Posts made by il-volpe

@silverfox Sarcasm.

@greenflashlight You're doing it all wrong. There's no need for all this investigation and trouble and effort. You have no obligation to shield a player from abuses. Or to do anything whatsoever under any circumstances. So when your player reports abuse, ban her for being demanding and entitled and trying to take up your time.

So. Re: Player expectation management

Players aren’t really a bunch of entitled little shits, or at least not more so than humans. My experience is that most players are fine and manage their expectations just fine. True, I am absurdly tolerant of their abuses in that I don’t find it unreasonable for a player to expect that a GM (noun) will at some point GM (verb).

Most players mostly manage expectations appropriately. But one does have to support their efforts a tiny bit. Try: Don’t piss them about. My logging on just expecting a scene maybe doesn’t look so entitled if you include that the GM said the scene would be happening at that time. Objecting to rain-checks from someone who shows up an hour late for your scheduled scene, cancels, and cancels it again for the reschedule, and again, and again, for persuasive reasons like forgot, double-booked, don’t feel like it… well, maybe the person who kept showing up on time wanting to play isn’t the person who’s not respecting that others have lives. Telling a player “I forgot this, you should have paged me,” about some two-weeks-stale jobs but feeling hard done by and harassed when they do page or otherwise appear to expect less than two weeks turnover? Not a pushy player trick.

Players will have the unreasonable expectation of fairness. They think that if they interact with the game correctly they’ll have as much chance of fun as anybody else, and the systems will work for them the same as for others. The latter can be approximated. The former is impossible on an open MUSH but you must make a run at it and expect some pushback when you inevitably fall short. They’re not being little shits, they’re being social vertebrates: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequity_aversion_in_animals Live with it. A GM who has playgroup A steal a ship, playgroup B blow up a base, and playgroup C get invited to a scavenger hunt is foolish to expect no murmurs. It’s technically correct that he doesn’t have an obligation to run scenes for those entitled little shits so they oughta be grateful for what they get, but they’re mammals, not narcissistic supply. Sometimes it’s GM expectations about praise and criticism that need some management.

@greenflashlight Hmm. You forget the pretty that's to please oneself.

Thanks, @icanbeyourmuse

https://musoapbox.net/topic/3564/field-guide-to-the-gms/27

I think there's a misunderstanding where people think "now" means "on demand" when the joke is that things that never happen now never happen.

I like your comments.

I think it might be rough to want people to list their expectations. Making clear what you find it reasonable for others to expect of you might be more to the point and easier.

Thay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thích_Nhất_Hạnh

ETA:

The Good News

The good news
they do not print.
The good news
we do print.
We have a special edition every moment,
and we need you to read it.
The good news is that you are alive,
that the linden tree is still there,
standing firm in the harsh winter.
The good news is that you have wonderful eyes
to touch the blue sky.
The good news is that your child is there before you,
and your arms are available:
hugging is possible.
They only print what is wrong.
Look at each of our special editions.
We always offer the things that are not wrong.
We want you to benefit from them
and help protect them.
The dandelion is there by the sidewalk,
smiling its wondrous smile,
singing the song of eternity.
Listen. You have ears that can hear it.
Bow your head.
Listen to it.
Leave behind the world of sorrow,
of preoccupation,
and get free.
The latest good news
is that you can do it.

@carma said in Silent Heaven: Small-Town Psychological Horror RPG:

I'm not sure what to do. I imagine it sounds eye-rolly for me to say but my game will be different!

It's only eye-rolly in the context of 25 years of people saying, "my game will be different" but not actually doing anything different.

As far as the consent list being used to out alts

Out all alts from the get-go.

@ganymede If her reading is up to it, Miss Manners (Judith Martin) is incredibly helpful.

@ganymede You may discover later that she actually does give quite a large and golden shit about other people's feelings, but feels beat down about it and has adopted defensive faux indifference. I often feel quite deeply saddened and anxious when I hurt people's feelings, but also feel that the whole damn situation is unfuckingfair -- Seems like most people don't communicate these feelings in a way I can understand or even detect, but I get slapped for not being mindful of said feelings. Yet meanwhile, I communicate my own feelings and needs directly and the same people appear to simply ignore that communication or dismiss it. And yeah, I do get a "How fucking dare you," feel about it -- from my PoV I'm being punished for not reading minds and for other people's refusal to listen.

