Posts made by Ghost

Precisely. When you RP as an antagonist in a shared RP space, there are ways of doing it without sending out IT WILL BE DIFFICULT TO RP WITH ME signals. People don't want to RP and just get shit on by the other player, and like some people mentioned earlier in the thread, the game is under the assumption that there aren't really any new faces. So reason stands that any person outside of said "antagonist's" social circle could be a potential ally, so immediate hostility is just really, really, really hard to work with on a MU.

@Sunny said in The 100: The Mush:

I want to make sure I understand this.

The people who quit the game and are railing about how awful things are here SO VERY LOUDLY played the first handful of days on a game that is only a month or so old, and are basing their opinions on what was ICly a hugely traumatic/dramatic situation for all of the characters. They are not taking into consideration the increase in the playerbase, that people are now starting to settle into their characters, that the immediate BOOM of brand new PCs in a highly traumatic situation is over, or that the characters in question have perhaps learned a bit and changed.

There are people claiming how this game is based on some other game, that have not played on this one, taking potshots at the game for fun.

Staff have asked people to let them know if they're currently having problems on the OOC level that they can address, and have stated pretty clearly that they will not be dictating character attitudes. .

@surreality I have seen several things done that were people going off by themselves to Do Stuff without staff-alts being involved in even making the suggestion for The Stuff Being Done, so I feel it's safe to say that there is support for folks to go do their awesome thing.

I'll take this one.

1. No one is claiming this game is based on another game. There are people referencing storytelling/staffing similarities to a previous game.
2. No one is taking pot shots at this game for fun. Downplaying people's critique of the game as being some childish trolling tactic is an excellent way to try to negate the things that they're saying, but it's really not a respectful means of doing so.
3. Not all of the people who have quit did so early, and not all of the people who have shared complaints with people like myself are posting in this thread.

Here's what you need to understand: There are people that had a negative taste in their mouth due to railroading, cliquish behavior, and difficulties breaking into RP with characters due to a large amount of IC angst that, in their opinion, made icebreaking and getting into the game very difficult.

I see no reason why we can't treat this politely and respectfully without resorting to OH MY GOD JERRY GIVE ME THE MIC. I NEED TO MAKE A POST ABOUT HOW STUPID THESE PEOPLE ARE. means.

If people, due to repetitive assholery, feel they cannot penetrate into the clique, then people will leave.

@Admiral said in The 100: The Mush:

Staff is right and you are wrong. That seems to be what Seraphim73 is trying to relate. Whatever problems you had either weren't problems, or aren't problems anymore.

Couple that with Seraphim73's character being the star of the game and you've got a recipe for literally every single game run by a married couple ever.

Right. The main complaints I'm hearing from my friends who have left the game, or former players of this couple's previous endeavor, is that the game is awfully railroady, cliquish, and that the main IC clique is so embroiled with their own enjoyment of the game (as led by staff PC), that complaints get an "I don't know what you're talking about" response, or that the issues people are having with the game are non-issues and are explained by staff as not being issues, which is what we are witnessing in this thread.

I raise you a cybernetic Morgan Freeman making devil horns with King Diamond. #SoEffingMetal

@surreality said in Cybersphere Nostalgia Thread:

I was there around... '97 I think?

I was a hopeless clueless newbie and highly dumb. I was Mayor Mike, the six-armed stripper chick that ended up elected when the guy who was always mayor didn't feel like doing it for a term and it was open. I promptly ended up having to leave the game due to RL (my grandmother, who raised me, was dying ) but not before the character got married to someone whose street name she knew -- but not his real name.

She did not realize his name was Edgar Caine, and that she was now...

...Michael Caine.

Sometimes I love this hobby for the accidental hilarious weirdness.

Shouldve had a baby named Myko.

Myko Caine.

My cocaine.

