Best posts made by Gingerlily

I know. You talked to me about it then. I like you @Jeshin. Lots. Honest. My point is more that someone new coming in and throwing stones here as if this entire group is unreasonable and nasty for questioning some things is a bit late to the game, and that the discussions and tone that are over in your arena aren't exactly consistently scholarly. Why is this a thing still? We have clearly heard your inclusion policies stated. We don't all agree it is the best measure for inclusion in discussion/community building regarding quality text games, but we also know you didn't come here to ask us, we discussed it anyway because it was a discussion thread. It's done!

I know I stated before that I felt it was a bit of the RPI vs Non-RPI MUD snobbery (Going Strong Since 1998!) and 'lets add a MUSH or two so it doesn't look exactly like that' but you talked me down from that angle so I let it go, and really who even cares what I think! You and/or @Crayon have I'm sure accepted you are not going to convince the bulk of a MUSH forum that your ideas about what makes an RP text game 'quality' are the 'right' ones. Or 'worthy of being listed' or whatever. It's cool.

ETA: I should stop saying the same thing over and over no matter how many espressos I've had, so that is a thing I will do now. I will totally at least skim Brody's stuff though when its up, I him. Best of luck. Also female players can get along, I met many of my best friends (girl ones) on MUDs. That is all.

@Auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

I am a slow-ass knitter. Seriously. I am so slow.

And I am constantly being pestered to sell my knitting. No. Nope. Not gonna happen. Then it becomes pressure and then it becomes ruined as something relaxing.

My mother is an amazing knitter too (I am trying to learn but my fine motor skills are not impressive). She's said the exact same thing. I wear her stuff to work and get compliments and "I wish I could have one like that, she should open a shop". I told her I'd help her set up an Etsy shop or something and that it might be fun.

She said the 'fun' part is knitting for herself or her family or friends because she wants to, not because she's supposed to. Fair point mom, and @Auspice

I am highly interested in this topic but I think I have more questions than answers. So...people with answers, keep at it. I like hearing people's ideas on the topic.

I've become pretty fond of this community, and I was Not A Fan of a community that existed before it with some of the same members, but a very different tone. There are discussions here that can get heated, but I find most of them intelligently heated...if people have questions they ask them. They're usually not even related to personal choices people made on personal games, unless they relate to larger issues, like yeah, Intellectual Property intent....or that thread on sexual themes that turned to a discussion of rape rp and that can get people emotional for lots of reasons.

There are going to be people who come and get some backlash...whether they have history with others here (I don't, I'm a 'community n00b) and my gaming experiences have gone on for years but been too spotty in some places (WoD) for me to have the strong opinions others do about some aspects of things. I'm glad that Optional Realities isn't clinging to the RPI label, because whatever it was meant to be way back in the day, what it became was just a huge MUD vs MUD, battle of Which Kind of Geek is Better that went on for more than a -decade- and those of us who watched, or even piped up, are probably all just donnne.

Most MUSHes are permadeath, yeah. I do -agree- that there is some OOCness on any game where permadeath doesn't exist, that you have to do some suspension of disbelief to still have characters properly 'scared' of death, but some do it well. And the MUDs that don't have permadeath are some of the ones who have become actual commercial successes...looking at IRE and Threshold/Frogdice entertainment in particularly. I can't tell if the 'listing' of games matters overall, but when reaching out to people for contribution about what makes a game last over time, where roleplaying is part of the game and part of what makes players say they keep coming back, it seems to me like those who levied this 'hobby' into full time careers are valuable people to have contributing, writing, talking, whatever. Though I don't know how far they have even branched from the text game genre at this point into indie gaming...they'd still have information.

As for here, this to me hasn't struck me as a 'shadowboard' for whining about mean staff or bad games or whatever. There's parts that are, but that isn't the bulk of what I've seen or I wouldn't be into it, because that isn't my thing so much. I find the conversations about what people like and don't like in their games interesting, it has provided me with insight and ideas, and shown me more of what is out there for when/if I do get the time to try new things.

@Auspice

Okay I do not have as many cute cat pictures stored up for situations such as these and she is currently sitting under my husband's desk on his feet and not feeling like modeling. Probably being a diva and insisting we don't have the Perrier she ordered and she won't agree to pose and might call her manager.

