Posts made by Ghost

I'm angry at you guys for pitting my love of my absolute favorite horror genre against my willpower to remain retired from the hobby.

So this means I think your new idea is awesome.

@mietze said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

It is actually super easy to be tracked down by someone who wants to, even if they have very minimal information.

It's just another reason why I'm personally into more anonymity on these games.

I don't want to scare people or sound like Jim Carrey as Fire Marshal Bill pointing out how everything is flammable (ex: mushing using default telnet port instead of SSH), but one thing my infosec training has taught me is that (from a tech/phishing perspective) it's shockingly easy to aggregate little bits of information into a whole.

I'm not gonna tell it out of a bullhorn, though. There's speakers at high school these days who use shock and awe tactics during presentations to show parents just how easy it is to find someone through social media for that particular speech.

@Ganymede I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you and I think this would be an amazing conversation over tea, cigars, whiskey, chips and salsa, or whatevs BUT...

Some 3 posts back I said I wanna stay out of this one so I'm going to respectfully give you all the floor and not challenge this. My conversational style makes more sense over voice, so I am going to reiterate that I may not explain myself or be able to convey my tone the right way to wade into this one.

Plus, I think this can be sort of an issue with a myriad of personal investment levels, so I'm comfortable letting go.

@faraday said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

The discussion was specifically around stalking/harassment/threats/etc. online

Right. Well there was a point where Gany said emotional injury being fascinating from a certain perspective and that kinda led into what I typed. I wasnt moving the goal posts on stalking/threats but more continuing the "social injury subjectivity blah blah" IToldYouIDidntWannaTalkBoutThis

@Ganymede said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

But if someone's losing their shit because their dice are sucking or they lost an election? Sure, it's disappointing, but upkeep your reaction buffer, bruh.

You're really shifting the goal-posts here, man.

Oh no, I didn't mean it that way. I was trying to paint the lightest boundary to SWATing/doxxing being super extreme. There's plenty of room (and cases) in between, but the further away you get from those extreme polar boundaries I think the more subjective or negotiable some of that stuff may be.

@Sunny said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

"Words only have the power you give them to hurt you" is a lot like "oh, you're depressed? You need to spend more time outside!"

Yeah, I dont necessarily agree with that approach because the hurt generated from doxxing, SWATing, revealing to someone that their spouse is having an affair, or purposefully attacking health and/or body issues isn't in any way a factor of the recipient simply not "keeping themselves in check".

Like... "LOL I GAVE WORDS TO THE COPS THAT YOU WERE HOLDING A HOSTAGE, NOW SWAT HAS U AT GUNPOINT. IF THIS BOTHERS YOU LOL THAT'S YOUR OWN FAULT" No. Nope. When I was a kid I made fun of a former best friend's sibling's terminal disease (because I was devastated that he started bullying me alongside the clique of kids who used to bully US). It was wrong. Also: totally not his fault for any hurt for me going there.

But if someone's losing their shit because their dice are sucking or they lost an election? Sure, it's disappointing, but upkeep your reaction buffer, bruh.

@Jennkryst said in Alien RPG coming soon...:

Playable sexy xenomorphs or gtfo

Sorreh, this is ALIENS the RPG.
Not SPECIES the RPG.

@Tinuviel said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

Respectfully, I disagree

Then you would be rather incorrect. The fact that words on a screen can elicit positive emotional responses would indicate that they could do the opposite. We wouldn't have a Hog Pit if words on a screen couldn't cause some nature of harm.

I agree that some of us are hardier than others, and what would offend you might not offend me. But at the very base level, words have power and therefore one cannot use the "they're just words" excuse when confronted with something that is, rather aptly, confronting.

Oh, I wholly believe words can affect people, but words simply affecting people isn't the issue. My views are more related to the subjectivity of injury and the reasonable level of responsibility any given person should have towards ownership for social injuries and/or emotional states of others in social situations.

Which is a minefield I ain't walking into at 23:31 local time.

@Auspice Gimme a bit and I'll update again.

I got a birthday 2 weeks from now and a tattoo appointment next Friday. Busy time and not a lot of time to spare before Jult. Will have to read up.

If I'm good to go I'll post a notice (if I'm gonna do it) to PM me for details.

@insomniac7809 said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

"Your stalker probably isn't going to find you IRL" isn't as reassuring as you seem to think it is.

