Best posts made by Ghost

@Rinel Right. When I wrote that I wasn't critiquing; though I've always believed that the point of making a character is to make some new perspective or skin to explore and not to write some idealized Second Life avatar of oneself. When the game/scene/player disappoints you there's less risk of internalizing. (Again, this is just how I rolled; I can't qualify what is best for others)

As far as I'm concerned, RP whatever you please, and I support exploration into the perspective of different genders, specialities, religions, species, etc.

When your family tries to pressure you into Fantasy Football because it's "family time" but really it's because they want a bigger league.

@saosmash said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

"elves are a small, lithe people who excel at poverty archery."

^

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

I uh, kind of enjoy the trash talk and rivalry that comes with fantasy football and miss having a league to play in.

I enjoy it, but am just way too busy and need less to juggle. In the very near future I'm going to give zero fucks about football stats, injuries, and checking a lineup.

But I tell this to my famn damily and they're like: "buuuuut we're family we've gotta stiiiick together. Y U No Luv Ur Aunts and Cousins?"

They're some heartstring pulling motherfuckers.

@mietze said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

I think what turns me off more when I see someone RPing something that they probably have no life-experience in

This is part of the problem.

1. These are fictional characters. We are not supposed to simply roleplay ourselves and stay in our lane. That I have never been to a galaxy far far away and arent 8 feet tall and covered in hair doesn't mean I can't enjoy playing a Wookiee. That I have a story in mind does not mean I shouldn't write a character of another gender or race. I do not personally need experience being from Spain to write a human who comes from Spain. I can be creative, maybe do a little research, and make shit up in a hobby about being creative and telling stories. It's called being a writer.

2. The judgmental cadre in the hobby who thinks stuff like this (re: people shouldnt play things they don't have experience in) are simply piling on shitty judgment because when they say things like this they're claiming by some divine level of clarity that the person has no experience with that character type; which is rude and presumptuous. Who the fuck are these people to assume and/or judge/weigh someone's level of experience level to gatekeep being able to roleplay something without whisper campaigns?

@Joyeuse. #2 ^^^ is part of the reason why I advise against sharing OOC demographic stuff.

3. People shaming you for what you play based on their biases is bullshit.

Gonna be real for a moment here, @mietze . I don't think you can have it both ways. You shouldn't get upset at people for "slut shaming" but then get annoyed because theyre playing something you havent "judged them" to have experience in. Judgment is ugly, and while some judgments are more valid than others this does not make being judgy truly okay. You shouldn't complain about whisper campaigns but then partake in them. There's another thread hitting these points right now so I'll take it there if it's worth continuing.

My end point is this: People on these games can be fucking judgy, and while this thread started strong with YES WE SUPPORT, the initial platitudes have stopped and we have moved now into the 'well...but its super cringey when...' realm where people are now giving glimpses into the stuff they'll be talking about in pages or discord.

@tek I love Katee's intensity. I'm also loving that hologram.

I think that you're thinking with your writer's brain, and this is very good. I think, constructively, this hobby consists of role-players and writers, and role-players might not think as deeply about this stuff as a writer would. Theme is essential in many things, as is conflict. Conflict drives good characters, and if your theme doesn't have conflict that drives a character to act, then the setting is stale and milquetoast.

So, having said that, I'll use my recent comments on Carnival Row as an example:

One could argue that the characters sell the story, so I think you have to work it from this angle: Figure out WHY the characters are so good in the setting, consider what OTHER characters in the setting might be good, and then apply the show's format to the new characters. These new characters would be the PCs. So let's take a look at the theme.

From what I see, that show is essentially about struggle against oppressive political forces, and by struggle I mean "succeed or starve". Philo has to struggle against his role as a seeker of justice in a racist, brutal constabulary, Vignette struggles to survive against an underworld organization while struggling to keep her people alive in a ghetto during a war, Imogen struggles against high society and fear of keeping her head above water amidst a social circle of brutal, judgmental mavens, and Agreus struggles to maintain relevance and self worth as a sort of civil rights icon in high society (a society that is racist against him).

