Posts made by Ghost

The trouble with LordsAndLadies mushes is this: If things happen, then they're bad, bad things that affect everyone.

Sure, there's beheading/punishing criminals and the occasional raider/highwayman to ride down, but those will be NPCs. What about the PCs? You've got a bunch of lords, ladies, men-at-arms, soldiers, shitbags, handmaidens, etc, and they're ALL from different houses. So the logical idea is to have marriages, stack them against each other, cause some drama, poison some wine, have a few rapes, set a few fires, run down some smallfolk with horses, right? Because that's what the nobles in GoT do. They troll each other at the expense of their people. They meddle. They cause problems. They marry male and female members of household to people who very well may end up abusing them for politics.

It's like Pro Wrestling with swords, lances, and seduction.

But the general RPer doesn't want to have their sexy little relationships or noble lives fucked with, so the drama tends to be like a 6th grade dance where most of the boys and girls are on opposite sides of the gymnasium daring each other to ask this girl or this boy to dance, but nothing really happens, and they leave it to staff to create drama for them to all participate with each other in as a team. The players that try to start shit mostly get avoided and viewed as dangerous to RP with, and most of the players either won't cause drama unless they're sure they will get away with it OR don't do it to avoid OOCSplosion.

So tourneys. And Banquets. And scenes in the yard. And sex.

The noble houses circle each other like two teenaged boys in a fight, too afraid to commit to throwing a punch, until the teacher across the hall yells WHATS GOING ON OUT THERE and everyone scatters to rumor-douchebag about how one or the other kid was being a pussy.

@Sovereign I could get behind that. Tribes.

In "The Realms Lustful" thread, players of a GoT style LordsAndLadies game are currently arguing over what Lust means and whether it means people bone ICly.

They're your core player base.

You have been warned.

@Seraphim73 said:

@Ghost No player-provided content will make it into the book(s). The setting and a few Staff-created characters will be used, but to the best of my ability, no others will be.

My suggestion would be to upgrade that to a guarantee that no player-characters or content created by the non-authors of the book are used in an unauthorized manner, and then next time post an open disclaimer and an end-user license agreement.

I was less than pleased to learn that you opened a mush using a setting you were intending to write a book series in, then when the mush ended, locked everyone out of the wiki. It's a little suspicious.

It's no big deal, though. I've made sure to retain logs, entries, and whatnot and will keep an eye out. None of us authorized the use of content and a good number of us are aware/monitoring.

@Sovereign @Cirno hahahaha I love this forum sometimes.

@Sovereign TBH I think my logical response, at the time, was Jesus what kind of shit did this guy pull?!? It was weird, yeah, and a large part of me wanted to tell them look, I'm an adult, if I said I'm not the guy, I'm not the guy, knock it off, but you know people. Being blunt sometimes quickly turns into OMGURTHEWORST, and I really wanted to RP at the time.

The whole situation came to an end about 3 or so months later when the currentGirl player started to harass me and detail how I was damaging her depression diagnosis because I wasn't doing what she wanted. I then told her, nicely, that I was gonna take a break from rping with her, which she then took to staff about how I was trying to wreck her RP experience.

Guess what? I am probably now either believed to have been lying about being EvilBobRPer, or I am now EvilBob2.

She's the reason for my quote line about ruining your life that one week on a Mu.

@Apos at the time, being liked felt great. Lol

@Apos said:

@Ghost said:

I perceive this to be a huge part of the problem.

I would say half of the people I've mushed with, or at least a third, ask me something like: "Hey, did you play <insert name> on <inset game>, because your poses seem familiar." And then when I explain I'm not that person, its: "Okay good, because I swore I'd never RP with that person ever again, he did this and this and this and this and he's horrible."

Holy shit, really? I have literally never had that happen to me in all my years online. At least not in a roleplaying context. I would have been shocked that happened at all, let alone something that comes up often.

I had a female player I wasn't roleplaying with reach out to me on behalf of a female roleplayer I was currently roleplaying with, just to make sure I hadn't lied to the current girl when I told her I wasn't this horrible demon rper she was trying to avoid. I really should have seen the red flag then. Both girls turned out to be kind of batshit.