I was going to comment on how easy it is with some details, but it's probably just better to say that data aggregation is a thing. No need to chicken little.

@Tinuviel said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

@insomniac7809 I would add, also, that the idea that words cannot cause injury is fundamentally incorrect.

Respectfully, I disagree, but I'm not going to chase this point down.

I wrote a thing but backspaced over it, though. I know good places and bad places to discuss my opinions on mental and emotional states. People take this particular topic a little too close to heart for my tastes. I'm not callous by any means, but this particular topic is a minefield.

@Auspice hah. I know. Lemme look through the book and see if I'm down for it.

I'm attending/staffing a game convention in July that may need extra GMs, so a few playthroughs OTT to polish the session, before the con might be in order.

I would need beta testers. Beta players? Testers.

@Auspice said in Alien RPG coming soon...:

@Ghost

You should uh....
....run an OTT.

<.<

Only for people who upvote me.

(Edit: This was a cheap joke for getting upvotes. When the time comes I'll totally ask for PMs)

Update: Like a good Wetland-Yutani drone I pre-ordered. With it immediately included a download of the Quick-Start rules via DriveThruRPG (a gift for preorder).

I haven't had time for a full read, but here is my knee-jerk response...

• This PDF is gorgeous and not that shitty "kind of a word doc" some game quick start rules throw out. Tons of artwork. 136 pages, so quick start rules, expanded preview rules/systems, and a premade cinematic adventure.
• d6 based system uaing a hack of the Mutant Year Zero system. Easy to learn. Not fuckoff crunchy like the original Aliens rpg.
• GM no longer stands for Game Master. It's Game Mother, which is clever and slick because it's a reference to the Mother computer fron Alien and a Queen Alien.
• CGen looks like it isn't complicated, but theres room for equipment and supplies. I dig that each player gets a signature item (I.e. Ripley's cat, Jonesy) that you cane use once per game to lower stress.
• Less complicated CGen makes for quick character making, which is key for doing 1-shot cinematic games or dealing with PC death. People bitch less when their precious gets tail-stabbed to death when they can have another precious in 5-10 minutes.

So far, I'm a fan.

I think the answer lies in the self.

"You determine your own level of involvement in Fight Club"
-Tyler Durden, or is it Cornelius?

In a very Taoist way, I think it's important to understand that many of these fears, claims of damage, and issues stem from a sense of outward-facing vigilance that can feed paranoia and anxiety and turn into something else.

They are doing this. They will not do this. They have harmed me.

In comes the Tao. Realistically, not one single musher has true control over their mushing experience, and I think it's important to acknowledge that. Each person in this hobby needs to constantly revisit their level of enjoyment, their level of drama, their level of safety, and not ask "how do I get people to do this right?" or "Who is ruining this for me?" but instead "is this healthy for me?"

It's a practice that can apply to anything (job, marriage, underwater hockey league which just this year I found out is an actual thing), and I think it's important to revisit this line of thinking whenever you hit a point where the frustration is enough to make you flee. When you say "Fuck this" and turn off your game client, that's your body, mind, and soul's way of telling you that this thing is not making you feel good.

But it's not everyone else's job to upkeep that for you.

It's not "if I quit then the bad actors win". It doesn't need to be that difficult. I suggest this approach:

1. If someone is being truly abusive. Log it.
2. If they will not stop after a warning, send it to staff.
3. If staff refuses to do anything or if the result does not meet your expectations....

...Quit the game.

YOU (as in general you) control your level of commitment, obsession, and pain that you are willing to endure on these games. YOU are not entitled to anything from strangers on the internet whom you have no legal or contractual agreements with. You. Cannot. Control. These. People.

Until it becomes about you, it will always be about them. Who They are will always change. There will always be someone upsetting you. There will always be some person fucking around. There will always be people you do not see eye to eye with or who will do things your way.

If staff are unwilling to deal with truly abusive online behavior or if other players are regularly being mean to you, then there's no the bad actors win. The bad actors have won. Reassess your level of emotional investment, and if you're not happy to proceed do something else.

I promise you that it is the only answer with a high success rate, because it's about you taking care of you; which is a thing that none of these fuckin mushers can take away from you. Nor should you allow them.

@Lotherio said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

I have more appreciation for 2 now, 20 years later at least.