I like your cat. But I will get a picture of her sock stash the next time I find it and competition is ON.

Just throwing in here that I don't mind bar rp at all! It's fine and sometimes fun and I participate in it willingly. I was just musing on what made it the default and adding silly commentary for fun.

@Thenomain

I am not actually -sure- to be honest. I mean, Example MUD for me is Threshold RPG, that is where I played for most of my Mudding years, and though I do not anymore it isn't because I don't love the staff, or didn't enjoy the play, or that I found MUSHing to be the 'best' kind of dessert and I'd just never known about it. (It did turn out to be a more appropriate one for me as I got older and the time and direct screen attention I could put into gaming changed)

So there, and I don't want to be a spokesman because it has been a while and this is through the haze of my memory, but you die, you go to the Underworld, and the God of the Underworld brings you back. Now the idea is that npcs die all the time and don't come back, it isn't like The Land That Death Forgot is the theme, so death still has to exist as a concept. And rping as if death is permanent also prevents other sorts of rp-detrimental and game detrimental things such as camping around waiting for an NPC you just killed to respawn so you can kill him again. "Evil Wizard Zoobie has died, victory unto us, let us go!" "Well we could take him again, he'll be back in what, 15 minutes?" This would not be conducive to any kind of sinking into your character, and RP Muds are sort of trying to merge that "We like to party up with our tank, our healer, our mages, and whatever and go have cool adventures/explore/fight stuff in real time" with "Also we are telling a larger story involving races, religions, clans, politics, etc etc, whatever is in our theme."

Theme and setting don't say that death is permanent /necessarily/. There is a God of the Underworld, sometimes he restores deserving souls. The PCs are just very deserving souls? It's why I said it sounded a bit ooc. It /is/, there is a suspension of disbelief you are playing through. Because you don't mix what you know ooc with what you know ic, the same way on a WoD game you probably wouldn't say "I suspect that guy has Dominate 5, which means he will just make us do whatever, so lets avoid him." You wouldn't say "I suspect if I don't succeed in my attempt to kill this dragon, the great God Mortis will revive me, but I will not be nearly so powerful and I could lose all of my awesome gear, still it is worth the risk." You talk about the risk vs. reward as if death is feared because it is death, not because of the game mechanics of death.

Does that make more sense? I mean, it is perfectly logical that a game that wanted to incorporate some kind of 'death' that occurred when hit points were all gone that was not death exactly but something else, and still offer penalty so that the motives were there to 'play well' so to speak still existed could do so. The 'you die, you are resurrected, you may die again, but death is still death and we act like it is death because we have not written a deathless world' doesn't HAVE to be how it is. I haven't seen a game that plays with this shade of grey, but it could be done, yeah. I get you @Thenomain

@Cupcake said in RL things I love:

All cats are best cat.

All dogs are best dog.

You are both pretty.

Thank you for your honesty

@Ominous

You are correct, I was merging 'bar' and 'club' in my head, and they are not the same. Also high heels are never -required- but when one is young and trying to look as cute as possible all the time they are often deployed. I only have one pair of heels now, and have not worn them in several years.

@Alzie said:

@Gingerlily Yes people tend to gravitate towards the capital city, but let's not pretend it is the only place people RP. It's not even the only place represented on grid. Even my small city was represented on grid. So 'Everyone is in the capital city' seems like a cheap reflection. You also seem to be keen on quietly stepping around the issue as presented. You say 'people are doing ambassadorial things,' yes they are with skaldia, but don't bring up the giant NPC post that made it illegal to do those things. You say 'rp with others' but don't address that people are telling you they tried and were shut out. I'm not entirely sure what your position is on the game, but dodging legitimate concerns seems counter-productive. I sent in plenty of jobs and goals when I played, I just didn't enjoy playing roll the dice with myself after my avenues got closed by staff of all people. Even if I understand the reasoning behind it, it still struck me as counter productive to game health for staff to make people not want to RP knowing that plenty of people were banking on that particular avenue.

