Best posts made by Ghost

@Arkandel God damn. That's bleak as fuck. Here's why it's bullshit, though.

The viewer's perspectives about the qualities of the efforts and actions of the Original Trilogy war against the empire are god-level perspective. They know the writers, sometimes the script, the actors, the backend drama, and can draw a line of consequence between a movie made in 1978 to a movie made in 2019 and go "SEE? ALL FOR NOTHING, THIS IS BULLSHIT. IF THEY DEFEATED THE EMPIRE ONLY FOR THE FIRST ORDER TO ARRIVE 35 YEARS LATER THEN THIS RUINS THE POINT OF THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY."

Which is kinda ridiculous. Characters dont know the downstream results of their actions 35 years in the future and think "wow, these actions are not going to be relevant 35 years from now, so I guess I should rethink what I'm doing". Imagine the angry Greeks when it was written that Odysseus was a villain figure in the Iliad, but was the hero of the Odyssey. Surely Odysseus never should have been involved in the attack on Troy knowing he was a hero, right?

Some people that the point of these stories isnt to validate the perspective of the viewer at every single point where any 2 viewers may disagree on a design decision. What you want doesn't mean it's what the character wants, and in most cases theres 450 different wants across the next 450 facebook comments.

This is called fanbase entitlement. It's toxic and robs viewers of that which they claim to love.

If people want to tag their childhood as something that JJ Abrams can "rob" them of in 2019, then maybe they should revisit what defined their childhood and/or the level of importance this stuff has on their perspective of it.

@ThoughtBubble said in MUSH conflict... sad face?:

To the credit of the staff of most games, they seem to recognize this behavior as childish and inappropriate, but the only staffer who has been willing to handle it in a way that doesn't effectively kill the game for me is Fara. (Thanks Faraday!)

Follow-up. I agree with the shoutout to @faraday. Even when we disagree on things she provides a mature counterpoint and keeps things civil, which I have always appreciated. I'm a supporter.

One thing that came to mind while I was thinking about this thread was the concept of self-esteem and insecurity that I regularly ran into on these games. I think it's important to recognize the number of people who at any given time worry that they're being avoided, blacklisted, shunned, making a fool out of themselves, disliked, that their poses are being judged unfairly, that people don't want to RP with them, that someone's spreading false rumors about them, etc, etc, etc. There also seems to be a number of people out there who can be fairly vocal about how great they and theirs are, how they don't believe there to be bullies, cliques, etc, and I've always found that somewhat telling.

Throw a rock on this forum and you'll hit someone who feels that they're being judged unfairly and takes great care to constantly consider whether or not there will be retribution drama for speaking up or standing up for themselves. Throw a rock and you'll hit someone who worries about being silently judged (and then overtly judged through pages, IMs, cliques, etc) in a way that will leave them unable to enjoy the hobby. Throw a rock and you'll hit a staffer who had to weigh whether or not disciplining a problem player would result in drama/accusations that would destroy their game.

I don't believe these insecurities to be 100% on the shoulders of the insecure, because I think a much larger number of people are well aware of how much nastiness goes on behind the scenes with some fairly prevalent players. A lot of people just want to have fun without having to prove themselves as being worthwhile to others, and I've always find that somewhat depressing that this insecurity is as pervasive as I saw it to be.

Like Warma, the part that sucks is that there's something this hobby really could provide that I couldn't get anywhere else, and I occasionally check back in to see if the landscape has changed. Personally, I don't think the landscape WILL change until some key people go away,

The Thrawn Trilogy were three books in what was 20+ years worth of fleshing out the Star Wars universe (and keeping it alive) through books, comics, video games, and RPGs...

...and Lucas didn't do anything but "okay" it.

Years later he picked Star Wars up again to make the Prequel Trilogy claiming that all of it was his vision, that it's his universe, and has never given warm fuzzies or respect to all of those content creators.

Fuck George Lucas. Star Wars is better off where it is now.

Those content creators, the actors chased off of social media, and the people who play wanted to be a part of Star Wars to keep it going even though the prequels were horrible? I respect them. They're keeping the candle lit. We are all on the same team, and Disney is working to keep it going, too.

George Lucas threw Star Wars away. Be on THESE PEOPLE'S sides, not Lucas'.

