassing to them that they quit the game. Which, I'd always found hypocritical given that this person was always afraid of being judged, themselves.

I guess the moral of this story is that I feel that art needs to have an edge, and the popular use of the term "edgy" is less of a critique of the greater content but more an attack on the content itself with a means to belittle it. In some ways I think our society as a whole needs more "edge" and needs to face those hard details, but the PROBLEM is that you take an edgy concept like "The Purge" (which was intended to be a dystopian critique of where our society is heading) and then people only seem to fixate on "Oh I'd love the Purge!" and lose the entire point of the original content to begin with.

GOOD art will usually have some sort of "slap effect" that at first may come across as "edginess" (as in: trying to be) but only upon taking the time to review it with an unbiased lens you may find that the original purpose wasn't to be edgy at all.

One last example:

Nikki Sixx's photography might be laughed off as "oh look how edgy they are..."

When in fact the entire art photography book he put out had a theme of taking people with deformities, missing limbs, and developmental issues and showing how beautiful and intriguing they could be. So you could take a first look at that picture above and think "LOL Wannabe NIN EDGY LOL" but then when you take a moment to consider that Nikki Sixx (who often talks about how ugly he feels inside and wants to show his own beauty) focused on people who society deemed "disfigured and ugly" and put out a book of creative photography highlighting their beauty...it becomes something entirely different.

...I guess this wasn't a short soapbox. Alas.

You dont owe me an apology. Take care of yourself and be happy.

Theres no need to worry about a clean slate when I'm not keeping score.

@Derp I will fight to the death over how awesome Caroline Forbes is.

I fucking LOVE the trope of "privileged, perfect princess girl who becomes messy vampire". It's such a great transition. A girl who had everything, life of the party, center of her own little world. Becomes undead. Goes from prom queen candidate to...

...and I am forever grateful that the transition's tone didn't become some snarky Buffy trope and instead made the character grow up.

@Aria Ack, I'm sorry for the awkward during such an awesome show. I'm jealous as Hell and wanna see the Queens. Also, I swear on everything that I was involved in zero voodoo at the time that would have broken an ankle. Hiss. That sounds painful.

Alas, the past is past and I think you're cool people.

As far as Homme as a PB goes? I was all kinds of dorky proud of myself about that. I wanted to fill the following requirements:

• Not a super well known public figure
• Looks like a Marine who fits that "video games, beer, and barbecues to loud rock music" vibe.

I wanted him to be that guy who signed on for 4 years expecting free college with no plan whatsoever to go career, and then war broke out.

@Ganymede said in MUers in the news?:

But if the fry cooks are the reason why my french fries suck, I'm not going to complain to the manager about the potatoes they've provided.

<take this in a humorous tone because I you>

But if the fry cooks forget to sprinkle Cajun seasoning on your fries and instead sprinkle racism seasoning on your fries, they're not likely to fire themselves if you complain to them. You gotta talk to people that can choose for them.

@Rinel said in Gray Harbor Discussion:

small area of woodland going totally still in the middle of an oncoming storm making everything windy, and a fog rising out of the forest edge.

Sidebar: I like that a lot. Curious what the answer is from the players, but wanted to props that imagery. I looooove that kind of stuff.

This is the advertisememts thread. I suggest that if we want to open a debate about FCs, OCs, and whether or not you want to play a game without OCs, that a subthread is created.

It looks like a fun game and I've heard positive things. Let this game have that and not poo-poo on its Ad thread if you don't like that you can't play OCs on it, please.

@Cupcake said in Re-Igniting Playspiration:

Should I be Kondo-ing, or grit my teeth and keep trying? Is there some other tactic to consider?

I wouldn't suggest muscling through it and gritting your teeth. That tends to result in resentment. Sometimes no matter how hard you beat the horse it won't Jesus.

My advice:

Step away. Make some tea. Ask yourself what you are really looking for in the hobby, if there was a time you had that, and how long it's been. Ask yourself if you currently feel like it's possible to get back to that. Is there hurt? Does the hobby make you feel negative things that dont feel good? (Self esteem, exclusion, unwanted).

You know you, and if you don't, knowing you will almost always help you find your way through times like these. When it comes to hobbies or social stuff it's not always a particular game or a person that is ruining it, but it can be tied more to unfulfillment of something that you may not be consciously aware of.