Honestly, I'm not intentionally dodging your legitimate concerns. I thought I'd addressed them but it's possible I mistook what they were. I don't know who you played, or what avenues you referred to getting closed by an NPC post, so I can't address them in a more direct manner than just trying to explain in general terms what the theme was and what was available. If you'd like to discuss it more I'm happy to chat in the chat thing though. I promise I am not trying to gloss over anything or dodge the topic you are interested in or anything of the sort.

@surreality said in RL things I love:

@Gingerlily said in RL things I love:

She is obsessed with socks and hides stashes of them around the house and then later brings them to us as gifts.

We had a sock cat once. We'd find oddly stacked socks like weird art in the hallway.

She always seemed to know when I had a date coming over, though, because unfailingly, that's when she'd drag a bra right out into the middle of the living room floor, in easy view of the door. She never did it any other time, either. Damn fuzzbutt must have been psychic.

I don't know if that makes her worst cat, for embarrassing me in a spectacularly entertaining fashion, or best cat, because maybe she was trying to make sure I got laid regularly. It's been over twenty years now since then, and it remains a mystery.

It is hilarious. I had to buy my daughter three packages of socks because wherever her stash is now it is more innovative than previous stashes and I have yet to find it.

It's also so cute when I'm in bed with a migraine and miserable to medicate and fall into groggy sleep only to wake up a few hours later with 12 assorted socks next to me on the bed. 12! Real number!

@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:

@bored said in Eliminating social stats:

Shockingly a new poster is arguing about this as if we haven't read literally everything they just typed dozens of times before!

It's irrelevant whether they are a new poster or not. He (or she) who's never beaten a dead horse before can cast the first stone.

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

This is comparable to what you're suggesting by demanding that players make "believable" lies before the die roll is made. Expecting players using a specific social skill to know how to use that social skill in real life is like expecting every player with a high-Science character to personally have high-Science in real life.

That is kind of a main point against social skills though. See, unlike making meth (or hacking into the FBI database, repairing a car, etc) we actually play out the socialization parts. No one walks into a scene and goes "OOC: Hey, my character says hi and hangs out with y'all. +roll presence+socialize". No one, ever, and that's a good thing since that's basically ... well, the roleplay. People pose what they say, articulate what they want, tell others how it is said in as much detail and conviction as they care to go into.

So this is a real issue with these skills - politics, lying, manipulating, etc - when the roleplay points in one direction and the skills in a different one. If a guy comes to my PC, makes a fucking dumb proposal while insulting my woman in the process and he's caught at a lie but has high social stats then apparently I'm supposed to ignore the roleplay and just go with the results of a roll? Yes. That's... basically what MU* systems say. If I don't then I'm not playing right.

Well, I think that's a bad way of doing things. It just doesn't make sense. This social stuff is not the same as everything else, it cannot be safely and easily abstracted like everything else. Poses cannot be abstracted, they are explicit so we can't just separate their content from the mechanics.

I understand where you are coming from here, but I think it is the sort of viewpoint that requires reflection. Yes, there are players who write far better than others, who can make convincing arguments and recruit allies regardless of what is on their sheet. There are also players who are newer to the hobby, who are translating in their heads from a language other than English, etc. If we decide that they don't get to rp a beautiful, charming woman who can flirt her way out of a problem, that's kind of elitist. And it doesn't fit when we consider that any one of us can rp stabbing or shooting someone without having that skill in real life. On a language based medium we can decide that we only want to be affected by great writing, and that those without the same command of the language can't play with us. Whether or not that sits well with a game designer or a game's players is up to them, but own it.

Okay if this game isn't set in the 90's like I SO DESIRED...

Can there be backstory surrounding the Delta Gammas?

http://gawker.com/5994974/the-most-deranged-sorority-girl-email-you-will-ever-read

Like she was possessed by something, or something dark and terrible herself, and had to be destroyed by one of those groups, and the woman currently pretending to be her and writing terrible articles for bad magazines is a double.

@Admiral said in Good TV:

I've always been of the 'LolCerseiWins!' mindset. Because lolCerseiwins! is something the author of the books really seems to want. Because... that's just the kind of guy he is.

I want Cersei to win too, kind of. In the books she was totally my favorite character. On the show not so much, but she's still pretty badass. Also more bad.

PLUS both Martin and David and David have such huge blind spots when it comes to writing or presenting women, its nice to see they can at least make one be a slick politician as well as a victim of sexual assault.