I've come across a number of players, both on forum and in game, who don't feel wanted or feel ignored. I've had some incidents in games that have made me feel the same way, but sometimes, looking back, I feel like maybe the reason I felt wanted wasn't because of what was happening on the game, but instead more my perception of what was happening. Maybe I misjudged? Maybe my emotions got in the way? Every now and then I can't help but feel like some of these cries of being ignored are more the player's internal hangups and that some of the accusations of cliques or rp is hard to get into can be misjudgments or self fulfilling prophecies.

Anyway, here's the topic:

How far do you think other players and staff should go to make a player feel wanted? What do you do when a player, no matter how hard other players or staff try, still claims cliques and exclusivity when you simply don't agree with their perception?

I'll show mine first:

I was on Mass Effect: Alpha/Omega. This was a @Roz game, who I tend to speak highly of. Roz and the crew involved are very tight, and they've been roleplaying together a long time. They have plenty of characters who interact with each other, but they are always very good about including others and making sure as many people as possible get involved if they want to. HOWEVER, before having to leave the game due to RLsplosion and stress, I started to feel like I wasn't part of the core demographic, which looking back on it, it wasn't true, but my RL stress had me tangled up in these nothing matters anyway type emotions. Now, I'm not the type to scream on WORA or whatnot, but had I been that person, I could have screamed and yelled about cliques or not being wanted. Looking back, I think I might have been a little intimidated by how good that group is. They pick up on each other's queues and roleplay like a pack of hunting raptors. It was impressive, but to stressed or timid or players with low self esteem they might generate some of those awkward feelings of intimidating, exclusivity, or better than thou.

In the end, I'm glad I got the time there that I did, and I feel like I learned something about the way my heartmeats work.

Share/thoughts?

EDIT: And no, I'm sure @Roz can attest, I never actually did reach out to staff to share my feelings at the time. I felt it would feel like whining, so I didn't, which is my own personal hangup. So I didn't seek a solution. So What do you think your responsibility is as a player to overcome these feelings of not being wanted?

@Ghost said in RL things I love:

Quietly rooting for my buddy to find love.

My wish already came true! He came to house party tonight with a date!

Chips and salsa is a valid meal. Fight me.

Other runners in my *fuck it" repertoire:

Can of chili.
Can of anything.
Cereal for dinner.
Egg noodles with milk.

1001 and 1001 now.

Fuck you.

Edit: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T UPVOTE THIS. JESUS.

My gang...

I think that WORA and MSB have been responsible for more negative behavior than positive. In fact, I'm of the opinion that WORA and MSB are primarily positive mostly as a resource for finding out which games are the new games.

WORA/MSB help spread and cement the following negative behaviors:

• The creation of cliques centered around board veterans, and the weird maintaining of ooc reputation through board posts alone
• Mob-justice, valid or invalid, gets taken to the boards where anyone unethical with a slightly convincing argument can use the board as a social dominance tool
• Promotion of the player over the character, thus expanding the assumption that all characters are the player
• The ooc connection Nexus for players to spread gossip, which is usually heavily one-sided, and build that into the community's network.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of cases of rapey, stalky, and unethical players who have been called out on the boards, and the community may be better for it. However, there are plenty of unethical people on these boards who come here with a personified agenda and are simply extending their ooc bullshit to these boards. I've seen innocent people who weren't rapey or stalky get turned into scapegoat of the week on these boards by unethical people who sought to salt their ability to find rp over stupid, petty grudges. There's something negative that lives in the DNA of this community, and WORA/MSB have been, by our design, used to maintain that ooc catfighting. People come to these boards prepared for it, and these issues spread to the games themselves, where gossip and petty drama propogates.

Pretty much, if you post here, you should understand that there's a chance people who disagree with you are going to go "fuck that guy" and find out who you play on any given game and avoid you. Which would make sense if you were been stalkerish, but when it happens because of an ooc disagreement on what constitutes as an actual apology, it's just petty and fucktarded.

Yanno, I'm in the court that feels that when you're dealing with a product that is based on pure, factual Earth history (as in: Intended to be based on facts not fiction), it's best not to cast anyone of a skin color other than that of the historical figure.

However, when it comes to fiction, these days it just seems awkward that an entire universe could be envisioned where everyone except Lando Calrissian is white. I know there's a lot of news these days about people offended by black Valyrians or black dwarves, and many of them (looking at you, @Nymeria) like to cite stuff like "it's not canon!" and fail to understand that the greater questions by the populace are:

1. Why was this world envisioned to be so monochromatic to begin with?
2. Why so much resistance to expanding casting to nonwhite actors?

