Best posts made by Ghost

@simplications said in The Pack Discussion:

Y'all should rename this thread to "a handful of exceptionally awesomely problematic human people meat popsicles cluelessly demonstrate improvving why they are pariahs considering going to Subway for lunch but are also considering one of those make-your-own-pizza places idk."

Fixed it for ya. Good on you for having villains to provide conflict for you in a terribly mundane and virus-ridden world.

Give me a VPN and two weeks, and half of everyone who hates me will think I'm their new best friend depending on whose ass I kiss and who I dogpile on. Scene is flimsy and predictable af.

@Arkandel I think this is one interesting byproduct of living in this crazy cool era where a lot of our nerdy stuff is popular. My mom sent me a message saying she's excited for Avengers: Endgame and asked if this makes her a nerd. I told her: "Nope, just that you have good taste".

I think a lot of people didn't give this stuff the time of day because there was a stigma surrounding the concept of the nerd. Revenge of the Nerds was a thing. The image of the Louis Skolnick pocket protector nerd or the neckbeard spending all day at a comic book shop was pretty prevalent. Cut 20+ years later and people are excited about the new Dune movies, my mom knows who BANE is, and fangirls over Bucky Barnes. Right, because it was good shit if you got out of your weird self-conscious box to give it a chance.

ETA: Oh, and her Winter Soldier thirst is a thing. Jesus Christ. Thirrrrst.

@Macha I think there's sometimes an issue with self-blindness and dishonesty across this rather small community. While on one hand it's somewhat nice to see people being open about being callous to mistreatment of people they don't like (or openly admitting that less popular people are easier to mistreat or bury due to people's unwillingness to listen to them when they defend themselves), it's also somewhat of a shame to know that this isn't going to result in some self-willed enlightenment that will urge people who "oft wield the truncheon" to place greater responsibility upon themselves to empathize with mistreated people and avoid abusing accused people who aren't their favorites.

On one hand, the community rushes to defend the alleged "victim" and will vehemently attack anyone who dares to question or blame the "victim", but is open to repeatedly abusing people who have been accused, the accused turns out to be the victim, and behaves as if little wrong had been done by them because it's the fault of the victim's "clout score" with them. One too many cases turn out where the alleged victim is actually the attacker. Then, on the other side of the coin, people will be fucked up to the point of publicly diagnosing others' mental or emotional disabilities (or armchair-diagnosing people with mental or emotional disabilities) and it's okay because they're unpopular...but unleash the fires of hell for not being empathetic (or accommodating of) to some self-diagnosed autism spectrum disorder so long as the person "harmed" is their friend. Let's not get into just how much potential RL damage that can cause a person.

In the end, it's really no different from any high school clique or fucked up church scene. Roles of "who is allowed to abuse" is decided on a social hierarchy and those who don't fall into line with the doctrine are responsible for their own abuse, looking down upon them is justified, and those who think they're at the top of their pathetic social hierarchy become blind in the belief that their purity is beyond reproach.

None of this is actual, normal, real-world behavior and only persists within secluded/insular communities where healthy, reasonable outsiders are too smart and healthy to subject themselves to.

I've gone back and forth with some of my game designer, con GM, and RPG friends on this. Got a lot of friends who are fans of it. Me? Eh.

I believe that the "X" card is in antithesis to good communication and the sort of cooperation gaming needs to inspire.

I can understand the concept of people not wanting to make a fuss about content that doesn't make them uncomfortable, but ultimately I view the use of the X-card as a "sign of the times" in terms of negative social control mechanisms.

Gaming groups should:

• Communicate beforehand which topics aren't welcome in the gaming group (as to know which subject matter shouldn't be in the module at all)
• Establish what kind of content the game is going to include, giving players who do not wish an opportunity to opt out prior to play (not every game is for you, and people are not REQUIRED to alter content preferred by the whole for a single player if they do not wish to.)
• Communicate with each other mid-flight about content that crosses lines (because a gaming group that works on communicating with each while they play is healthy and should be encouraged)

I think the 'X' card is more feasible for convention games (where your GM and fellow players are often strangers), but I've told my friends that I will never game with an 'X' card, even if it's a convention game that I'm running. It's not for any edgelord reason; there are a pretty reasonable number of topics that I simply won't touch in any of my games (at the very least I won't allow graphic depictions of, players to perform said actions of, or storylines focusing on them) and for good reason because those topics are just depressing.