Example.

I was "forever GM" for my RL tabletop group for about 12 years. For 12 years I held this candle that I would get to PLAY in a Star Wars RPG game. For 12 years I kept running games my group loved and would always dangle this "okay who is running next?" carrot. No one ever bit. Eventually I said "after this one I'm done running, so if we want to keep playing one of you needs to step up." The group drifted apart rather than try to run, and I never got my SW game.

I was upset. After some tea and instrospection I realized that it wasn't because I never got my SW game, but because I had relied on my friends to give back and they never did.

Now, as a result, it wasn't a happy ending, but at least I am more aware that I need to seek a new gaming group rather than try another single year of beating my head against that wall. Unfortunate, but at least now I can own my feelings on the issue.

@lithium By that I meant that a lot of existing FCs have been put through the ringer over years of defining what their powers can and cannot do, including weaknesses and personal kryptonite factors that have been written into existing canon.

OCs, even in my own tabletop games, tend to be very creative to put together powersets that can sneak up on you to be way more powerful than a GM had originally intended to allow. So, when it comes to powers, FCs are a known factor.

Are there overpowered FCs? Yes. With decades of explanations as to how their powers can be combated. In a hobby, though, where there are plenty of people who never like to lose and work to be extra creative to create something super unique and rare, you run the risk of approving Can Control Muscles and suddenly have a character that feels entitled to stopping the hearts of every person for a mile radius because "muscle control" was approved.

That's what I meant.

@Arkandel said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

All of my characters are straight white guys. Like me. If anyone doesn't approve for whatever reason, well, I'll just have to live with that then they're judgy and can fuck right off.

^^^^

@Auspice You're right.

I think people who play FCs need to remember that any given tabletop RPG or MU isn't going to replay stuff the FC has already done. So knowing how Daredevil solved anything in some 1987 Daredevil run is less important than getting to the core of the character so that decisions will feel like decisions he would make.

Which, in most cases, is to constantly push yourself to the point of breaking every bone in your body because you love your friends and dont want them getting hurt in your fights. Then confession. Penance is a big theme with Daredevil.

Also, on topic?

I think I've said this before, but bonus points to anyone roleplaying a male (with the piping) who suddenly sits down, grunts, freezes in place, then breathes out slowly.

Sitting on your testicles happens way more (IMO) than crotch adjustments, and its 10x less funny to experience but 100x more funny to witness.

• SIT DOWN.
  "Umppff."
  "Whats wrong?"
  "Nothing...nothing..."

Damn it I was just saying I wanted more single theme anime games.

@Lotherio said in Sexuality: IC and OOC:

Thus was had the great FIRST OF MANY ball/butt/undie discussions of 2019. And me with no bleach for my eyeballs cause I poured it down a drain.

I think this is a cool, smart idea. Secret World is the shit.

@Derp I hear ya. It's weird. There's definitely a culture of shame surrounding glancing and comparing. It's a thing and everyone knows that it happens, but like a lot of things it has this weird spooky shame factor. At the urinal it's kind of weird though because it's an awkward state of things.

I've been having a lot of conversations with my SO lately about things like that. Generally speaking, she likes to point out how a lot of girls are more comfortable touching each other than men are (braiding hair, sleep overs, sharing beds, etc), and so many men are weird about even SITTING next to each other.

I think there's a whole metric ton of psychology and philosophy piled into why that is, and I have my own take on it that is probably far better discussed over coffee than on MSB.

@Thenomain said in NOLA: The Game That Care Forgot:

@Ghost I don't get it.

Hallow() is on one side.
()Hallow is now on the other side.

Adele sang "Hello from the other side".

I'm a dork.

@bloodangel I fail to understand the humor behind one failing to properly drink their drink.

Though if someone WERE posting a gif to be insulting and rude (and thus were unwilling to use their own words to speak their mind out of fear of repercussions for being rude/disrespectful), I would say that they were fitting the exact profile of the kind of people I was referring to in my OP, and would then be a part of the problem rather than the solution.

But I am unable to extrapolate any of that from that poor lady spilling what is probably a good portion of a $5 latte.

Man WTF. Piece of shit (the staffer).

@hella Agreed.