Best posts made by il-volpe

@tinuviel said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

@il-volpe Or like... just make your own character and not bother with the faff of a roster?

Because, as has been said, some people would rather not cg. For a variety of reasons.

I have some distaste for the character who keeps showing up with different players.

But I don't hold it against players if they'd rather play than generate a character and are (OMFG) willing and able to play a character they did not create.

And it just ain't so that making people invest time and effort in cg before they can play makes them invested in the game. Somebody might spend five hours making a PC, but will stop logging in before it's approved if you take more than a week or so. Or if they do keep showing up and checking, they might end up feeling 'stuck' in the OOC room with their enthusiasm all spent. If you want people to log in, you must reinforce logging in. Logging in and encountering friendly, responsive and amusing people is fun and makes you want to log in again. Logging in and finding your app approved is exciting in itself. Logging in and getting into a scene that's fun, even more so. If you can get all three of those events to happen to Penelope Player on her first login, you've given her a little jackpot reinforcer for logging in, and she's probably gonna be back /and/ have more staying power in terms of returning even after boring login sessions.

@l-b-heuschkel said in A healthy game culture:

I'm not convinced it's transparency (though transparency is good) as much as it's respect.

Just so, it's about respect.

I think lack of transparency generally indicates a lack of respect. Even if it doesn't to begin with, it nourishes disrespectful crap by providing a deep and rich fount of plausible deniability.

e.g. GM had claimed frustration that players won't include others but that he couldn't do anything about it, leaving me sitting there thinking, "Yes you could, just quit adjusting the plot so they can succeed without cooperating or including others and let them fail. Also, quit giving them private GMed scenes several times a week while other players are waiting on you." Discovering that "tell them that staff alts should not be shutting others out," should be added to that list of nothings-you-really-can-do does not make me feel respected. Same GM also expressed frustration over players refusing to engage in cross-faction cooperation. After learning that the same players are dominating action and decision-making in both factions I am forced to conclude that he's either lying or incredibly dense; those players would have to work the plot from only one character if the factions form a working alliance. The mutual respect that I had believed to exist when I began the game appears to have never been there on GMs part, and has been lost on mine.

My personal view of the History of MU*s places Anomaly TrekMUX in this spot where transparency increased but the fuckery remained, but spin-offs did notice the embarrassing levels fuckery made visible and worked to correct them some.

Just so.

Possibly it's somebody's bag.

But I wish they'd stop pretending that GRRM forbids all MUSHes but theirs.

I can't be the only person who thinks that roadsigns near construction areas that read "Kill or injure a worker $75,000" seem more like an offer than a warning. Who's writing these things, Eli Roth?

@tinuviel said in A healthy game culture:

Ultimately, shitty people are going to do shitty things. No amount of transparency or organisational structure or written rules will stop them.

Rules aren't there to stop the bad guys.

Transparency does stop them. Player-visible alt registries combined with posting logs of GM-run scenes make it so I don't even have to app to know that the world-shaking action is almost always related to the RP of a handful of players and it's really Abelard GMing the orc tribe for Brigid and Camille on Monday and Camille GMing the thieves' guild for Abelard and Brigid and Darren on Wednesday and Brigid GMing the Seagull Knights on Saturday and what looks like thirteen players having regular gamey-game is actually four having very frequent gamey-game. And that knowledge is liable to make me move on, preventing them from doing shitty things to me.

@Balerion

Martin has since stated a sane position on fan-fiction: "I am opposed to fan fiction, but people can do whatever they want for their own personal amusement, so long as they don't send it to me."

A MUSH is either a fiction-engine or a game. If it's a fiction-engine, the above is relevant. If it is a game, well. Mr. Martin is not an idiot, and it would require that he be one for him to have both sold rights to Green Ronin to publish a game (which he did) based on his world yet also think that it's disrespectful to him to play a game based on his world (there's no reliable evidence that he does, and the bit about Windhaven predates any ASOIAF RPGs by twelve years.)

As for him directing people to your game as the only authorized one, I suspect that if somebody were to come to him and say, "Yes, I know you have authorized 'Blood of Dragons,' but honestly, I do not want to play with that GM, please excuse me for playing some other text-based online RPG based on your world," he'd probably go, "Huh? When the heck did I say you shouldn't? Sod off, I'm busy here." For one, the man's an old D&D player. The idea that people might not want to play the game as Nymeria runs it is unlikely to be something foreign or deplorable to him.

