Mu* husband: "Look we have to talk about your spending habits."
MeChar: What why!?
Mu*husband: "You have spent <X amount> of <currency> in only <short amount of time>
MeChar: "I have not! Wtf! And anyway (unrelated tangent)"
Later today:
RealHusband: What did you just order off of Amazon and how much was it?
RealMe: OMG I HAVE ALREADY HAD THIS ARGUMENT TODAY
I also know some people fistshake at me because I pose too fast ( @Sunny, @Gingerlily). #sorrynotsorry.
Honestly though, this is a newer thing for me. We may recall, those of us who read my posts here and thus know my text gaming history that I come from an RP MUD background. Land of the fast-poses because they are in real time, if you take five minutes that is considered being slow, and pose order what's that? This game is LIVE man and if you take too long other people will just keep going and the pose you are writing that contains not just your dialogue but some description of your pensive-but-also-irritated facial expression will be lost and then irrelevant because in the meantime someone punched your best friend. I know how to pose fast, I know how to pose short, I know how to have scenes that are almost entirely dialogue and finish in two hours! I DO.
However, about 10 years or so give or take I discovered MUSH, and it was just in time as I was finishing grad school and then about to do some breeding. Life changed, and my ability to play on the computer in a way where my -entire focus- was on the screen and not ever broken was never going to be the same. Thus now I enjoy the fact that games exist where real time is not necessary, where I can set the pace, where if I have to glance away from my keyboard for a bit because someone wants a glass of juice or has spilled the glass of juice I just got them that does not make or break my ability to participate in a text rpg. So I switched over, and in doing so developed a taste for the long, the flowery, the paragraphs of prose that include way more simile and metaphor than necessary, and playing with language for no particular reason can be as much fun as the actual 'game' part of the game when I find partners that enjoy it too. I know not everyone does, but lots of people seem to, so when I cross paths with them we have good times.
I can DO focused and faster, and sometimes try to. But other times I deliberately seek out the people I know take 15-20 minutes per pose, because that way I can have a scene and also prepare dinner, do the dishes, read my child her bedtime story, put the night's load of laundry in, do the last part of lesson prep for the next day...in other words, I can be a geek AND an adult at the same time. It's sweet.
Hi!
I've been considering doing this for a while, hemming and hawing and being uncertain as to whether it would be helpful or terrible or what. I'm going to give it a whirl though while I am feeling brave.
I want to both explain and apologize for the events that took place last spring that resulted in several players of KD feeling upset and left out and the explosion of conversation here that snowballed from that. I decided at the time not to contribute anything to the 'Advertisement: Kushiel's Debut' thread because I did not think that anything I had to share would make things any better, and so many people on both sides were so upset that I did not want to risk making things worse.
I feel terribly about the hurt feelings and anger that resulted from an event I 'ran' at a time when tensions were already running high for some people regarding where the game was going and what place they could create for their characters on that path. It was not my intention to embarrass anyone helping the staff, or to exclude people from something they really wanted to do.
I don't think excuses serve much purpose but I do want to offer an explanation so that my intentions can be understood. I have a bad habit of over-extending myself, of saying "Yes sure of course" when people ask for my help at work or in my home life, and I over-extended myself regarding the MU* too. Some of you might know I am a school teacher, and May/June are just about the most insane months of my year. Days that I spend testing and observing and evenings spent writing up reports to present in meetings. It's stressful and rushed and I need to learn how to do a better job of balancing. That's my issue though, not anyone elses.
The event that I was helping to run in June, the one that wrapped up one part of a storyline that had been started two years prior and moved in fits and starts as players came and left, was a dramatic failure because of the way I approached it. I was not trying to feature one of my staff PCs while leaving others out...rather I was feeling pressured to 'get something done' so that one part of the story could finish and the next ones could begin. I am well aware now that that was an incredibly stupid way to staff. It was haphazard in execution and did not at all consider what the players really wanted, instead it was a check off on a to do list scrabbled together quickly. I asked another player who had come in with some 'hooks' involving that plotline to grab some others, picked an arbitrary number of how many 'others' were needed, and set up a date.