So why no X card/aversion to it?

Because gaming is a social hobby, and when gaming becomes a hobby that one player can push a button and be socially entitled to wordlessly control the table, then the point of the hobby has been lost altogether.

I think the X card sets a bad precedent. I think in some cases it negatively impacts communication, creates an environment of walking on eggshells, and in the "pie in the sky" best case scenario people will be ready and eager to adhere to the X card rule (because they love their friend), it can also result in fostering resentment due to never really communicating but living by the whims of the card.

Human interaction isn't designed for an X-card, and I don't think gaming should ever be about GAME > COMMUNICATION.

There are some harsh truths about gaming:

1. Not every group is a good fit for you. That isn't always their burden.

It's not something that I would ever do, but the reasonable part of me knows there's groups out there that wanna do the edgy stuff. In all fairness, I can't join in and hit the X card on content that's been their bread and butter up until I joined and deserve a course correction. Game is a bad fit. If by a chat they don't want to change course, then it's reasonable for me to opt out. Either way, hitting that X card is still going to result in a conversation about preferred content anyway.

2. Open-Invite games SHOULD be upfront upon what content is allowed or present in the night of gaming, and regular groups should be establishing boundaries.

Good GMs and players should post what kind of content to expect. This gives gamers an opportunity to assess whether or not the game is a good fit for them before joining. If the game lists potential content that's unacceptable to you? Best you can do is ask for details or ask if they can alter. Every gaming group should (on session 0) discuss no-go points before the game begins, which would establish what gets put in a content post on a game invite. V5 has a great section on this.

Discussing these things builds comfort and communication.

I'll stop it at 2, but my angle is pretty clear. It's 2am and I'm probably doing the broken record thing. All in all I'm simply not comfortable with any social situation where everyone gets a random button that'll shock some figurative "invisible fence dog collar" around my neck to snap me into whatever their preferred form of propriety is. Wanna talk and communicate? Great. If you prefer not to communicate and just wanna go with the figurative "invisible fence dog collar" option? Then you're not a good fit at my table.

It's not a matter of triggering, but the expected social control mechanism that I dislike.

(Edit: Jesus wtf that longer than it felt like)
(Edit2: thatswhatshesaid)

@Misadventure I think you'd be better off creating a series of forms and pre-generated blocks of text to simply cut and paste to save time.

Stuff like:

"______________ is one of the most toxic people in the community."

"______________ isn't apologizing correctly."

"I am being gaslighted by _____________ "

"____________ is the new Cirno."

And the blanks are filled by drop-down list with a series of names.

AND THEN have a section where entire pre-written paragraphs of text can be copied and pasted to save time, like:

• SOCIAL DICE ARE BAD BECAUSE
• FIRAN WAS GREAT BUT HORRIBLE
• WE ARE NOT A CLIQUE BUT MY FRIENDS AND I ARE COORDINATING OUR RESPONSES AND BULLYING
• MY DOWNWITHOPP STORY
• WHITE PLAYER; POC PB
• ITS NOT CHEATING, IT'S ART
• SPIDER IS THE WORST
• THIS PERSON IS THE WORST SINCE SPIDER
• THIS PERSON IS THE WORST SINCE THE LAST PERSON WHO WAS WORSE THAN SPIDER
• IS IT STILL FETISHIZATION IF YOURE A FEMALE PLAYING A SUPER PROMISCUOUS GAY MAN? (yes, it is)

Sooner or later the algorithms will be able to heuristically complete an entire year of forum chatter, but in the meantime users will be able to simply click twice and respond to everything. THEN we could just get entertainment out of the AI engine recreating 10+ years of circular forum chatter without any of it being a direct attack against anyone.