It is a fact that Blood of Dragons is the only MUSH authorized by George R. R. Martin, but the idea that he condemns others or finds them disrespectful is pretty thin at best, and is so obviously self-serving of BoD that it makes one question just how out-of-context those email quotes might be.

Somebody reading Ethan Coen's You Want Spooky?

https://youtu.be/HpL5tGY9Ycs

@pyrephox said in A healthy game culture:

There's something to this, but I think it's largely a part of how the tabletop game has been translated to the MU* environment. The setting was really never designed to be used in a large group, persistent environment - a lot of the toxic elements, particularly rigid hierarchies and cruel superiors out to exploit everyone for what they can get, were designed to be the /antagonists/ to the presumed low-level, new/young supernaturals who are trying to maintain a spark of their humanity in a cruel world.

This is in some degree true of any tabletop game. They're designed for a small group of PCs who are all about the same power-level but in different areas and are on the same 'team.' MUSHes usually break all of those things and you've got to adjust for it.

I thought I had good results from trying to make my game more like a tabletop as an OOC thing. This is my place, I'm hosting you, as a good host I want you to have fun, you cannot treat my other guests, or my stuff, or me poorly or you gotta leave. Act like friends and talk about your cats 'round the big pub-channel table please, have a beer, unmask a little.

I wonder if the traditional WoD MUSH structure isn't more akin to that of large LARPs. I don't have much experience with them but many seem to be businesses where if you pay your dues and don't overtly break rules then you play, and you may openly be a dick to some degree, same as you can at a health club.

@Balerion said:

Regardless of your feelings on the matter, GRRM did make it plain that he does not like people running on-line, fan-run games (such as MU*s) without his permission.

In essence, I don't think that's plain.

I don't conflate "Hrumph, I wish they had asked," with "I just hate it when people do this, and feel shat on by it," nor do I conflate "I refer them to your game," with "Your game is the only game I want to exist." What communication I have had with him (which is minimal and certainly not enough that he'd recognize me) makes me feel pretty confident of said opinions. I would even hazard that he wants games based on his world to be fun.

As for what he's comfortable with, if he was really just only comfortable with you special souls as gamemasters back in the day, I'd be a little surprised. The state of the fandom, and all the various games available based on IaF now make it pretty clear that he's pretty damn comfortable with people RPing in his world.

He sold the table-top rights to a specific company. Any issues with how the table-top game is being used would fall to the table-top company to deal with. Since he has not sold the MUSH rights, it is not strange that his approval would remain a case-by-case matter when it comes to such games.

Oh? And suppose somebody uses not just some of Green Ronin's source material to make a MUSH, but only that material? Would you then deem their game to be 'disrespectful' to Mr. Martin?

Exclusivity Rights matter. When BoD was in 'development' for all that time, rights to use the world setting for gaming had not been sold. The existence of the MUSH would devalue those rights if the buyer wanted an exclusive contract.

Actually, I've no beef with your advert saying that you're the only authorized game, as this is simply true. The aforementioned blog's (and etc) complaints that other games are horrible, bad, disrespectful, and illegal annoys me, as does BoD's policy of (I hear) banning players who talk about other games.

Again, trying to pretend otherwise just to not have to feel bad about going against his wishes is self-serving and nothing else.

I don't think it's against his wishes, nor in compliance with them. I don't think he has wishes, in particular, about it. I don't think you can sell rights for a game and then tell people they can't play it online. Or mess with the dice system if you are so inclined. It's self-serving to pretend that you've got exclusive rights to RP the theme. Especially when it's only other MUSHes that seem to bug you -- admittedly my following of blog is rare, but honestly, a person cannot have internet access and an interest in IaF fandom without eventually coming into contact with this. If it was really all about protecting the author's IP from these disrespectful games, the rabbiting about it would extend to the enormous number of play-by-post forum games, and to the Second Life sims, the latter of which seem to be actively encouraged.

Chris Clarke's Coyote Crossing is amazing.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190121200835/http://coyot.es/crossing/2008/07/19/coyote-crossing/

@faraday said in A healthy game culture:

Jane stole my kill in the last battle scene. Bob made me look bad. Harry got promoted and I didn't. Mary's always getting the spotlight. Jake got a medal and I didn't.

@l-b-heuschkel said in A healthy game culture:

Nope. No one should ever have to play with someone they do not enjoy playing with, and they should never have to justify it, either. It sucks to be left out but there is always the other option: Make your own thing happen and play it with the people who like you.

