Posts made by hobos

No, it's not ethical. And they won't like you after that.

Interactions on online roleplay spaces are largely transactional. People are going to like you for whatever enjoyment you bring to their experience. And they will very quickly dislike you if you destroy their enjoyment. Giving them space for character development, giving them fun stuff to roleplay about, nice writing, making them feel good about themselves, et cetera -- versus getting in the way of their intended plots, disturbing their fun, triggering them, emotionally burdening them in an OOC way, delegitimizing their character concepts in your roleplay, et cetera. They don't usually care about you as a person in real life; at most they are just trying to act ethically themselves while pursuing the enjoyment of a hobby that we share.

If you make them feel bad, that's stuck in their head now. The most respectful thing to do, ethically, is just leave them alone. And if you can't do that, because it's a small hobby... don't bring back the bad feelings to them in any way. Just play quietly and politely. The most ethical way is to be clear about who you are so they can avoid you. The second most ethical way is at least to let the game runner know who you are. The third is to just turn over a new leaf without bringing any attention to it.

Insinuating yourself in others' good graces and then bringing back whatever bad feelings you once caused, in an effort to pad your ego in some imaginary redemption arc, is honestly kind of a very lame plan that will backfire. They will feel betrayed and annoyed. And those are bad feelings, so all you've done is make things worse, because now they have even more bad feelings on top of the old ones.

At least, this is my opinion based of my admittedly not-great understanding of human interactions and basic ethics of integrity.

You really can tell, yeah. It's like the text equivalent of the uncanny valley.

Also, even if it wasn't, I don't think I'd want to play with it. It'd feel weird to know that some human didn't want to play the actual game with me and instead was using a robot to interact?

Kind of like if you walk up to someone IRL, and offer a handshake, and instead of shaking your hand themselves, that person instructs a robot butler to shake your hand for them.

For game lore written by AI, it's the same feeling, as if you want to walk into a beautiful palace constructed by human beings but instead you're walking through a hologram generated by a robot. Maybe it doesn't really look that different but there's a totally different vibe.

A long time ago in college I remember a discussion about AI where we were considering if robots could ever reach human levels of creativity. The consensus was that human creativity was measurable and logical and robots could achieve it, eventually. But I disagreed, because I don't think human creativity is actually measurable and logical. I think we don't know what we know. So we can't code it into a robot. There's a whole dimension of sapient consciousness that lends weight we can barely even sense, let alone measure and encode, to the things we think about.

You know that feeling you get sometimes when a vibe is "off"? Sometimes vibes don't align, and sometimes they do, and sometimes they're just unnoticeable. But a robot doesn't have conscious vibes. It's empty.

So, the human consciousness behind a piece of artwork, whether it's visual or verbal/written, is immeasurable and invaluable, and shouldn't be discounted.

Probably making myself a double pariah here but...

I kind of agree with you, Ghost. On the specific point of not using other human's pictures to play out sexual kinks, at least. It's creepy. Saying "well that person's general image is just public domain, when they go and choose to be famous they're constantly selling their virtual body and everything everyone might do with their virtual body ever, so...." is very very close to the similarly silly comment that "what we do in virtual space doesn't matter, so anyone who's ever been nonconsented on a game should've just logged off lololol".

And I also agree with everyone else saying that the way you're expressing yourself is overly aggressive and unnecessary.

But I'm pretty sure it's because of some kind of trauma, because while I'm loathe to call it "trauma" exactly -- considering it was completely virtual --- virtual trauma is a sort of trauma too, you know?

Like that's the sort of thing we discuss in this space. What matters in the virtual world, if anything at all? I'd say people feel many of the same sorts of things.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure you have some kind of issue because I have absolutely been in the place where someone was kind of hounding me for TS and trying to tell me what PBs to use and pushing me to find more PBs and in the end pulled some really weird predatory manipulative stuff that had been making me feel like I just wanted to quit.

Every time I read one of your posts in this thread, I think about that situation, and the way it made me feel was just so simultaneously disgusting and disgusted that I just, well, agree with you. And I can empathize with your tone, too.

It's just that the majority of people using PBs aren't bad actors like that.