#JOKES

From an advertising perspective, what I'm really curious about this game (aside from the earlier question about Grey-Grounder staff romance) is this:

1. There are two factions. Are there any non-staff PCs in leadership positions who have the freedom to direct their faction as they see fit, or for both factions, are the factions run by staff NPCs/staff PCs, and these faction heads give direction to the PCs?
2. Have any non-staff PCs been granted the freedom/responsibility to be the inter-faction liaison to perform diplomacy as the player sees fit?
3. For players who feel they are outside of the clique (and perhaps some who are), what is the response like to +jobs or ideas that direct plot, ot tiny plot, in a direction that the non-staff player sees fit?

I think ultimately, the question is, is this a game where the non-staff PCs decide the direction of the game, or is this game a conconcted story idea by staff that will require close monitoring and staff-PC plot control to avoid derivation?

I said staff being central to plot and doing the diplomatic work. Not staff disseminating roleplay. Keep playing

@Arkandel So long as people remember that staff-PCs being central to plots and doing the diplomatic work to disseminate roleplay is accidental

What I really wanna know is: Have Grey and a staff-alt Grounder hooked up yet for the inevitable "romance across political line" thing?

Somehow this thread is reminding me of a psych study I read about, where a group of non-criminal civilians was split up into the roles of prisoner and prison guard. The study had to be stopped early because the prison guard roleplayers started to get physical with the prisoners.

I imagine on a game where the common trope for all characters being "criminal", whether it be falsely accused or not, would also naturally gravitate towards the edgy, brooding, quasi-80s punk bully loner without a cause tropes. For some reason I'm not entirely surprised to see this complaint about the game, because written into the assumed genre, even for the players who have never seen the tv show, would have to assume a degree of antisocial behavior, if even it is brooding due to being falsely accused. Then, add in the teenage trope, which on any given MU always seems to gravitate towards social bullying, underage sex, and drama-mongering.

People play a facsimile of what they identify these tropes with. Being that the grand majority of us are mistreated nerds who all sought private, non-physical-contact means of social roleplay, I wouldn't doubt we've got a whole gaggle of formerly bullied outcast types and players who feel that urge to rekindle those younger, more teenage freedoms.

I'm not a player on this game, I think that's pretty clear, but I wouldnt doubt there to be a large number of prison guards in a prison guard clique (and an IC/ooc clique) on a game with a Delinquents faction.

Are we really surprised about this? Truly?

I think the genre of the game applies, too. In Game of Thrones, being the victim of a villain or facing justice for being one, usually isn't a pretty sight. Whereas Darth Vader's TIE fighter can get beaned and float off into space "CURSE YOU, LUKE SKYWALKERRRRrrrr...."

How this could be implemented highly revolves around the IC stakes of the game. WoD, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, etc would require a lot more creativity to determine what kinds of defeat don't equate to death, but if you look closely these genres DO have villains that are defeated, evolve, return, etc.

I really do think that there is a "if you show me yours, I will show you mine" factor when it comes to two players putting their characters at risk in this hobby. No one wants to be the only one risking their character. We want other brave souls to make the charge with and against us...but the last thing we want is to be the only, stupid character ever getting PKd because we were the only ones foolish enough to consent.

One thing that has been a problem with me (du temps en temps), is that people will page me and ask "why are you ruining your character?" when I purposefully allowed characters to fail, or be slandered, or be humiliated. The answer? It's all part of the show, but the sheer number of times that I have been asked that has led me to feel like there may be a very large many in this hobby that don't play to roleplay failure, they play to be awesome, and that doesnt bode well for faction based settings in whole numbers want to avoid failure altogether.

I think we've been here before @faraday and the conversation (last time) segued into whether or not people are the main character of their own story.

I apologize if I stirred up a storm, I'm just promoting defeat as being healthy ya knows? I often work defeat/back on horse into when my tabletop players lose.

@silentsophia said in Tips on Güd TS:

Honestly, the big thing that pisses me off about someone seeking TS is if they ignore 'potential competition'.