Is it great that Philo and Vignette have a romance? No. It's a thing, but what makes it great is that it's fucked up, dirty, desperate, and hellishly complicated.

MY POINT: I think when you look at trying to "recreate the thunder" of a genre, the reason why the BSG games did so well is that so many of the players came on board wanting to RP putting up photographs of dead family, living in shitty bunkhouses with little privacy, and GAME RUNNERS were mostly smart to avoid giving people private rooms. They recreated the THEME, and thus the ensemble casts were mostly successful in bottling that lightning. IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO RECREATE THE THEME then you're just creating an idealized version of the theme, which is at that point not really roleplaying within the setting's universe but an adapted one of your own making. At that point, it doesn't matter who or what you make as a character; you're not going to feel like you're walking around in that setting.

I really like Another Life, too. Right now I feel like I'm getting some great Sci-Fi TV in (Expanse, Another Life) that is probably the best I've seen since the Reimagined BSG. I like technical, heavy, intense sci-fi.

I know I say this a lot, but it's an amazing time to be a geek. When I was a kid I'd never imagined that indie comics (The Boys, Deadly Class, Umbrella Academy, Hellboy), fantasy novels (LotR, Game of Thrones, Sword of Truth, Wheel of Time, etc), RPG settings (Final Fantasy, Star Wars KOTOR, hopefully more...), and nostalgic video games (Castlevania) are getting some decent live action/animated entertainment love.

We were watching The Boys tonight and had to hit pause to wax poetic on how some of this stuff on TV right now makes stuff like the old Incredible Hulk TV show look like poorly scripted Public Access tv, and not just in terms of technology.

A TV show about a bunch of guys seeking to hunt down and murder super heroes who are mostly sociopathic and accidentally murdering people via collateral damage on TV between 1978 and 2000? Never would have happened. This stuff is awesome.

Every few months or so I get really loud and shake my cane in the air, like I'm some angry old bastard on a porch littered with Budweiser cans:

"THAT'S METAGAMING GOT-DAMMAT."

And a few people will agree, and others will go "No, metagaming is when..."

You know what the community could do? Create MSB posts designed to define metagaming as a conmunity(and link the posts on message boards on games seeking input) that are designed to repeatedly edit the original post. Create a poll: "Are you happy with these definitions?" when it reaches a certain percentage after time, post THOSE definitions as policies.

The community ABSOLUTELY CAN utilize MSB to create community definitions and bylines on things like harassment and metagaming, and carry those from game to game.

Hell, it would be absolutely possible to create a series of guidelines: Harassment, Metagaming, Inclusiveness, Anti-Bullying, etc and wrap them all up as some kind of "COMMUNITY STANDARDS CERTIFIED" label that staff publicly state they support and uphold. Then, games could say things like:

Battlestar Galactica Part 10 is a COMMUNITY STANDARDS CERTIFIED game...

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

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

@Derp Psh, they're fifteen year olds. They're already having more sex of more kinds than I ever have.

You're always too drunk to remember the fun stuff.

She means foot stuff.

Which is weird and nope when you TS with Ghost.

Fingergunz+wink.

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

@Ghost
SHAKA WHEN THE WALLS FELL

OMG did you really make a Darmok reference? Two demerits!

Let me make myself more clear.

Rai and Jiri and Lungha.

and by that I mean...

Rai. And. Jiri at....LUNGHA

New X-Men character announced.

She "Rasputin" has:

• Colossus' skin
• Magik's sword
• Shadowcat's phasing
• Unus the Untouchable's force field
• Quentin Quire's telepathy

I dont know what her first name is, but if it isn't yet defined, I have a few suggestions...

"Mary Sue MU-OC a.k.a. a concept made by the one major problem player in Ghost's RL TT group" Rasputin. (1)

"Mary Sue Everything Bagel" Rasputin.

"Hope 2.0 But Isn't a Summers, is a..." Rasputin.

(1) True fact. I once had a player who wanted to make the son of Magick and Nightcralwer. When their Mutants and Masterminds sheet was done they presented me with a teleporting, kinetic energy-throwing, soul-sword wielding Lord of Limbo who, by proxy of being Lord of Limbo, was immortal.