Recognizing that a fair deal of MU*ers are vision-impaired is integral to the understanding that a PB doesn't function as a replacement for an actual description. Vision-impaired people have very little use for PBs in general.

But I can't understand if this is just about PBs, or specifically about PBs that are photographs of people. If it's just about PBs, well, when I started mudding as a wee 12-year-old was the first time I started drawing pictures of my characters and it was definitely not about cybersex.

That said, I completely agree that for some people, it's apparent that the PB is about cybersex. I think those are the minority though, and I've learned enough to steer clear of those few. Either way, the PBs aren't the problematic thing about them, it's the sexpesting that is problematic.

What's awesome is that I just came to this forum thinking I wanted to ask about tv show recommendations, and then I saw this thread.

Sometimes I watch a show and it just kind of reminds me of MUDding, somehow. So I wanted to ask for recommendations for a show like that. Something with like... thoughtful character development and fun action scenes, relatively lighthearted but darker in the fun sorts of ways...

(Like Legends of Vox Machina, I just don't like re-watching stuff.)

Maybe I will try the Reacher show but I didn't enjoy those movies. Maybe it was Tom Cruise's fault; not a fan of him either really.

You can define player success in a wide range of ways. I admit my instinctive reaction to this post is to feel that I wouldn't enjoy Q, and I don't feel successful as a player if I'm not enjoying something. That's not because I want to ruin other people's stories, but more because I want the story to be a mysterious surprise and negotiation feels like spoilers to me.

We use numbers like HP to help to moderate a consistent fabric of virtual reality for a large group of players that aren't all sitting around a table in real life. When the rules of the game world make sense, organic events can arise from player choices.

You can definitely have ways to make in-character losses (setbacks and challenges) less stinging out-of-character, like consent mechanics.

But I think that the closest you can get to the ideal of "everybody gets everything they want" is to have a game culture where everyone knows the expectations and how everything will be sorted out, and they are there by choice because they like that specific culture.

That way if people prefer a culture of collaborative writing, and negotiating plotlines like Q, then they can enjoy it while playing that way with their group. And if people prefer thrills and suspense and organic happenstance, they can go enjoy that elsewhere.

My experience here is probably pretty different because it's not primarily in tabletops or MUSH-style games.

The favorite mystery I ever investigated in a game was when there was one PC who killed another PC and tried to hide it. In this game you were able to find tracks of people, investigate bodies and get information from different types of wounds, judge people's recent locations based off things like what they smelled like or the type of dirt on their boots, search locations for objects that had been hidden by PCs, overhear distant conversations, hide and stalk and eavesdrop, etc.

Due to all these mechanics and the fact that the original mystery was actually an organic player-provoked event, things were a bit different than I imagine they would be if a GM had to go lay out clues and drop breadcrumbs. Plus, the players didn't even necessarily need to solve the mystery. Things happen all the time that don't get investigated, and murders go unsolved, and so on.

There were times during the initial course of this story (my character was a city guard) that I imagined, as a player, that the murder-victim had actually just quit the game and not been murdered at all. The murderer was a great liar and gave no sign of lying. It was just my luck to be roleplaying a weirdo who was overly-convinced of foul play. Many times I amused myself by being absurdly dedicated to finding out the "truth"... and then, it turned out to be actually the truth, as evidence gradually came to light. Other players began to realize my character was onto something, and their characters got involved in the plot too, and it turned out to be an incredibly epic and memorable story.

@Misadventure said in MU* Mystery RP:

Two extreme opposite approaches can be described:

• There is a specific set of clues and information to reveal a specific "solution"
• Player brainstorming is used to formulate the "solution" behind the scenes

Does one approach appeal more when you are a player vs a staffer/ST?

One approach appeals to me so much more than the other, and that is that the GM has already built out the world and whatever happened has already happened. The clues and evidence laid out in the world can bring players organically to the solution.

Other thoughts:
Should players be allowed to fail in finding the "solution"? (this could happen for both extremes)

Definitely. Although I think sometimes staff can add in new information that can help guide players on the right track, if they want to, but failures should be definitely possible, even multiple failures in a row.

