Best posts made by Kestrel

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

• Ask before posing logs containing sensitive/private IC information.

What constitutes sensitive/private IC information on a MUSH other than TS? I could be misreading between the lines, but based on various communications and the one instance where I asked someone, 'Can I post this?' I felt like I was met with this weird implication that one should always have nothing to hide, and that if you aren't entirely open about your character's motives/secrets, you're being kinda sketchy.

@lordbelh said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Personally I really dislike too much OOC communication, especially when it (and it often does) lends itself towards OOC manipulation of events and layering pressures and expectations of what should happen, for fishing for ways to avoid even slightly unfavorable consequences. But a lot of players have a vastly different opinion of me on it, believing OOC communication to be the key to happy funtimes. My solution has just been to do it my way, deal with the occasional (and there's never been much of it) fallout with a shrug and a smile. (ETA: Or a cyber screaming match. WHATEVER WORKS.)

So far this is probably the biggest source of MUSH-related culture-shock for me, I think. I had my character react a certain way to something they found off-putting, for very IC reasons (though I found it great) — and received an OOC apology for the off-putting behaviour, with a clarification that it wasn't intended to be off-putting. Is this normal? Do many MUSHers have an aversion to conflict-based RP, and/or take the stance that character behaviours should be altered to cater to harmony with other characters? I mean beyond the basic, 'we need an excuse to stay in a scene together'.

@Thenomain: thanks for the explanation on metaposing, that 100% clears up all of my confusion around it.

ETA: I realise I'm dealing with generalisations here, so while many have expressed the sentiment that everything is a 'sometimes, some people, everywhere/everyone is different', my reason for raising some of these questions is that on MUDs, a lot of this stuff is practically unheard of (or even strictly forbidden). It's the same token by which not all Scotsmen wear kilts, but you're definitely a lot more likely to see them there than in England. So I ask, 'How widespread is kilt-wearing in Scotland? Will I be looked at funny there if I don't wear a kilt?'

@Auspice said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Kestrel said in Separating Art From Artist:

So in the US, you can say whatever you want around your colleagues, behave unprofessionally, prove yourself unsuitable for the job you were hired for and not get fired?

This is sort of a benefit to at-will employment. Because in an at-will state, an employer could absolutely fire you for -phobic rants.

People often worry about 'but what if I get fired for being LGBT and my boss is religious' and at-will does not apply where it'd be illegal (you can't be fired for your religion, sexuality, race, etc.). I mean, the argument can (and has) been made that a person could be fired for that reason but the on-paper is something else ('did not meet expectations'), but that happens in non-at-will states, too. And usually the business/person ends up in a lot of trouble for it.

But in an at-will state, if you are being disruptive (which saying shitty things to people is), you can be let go. I had a coworker at a job fired for constantly ranting about political (I use political loosely... he was kind of a fringe nutjob who would go into conspiracy theory 'the government is out to get us' stuff) shit and disrupting the work environment.

From a quick glance at that wiki article, I don't support that at all.

But in the UK we have laws against discrimination at the workplace, which also covers things like verbal harassment, workplace bullying, hate speech, etc. (Note: I am not a lawyer so may be misusing terms, but these are the basics as I understand them and my employee rights.)

You still need to give a valid reason for firing someone. Going on a racist tirade is just allowed to be one of them.

This is 100% not a danger to me. This is a benefit to me. I shouldn't have to put up with horrible, unprofessional, bigoted treatment at work. If it occurs I can go to HR.

@mietze said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I don't see the latter as an offensive metapose. If it had been something like the following:

@ixokai is one cocky motherfucker. Kestrel just stares at him with a baffled expression when he steps on up to that wall with the clearly stated intention of climbing it. There is no way he can climb that wall — look how short his stubby legs are. She is just so fed up with this guy, what with all the trouble he's caused her for the last week, she's cried herself to sleep every night. Why does he have to be so mean to her when no one's around? She can't wait until he falls off so that he knows how stupid he is.. "Go for it!" she says.