Something to consider.

A consent policy is only as good as how you protect people from retaliation for citing it.

I have personally gone through with scenes that I was not comfortable with because I had to weigh the OOC response to be opting out against my own level of discomfort. As said earlier in this thread (sic) "opting out of a torture scene is different than opting out of getting yelled at ICly".

This hobby doesnt really have a great unifying handle on how backchannel bullying and character assassination are handled, and I've seen people get made fun of for opting out. I've been mistreated for opting out, too, hence why I had to weigh it a few times.

So how do you enable a consent policy that also goes a full 360° to protect a person from retaliation?

It's much easier to do in tabletop RPG than MU, I believe.

3rd Kit-Kat.

Fuck everyone else.

@Thenomain and @bored touched on some really great points about A) Not being required to sit through a scene because it has low value but one player wants to use it to play out their opinion and B) the angle that people think it's a sign of a good player to roleplay for 6 months of being treated like an idiot because it's "in character". The latter can be exhausting and always feels like you're going through penance to help other players succeed.

I tend to use a lot of childhood references when it comes to MU behaviors; not because I think everyone is immature, but because I think we may all understand these similar concepts:

1. The bossy asshole when playing "house" who becomes a dictator, pointing out who gets to play the daddy, the mommy, what the house is like, how things are supposed to go, then getting angry when people don't follow their direction.

2. Kids playing tag. "I got you first!", "No, I got YOU first!*".

#1 happens with some players, and just like when you were kids, aside from dice there's no laser-tag speed of light and circuitry that can run who got shot first (Han shot first). When it comes to stuff like bored and Theno pointed out, then ply these 2 concepts in, it can be very very very hard to simply have a referee make a ruling.

In some ways, role-playing in MU as adults isn't far from playing "Star Wars" at the playground with broomstick spraypainted red and blue. Sometimes the only way to settle shit without it being about who argues loudest is to create good rules.

@Auspice said in Preferences:

@Arkandel said in Preferences:

Put this thread in the Hogpit, g'dammit. I'm ready to draw a line on the ground and go to war.

Did you forget your admin powers of thread moving?

Noob

Be careful.

nooB saiboT is a badass ninja.

What about setting it during a story with a linear timeline rather than a "Day in the life of" game?

Rather than "It's Carnival Row!" as the driving force, why not focus on a linear story in which the characters could bind together on and keep driving the story? Like the invasion of Tir-Na-Noc or another island similar to Tir-Na-Noc?

Sounds like a win to me. You get The Greatest Generation crowd hungry for quasi-Victorian World War 1 action, and you get the Fae Rpers hungry for a fae game.

Pretty sure someone would love to play stuff like a flying pix runner scout during trench warfare or a satyr-type fae diplomat trying to woo human lands to join them in the fight. You could leave TirNaNoc alone and run parallel to the show without being slaved to what happens on TV, but evolve the game based on the events of the show.

Edit: Oh, you could also then allow human characters in the form of sympathetic humans who emigrated to the island to help in the fight. Stuff like chaplains, soldiers, war profiteers, weapons runners, lovers, God-children to pixies, people bound to join by prophecy or promise...

Hrm.

My company doesn't understand a few basic concepts.

One year we had an egg-tossing competition during a food drive for needy people. The parking lot was covered in broken eggs. Each was a potential meal for a hungry person.

Soon? A water drive. When it's 115 outside water is important and plenty of people die each year from lack of water or shaded places to hide.

So after a "food tossing game to drive in food for hungry people", I'm sure you can guess what kind of event we are having for a "water drive"...

...ice bucket challenge.

I swear to fuckin god one year we're going to have a cupcale eating contest to raise money for diabetes research.

(quietly hoping to see someone say WEB TV)

@Auspice Yeah, I 100% do not partake in company charity events, save for the occasional "company talent show" where ticket sales go to charity or "popcorn and watch movie at work".

I view it as a conflict of interest to assist them in lowering their tax rate, especially in ways where they get the donation for my time put into charitable causes.