@greenflashlight No. But I have this idea that a bunch of people think they are chickens with a pecking order, and I'm not giving the right signals as a dominant or submissive chicken, I'm just minding my own damn business. And some people find this arrogant, aggressive and intimidating somehow, and either look to me to boss them about and think I'm really nice for not wanting to, or they try to pick a fight to put me in my place.

I had helpless giggles when the "men's rights" dumbasses came up with "sigma male" to describe this. I think more people are getting used to the idea of equality, or at least to the idea that they can live without knowing their rank and that of everyone around them. Or maybe I just escaped from the coop mostly.

Ceramic mugs made to look like enameled steel mugs. Especially if there's a fake chip in the 'enamel.'

@derp From my POV, I'm not moving goalposts, I'm pointing out where you're jumping to conclusions.

I don't know what experience you think I am looking for, but I am pretty sure that it's a far cry from what I actually want or have said. I want to be able to get into a scene regularly even though all my old sandwich club have died or quit. This is my desired experience. I think people ought to try to facilitate that as best they can (rather than just dismissing it and assuming I'm not fun) and feel that it is best practice for staff to incentivise broader interactions and for inclusive and pro-community acts like inviting somebody you don't normally scene with to play to be valued. Somehow this was reframed into me wanting to tell other people who to play with. Don't ask me, I have a neurological disorder. So I can't guess what you think I'm saying I desire. What I've said I desire is to get to RP, and to have my RP have consequences. (Play too, agency.)

I don't have any skin in the prince thing. I'm generally against PC leaders in most cases for various reasons. I was just frickin' saying that the reason some Vampire players want to actually be able to interact with the IC Powers That Be is that some of them want to play the political game via acts of interpersonal manipulation.

ETA: PC leaders at prince-type level. at higher tiers. oh god now will you tell me how it's impossible to RP without a member of the group taking a leadership role

This would be relevant if "getting to the top" in this context meant "occupying the top position" rather than "getting chances to personally ingratiate myself to my betters, or fuck up trying to do so." Maybe "getting at the top" would better serve.

@derp Who said directly? And who said anything about holding him accountable? I said ass-licking, FFS.

My experience has been that you cannot work your way to the top when neither the top nor most of the ladder rungs to get there are available. I've never encountered a game where a proxy prince was available. Either the prince was a PC or NPC one could RP with without it being a task to arrange, or the characters one could interact with enough to have a relationship of any depth topped out at primogen.

I have imagined it being otherwise, though, yes, thank you.

I think when you have the non-available prince and their supposedly available PC proxy, the proxy gets bored of having all the bother while being too pawn-like, and PCs still wish they could worm their way closer and closer to the Prince's ear without getting stopped by the OOC consideration of the prince not really being an 'on-screen' character.

And, come to think of it, there's a city of four hundred and sixty five thousand people, I live outside the city limits. Yet I am still able to go annoy the mayor with my opinions weekly or more, if I should feel so inclined. Presumably said mayor has some obligation to allow me to do this and a vampire prince does not, but even at ten times the canon population for vampires the prince has all of 40 subjects. Which is at least four times as many as can be expected to run a coffee-kiosk without an owner/manager showing up regularly and also far, far from the teeming multitudes lined up to see how Prince Charlie's teeth are holding up.

@derp said in The Desired Experience:

Why should vampires, or anyone else, expect more access?

Because Vampire is supposedly a game where the win friends and influence people element is important, and specific MUs often advertise that this is what the faction play is focused on. You can't lick asses that aren't there.

There's probably some "hierarchy of needs" we could complicate this with.

@faraday Oh, Zane would enjoy eating the dishes brought, they're just reserved for others.

Maybe leaving Zane bummed and hungry isn't wrong, but it's hardly friendly.

@GreenFlashlight Hmm. When you RP with me, I am RPing with you. In the metaphor, it's a trade of foods, but that's a metaphor.

@faraday You've got this assumption that Zane feels all high and entitled to people eating his brownies. But that is what a potluck is for. And in the MU potluck, you can't eat your own dish, only the dishes you trade it for. He didn't expect to show up to the potluck with brownies and not get to eat. Is he wrong?

@faraday said in The Desired Experience:

Telling someone "If you're fun people will play with you" is just factually inaccurate.

Thank you. I expect the hobby is over for me. I'd like to think it's not because I'm just no longer any damn fun.

@mietze I don't see where I, or anyone, am proposing forcing people.

Incentives, as you mention, might be in order. Unless you think insular playgroups are desirable. My saying they are not seems to be a bone, so hey.