...something inside me just hemorrhaged at reading that.

@Auspice said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

P.S. Ghost is not Ben Affleck

P.S. My "Don't you EVER tell them that I'm actually Ben Affleck" clause is seemingly alive and well.

Banana sticker for the day, Auspice.

Meh. Fuck it. I'm conversing.

I like that Gany, Fara, Auspice, Surreal, and others can agree to disagree with me. I like to think that we do it well because they know that when we agree to disagree, it's just that. I still like them as people and I don't see a lot of topics that two people of the internet truly can't walk away from. I'm not going to have a conversation with someone about how great all 3 Matrix movies are (if you don't believe this, you're horrible) and then get (improperly) disagreed with, then turn to everyone else and be like:

"This is a Matrix 3 only party, bitch."

Ultimately? I think people are just people. I think that most people put an idealized version of themselves on the internet, and that when it comes to RPGs you run the risk of so many hours spent roleplaying it's easy to subconsciously adapt that idealized OOC version of yourself into a persona that you have to upkeep.

Which is why I try very hard not to do that, and post a lot of Mac gifs.

Anyway, I digress.

I think everyone, even the people who may not like me, are just regular people. Regular people who hurt their shoulders while sleeping, hate hangovers, and have foods they choose to not eat because it gives them diarrhea. I think that people choose these OOC personas (or don't at all) for their own reasons, but there's really no way for me or anyone to qualify who they are without having existing RL relationships with them.

I could be Ben Affleck for all you know.

I think that some people have lost focus of this. People have good days, bad days, have differences of opinion on what good RP is, and communication between people who actually have actual sex all the time is difficult but it feels like the excepted success rate of communication in the hobby is waaaay higher a bar than it should be.

I think some people have become caught up in their confirmation bias, and on MSB you tend to see a lot of accusations where "Angry person A knows with complete paranormal accuracy the intentions and beliefs of Person B". I think there's some definite arrogance in that level of assumption and/or the assumption that you can actually determine who does or doesn't deserve another chance for...disappointing you?

I believe that there is very little actual real damage that happens in this hobby and that cases of cruel behavior, stalking, and cheating at games are the actual offenses. I believe that you cannot force an open-invitation environment to meet the preferences of a vocal group of people who have taken it upon themselves to arbitrarily keep mental tallies on players. Before long those mental tallies will become: "Well, they said words I didn't like once and they disagree with me on some things. I can't remember roleplaying with them or have any actual bad game experiences, but Fuck em until they own their shit and apologize to me for...a thing? I dunno. Fuck em." So damage ends up this subjective term, and whether or not someone deserves a second chance becomes a topic of public consumption designed to sway a mob, much like Matrix 3 or social rolls in WoD.

I agree: It's a clique, and that clique will always want the right to decide who is or isn't worthy of social hierarchy. What people don't understand is that this behavior is a beast that often comes back around to bite you. Alex and I were bullies in grade school. I was on top. Then Alex started bullying me. People fall out of favor, and others replace them.

Anyway, I'm all for people exercising the right to get on in peace. I think @faraday is 100% absolutely right in the spirit of her approach. My approach/suggestion isn't the utopian or preferable one, but I think it's a means to an end. In the end, though, ths hobby would be best if people played well together and fara's vision would be something unifying.

I just want people to treat each other with respect and if people have to spend 6 months to a year roleplaying in some kind of Eyes Wide Shut orgy mask to lessen the importance of OOC identities as being a major point of aggression? I'm alright. With that.

@Auspice said in RL Anger:

@Ghost said in RL Anger:

@Auspice said in RL Anger:

@Ghost said in RL Anger:

@Auspice

How corporate execs use synergy...

An actual, decent use of the word synergy...

(SIDEBAR: About 4 months of me exclusively using Mac gifs remain. Cherish this time.)

Fact: There is an Always Sunny in Philadelphia gif for every occasion.

@Auspice said in RL Anger:

@Ghost said in RL Anger:

@Auspice

How corporate execs use synergy...

An actual, decent use of the word synergy...

(SIDEBAR: About 4 months of me exclusively using Mac gifs remain. Cherish this time.)

@Auspice

How corporate execs use synergy...

An actual, decent use of the word synergy...

(SIDEBAR: About 4 months of me exclusively using Mac gifs remain. Cherish this time.)