Does player mental engagement matter have value vs creating dramatic/engaging/amusing scenes ? Meaning what's the worth of actually thinking things through vs posing whatever is enjoyable? No, no one needs to present real world expertise for verisimilitude.

For a mystery plot, how is it fun if there is no mental engagement? That's how I feel at least, and I love mysteries. The thing I love most about them is genuinely trying to figure them out. I think it's actually even better if you can pick up some new facts in terms of real world expertise when it comes to trying to figure out your mystery. A TV show where they get all the forensics details wrong doesn't appeal to me much. Of course it doesn't have to be as hardcore and tedious as it might be IRL, but it's nice to learn things and have a high level of believability to a plot.

Does some level of verisimilitude matter, or is entertainment enough? What if entertaining is expected to result in optimal outcomes without significant relationship to those results?

A nice amount of verisimilitude makes things entertaining for me. Due to the limitations of the medium, it's of course necessary to suspend disbelief about some things, and kind of gloss over other things. But in general, verisimilitude is nice.

I love putting together puzzle pieces myself, but it would seem a bit meaningless if all the puzzle pieces were perfect black squares and once I had lined up a certain amount of them in rows, someone would generate an AI art image onto the section I had lined up. And then I'd line up more perfect black squares and the image would just get generated a little more.

Maybe that makes it relatively simple for game-running but it takes like 75% of the fun out of it, for me. The only fun left is writing and acting dramatic. That might be good for Social type players but I usually get Explorer on the Bartle-type quizzes.

@Hella

Well it's not for absolutely nothing that I've been vilified in the past. But thanks, I appreciate your generosity of spirit, Hella. Glad you understood that I was trying to be positive rather than demanding that you or anyone throw themselves to proverbial wolves. #heartwarmed

And whenever I get around to being able to play again, I will be trying to take my own advice, at least.

Editing to say, also, I'm sorry for attacking people here who are probably just doing their best. There is a lot of history of vitriol on these types of forums, and it's not something that changes overnight. But at least people are making efforts and it's definitely not as bad as it could be.

@Ghost

I legit don't understand if you're trying to make fun of me for acting like a self-righteous poser on a forum about text games, or trying to agree with me that people shouldn't posture about being better than others so much, or what.

I'm guessing the first though? But I didn't swerve? Although maybe you're having trouble parsing my posts. Anyway I guess it's a waste of time to respond, only I don't actually dislike you, so that's why I'm responding here.

You know that, like you, I'm a villain in most MUSHer's eyes -- but that's only partially why I have empathy for people getting unfairly vilified.

When people get accused of something without evidence, it's wrong. It can be painful. Whether it's on some forum for text games or in your cubicle at work or at a family thanksgiving dinner or in a global political committee -- the human feelings of being hurt and excluded are still human feelings of being hurt and excluded. You can pretend feelings are silly and dumb but human beings have feelings and this is just a fact of life.

And wherever we are in life, whether we're in a forum for text games or a cubicle at work or at a dining room table or a massive international conference... we can choose to be considerate of human feelings, and act in a fair and kind way, or I guess just not.

Bleh, I'm out of steam.

I haven't been able to play much either for the past year. When I try to play anywhere, my attempts always capsize too quickly due to my lack of playtime, and I wouldn't have anything to post about even if I wanted to.

But if I wanted to post right now, and had things to post about, but wasn't posting because I felt sad that I might be outed... that'd feel worse for me, hypothetically, than it would feel for anyone missing out on my potential posts.

And I do know how that feels. I have experienced refraining from posting not only because I'm worried about outing myself, but outing someone else as well.

Still, posting about things that interest you and may peripherally lead to being tracked-down is not the same as directly outing yourself as a persona non grata. I'm confident that anyone could track me down if they wanted to and it wouldn't be difficult. My suggestion (not demand) was less for my own entertainment value than it was for community/individual health.

I'd feel less of a hypocrite if there was less attitude of "we're better than other people". The abolishing of that attitude is more what I was trying to accomplish, I suppose, rather than encouraging an environment of verbal fisticuffs.

And Macha said it's not about being "better", but "less vitriolic"... only, that kind of means the same thing, to me, and it doesn't align with the acts I've witnessed.