The date and timing of the event was also a disaster. I was not thinking like someone running a game, I was considering what would 'make sense' or 'be cool' for the setting. If this was a novel and not a MU* it would have been great...a secret ritual performed on the night of the biggest masqued ball of the year, when the veil between mortals and Angels goes thin. Great stuff for a book! Shitty stuff for a MU*, because it left the person running the masqued ball feeling shafted, it left all of the players whose characters were attending feeling shafted -and- well aware that something fun and cool was happening that they were not included in as they saw people slipping out to go to the other event. I don't blame people for feeling upset, it was a haphazard, short-sighted way to just get something 'done' rather than to do something -well- in a manner that would be fun for many people. I was distracted with real life stressors and should have waited until I was not. Clear evidence of this is someone asking me whether I'd told the player/staffer running the masqued ball what the plan was. I said "Yeah, she knows, she was there discussing logistics with us when we talked it out last week." I wasn't lying, I just was mistaken...I did not even remember that I had not informed a staff member of our plan. That is how frazzled I was at that point in time, that something so crucial could slip my mind and allow me to think I'd already handled it.
The suggestions people made on that thread after the fact all would have been great. There was no reason that twice as many people couldn't have been involved in the event, there's all kinds of ways we could have pulled more in. There's no good reason why every single PC on the grid that night couldn't have been involved, praying at temples as some suggested or watching out for guards or doing any number of things. If I'd been deliberate and thoughtful about the end of that storyline, instead of just plowing through it, I would have surely been able to make it much more accessible, and something fun instead of something that left so many people feeling left out. I'm sorry I did not handle it better, I am sorry I did not consider all of these things instead of rushing something that really did not need to be rushed.
Though I have years of experience with text games as many of you do here, I am still learning. Still figuring out what works and what doesn't and trying to adjust accordingly. I understand I made mistakes there that were really frustrating for many people, some players, some who staffed with me, etc. I was not trying to be selfish or spoiled or malicious, I know that isn't easy to believe. But I was also not putting enough time and thought into what was best for the larger group. I sincerely apologize for the frustration, irritation, and feelings of rejection and marginalization that resulted in.
I have no ulterior motive for sharing this now. I am not expecting people who were upset to return to give the game another try, I just wanted to do this for myself, because I do understand where I erred and because I want those effected to know I understand. I deliberately avoided pulling in other people or invoking their names because this post is not about anyone else. Just me and my own thoughts.
Thanks for reading.
@ganymede said in Make MSB great again!:
@arkandel said in Make MSB great again!:
The 'MSB effect' in regards to damaging/killing games has come up before, and I hate it. The very idea that this forum is important 'because it can bring down a MUSH', whether right or wrong, is abominable. It's not what the place is about, or for. If our ability to damage games was the measure of its success I'd be looking to pass it on to someone else today since that's not something I want to invest any time into.
There is no "MSB Effect." Any claim thereof is simply untrue.
There are countless examples of games that have persisted despite the best efforts of MSB, WORA, or SWOFA to take them down. To suggest otherwise, in my opinion, is erroneous at best and flat-out false at worst.
This place is the only place I'm aware of that serves as a media outlet. People promote, complain, and defame in equal measure. While it would be nice if people stick to known facts and honest opinions, that as a policy cannot be reasonably enforced without censorship.
This place is fine. Its members may not be, but this place is fine.
You know, except for the changes we're recommending here.
The 'MSB effect' is not an effect on games. As you have stated and as is true, plenty of games keep going strong despite not being popular on MSB. The 'MSB effect' is on PEOPLE not games. It is damaging because not all game runners are intensely resilient and sometimes when a person is called useless and pointless or jokes are made about whether they are seeing a shrink, they are hurt, insulted, and no longer interested in running a game or dealing with anything MU* related ever again...or for a few months at least. If people posting on MSB were slightly less vitriolic it would be better for everyone. This isn't @Arkandel's job to enforce, its on 'the community'. But pretending that some of this doesn't effect games negatively is just pretending.
I ran my first PrP tonight and it was so much fun to do and players had fun to I think and were so patient with me learning the ropes. I 
everyone involved, all the yay.