Work smarter, not harder

One more bad habit.

I call it the "Google Character Sheet".

"On this website it says that all you have to do to make C4 is <insert recipe>. So my character is going to make some c4."

GM: "Okay, roll demolitions. The website gives you a plus one."

"Do I really even have to roll? He's just following directions."

GM: "All bomb-making could fail, which requires a roll. Use of a recipe or help can give you plusses."

Which, IMO, is also how you handle it. As a GM I am often handed some speech by some RL expert on astrophysics, firearms, the military, etc who lobbies for drastically reduced roll difficulties or hand-waving of rolls based on their OOC knowledge (or belief of knowledge) of a certain topic.

Fix?

"That's great that you know these things. If you would like your character to know these things, we can discuss what YOUR skill level translates to, and then we can work on your character leveling up to THAT level of skill."

OOC player Google searches don't excuse dice rolls. Ever. Oh, and also?

...it's rude to Google "how to make C4" while connected to the Wi-Fi on someone else's router.

@insomniac7809 Dredd is one of the most underrated films, I swear. Fucking crime that it didn't get the franchise treatment.

@Misadventure said in Cyberrun:

@Ghost Misleading? Did you not watch Blade Runner? They are emotionally children. The memories are "cushions", the bodies artificial. They have restraint, true, but little maturity at all. The actress was 22? The players people are concerned about are very likely as old or older, so maybe not the best measurement?

That's (that they were emotionally children) up to interpretation. For starters, they didn't qualify as a human, nor did they qualify as children in the same sense as a born human from gestation to MaidenMotherCrone stage. Blade Runner wasn't about the mistreatment of children; it was about the creation of artificial beings who longed to be free. Their models were four years old, but they were not modeled (nor did they behave) as four year old children. They were not depicted as, played by, or designed to be sexualized children.

This is entirely a different subject and non-concept to human adults roleplaying as children for TS roleplay.

Age is a number. Yes. Maturity is subjective. Yes. There are, in existence, 16 year olds with more responsibility and rational thinking than their own parents.

I think a good question to ask here is: "Why is it so important to play a legal minor on a sex-based RP game, and not an immature legal adult; perhaps even a teen 18-19?"

I'll take the bold step here (trigger warning) and say that its important to remember that the so-called adrenaline kick from the crime of paedophilia has nothing to do with driving across the state line of "18" to thumb your nose at societal laws regarding age. No. It's about the focusing of sexual energy towards a figure perceived to be a child or child-like. It's ultimately about the sexualizing and violation of perceived innocence while being well aware that it is wrong.

So, even if a character is an 85 year old man in the shell of a 12 year old body, a sexual scene involving this configuration is providing an outlet for paedophilia on the part of the 85/12 year old, and roleplaying of a sex crime on the part of that character getting hot on the human-appearing shell of a 12 year old.

It's paedophilia. Role-playing this online and enjoying it doesn't not make one a paedophile just because they (allegedly) havent done it in real life. Paedophilia doesn't make exceptions between "fantasizing of" or "physically partaking in".

I think you're obscuring the overall point, but I think you're definitely driving in a specific direction. What exactly are you trying to play Devil's Advocate towards, here? That there is bias in play and that it's no big deal that adults would simulate sexualized children because there is a pre-existing precedent in film?

I'm currently discussing whether or not it's okay for people to roleplay fucking 12 year old appearing characters on online RPG spaces. Can someone explain to me A) why this is even being debated and B) help me justify the 5-10 minutes it took me to write this?

Brother in law from Mexico is taking his citizenship test today. Positive vibes out to him if you have some to spare.

@Prototart said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

sometimes I really think people just try to solve these problems that are mostly imagined or hugely overstated ones bc it's way more palatable than "maybe so many people quit mushing bc of mushers"

Ding!

@Prototart said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

i should maybe specify that when i say what i've said i'm almost exclusively talking about comic games, a niche where successful and well populated games have been run by actual rl rapists and actual rl child molesters who were openly known to be actual rl rapists and actual rl child molesters

D'Ding!