@Ganymede said in Eliminating social stats:

@Gingerlily said in Eliminating social stats:

I think social stats help in eliminating OOC politics and demanding that they be IC. Which in my opinion is a good thing, and also a crucial one.

I don't think social stats does anything to eliminate OOC politics. In some cases, it can make it worse.

I see what everyone's getting at: if you have social stats and force people to use them, you can keep people honest. Much like calling a bully's bluff, this is indeed something that can be done.

What I'm getting at isn't keeping people honest but keeping people fun. I find it fun to rp in situations where my character might get duped into believing something ridiculous, or frightened by another character when yelled at. It's also fun to have my character succeed at those things.

That can be done without social stats, sure. One of my very favorite games is Houses of the Blooded.. It's all about intense political and social conflict and vengeance and groups merssing with each other. The rules for social combat read similarly to improv acting exercises, with the 'yes and' mindset and technique. -That- is the real ideal, creating a world with tons of characters lying and betraying and sabotaging each other, and the players are making it happen cooperatively. It works super well when played by a group of people who know and like each other, because there is trust there that lets them dig in and enjoy. But 'an online rpg where the community trusts each other' is not a thing I have seen, unless it is run by a group of friends.

@Coin said:

@Gingerlily said:

Can I play a character who lives in Montgomery County but drives into College Park for the parties and Takoma for her new age crystals and acupuncture treatments?

God, @Gingerlily, why do you always need to push limits. GAWD.

I could just be /from/ MoCo and attending UMCP I suppose. -I could play myself- but awesome and live out a Mary Sue fantasy, because THIS time I would get an A in physics.

@admiral said in What the fuck happened to Hip-Hop?:

...you guys are missing the point of the thread. Hip hop started as protest music. Now it's basically just disco. That's literally what the video was about. It's not about 'what sounds good'. It's about a form of expression that has lost its way. We now have idiots with rainbow hair and facial tattoos molesting children and rapping about it.

Some of it maybe but not all of it is the point. Rock is not dead, Punk is not dead. Grunge is not even dead! (my personal favorite 90's nostalgia!). There was super poppy generic terrible hip hop back in the good old days too. Remember when Death Row's big new deal was MC Hammer? This is like every genre of music forever.

Also back in the good days we had some idiots doing terrible shit also and rapping about it, or just rapping about terrible shit. I really don't feel like anything has actually changed except the collective "X Music was so much better before..." that happens with every style of music since I don't even know, but I wouldn't be shocked if in Elisabeth I's court there were discussions about how lute playing had really just gone downhill and was only about the glamour and money.

@silentsophia I have a tumultuous relationship with knitting, because I love wearing things that have been knitted, but lack the fine motor skills to knit. I'm trying to work through it.

@dreampipe said in RL things I love:

I just completed a two year long journey of getting my GED, which involved a lot of things I just didn't think I was ready for. The work needed to play catch up, having to kick myself into a proper schedule for classes, acquiring the work ethic to see it through to the end. It was scary, very scary.

For the first time in a long time I feel like I'm a functional person. I feel like I've proved that to myself. I love that. I love that a lot.

Congratulations, that's really awesome. You are entitled to feel proud of yourself. Super proud. Celebrate!

@sunnyj said in Make MSB great again!:

Have some easy-to-find, constantly-updated list of games.

Keep the Hogpit in the Hogpit

Keep the Advertisement Threads free of nasty bashing (although I do feel like players should be free to post in them things like "Had bad experiences with this game. Will explain in the Hogpit").

I don't think that there is any need for posting "I had a bad experience, will explain in Hog Pit" on an advertisement thread. People know how MSB works. They know that there will be a 99% chance that any game that exists will have a thread of people bitching and moaning about it. Having that shiz in advertisement threads is just demoralizing for the people working their asses off to make a game and/or play on one and love it.

The advertisement threads turning mean and nasty is one of the reasons I stopped using MSB much other than the chat aspect which is handy dandy. Not only because at one point a game I staffed had the advertisement thread turn nasty, because that was years ago and I'm over it. But seeing it happen again and again and again to other people was extremely frustrating and disheartening. It's unnecessary. People know where to go if they want to bitch. That seems abundantly clear.