Posts made by Gilette

@HelloProject

I disagree. Just because people still text RP doesn't mean they want to MU, it's a whole different ecosystem/power balance/time commitment, etc. I'd be interested to see that DBZ MU experiment because I think you're making an interesting value judgement by assuming those players are "sick of" RPing in "backwater", "shady" channels -- in my experience, they don't care. As far a new trickle of players, well, when you look at MUDStats, almost every single place is on a decline, some of them drastically, so I'd question that belief, too.

But, again, a topic about how to try and revitalise the medium is for a different thread.

@Arkandel

To rephrase: How do we prevent someone from being unfairly portrayed as the bad guy (there was an incident earlier where someone was explicitly asked to play one, then afterwards was accused they should have 'known better') and at the same time to not blame the victim and protect an asshole as has been the actual case many times in MU*?

TBQH, you can't. An issue like that is going to require diving into the histories of the people involved and it'd almost certainly devolve into hurt feelings and she said he said.

@HelloProject said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

I've been on plenty of games where the sorts of perspectives here on, like, what is essentially basic human social interaction and setting up expectations based on that, would be considered downright alien. Saying "This is unacceptable and I shouldn't have to adhere to the basic social etiquette of every day life in a MU, because <insert worst case scenario here>", is a bit outrageous. Basic social etiquette and communicating expectations is many, many steps removed from "being someone's therapist".

I personally think that if one is unable to communicate at a super basic level without it being distressing or making them feel the burden of a thousand therapists, GMing is probably not for them.

I agree with this. The problem is, there aren't many normal people with a decent grasp on social interaction on MUs anymore. TBQH, I think we're truly into the twilight of the medium and the only people remaining are romantics who can't let go to a dying pastime, coding wizards and people with issues they're trying, and often failing, to work out. The demographics are hilariously skewed, as this thread is proving.

Also, if you're going to pull a I NEED TO STEP AWAY FROM THIS THREAD then please fucking leave and not post ten more times. This thread has the potential to be really interesting but there's like half a dozen people trying to turn it into their personal truth and reconciliation committee. I'm sorry that there are things that trigger you, severely or otherwise -- but I don't actually care, either.

@Ghost

I think exploring that topic -- how to mitigate some of those mundane attachment problems -- would be a really good resource. I know it's something that I had to work on several years back, and is still something that can tap me on the shoulder now and again, even thought I know it's not nearly as much of an issue.

And I've had many, many "I'm not a therapist" discussions, too.

Also, is this Yet Another Arx Discussion?

@Paris

I had someone do that sort of thing to me -- very heavily push an IC relationship, with some stuff that wasn't my kink but I was happy to oblige -- and then turn around and get me banned. Then, when asked about it, I got a 'you know what you did' from the player in question.

@Arkandel

Hmm. Whenever I think I'm going to touch on something that might be a bit too graphic for most, I tend to really tone down the details. In general, I also try to keep things to a M15+ rating at best. For example, in Australia, a film like Terminator 2 is M15 - and T2 features a lot of stuff, but typically fleeting and not very graphic.

I'd question the need for most games to go beyond that. However, for a setting like CoD, I can definitely see where a R-18 rating could be mandated because the whole point of that setting is the dark side of humanity. But even then I'd question -- if only silently and to myself -- the people who'd want to scene graphic depictions of torture, sexual violence, and so on.

To go back to my Terminator example, it's the difference between the T-1000 killing the dog implicitly with a yelp and a bloody collar and a graphic scene where you see it strangle the dog, for example.

When I couldn't divorce my emotions from my screen, I was a literal teenager. The peaks of my RP were higher and the valleys were much lower, and it is, all in all, not an experience I would ever care to repeat. This is not a dig at you, @The-Tree-of-Woe, but I wonder why most people can't?

Surely the ability to take a step back from everything and get your bearings, to encourage healthy emotional separation and healthy emotional investment, is something MU players should encourage? Frankly, I wish someone had said as much to me back when I was that teenager, before I said and did things that absolutely ruined friendships -- even when, looking back on it, I can still acknowledge that my emotional response was understandable and not unexpected.

It's a rough thing to say but, again, let's be honest here: not everyone's emotional reaction is proper. The person who is upset because a character they liked to spend time with is dead, and they need a moment, okay, fine. Understandable.

The player who has an extreme emotional reaction and complains to staff about the character being killed and disrupts the scene to try and force an OOC retcon... Well, something something "no right to demand", "goalposts", etc.