@Lisse24 said in Eliminating social stats:
@WTFE said in Eliminating social stats:
I really don't give a shit. All the "Federalist Papers of RPGs" in the world doesn't change what literally thousands of years of literature has deemed to be a narrative. There is merit as a game to the "let the dice lie where they may" stance. But that merit is not a merit for narrative. Good narratives can emerge from that only by accident in the same way that getting a coherent and decent character out of a character generation system that will kill characters off part-way through can: blind luck.
And note, again, I'm not saying you're wrong for liking the "gamist" approach (as much as I fucking hate that clunky neologism). I'm saying you're wrong for thinking that the "gamist" approach made for a good narrative here. You're not doing wrongfun. You're just factually incorrect about the narrative structure.
Several times in this thread, I've heard people equate using dice as the enemy of creating narrative. I want to push back on that. I'm quoting WTFE just because this is one place where I've read that argument, but certainly, he's not the only person whose made that argument.
Here's the core of my argument: MUers are terrible writers. I don't mean that they're incapable of stringing together 3-5 sentences with vivid language in engaging poses. They can absolutely do that, by and large. No, what I mean is that, for the most part, they don't think long term about themes and beats, and what constructs a good narrative. Ex: "I'm going to have my character lose this conflict so that he can wallow for a bit and then have an awesome comeback," or "The story I'm telling with this character is one of alienation and loss and so, I want to sabotage his own attempt to become Priscus though his inability to connect."
Muers don't think that way. In general, I believe that there are two major stumbling blocks to MUers telling compelling narratives. 1) They don't like losing, and any good story has peaks and valleys. MUers avoid valleys at all costs. 2) They don't control everything. Sure, you can be telling a story of alienation, but that doesn't mean all the other chars are going to play along (I've run into this with my char over at F&L, where I had to rejigger my approach to her several times).
In these circumstances, adding random events, and letting a neutral arbiter, such as dice, determine the outcome periodically, even for social interactions, can enhance narrative. They help a player adhere to their character's nature, strengths, and weaknesses, while simultaneously adding challenges and random difficulty for that player to overcome. The knee-jerk, 'well let's just throw away social dice because players don't like losing that way,' will not enhance the narratives told on that game, it will diminish them.
Yes! This is basically what I had in my head as I was reading through the thread and considering my own opinion. I love political/social rp that has teeth, I almost never play combat based characters, it's not my thing. The game I'd love to play is one with people who share that love...which means they love getting their way in intense, high stakes social interactions, and also love not getting their way because of the curveball it throws them. Characters have to have flaws to be interesting, weaknesses they are overcoming, and having humiliated themselves by fleeing in terror when JoeBob intimidated them becomes part of their story, their character development, their motivations for later.
Lets do Game of Thrones examples! Cersei got to go on her walk of shame with bells ringing. It wasn't what she wanted to do, and if she was being played by a person on a MU* it would not be what they wanted to do either most likely. That experience changed her, made her bitchier and more ruthless than she was before, and thus a temple exploded. Her failure in one part of the story fueled the rest of her story, AND the story for other characters around her. Theon Greyjoy. Nobody would want to play a Theon Greyjoy. It sucked to be him. But his horrible experiences and terrible decisions are leading him (probably) on an arc of redemption that I expect to be at least somewhat cool. Ned. Poor Ned. Nobody would want to play out a social failure on the level he did, with the consequences he got. Yet that part of the story sets up the rest of the entire series. You can basically do this with every character on the show, they've all made at least one poor decision based on social interactions, yet they remain super cool and interesting characters that resemble what many of us would like to play in a fantasy game.
I understand the impetus to get rid of social stats because often they go unused especially in player to player scenes. I just think that the flaw here is not that they exist, but that they go unused. My ideal game would definitely have social stats, and also people willing to play them, winning or losing. Sure, some exception might arise, Jorah rolls seduction on you but he's twice your age and you are Not Into It. Bran gets an intimidation success but he's Bran, nobody is impressed. I just think exceptions would be exceptions, not the standard. The games I have had the most fun on were games where my character rose and fell socially and politically and I remained engaged and motivated to either keep my social clout or to get it back.
My Jorah example I added merely because it came to me first. I do think that if one were to create a game like this (please do, and then tell me!) it would probably be wisest to leave sex out of the equation. Even with fade to black, it can be creepy to roleplay the aftermath of that situation, and many of us for varying reasons are averse to playing rape victims, even if coercion is the means.