Oh, holy shit. I haven't come across that yet. When I do, I will run in the other direction.

@bored said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Kestrel said in Separating Art From Artist:

Literally no one is treating at-will employment as a good thing.

You seem to be arguing that you don't support it, but only because you're in the UK. In the US, the only way people are getting fired for tweets (which you 100% support) is via at-will employment laws or (equally shady and anti-labor) 'morality clauses' in contracts. You can't separate the two things. If you want people to be able fired for (edit: relatively trivial - yes people can be fired for crimes and such) things that have literally nothing to do with their job, you're in favor of anti-labor employment laws. Consequences, as you like to say!

This is a false dichotomy.

You want to fight the troll war, because it's cathartic to bully the badguys.

This is a strawman.

Intellectual honesty is a baseline for civil discourse, otherwise I'm not interested.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kanye-Qwest said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

[...] people being disruptive for the hell of it - you know, the guy who runs in and collapses in a bloody heap at a table of strangers just trying to have coffee.

Dealing with snowflakes is a different discussion than courtesy of asking to join a scene.

Oh man. Relatable. The good thing to know about snowflakes though is that they aren't even special to MUSHes.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@lordbelh said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Exactly why folks are saying it helps to ask first?

No, people are saying its polite to ask first, thus implying entitlement and control over a grid space, and the right to tell you no. That it might be smart to ask first isn't something I'd argue against. I sometimes do, I often don't, but again I'm willing to live with the consequences, which might be Vampire X and Vampire Y looking at me, looking at each other, then leaving for a more private location.

3 posts and that was that scene. Yet.. it was still a form of interaction.

Circular logic. Polite to ask first is wrong, smart to ask first is right.

It's not circular. @lordbelh (and @Groth, a page or so up) has explained how a person entering a scene might benefit from asking first and thus learn pertinent information that would affect how they ought to approach. So there is a practical reason to do so other than it being a sort of curtsey.

Others in this thread are making it clear that asking is some kind of weird social dance to determine whether or not the other person is an arsehole. ( @ixokai, I was referring to this post, namely.) This, to me, is arseholish. I agree with those who have said that it smacks of entitlement. It's about wanting to be given arbitrary respect, not offering respect to those who need it, e.g., that they might be helped to better integrate into a scene, or so that they know they ought to feel welcome. This is just semantics, and doesn't amount to much, but I think the way people phrase their expectations and why they have them matters.

It's kind of like if you're in a fight with someone and they snap at you, "Aren't you going to apologise to me?" Even if you should have, it's just uncool to make that demand, and is usually about one person wanting to hold court over the situation.

Speaking for myself, I don't really like making anyone feel like they need to ask for my permission to join in and have fun. I feel awkward when people needlessly apologise to me for intruding on a scene. I think a more welcoming environment would be one where public places are considered genuinely public, but I understand the counter-arguments being made, which is why I don't have a perfect solution. I just think it's worth considering how these social constructs (which apparently bear the weight of decades of history) translate into the kind of environment they foster.

@Derp

Except no, because I live in the UK, where we do not have at-will employment laws and I have illustrated it's entirely possible for a better system to exist. So yes, this is a false dichotomy, and saying that I'm in favour of at-will employment laws when I've explicitly said I'm not is, also, another strawman.

I also detailed my reasons for wanting to oppose bigoted behaviour which are about protecting marginalised people, not bullying. I even had the courtesy to include causes I care about in those examples, veganism and environmentalism, acknowledging that it would be perfectly fair for people in certain circumstances to not want to hire someone whose views may indicate that the person could likely be a threat to their business. It would make no sense for battery farm to hire someone who's a known supporter of animal liberation, and it would make no sense for any office to hire a blatant misogynist when half their staff are women.