I also know a girl who thoroughly tries to research who is OOCly who on a mush (including wiki stalking) before playing. Even if she is not able to prove X is EvilBobRPer, she will still make a character, but then avoid X just in case...and then when she starts to feel ignored, partially believes it is because people have carried a dislike of her to every game. So she only tries to RP with a core group of people to avoid all of this, but has to try to integrate into game communities.

Shit, fifteen+ years, I've seen and been in the center of a lot of weird shit.

EDIT: And yes, after currentGirl and anonymousGirl vetted that I wasn't lying about not being EvilBobRPer, they both paged me in unison to apologize for the deception, but that everything was great now and they really liked me!

Ditto.

@thebird said:

I really think that a lot of drama and "feelings of not being wanted" on MU*s can be mitigated simply by not assuming things, and adulting enough to speak to each other. Instead of sitting around and taking gossip at face value, or assuming something typed was meant offensively, someone is ignoring you for some epic reason when really they were just afk, etc.

I tend to read in to things too much, and one of my best friends gets grumpy and such, and we agreed early on to just talk, rather than sitting and moping/getting mad about whatever.

Point is, communication is key - online, real life, everything. Easier said than done sometimes, but still...

(I got through a whole post without forgetting my point! Yay! =D )

I perceive this to be a huge part of the problem.

I would say half of the people I've mushed with, or at least a third, ask me something like: "Hey, did you play <insert name> on <inset game>, because your poses seem familiar." And then when I explain I'm not that person, its: "Okay good, because I swore I'd never RP with that person ever again, he did this and this and this and this and he's horrible."

The amount of energy I've seen some players donate trying to read between the lines on what someone's OOC identity, OOC motives, OOC wants seems staggering to me, to the point that it always seems hard to distinguish the player from the character, because the player is so god-damned busy fretting about the OOC aspect. WHAT people think of them. WHO this new person is and whether or not they played Bumblefuck on JackdogMu. WHAT the player means when they decide this or that IC and whether or not it's OOC motivated.

There's this old saying that goes "when you point a finger, you point three fingers back at yourself", and when it comes to a lot of this OOC paranoia or trying to " game the game", these people are accusing people of doing to them the things they are constantly doing to others.

PULSE CHECK!

How's this coming along, @ZombieGenesis ? Anything needed or an ETA?

I slept with your mom.

I wish I could take my comeback.

@Arkandel said:

@VulgarKitten said:

@Thenomain said:

You are not contracted, obligated, or otherwise forced to do so, but if you include people in your character's play-space, you will become more popular and you will enhance that person's experience knowing that they will do the same for you.

This is such a lie.

Well, lie is a strong word. I doubt Theno was trying to intentionally misrepresent the truth or anything. At worst it could be incorrect, which is a whole different matter.

But well, I need to agree with him it's a good policy to have in general - including others, letting them into your story, allowing them to play with your toys. It's not needed by any means but as ours is a highly interactive, collaborative word-based hobby I don't see the problem with it. It might not work as well or often as we'd want, but what does?

But the connection between mushers, good mushers or bad, is highly symbiotic. There is no such thing as a successful game with only two players. You need the other players as much as they need you. That's why these conversations and gripes about selfish players explode, right? It's the roleplay equivalent of a guy telling a girl I'll get you back after she gives him a blowjob. Ive referred to it at times as Unrequited Roleplay.

Maybe it isn't the best term, and we could argue which words are better all day, but I do believe that there is an unspoken social contract that exists between mushers. If I had to put it into words, it might go something like this(bear with me I just woke up):

"We are providing each other with time. Time we could be spending other things, but we choose to be here. So, I expect you to try to be entertaining, copacetic, and a fair player. In return, I will provide you with this as well."

But that's why fucked up players drive us crazy, right? We love the hobby, but we need other players, so when other players are twinks, power gaming, disruptive, self-centered, and drama-mongering fucktards, they're effectively polluting what would otherwise be a very awesome writing hobby with their negative bullshit.

Some motherfuckers just don't get that they have a place in the unspoken, symbiotic contract. It fucks things up.