Aside from that however, I love games where people embrace the social 'combat' system and characters grow and change from losing as much as from winning. I know it's not what many people enjoy, but it is what I enjoy the most.
*Edited for a typo that bothered me.
@arkandel said in Make MSB great again!:
@misadventure said in Make MSB great again!:
A wiki to store the same old fight summaries, played by lists, MU* lists.
Who would write the summaries? Would it be objective? Does it work for late comers who might want to debate things others happen to have seen before?
A link off any advertisement to a thread where people can go wild. I'd like to be able to find both the ad content and updates with ease, and make it easy to find the discussion about the given ad poster or place.
Alright, how about this then: Please feel free to create offshoots of advertisement threads in the Constrictive and/or Hogpit sections, and I'll edit the original posts as needed to include those links so it's easy to jump back and forth. That way you can choose the level of content you want:
- The advertisement thread is just 101 'what is this game about' with rather basic information primarily aimed to hype a MU* up, which I'll frown at anyone being more than slightly critical of,
- The Constructive thread where suggestions are meant to be made, and where you can be as critical as you want as long as you attack ideas and not people,
- The Hogpit thread where the gloves can come off.
Does that work?
A reminder that phrasing things in the form of accusations, and not questions pretty much guarantees that your discussion is going no where.
Although that's possible, at some point it'll become condescending as fuck.
This is definitely a start. The advertisement threads turning into pile ons is not appealing, not for the people running the games that were advertised, and not for players looking for a game to play that want to hear from people who enjoy the game and have questions about the game answered.
MSB clearly loves the fun chemical rush of being nasty to other people, lobbing insults and comparisons and creating entire threads about individual people that they don't like. So I guess to keep some of the regulars happy you're gonna have to provide an outlet for this to happen. Something people who are completely uninterested in that can avoid as much as possible, like Hog Pit as it is structured now, would probably serve.
How to make MSB something that is actually cool and useful for large groups of people interested in MU* games, that might require a bigger shift in culture. What the 'community' (I kind of hate that word in reference to fellow MU* players because it is really not one community the way some on MSB refer to it) needs is not really more critiques of games, but more games. So discussions about how to make good games that last would be useful. Discussions about how to keep staffers engaged and supported would be useful. Anything that would help as many people as possible get a game going would be useful.
The critiques of games are not nearly as helpful as I think people want to believe. They are cathartic maybe, but not really providing a service.
@three-eyed-crow said in Reasons why you quit a game...:
@ixokai
I volunteer IRL, too (and I've done organizational stuff for book clubs/poker games/etc), and I have wildly different feelings/expectations/personal fulfillment about that experience and the people I do it with than I do about my IRL job and co-workers. I am one of those people who it grates whenever the term 'professional' is equated with hobby work. I get that it's inferring certain types of behavior (responsibility, commitment, etc) that I do think MU staff should have, but I get the knee-jerk reaction because I also have it.This has been a tangent. Back to your regularly scheduled thread, and such.
Yes to this. Upvoting was not enough. I do volunteer work as well and that work has me interacting with colleagues sometimes. My professional career is one with a very high level of emotional 'work' attached and it takes effort and dedication to 'turn it off' at any point in the day in order to achieve any kind of balance or play any of the other roles that I am expected to play in life. I like working on games and playing on games, but I won't ever give the amount of myself to a game/hobby that I do to work, it would be unhealthy as well as impossible. The unstated message some send that if you don't have X amount of time and energy playing or working on a MU* is not for you annoy me too. Its possible to enjoy MU* even as our life stages and responsibilities change so long as we find the right place and the right people. Fun fact: I play on Arx even though my logins are unreliable and even though it is super fast paced. I wanted to do it and found a way(s) to do it and its awesome!
I'm responding to stuff from like, January here, but I don't get on Soapbox all that much so its just how its gonna be.
I am a 'casual' player on Arx. I play in spurts like, maybe one weekend I play for hours both days but then don't log in all the next week because rl is being intense, and rinse repeat. I am unreliable! Also my character is also mostly social.