When people quit mushing (or "new blood" doesn't stick around) it has little to do with the following:

• A lack of comic book games
• A lack of available games
• MU Clients
• Codebase

Sure, making more user-friendly tools would help, but I'm not seeing a constant FLOOD of people posting "I'd love this hobby if it weren't for this codebase, so I have to leave because of this codebase". No. We see a lot of apology threads for interpersonal bullshit, needing to step away because of taking things too seriously, personal beefs, and here are some of the more common hits.

• Player is a perv who won't leave me alone
• People sit on roster characters and never log in
• Cliques
• Someone is slandering my name because they're pissed at me for roleplaying with the character they wanna TS
• I ask people for RP and no one responds
• Players who are friends with staff get special benefits and leeway, and staff won't do anything about it
• Drama. Drama. Drama.
• "I don't talk shit, but this player is complete psycho and has herpes."

I'm not trying to be snide here, but I think that people may end up putting dozens to hundreds of hours of development into new tools and technologies, but it might not matter a bucket of spit unless some of the social issues are addressed and some of these "old schooler" habits are untangled to make the environment more welcoming to both "new blood outsiders" and "normal people who don't want OOC drama". We're talking about a hobby that literally shares advertising space with sex games that allow people to roleplay pedophilia, and people from those games are also coming onto the non-sex games and page-creeping players about how hot their PBs are. THERE WAS A CHARACTER PAGE FOR A HUMAN/DOLPHIN WHO BROWSED WIKI PAGES AND MADE A SIDE PAGE ABOUT HOW BADLY HE WANTED TO FUCK THEIR CHARACTERS BEFORE HE'D EVEN RP'D WITH THEM (and for some people, this is MILD and WEIRD but not shocking!). Some players are really great about wanting stories. Others are just pushy about "getting to the TS part" and will ignore you unless you're fulfilling their personal wants.

I know the social problems will likely be harder to fix (and for some of these people you're talking DECADES of ingrained responses to behaviors), but it's like they say about work: People don't quit a job, they quit the boss/team. I think the same applies to mushing, and approaching this as a matter of "advertising, monetizing the hobby, or purely technology" is a waste of your time.

@Ghost said in RL things I love:

Brother in law from Mexico is taking his citizenship test today. Positive vibes out to him if you have some to spare.

Update: so I guess I was informed that he was taking his test after he was already in his test.

He has been invited to a naturalization ceremony.

@Auspice said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:

I love Ghost, but his desire to keep OOC/IC separate makes him ignore some big ol' red flags.

(LOLing while I type this)

"I'm just gonna keep it real. Keep it IC. It's cool. Don't worry. I got this. People are just people."

THREE WEEKS LATURRRR

"... I'm getting suicidal pages and being yelled at about how theyre in therapy because their husband pulled the same shit in their relationship. What do I do?"

@Auspice: "Listen to me next time."

ONE MONTH LATURRRR

"Hey, Auspice, this person seems cool. I'm gonna start roleplaying with them. They asked me in pages what my kinks are and redesigned their character to be a carbon copy of stuff they think my PC would be into, but WHATEVVVVS people are people and I'm gonna keep it IC and..."

THREE WEEKS LATURRRR

"So....."
@Auspice: "...not much sympathy, guy."

((This is the last 2-3 years of my MU life in a nutshell))

Also, this is the capstone argument for GIF or JIFF.

GIF stands for graphic interchange format. It's an acronym. I don't care if the creator of the format calls it a jiff; he's a dope and knows damned well he didn't create the jraphic interchange format

Same goes for SQL. Stop calling it squirrel, people augh.

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

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

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

Ultimately it probably won't change anything. But there are two distinct lines of thought in this particular thread, and that's probably at least worth discussing.

Or a spin-off thread about snooping on your kids.

This one really was supposed to be about online dangers to minors and not about the politics of monitoring your child's online behavior in a way that is healthy for them.