1. Players have a responsibility to be aware of what might trigger them and make them upset. There are numerous things I simply won't scene. A scene-runner has some (incredibly limited) responsibility to let people know what the rating of a scene might be, particularly if it is going to be a scene revolving around anything that might be a trigger. In general, though, I question anyone who feels the need to play out any content above, say, a MA or R18 rating. All games should have a general idea of tone and rating in the rules and it is the responsibility of players to stick to that.

2. Probably nothing. Let's be honest here, if a scene makes someone upset for reasons that no one might have been able to guess, it is not the responsibility of the scene-runner to placate an upset player, nor is it the responsibility of staff. It depends on the exact circumstances: did the upset player go into the scene knowingly (or disregarding the outline), or did the scene-runner spring it on the group without any warning? In the latter case, I'd say an apology would be warranted.

3. You can't. Controversial themes probably shouldn't be run because very few people will handle them with care. Staff/public scenes should probably always verge towards safe, particularly pick-up public RP, but plots can honestly go anywhere -- providing that people are warned.

At some point, and for lack of a better term, players need to acknowledge the social contract between themselves and their RP platform.

@WTFE

I really need to get over there! I just need to get my butt in gear!

@Wavert

It seems there's been a bit of a MU* wide culture shift on the nature of villains like that. A few years ago, it felt far more common that a villain-player could get heroes who'd agree to a pretty standard arc of 'suffer setbacks, get defeated, eventually defeat the villain' and everyone could have some time to shine.

These days, though, it seems very common that hero players simply can't handle any plot where they might lose or suffer a minor inconvenience.

It was one of the many factors that put MCM in its current state which used to have a thriving antagonist culture about 2-3 years ago.

@surreality

Good points.

There was an 'ooc lounge' I really liked, on a game I can't remember, where instead of being framed like a hangout spot it was framed as being off-stage of a performance. The idea was, obviously, that it was a waiting area between scenes rather than a place to hang. I thought that was a neat way of having one while also subtly reminding people that the real purpose was being 'on stage'.

At their worst, I think a 'lounge' is what I described above.

At their best, though, they can be a good source of meeting and getting comfortable with other players, brainstorming and bouncing ideas around, and even some light semi-IC RP to get a feel for the characters. When they operate like that, I tend to visit them, and that's when I can see the purpose in them.

No?

They're a vestigial element that games don't actually need, but are kept around because a lot of MUers simply don't have any other social outlet and/or because there's a belief that an OOC lounge is necessary for a game to function.

I can think of more games where an OOC lounge has gradually metastatised into the following set of traits that one that functioned as a workable decompression and chill area.

• Complaining about some video game you're playing for hours.
• Other long conversations that can be best be summed up as 'who the fuck cares'
• A place for people to log on and idle while refusing RP (and, often, whining about a lack of RP) - some of these players will log on for hours at a time every single day, and yet remain purely in the lounge.
• Snarking about what's happening in-game or on-grid.
• Hiding behind 'it's just my opinion' when called on the above by staff
• Characters taking up spots on a roster but rely on their loud OOC clique to prevent them from being removed for lack of activity
• Sometimes getting a nice little OOC Lounge 'play nice and don't be dicks in this room' notice-object which is fantastic because it sends a great message to new players given that the OOC lounge is inevitably the room they log in to

They're antiques. Relics. Parts of games that worked when you had hundreds of players coming through and maybe the grid was simply too crowded to RP. When you have, say, forty players and ten to fifteen of them sit in an OOC lounge while the grid remains desolate and players shout RP requests into an echoing void, well, what's the point? What, exactly, is the Lounge of any game contributing?

When the thread topic is 'How do you keep them from becoming trash?' contributing 'then just stay out of them XD' isn't exactly constructive.

edit: I'll admit, of course, neither is 'well, you shouldn't have them' but I'm actually interested in seeing an argument either for them or in how you prevent them from becoming what I've listed above.

You can't. Honestly, a lot of games should consider not having them.

What I mean, of course, is not having an 'OOC Lounge'. You might have a Starting Room or a Waiting Room or a OOC Space, but it isn't exactly for talking or hanging out in. If you log on, you should be there to play. I'm not actually sure what the purpose is with these spaces beyond some kind of thought that games must have a place to "hang out."

Or, if you have them, remove the ability to speak and emote.