That said, I'm super entertained when I do play. Maybe I am just easygoing, but I find things to do, even Metaplot things. I've also missed stuff, including a +crisis that was specifically about my characters house that I was not around at the time to respond to. Ooopsie! But hey they did a round two and I responded to that, and it turned out highly entertaining.
I don't know how to summarize this because I don't even know what my thesis was. Arx can be fun even if you don't get on much so long as you can be chill about it? That!
I have tried to find what I want to focus on here because there is a lot happening and a lot to consider on the stuff people have mentioned.
It is obviously clear that people have very different perceptions regarding what is nasty and pointless and what is criticism that is purposeful. That's not a problem really, people have already covered that the culture of posting is what sets that tone. Not the moderators or site admins or forum names and visibility. What is done here and in what way makes MSB what it is.
I started off confused when there appeared to be a sizable handful of people who did not think MSB had its share of gleeful personal attacks. I feel like I have seen plenty. Some on Hogpit, some on game advertising threads when people wanted to get their digs in. I accept it as part of reading the site or posting on it. Though I have been the target that was a while ago and is not my focus here. I have watched the same pattern repeat over and over. People share legit critiques sure. They also make deliberately hurtful comments. I have seen people make jokes about who they think should see a shrink because hahah burnnn, and then it's time to wait for the high fives and upvotes. I've read people who I have never interacted with add cracks about my complete lack of self awareness and social skills. I have seen other people who are complete strangers to me experience the same pile on pattern. That is a big part of MSB. People can state that readers need thicker skins, or are whiners, or that they deserved every crack made at their expense because they are the worst. I get that those beliefs are very solid in the heads of the MSB community. It does not mean I think its the worst ever and anyone participating is a huge asshole. It is a forum that can be interesting and sometimes enlightening, but also one where some get deep satisfaction from being shitty to other people. Is it because they are serving the greater good, piling on staff members of games that they got frustrated with, and players that they have determined are a blight on all gaming and deserve every insult tossed their way? I can answer that question for myself and make choices about what I want to read or say here. But I know other people have different thoughts.
I do not think mods should police for tone. MSB will pick the tone it wants. I do think all of us would benefit from some reflection on what we write here and why. Then if someone is deciding whether or not to join a particular topic and in what way, it is more natural to understand the reason. At that point, if chasing that pleasure center burst we all get from gossip and insults is the call they make, they can own it. I was told in one thread somewhere about something that I had a complete lack of self awareness. It is highly possible there was a solid point there and reflecting more on what I say and how I say it will do me good. But I am not the only one who ought give that some attention. People do get nasty here. Not every pile on is a public service. Sometimes people join in for the sheer pleasure of it. The evidence is all over the place. The negative stuff does not float into the void every time. Sometimes the targets don't read the forum and have no clue what is being said. Other times they definitely feel the impact of what it tossed at them.
I have no closing statement, I had no thesis. I use MSB sporadically depending on my mood, my state of mind, etc. I do not consider myself a part of the community, just like Shlappy does not
I just don't have the years of shared experience that the core group of posters here does. I have participated in some interesting discussions that I enjoyed, and also been trashed by groups of people which I did not enjoy. That is pretty much the experience offered here. For some it is pretty ugly and petty and pointless, for some it does not offer enough cathartic gossip and mud slinging. Whether or not it is productive or damaging there won't be consensus on. Quite possibly it depends who you are and what you read and post.
@herja said in Meshing Groups:
I think the biggest thing that helps me is to give PCs space to get to know each other. If you make every moment non-stop action, you lose a lot of opportunity to allow PCs to bond and get to know each other. So, if I am doing, say, a dungeon quest, maybe we have a brief interlude where they camp for the night. Maybe they are just walking around the forest and talking, looking along the trail for signs of their quarry. If players are given space, they will typically 'fill in the gaps' with conversation and that is step one to developing PC relationships.
I like this because in the past I've had times where I feel like I lose a sense of who my character is. (Like a fancy actor asking "What's my motivation?") because I'd be involved in plots but not really get to know many people outside of plots, and allies are great but for me if my character doesn't have friends to talk to about random whatever, I kind of lose a sense of what is making them tick.
