Thanks guys!
And like I said, this wasn't a plug for the game or an attempt to get people who left for whatever reasons to return. This is just a me apologizing for something I did that upset people. It happened on the MU*, but that's just location. What people think about KD itself, whether they want to play it or never will again or want to consider it...entirely separate subject!
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.
I'm told Outlander is fun, but I hates the time travel too much to really consider it. I
ES
If you find yourself with a bit of time to spare, I urge you to try anyway. I -also- think the time travel is kind of stupid? The way they do it is certainly stupid, and after the actual traveling the story becomes more like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court only with a British nurse in Scotland instead. That's only a facet of the story though, the rest is kind of sweeping historical and romance novel and...hmm. I read the first two books and found them a drag, so it may not even be the story alone that hooks me but the actors are SO good and the sets are SO pretty and its just worth watching to remind yourself why HDtv is a thing people wanted.
Orange Is the New Black.
Did anyone else watch the entire thing the weekend of release, ignoring their loved ones, eating, and sleeping?
SUCH a good season, the best one yet I think, I don't even know how to describe how it all left me feeling but I am still feeling it a week later. Man.
Okay! I have now read the whole thread and can reply for true, though on my phone for what that is worth. I am in total agreement that having players from MUDs check out MUXses is fabulous, the reverse would be too, they can both be incredibly fun.
Here was my culture shock. In my first scene ever seeing a line of text that read 'Eve enters from the hallway', greeting Eve in my pose, and having it explained to me that Eve was not there yet because she had not posed. At the time it made very little sense. We ignore the text emitted by the game here? Why? Now of course setting ones entrance into a scene is a crucial storytelling tool I love.
IC vs OOC is -still- tough for me. I have learned the benefits to talking and planning OOC, some great stories can come out that way. I will never get the constant casual chatter about it, never not have tons more fun learning through rp that Joebob is a double agent who killed his father than learning it when he talks about it on pub. And no, person who implied that on KD players keep secrets OOC because the game is 'hostile'. It's because some of us find exploring them in game kind of fun, that's all.
Fundamentally both types of game are cooperative storytelling, I think one of the major differences is how much collaboration is expected in order to participate.
@Kanye-Qwest I have never been good at games
I know I will have a nice meaty response once I have read the entire thread because I find this topic super interesting and remember the major culture shock I experienced making the switch. I still have perspectives on rp and gaming shaped by 15 years of MUD. Had to pause though to offer a huge 'screw off' to the people who turned the convo to 'muds are rp lite, players don't care as much' Come on guys be cool. It isn't a contest.
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.
I have the most annoying insomnia, and when I can sleep, I am the lightest sleeper ever so I just wake up. It fills me with RL Anger, especially anger towards people who can sleep. Like my husband, who just saunters into bed two hours after I go to bed, while I am still struggling, tossing and turning, and within FIFTEEN SECONDS of his head hitting the pillow is just snoring away happily. He's the worst, right? Grrrr. It's 1:15 am, I've been trying to sleep for an hour, and he's due any minute to just waltz in here and instantly crash.
People who fall asleep quickly are terrible people.
@Cobaltasaurus Nobody hates you! You said that the last time. You can flake and return, you weren't running a story scads of people were counting on or anything. You're fine!
I watched The Girlfriend Experience on Starz because I was sick and it was there, I kind of can't tell if I liked it? The mood of the show is really strange. Did anyone else watch it? Can you tell me whether I liked it?
@Gingerlily said in Good TV:
@Gingerlily I read -- man, it's hard to remember now. At least four or five of them. There's so many now, and yeah, they're so long. I think it's the last one or two that I haven't read. The show's a delight, though.
In way sadder news, Agent Carter got cancelled and I am heartbroken FOREVER.
So did Galavant.
I don't know what either Agent Carter or Galavant are but if one of your shows got cancelled @Coin it seems like you should try a new one! Maybe...Outlander!
Galavant was a medival comedy musical that you would probably love if you weren't obstinate and tried things I suggest
Is there breakdancing? .
@Gingerlily I read -- man, it's hard to remember now. At least four or five of them. There's so many now, and yeah, they're so long. I think it's the last one or two that I haven't read. The show's a delight, though.
In way sadder news, Agent Carter got cancelled and I am heartbroken FOREVER.
So did Galavant.
I don't know what either Agent Carter or Galavant are but if one of your shows got cancelled @Coin it seems like you should try a new one! Maybe...Outlander!
YAY! I've read the first two books but stopped after that, they are just so -long- and after a while so -long- not even in page length but it just feels like it is taking -so long- to finish that I decided to take a break from the series and that was many years ago. The SHOW however is not too long, it is just long enough, and the actors are great, and the setting is gorgeous and the COSTUMES and it is just pure magic. I relax as soon as I hear the opening song, it is my end of school year happy place.