It's a game first, hang out spot second. There shouldn't really be any rooms that aren't conducive to people logging on and going IC, and an OOC Lounge can be a problem. It's easier to talk in the OOC lounge than it is to scene, after all, and a lot of MUers are nothing if not creatures-of-least-resistance.

Or, if you must have one, you need some way of monitoring what's going on. Whenever I visit an OOC Lounge and see the same people complaining about LOL THIS FUCKING GUY ON LEAGUE or :scoffs at YoutubeCelebrity's Latest Video or giving a play by play of their latest game or LP or whatever else meaningless bullshit that doesn't relate to anything on the actual MU, well...

@surreality

Well, how else do you handle someone with a fragile ego? Kid gloves.

I love playing antagonistic characters, from flat-out bad dudes to edgy 'dark knight' types within groups of shining heroes. I agree with a lot of what @Lisse24 said. I've usually recieved a lot of good words about how I play antagonists, so, I think I can provide some helpful guidelines.

On the player level:

*Clarify, check and disclaim - you need people to be comfortable around you and understand that you are playing a character. This means you may need to be more friendly OOCly than you normally are!
*Be willing to lose. If you're not doing this, then you have no business doing any sort of PvP conflict, even on a sandbox MU.
*Be willing to jump in to all sorts of ideas. Your antagonist needs to be able to do multiple things and you, the player, need to be able to quickly think on your feet to come up with reasons why they might be, one day, robbing a bank and, the next day, fighting for mutant rights and, the day after that, trying to blow up New York, for example.
*Your antagonist has a shelf-life and will need to be defeated at some point. An intense antagonist who does a strong 2-3 months of RP and goes out with a bang will be remembered more fondly than one who exists for years and does very little beyond seem to be a prick to people.
*What does your antagonist want? Are they willing to compromise? Every antagonist is just the hero of their own story.
*Dangle hooks in front of the more heroic types. Whether that's the secret of pushing through your anti-hero's edgy exterior, or the first seeds of defeating your evil villain, dangle those damn hooks with the fury of a thousand suns because a lot of good guy players are incredibly dull and need to be led like a horse to water. A lot of my antagonism hinges on a bit of clever, fun 'metaposing'. The Dark Lord laughs behind his helm, glowing scepter held aloft! "With this power, I will be invincible!" The power that radiates from his incredible power gem at the head of his scepter is incalculable, but, surely not invincible! If only he wasn't holding that scepter...
*Similarly, build plots around players. Reach out to players and find out what they want or might be looking for. Maybe there's someone who wants to have an NPC taken hostage, or someone who wants to get badly beaten down, or someone who wants to put their character through a test of their character, but you need to do the looking.
*This one is more for anti-hero edgy antagonist heroes, but: have an off-switch and an understanding that you can't be on all the time. A lot of the time, you need to shut your mouth unless your comments will heighten the drama or be particularly relevant. An anti-hero with a sarcastic biting wit can be a lot of fun, but it becomes less fun when they're always doing it, day in and day out, and it seems like it's a vehicle for the player to be a snarky asshole.

A lot of it is very similar to what @Ghost said, really.

Original theme superheroes that allowed for the typical breadth of characters - normal humans, people with powers, aliens, robots, animal people, etc - and presented it in a logical, 'realistic' format. Street-level general RP, global-level staff plots.

No genre preference, even when I look back through my gaming history. But what I've always been looking for in recent memory is a good superhero game.

@Nein said in Where's your RP at?:

@Gilette

Which games? Belatedly: I've been on all the active ones. They generally share the same media character campers, same issues, and same degeneration into The Dating Game.

Sounds about right. It seems like they all suffer from a lack of active staffers who really want to push some plots - and, sometimes, staffers who are active at all.

lol this isn't the hog pit

@Nein Which games, out of curiosity?

Well, Supers RP has a crazy amount of scale. Someone might want to play someone like Spiderman and someone might want to play someone closer to Superman. Someone might want to play someone who invents things and someone might want to have god-like power at their fingertips. Someone might want to RP about the hardships of saving the day but never being recognised for it, someone else might just want to smash GENERAL GRACKTOR SCOURGE OF THE EYELESS DIMENSION in the face.

It's hard to find a system that allows for all that, while also making things feel different.

You'd want a very simple, flexible system, I think. One that's easy to learn and easy to adapt to any sort of superpowered character. The conflict resolution side of things will depend on whether you want to encourage people to PvP against each other (villains and heroes) or enforce PCs on the side of good (or, at least, not being blatantly supervillainous).