What's interesting to me is that the argument provided kind of parallels some of the issue BIPOC people face in America. That a person involved in producing fictional content is openly opposed to the casting of black actors, then is resistant to the existence of non-white characters on their MU because "that's how it was written, they're the majority, so sorry I can't make an exception!"

@Nymeria here is something you should consider. Many minorities have had to deal with exclusive behavior based on their minority status for a long while. They have a desire to see their inclusion in these exciting projects and see people who look like them fighting orcs and doing cool fantasy stuff. The reason why you are under the heat lamp of cancelation (which I feel is justified) is because your bigger concern seems to be clinging to this artistic accuracy (which, by canon means it's a whites-only club) and have very little empathy towards understanding why this makes people uncomfortable. There's no "let's see what we can do" or "I support this, let's try to find a way to make this work" but instead the stance is to openly decry the television show and double down on your stance that because the guy that wrote the content didn't say so...your hands are (airquotes) tied and cannot make exceptions.

Your MUSH is a fraction of a fraction of online roleplay related to Westeros, and in a dying medium, no less. I'm pretty sure the existence of GRRM's work isn't going to fall into absolute disarray because a damn brown person plays a knight. The whole world isn't going to gasp and say "OH MY GOD DO I EVEN KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WESTEROS ANYMORE!?!?"

That's why the cancelation is a thing. It's not the "but this is canon!" it's the outcry and empathy-lacking response that smells suspiciously like bias.

One course correction I've had to make from time to time is GOOGLE-BASED CHARACTER SKILLS and SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY WIZARDRY

SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY WIZARDRY​
When a player is playing in a setting where certain tech that exists today doesn't exist. Let's use gunpowder as an example. All of the sudden their character suddenly gets the urge to experiment with charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur and OOPS they discover gunpowder. Next? Their character will assuredly stumble over the invention of muskets...

Look, it's an RPG, not CivIV. While it may sound interesting to become Copernicus, Tesla, Salk, and Curie all at the same time, the end goal for every player that does this is to gain an advantage over the current tech in the setting. When the end goal is to sack Rome with X-Wing starfighters, the game is broken beyond repair. Knowing this won't stop players from wanting to make this happen, though. It turns into playing with cheat codes, which gets boring.

GOOGLE-BASED CHARACTER SKILLS
Playing in a modern setting with a character with zero points in investigation? LOOK NO FURTHER THAN GOOGLE ICLY! Why bother investing points in certain skills when the player can look up how to make a homemade bleach bomb online, present it to the GM, and claim that their character is capable of following the instructions as means to justify hand-waived skill checks!

I run into this second one CONSTANTLY. Once, an entire CSI website of using homemade chemicals to do detective work was used by a player whose character had few investigative skills as a justification for tracking someone. So they tried to explain rolls weren't needed.

1. Even if following written instructions, an Int+Investigation roll (maybe with a bonus die) would be rolled to determine how well the instructions were followed. There should be no such thing as a complex task that isn't tied to a dice roll. Zipping your pants without castrating yourself doesn't require a dice roll. Wiping your own ass? No dice roll. Following instructions in the Anarchist's Cookbook to mix gasoline and chainsaw oil into a lightbulb to use it as a bomb? Needs a roll, even with instructions
2. THAT SHIT IS METAGAMEY AS HELL (Using investigation as an example) So, you mean to tell me your character with ZERO dice in investigation OR computer would think to browse fucking Tor of all things to get instructions on homemade espionage tools? A zero in computers is your grandmother who still uses AOL, and even she is closer to a 1 in computers than a zero, and just as likely to think to purchase a license to a Swedish server cluster to access the DARKNET. Your character sheet is a reflection of what your C-H-A-R-A-C-T-E-R knows. Not you. I don't care if you're​ OOCly Benedict Cumberbatch and method-acted learning CSI deduction skills for use in fulfilling the roll of Sherlock on BBC. YOUR CHARACTER ISN'T ICly Benedict Cumberbatch and method-acted learning CSI deduction skills for use in fulfilling the roll of Sherlock on BBC.

I kind of "set-and-forget" this post I made and came back to all of this. I wrote a long, dumb post trying to explain something.