I know it's not realistic on all games, but I do think that sometimes, people sit back too much and expect to get a ticket to the season's entertainment.

Totally guilty.

Well, the people who won't include me in the plot do like to RP with me when it's about karaoke or something. But they don't want to let me work the plot, and I am not feeling like a good sport about that.

And I do expect the season's entertainment. Or at least a bit of it. Or at least for the GM to understand that telling me to ignore the plot my character is invested in and do solo adventures about my own thing, while taking two weeks to respond to such a request, two weeks during which GM was running two and four scenes every night for the people involved in the plot I'm shut out of, is not cool.

A lot of human existence is all about expectation management, but I do suspect that a great deal of legitimate complaints about fuckery and shabby-ass treatment get dismissed as an over-demanding player.

@BigDaddyAmin said:

But if you guys were a little less draconian you probably wouldn't have the competition to begin with.

Thing is, it's just not a competition. You don't see WoD MU* staff having ragefits that a new WoD game has opened. Okay, from time to time somebody quits game X to make a new game and tries to drag all their friends along, and there are hurt feelings, but when there's no personal connection? MUs are generally friendly-ish to one another. Hell, I tell people that BoD exists, and is almost certainly (having never played there, I cannot say I'm completely sure) more accurate to the theme, because its owners are more privy to details of the world and more interested in sticking strictly to the timeline. and it is definitely more controlled. It's not a contest because they're different. They're run differently, by different people. A person might even (OMG) play several different MUs in the same theme and enjoy them all. It seems to me that attacking other games is a way to try to keep players while not having suit them beyond having a theme they want and being the only game in town.

BAZONKA
by
Spike Milligan

Say 'Bazonka' every day
That's what my grandma used to say
It keeps at bay the Asian Flu'
And both your elbows free from glue.
So say Bazonka every day
That's what my grandma used to say

Don't say it if your socks are dry!
Or when the sun is in your eye!
Never say it in the dark
The word you see emits a spark
Only say it in the day
That's what my grandma used to say

Young Tiny Tim took her advice
He said it once, he said it twice
He said it till the day he died
And even after that he tried
To say Bazonka! every day
Just like my grandma used to say.

Now folks around declare it's true
That every night at half past two
If you'll stand upon your head
And shout Bazonka! from your bed
You'll hear the word as clear as day
Just like my grandma used to say!

The end

@l-b-heuschkel Oh, yeah. I'm pretty much wrapping up the one 'do your own thing' adventure where I invited others but had burned away my very last scrap of fuck before the event actually happened.

I have experienced and seen this on other games and had it seem a lot less egregious. The 'story points' thing I mentioned somewhere up-thread seems like it could solve a fair chunk of it.

@Alzie said:

He says, as if GRRM is trolling the internet for his hate forums.

Yep. One funny bit there is that I don't troll nor mock GRRM on "Is Winter Coming," and basically just check it from time to time because and maybe post because there's a link to my game in my sig. If I comment about GRRM, I'm usually actually pretty much defending the guy, though quietly, as it's hardly the place to argue his merits.

The other funny bit is that that forum is, aside from the bits that are just boring bitching about how GRRM is a slow writer (which is annoying of him, yeah, but it's hardly news) actually more dedicated to trolling and mocking Nymeria, and complaining about what a blight upon the fandom she is. "Is Winter Coming" wouldn't exist without her.

And gosh, how cute of you, @Balerion, to be checking out what online communities I have accounts in.

By Fleda Brown

The repeated mention of "PCs are cats" makes me want to do it.

@BigDaddyAmin said:

It doesn't seem to stop other people from creating Westerosi themed MU*s. Hell, now I want to make one just to spite you.

Do eeeeet.

@faraday I've always found the "we don't allow concept Y because we can't think of a reason such a person would be in our setting" to be, eh, arrogant. As if game-runner being unable to think of a reason for a woman to be at Guadalcanal means that nobody can possibly think of one.

@horrorhound I sympathize with that. But also view it as being pretty much the same as how I didn't want my Game of Thrones MUSH to be all sword-swinging women, yet also think that the GoT MUSH that bans them is bullshit, because they're a major element in the source and of course people are going to want to play them.

And I suspect we're all kinda tired of that game where you have to make an alt to get any RP, because, you know, somebody encouraged you to app that empty/wrong-time-zone-for-you faction. Especially when you get on great with the dwarves who are on around when you are and there would be no problem if people would stop bitching about how corny and wrong elf and dwarf players are if they RP not hating one another too much to interact.