This kind of baffles me when it happens. I try to roleplay through everything. If some male character wants to try to muscle in on my character's girl? I say go right ahead. Roleplay through it. I've had characters cheat on my character with zero OOC drama on my end. But! I've been the male character in a scene getting ICly flirted with by more than one girl at a time and have watched the two female characters outright ignore each other, and I have to admit, that is definitely one of my red flags for both players when that happens. It tells me that there is a chance that both players aren't separating IC from OOC emotion and that I need to pay close attention.

Note, @Fantom per my villain-based policy idea post, I have decided to pony up and will be aiming to make a villain character on Rogue, one to give protagonist characters a force to bump heads against.

@Arkandel That is, actually, one of my pet peeves with MUing. Having to sift through or identify the players that are there to play the story versus the ones that are there for WoD-themed(for example) kink only, makes it hard to function and puts so many people on KinkRPer alert. I've seen characters get semi-blacklisted before even RPing due to theories that per their wiki page that's all they're there for, which sometimes turns out to not be the case

@lordbelh said in Tips on Güd TS:

@Arkandel I have to admit I just hate the you, and slap that on to a TS scene and it will make me run for the hills.

Agreed, I respectfully agree to disagree with @Arkandel on this one.

YOU always reads to me like JEFF, THE GUY AT THE KEYBOARD and not NAILS, THE POST APOCALYPTIC ROAD WARRIOR. There's something about the idea that the other player is proxying my character as an extension of who I am on an OOC level that takes any shred of TS or romantic rp and turns it into "Us, the OOC people, make-prentending our bathing suit regions touch". It makes me run for the hills because the last thing I need in life, or on my conscience, or on my karma, is that I'm involved in some kind of RL situation. No. It is not ME, it is HIM, my character, and if the other person refers to him as YOU, then it's all the more likely that the other person views their character as HERSELF, OOCLY, at least on some level.

At that point...something very different than a rp scene is taking place. It gives me the willies and I want nunovit.

@lordbelh said in Tips on Güd TS:

I'm the kind of RPer who really doesn't talk to people all that much OOC about what I want from my scenes, or my relationships, or the direction I'm looking to take my character in. My general philosophy is what happens, happens, and part of the fun is the mystery of it.

Amen on this.

Aside from generally figuring out comfort levels, I don't really like to talk about it either. Just like someone putting YOU instead of <charname> in poses, the concept of bartering into another player's ooc fetishes or wants just seems too strangely personal to me. It makes me feel like the eye has been taken off of the ball; that it isn't about roleplaying the character, but about the players, and in that some romantic scene ultimately becomes some kind of RL cybersex situation. I'm that guy that doesn't want to be some online proxy boyfriend to another player, so the more it is about the characters, the less it is about some vaguely personal ooc connection, which never ever ever ends well.

It definitely is a tenuous balance isn't it? I've seen the IC stalemate at its worst from two different poles on SerenityMush. There was a "Space Pirate" faction that openly had the best weapons, armor, and highly xp-dumped chars, to the point that no one ever really challenged them unless they were also from some kind of UberOrg with questionably easy access to the best weapons and equipment. Then, at some point, Jade and Frost had a showdown, which on an OOC level was the equivalent of racing for pink stripes. Both players consented to PK and IIRC it was a 2-3 hour fight scene that ended with a really dramatic, really Tolkein-long death moment for Jade, who lost.

I'm not a fan of PK-lust, because all too often it becomes a bullying system for god-level characters, and their players, to consolidate power (COUGH REACH COUGH). But I am a firm believer that, like the Walking Dead, if players have to arrange to be defeated or their characters die, then the suspension of disbelief breaks, the fourth wall crumbles, and the game is no longer about the characters and story, but about the players.

So IMO, it doesn't have to mean death, but I think it is very important to have policies or systems in place, as well as mature rpers, so that someones wings can get clipped or tickets can be punched from time to time. Not necessarily death, but at the least, a Player vs. Player situation where someone is going to lose, and the rp AND dice are going to help decide it.