But there's really no explaining this to someone with a history of "lol'ing" using the term negerboll and posts stuff like this:

Tweet

This article pretty much spells out the futility in trying to convince someone to act appropriately.

Don't racelock your games, people. It's uncouth.

My powers of observation are detecting a "I'm going to break the forum rules on behavior and personal attacks purposefully to get banned, and then when I am banned for it will use it as some kind of proof that the bannings are unfair...despite the fact that I purposefully chose to be rude to -get- banned...which makes little sense" tactic.

@lordbelh I agree with what you said. A short while back I typed "I 100% do not intend to look at myself critically, come to the expectations/revelations that you have, and then submit my adherences to those expectations for review to you and your friends" and I think it's an important point. I always had an issue with the approach to how people blended the concepts of "alerting people to problem player" and "publicly ridiculing someone", and I think the latter always carried this very uncomfortable element of desiring one's "pound of flesh".

There is NOTHING wrong with alerting people to conduct issues with the interest of keeping the hobby safe. It's a sensible thing to do, but also runs the risk of it being used as a "vengeance engine" because it's obvious that people's willingness to believe first-hand accounts is high. Better to be safe than sorry, right? But I don't think that's exactly what was happening in the Hog Pit.

I think there were honest cases of people reporting on problem players (people like OPP, VASpider, whoever), but things went off the rails and it ventured into "...and then also publicly shame people you don't like, who disagree with you, and in some ways extort them into silence or certain behaviors by using their popularity or ability to find RP as leverage." To my perspective I always asked "how much blood are they looking for?" when considering whether or not it was malice or an honest reporting of bad behavior, and I think when you look at it that way the number of seriously bad players is far less than the number of people who were attacked using the Hog Pit as a vector. I'm glad to see that some sort of stopgap to that has been put in place.

As for "split community?"

I think it's better to look at this as simply 2 places where people from the community can gather. Personally, I think that that other place is going to be interesting because from what I've seen they're congratulating people on their insults in parting over here...so WILL people opt-in to a forum that has decided to continue to allow bullying, somewhat moderated by the bullies themselves, and subject themselves to "more of the same" that was happening here before the changes? I think you're going to find there's not going to be as much "juice from the squeeze" there than there was here 6 weeks ago. Bullies need victims.

This place has an honest chance to promote itself as the change in the community that so many people in the community want to see, and with time some people may find that really what was needed all along was a private space for those people who loved the Hog Pit for the pure schadenfreude of it to be sequestered to their (in my opinion) toxicity. Again, bullies need victims and a place where people have more controls over becoming a victim will be less attractive to a bully.

@Juniper The shit part about when people do that, is that it clearly wasn't about quitting.

People who want to quit something just walk. You quit. You go do something else.

Whenever anyone (in any group setting) does something like this it just comes across to me as some undignified child shit. That they wanted to quit was a sham. What they really wanted was to cause a scene and hope that people rush in with praise and support to convince them not to quit. It's pretty awkward and vulnerable stuff. You see this a lot in online gaming, especially with mostly anonymous people (I've had it happen multiple times in RPGs and VTTs).

It's no different than threatening to leave your partner to see just how much they don't want you to leave, only the person doing it isn't smart enough to calculate how doing it will damage their relationship as a whole.

And how the effing fuck has there never been a GI JOE mu? Or has there been?

I dont mean 80s cartoon GI JOE, but comic book GI JOE or at the least live action, where Joes get killed n' shit

Afterthought: I would come back to mushing to play this idea so long as I could write PSAs as Roadblock.

"Hey brother, whatchu doin?
Them girls in Vegas will spell your ruin
You may think it's fun to pay that trick
But shes gonna leave bugs all over that-GEEE EYEEE JOOOOOOOOOOE"

...and knowing is half the battle.

@Lisse24 I'm going to venture to say that at least in America, no one has a true problem with Christianity.

In that, I mean, I don't think anyone has a problem with the concept of the monotheistic religion that preaches loving your neighbor and believing in good deeds until the point that you are accepted into heaven.

In fact, I'm going to venture to say that, historically, no one had a problem with these ideas, at all.

Christians (and many other followers of other religions that promise a "Deeds for Afterlife" scenario) tend to not stay in their lane, and that's a pretty big problem in the United States right now.