As Hella pointed out, the quiet is more due to people fearing that their happiness will be disrupted anyway if they try to talk about anything relevant. I'd love if Hella didn't feel that way because I would genuinely treasure an environment where her and people like her felt free to express themselves.

Unfortunately yeah it seems pretty unsolvable.

I would have also loved if back when people were jumping on someone with unfounded accusations... those people would've listened to anyone else who was trying to be a voice of reason and fairness.

But human nature is a pretty unsolvable conundrum, too.

I can't really make a post without taking a stab at a solution though, so how about... we try not to care if anyone tracks us down, and let our current behavior stand for itself if anyone does figure us out, because all that will do is let us know who our friends are... and we try to legitimately have better current behavior -- including being as actually fair as our theoretical code demands, when push come to shove?

I still feel a bit sour about the last time there was anything controversial posted here, and the dialogue quickly dropped back into unsubstantiated accusations and insults, and it was just excused.

People are going to act like people, pretty much all the time, I guess. But I'm probably weird because I almost prefer being reamed every time I open my virtual mouth on any issue, to the feeling that I am participating in selfish hypocrisy by posting here.

It's fine to think "there is an alternative space for people who clashed with other people, and they both pretty much act the same in their own bubbles, and that's cool".

But it seems hypocritical to say "we're actually better than them, look how civil and fair we are"... when a burst of controversial activity a short while ago revealed this community wasn't actually any different in terms of vilifying others without sufficient evidence.

In short, the temporary absence of anything controversial enough to stir people's emotions isn't proof of people being more logical and kind, at all.

@Ghost

Regarding the repeated characters and themes ad nauseum, I can definitely see how you'd have experienced that. I have seen some boring execution of otherwise interesting character concepts, to the degree where it seems like some players have no imagination or actual capacity to roleplay in the mind of a character who is separate from them.

But there were plenty of other people to play with who were creative and dynamic, enough so that I at least felt I was having a creative time. It seems to me like you're just picking boring people to play with or something.

My experiences in MUSH games and RPI MUDs games have also differed greatly because MUSH players seem more prone to having small comfort zones for themselves whereas people don't usually choose to play RPI MUDs because they want to stay in a well-defined comfort zone.

If you do end up ever returning to text-based games again someday, maybe you can try a slightly different genre and it'll be more fun for you. I'd recommend The Free Zone or Harshlands. At least, they're what I would try if I wanted badly enough to be playing anything these days.

I've also not been playing anywhere recently, but what I find is that... I just waste my free time on other unproductive things. It's as if I have a quota of productivity and once I meet it, I do not any longer have the energy to be productive. Being relatively introverted, I consider social engagements to be "productive" time spent, too. So I'm going to waste my downtime one way or another. It's not like watching a show is any nobler than playing a game. I'd even say MU* is more productive because at least you're being creative.

The worst thing is Tik Tok. I can lose like... an entire hour without even noticing it went by, and have gained no education nor expressed any creativity.

Because it's summertime though I've been spending a lot more time outdoors and while this may not be strictly "productive", at least it's good for mental and physical health. And I have some projects I'm working on outside that are productive in a sense, so that's nice to think about.

There's also grapevine.haus and mudlistings.com.

I know Arx is open source so you could take a look at their actions code.

And I have played a few RPIs but the ones I played did not have anything like "actions" that you'd be undertaking off-screen in such a way. Most of those games (or at least the ones I played) are about always being in-character and doing things in the game while connected. There are sometimes player notes and reports that can be submitted to staff, in order to summarize what's being done with in-game mechanics/roleplay for quick story check-overs or special requests, but that's all I ever saw.

@Hella

Exactly. Thanks for understanding and re-explaining in a better way.

@Ghost

I'm pretty sour myself right now because my hope that this forum was going to be a fairer and nicer place has been pretty much dashed on the rocks by this discussion, if a moderator is accusing someone without receipts. It just becomes the mirror opposite of BMD, where I do not go anyway.

And I guess a mirror opposite should exist, for people who have been unfairly treated by the gang there, like Macha.

But it has become obvious that MSB is not actually trying to do better, it is just another MU gang that has different perspectives but acts the exact same way.