@horrorhound said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):
So, I wanted to share this, as I married someone in the neurological field and learned an immense amount of shit about myself, and ADHD. Because I had ADHD when ADHD was just some bullshit excuse for your kid not listening, or something. So no meds. Never. Not ever. Because ADHD isn't real.
Obviously it is.
Anyways, I've done really dangerous jobs, and also have been in construction for like, twelve years now. Big construction. Personal residence. I fucking love it. It all makes sense to me, and best of all: ADHD isn't a flaw, it's a merit, in construction and the very nature of the job helps curb your inattentive behaviors. Forgot what you were doing? No worries, champ. Contracts and job scopes are written down. Having a tough time? No problem: Everybody is embracing the suck and eating that same shit sandwich. Tempers flaring? Yep. They do that. Get the fuck over it and move on - what's this?! Everybody is getting over shit as fast as you?
So, apparently construction is full of peeps with ADHD, which makes sense, because we all rage against those fucking engineers.
Teaching preschool is a good one too. Special Ed preschool is even better. His IEP goal includes something about attending to instruction for stretches of 3-5 minutes at a time with fading reminders. ME TOO! I promise we will be constantly switching activities and not just for your sake, oh no!
So I was reading this article a few days ago, which I can't find again or else I'd link it here.
It was talking about a service people with ADHD can subscribe to where they are matched with a partner basically, and they use checking in before and after tasks for accountability and motivation.
So like if you and your partner decide that you both have something you want to get done that you've been putting off and you want to do it for an hour starting at 4pm, you check in beforehand and say what you are planning to achieve (your partner can even help you break down the task if it seems too big) and then they do the same, and after the hour you check back in and share what you did.
I thought it seemed like a potentially helpful tool to have. Then I thought, why pay for a service when there are a bunch of people I know who struggle with ADHD on a message board. We could buddy up with one another!
If anyone is interested in trying it out, message me!
COVID has given me a massive existential crisis. I'm a preschool special educator and I love my job and get a ton of life satisfaction out of doing it well, more than I think I realized until this year. When put into a situation where it is impossible to do my job well, because I cannot meaningfully teach or asses or give my students the support they need through zoom lessons, its extremely disheartening. Like spending hours in tears disheartening as I imagine what it will be like for my students to move on to kindergarten next year without having really had the early interventions it is my job to give them.
My creativity has also taken a huge hit. I am trying to get back into regular rp because it is a social activity that is done on the internet and thus seems like the ideal thing to be into at this time. But much of the time when I try to play I just end up frustrated. I can't find my characters 'voice' or easily determine what they would feel or thing about a given situation, and I feel like rp with me is boring and frustrating more than fun. Still trying to be optimistic about this and keep attempting to get back into the swing however.
Otherwise I've been reading lots of books and binging lots of Netflix.
@Herja said in Emotional bleed:
He lived. I just spent the entire date drinking cocktails on his dime and roasting him subtly until the end of the date when he got fresh and I got really unsubtle about it.
'Got Fresh'. You are Sandra Dee over here.
If you've never tried to talk a four year old into complying with your requests over zoom, you are missing out.
@L-B-Heuschkel said in MU Things I Love:
When the news come up with something like this:
And a handful of different people independently send it to me, telling me this is so much about my character, and I have make it happen.
It's happening.
I hope someone is similarly inspired by any and all articles about Florida Man because that's a character we need. And a Tiger King.
@hedgehog said in MU Things I Love:
Share your secrets with me, wise one. I've felt like a non-entity forever, now. Some of that is burnout and frustration, but I would be lying if the burnout and frustrations weren't tied into perceived reactions/non-reactions from other people. Y'know, that lovely old feedback loop.
Find people who you are comfortable admitting that you are struggling to, who might also be struggling and thus super forgiving and wanting to help. Then they will forgive you if you have to suddenly bail because you forgot how to write.
Or find brand new people. The struggle is real, lots of people share it, and I think some of them are finding each other and it's great.
When you try to get back into playing after having a really rough time of it with pandemic/2020/writers block whatever, and people who you haven't rp'd with in ages or haven't rp'd with ever at all are reaching out to YOU wanting to have scenes, and reassuring you that you are a part of the community and belong and sometimes even fun!
It's still hard to internalize with the writers block/constant low level dread thing, but it helps!