Except there is an argument to be made that spying on your children to the degree that they feel unsafe and unable to trust or talk to you will do the exact opposite of protecting them from predators, and instead send them running straight into their arms. So it's directly relevant to the topic at hand.

Sure, that's a parenting tactic.

But once you've established that they are a minor playing a "blood slut" online with legal adults who are sexually exploiting your child it's not a matter of "Hey is that fun? Wanna do it together?" Because JOINING IN ON THAT IS A PARENT ASSISTING IN THE SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF THEIR OWN CHILD WHAT THE FUCK.

It's sexual exploitation of a minor.

I will die on this hill.

Edit: I will gladly die on this hill

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

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

@insomniac7809 said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

"House" is a play on "Holmes" being a homophone of "homes."

god dammit

Psst.

The Lost Boys was a retelling of Peter Pan, too.

And the original Lion King animated film was simply Hamlet with furries.

And Tropic Thunder was Three Amigos: Vietnam Edition.

Had a thought today.

If I were still MUing, right now, I would be tempted to make a series of Vin Diesel PB'd characters, but with very non-Diesel jobs (like: WAFFLE CHEF or BARISTA) who speaks entirely in hardcore xXx/Riddickisms

Example:

"Hey there tough guy. Look at those arms! I bet you're one of those coffee-all-black kinda guys."

"No, I take mine with espresso and sugar."

"OHHHHH you're a sweet kinda g-"

"-cuz when you slow down...you die."

OR...

"Holy shit! How crazy was that?!?!? Your robot buddy just saved our lives!!!"

"He wasn't my robot buddy."

"Seriously? It just sacrificed itself. I'm sure that deserves at least a little-"

"That robot was my brother."

"Brother? Maybe that's a stretch."

BARISTA DEREK GRAVES RELEASES A DOVE INTO THE SKY. HE KISSES HIS FINGERS AND POINTS SKYWARD.

"Warm the battlefield for me, brother. Backup's on its way."

Edit. Added dialogue ideas...

• "This waffle's like me...forged in iron."
• "One time I got an Amazon delivery. God laughed at me and didn't send me one I could fight to the death beside."
• "Dentist said that blood I taste is from an infection. He's wrong. All I can ever taste is blood."
• "Man is cruel and treacherous. That's why my only friends are corgis."

Weiss and Benioff announce exit from Star Wars Trilogy.

Same day it is announced that they are no longer part of Game of Thrones prequel.

Proooooobably a story, there.

@Kestrel said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

Tangent: I will gladly join @Ghost in launching a campaign to burn the played-by trend at the stake. Finally someone said it. Write your fucking descriptions, people.

<3.

It's a very simple way to be a better writer. Each character is its own little writing project to showcase your ability to flesh out the character using your skills as a writer.

I always feel like "PB over description" is a missed opportunity to actually treat the hobby like it's a writing hobby.

I wanna read, god damnit. Tired of seeing all these actors and actresses and want my mind to make new faces.

@insomniac7809 said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Hallelujah is not a Christmas song, really, but fuck it--it's a good song, and I'll take the break from hearing Jingle Bell Rock as interpreted by every warm body that ever stumbled into a recording studio.

When you feel the need to replace the lyrics with some twee Nativity stuff I take issue.

THANK YOU.

Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen) isn't a fucking Christmas song, nor is it even a song about Christianity. Just like Hozier's "Take Me to Church", God-squadders dont read or care about lyrics and just automatically assume everything with some kind of Abrahamic reference is their stuff.

@Chet said in Vietnam War MUSH:

It was Wing Commander: Red Horizon's under-theme, for me, and I'd love to see a new one. Space: Above and Beyond, maybe, where you could play a USMC unit, fighting charlie, in the jungle?

Suggestion: Don't use racial slurs.

You might have had some people with "Space: Above and Beyond" but when you suggest a Vietnam War MU as a possible idea alongside fighting charlie (<---racial slur) you present an environment that would recreate the Vietnam War alongside the anti-Asian sentiment/prejudice simply by invoking the term "charlie".

There's no place for racism in Mu.