IMPORTANT NOTE:In America's current political climate, a good amount of the strife right now comes from the almost universally shared belief that if one of the two political parties gains control, then the needs and interests of the people from the opposing political party will not only fall onto deaf ears, but will be in jeopardy.

I don't think there would be any major problems with Christianity in the states right now were it not for a few core things:

1. One political party has quadrupled down on representing Christianity, running on God-centric tickets, in a country with freedom of religion for all religions. This places a face to a political movement. See Important Note above. Many of these candidates have run against women's medical rights, LGBTQ rights, and per Important Note above, creates a feeling of the religion taking a stance via political domination.
2. Unchecked 501c(3) donations to charitable Christian organizations have been used to monetize, lobby, and successfully (through politics) lobby for unchecked political representation and donations towards candidates who... Important Note
3. Tongue-In-Cheek abuses of power have been cited as victories. Americans see people like Joel Osteen and prosperity ministers abuse the tax code to their benefit. Even in Phoenix, Arizona, Grand Canyon University is claiming victory left and right as a "Private, Christian, Affordable" university, despite having lobbied to rake in plenty of for-profit money on a lowered tax bracket after claiming eminent domain over whole city blocks of low income housing to ensure the campus was built where they wanted it to.
4. OtherChristian sect practices, such as Mormons, targeting illegal immigrants into their fold, providing them with jobs in Mormon businesses, access to Mormon lawyers to get their papers, but should they not tithe regularly, threats of excommunication, loss of their job, and loss of access to immigration process take place.

So...I'm with Ghandi.

In the United States, at least, where it is written into the Constitution that we are a nation of all faiths, the movements since the 50's that placed "God" in the "Pledge of Allegiance", the growing political affiliation, the lobbying of elected officials, attempted legislation against female reproductive systems, has been a steady stream (or slippery slope) of working its way towards dominance over other faiths and belief systems in American society.

Attacked for practicing my faith does not apply when said attack happens while trying to alter the lives, faiths, beliefs, and practices of others. Doing so is no one's right. No one truly has a right to be adhered to, obeyed, or given microphone time when it comes to trying to assert change on others from the approach of this is what's best for you, just do what I say.

So do people have a problem with Christianity? No. It's the behavior and failure of many modern-day Christians (at least in America) to comfortably allow people to live different lives, and it seems that since preaching and handing out fliers is failing, the political control approach is being taken, and referred to as victory when legislation removes the ability to choose differently from others.

It's a problem. I, personally, have no issues with any of the plethora of Christian approaches in theory, but it's the behaviors and practices that take place when confronted with non-Christians that are of issue.

I'll go first.

His name is Lazarus.

One time, in a SuperHero tabletop game, I asked my players to list their characters' pet peeves. The list came up as follows:

• Liberals
• Hipsters
• People who talk too much
• People who listen to stupid music (metalhead player)

So I created an on the spot character whom I accidentally named "Laz". Laz was a waiter at a pizza place the heroes went to out of costume to try to take some time off. Enter a hipster with an ironic haircut, a neck tattoo of a rose, and a finely coiffed beard, wearing a plaid shirt and a white belt with his blue jeans. His dialogue was as such:

• "Hey, are you guys doing anything tonight? Because I'm totally into this band you probably don't know about, the Jamie Lannister Pornography Experience, they're kind of like a melange of Anthrax, old-school Lady Gaga, and Tibetan throat singing, and if you're cool you'll probably go."
• "Hey, why are you ordering iced teas when we've got vegan ultra-local microbrews? Oh, also? You're ordering the quiche nachos, right? Anyone who's anyone gets them"

They ended up accidentally causing him to die in a kitchen explosion.

A few months later we started a new super hero game. They were all playing mutants at Xaviers. GUESS WHO THEY RUN INTO AT A COFFEE HOUSE?

Only now, Lazarus is a mutant with a fringe mutant skill of +40 to coffee making, technopsychic control of all APPLE devices, and a power where he will resurrect after dying, but with no prior knowledge of 48 hours before his death.

"Oh hey, look at you guys! Hey, have you heard of 311 versus the Volcano? They're like a country version of Metallica meets De La Soul..."

Dead.

"Oh, dude we've never met before, my name's Laz, pronounced Laaaaws but it's short for Lazarus..."

Dead.

"Dude, do you guys wanna sign up for my quinoa apple butter microbrew tasting?"

Dead.

They're now begging me to have Laz show up in every game I run for them.