Every example I've given also has everything to do with a person's suitability for their job so to also say that I want people fired for things that have nothing to do with their job is, again, disingenuous.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

As is assuming you couldn't join the scene for IC reasons alone, when they have no IC reason to not like you. You made the IC narrative on your own, you actually powered for the other players in this case. You made that you were ICly shunned, when they just couldn't manage a large scene.

What? No. What?

I have in no way, shape or form reacted to the incident brought up by @ixokai surrounding the Village Centre 'can I join' page IC. I wouldn't, because the request was OOC, and because this is a MUSH. I am not treating a MUSH as though it were a MUD. If that was my intention, why would I make this thread? I explained, at @Thenomain's request, how the incident would have gone down had it been a MUD.

@faraday: I think I've seen something similar on the MUSH I play. I do kinda wish there was a good way to balance place code in public spaces and dynamic, MUD-style scenes with MUSH-style freeform creativity.

@Derp said in Separating Art From Artist:

We aren't talking about the UK. We're talking about the United States. [You're] imposing a set of standards outside of the stated parameters.

You're talking about the United States.

Nowhere did I sign up for these parameters.

A comparison was made between UK and US laws. I stated I like UK laws better. It's quite a leap to go from that to, 'Oh, so you support this set of completely different US laws on another extreme?'

I know it's hypocritical for a Brit to say, but quit colonising my thread.

@ThatOneDude said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

@Thenomain said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

@ThatOneDude said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

I love PK! No one else really enjoys it for the fun it can be though

One of the people I work with plays Rust for the challenge and the back-and-forth PK. And if people you know also love it? Great! If not? Well? Why is it their problem?

I've laughed my ass off about situations where I've lost, or adored the story told, but this is my angle, and my angle doesn't work for you. Visa-versa. Note in that video (you did watch the video, right?), neither Bartle nor the Extra Credits crew said who was responsible for the fun. In fact, they say what we've always known: Those who aren't having fun leave.

In fact, that's what I get out of every time someone puts the words "mush" and "successful" together: How do we stop people from leaving?

If you're secretly trying to deconstruct BitN, I can't help you. I listen to staff chat (because coder) and I hear more "hee hee that was awesome" more than "goddamn it, insert-player-name-here", so I have to believe that staff are enjoying the game. I also have to assume that anyone playing there is enjoying themselves enough to play there, or I have to wonder about their sanity. Sounds like a winner to me.

THAT SAID, I have continued playing on games I didn't enjoy, but I enjoyed the people I was with. People are looking for the key to upward positive feedback and game growth. This is it. One person, @ThatGuyThere, has it right on. Everything past that is a deconstruction about what you enjoy about a game.

There is a certain tipping point where the game can be complete and utter shit with shit staffers and shit situations and still have a high population. I put this critical mass around 20 players. In the video (you watched the video, right?), this is the social circle. Maybe all that happens is TS and IC Drama, but hey, it's popular, right? I have to believe the people there are enjoying themselves, because anything else is just sad.

Please Note: Fun is not the same as Enjoyment. I usually assume people mean the latter when they say the former, but we can all enjoy ourselves without having 'fun'.

So yeah, +1 to @ThatGuyThere for the truest answer, and +1 to everyone else for figuring out how to make that happen.

Oh don't get me wrong, I think I've come to that point in my life where I'll never be able to mu* ever again. But I think this conversation was a good one to have in the community as a whole. More so for those people talking of making their own games and hopefully running it in a way that's good for players and themselves.

Just curious, if you think you're at the point in your life where you'll never be able to MU* ever again, why make this thread? My question is 100% serious. What were you hoping to learn? And what's your conclusion about MU* success potential, etc.?

@Thenomain said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

@Kestrel, I'm drawing your attention here in case you're skimming (god knows I do): Moo used an in-game editor but a more realistic, flexible language. One of the single worst things about using Mush for coding is that it can be ten times harder to do something cool in Mush than almost any other language.

It's not that Mushes can't have mobs and things, a gigantic game called Firan proved that wrong, it's that it's not worth it. I mean, we're busy implementing a codified RPG. God, the language code we used to have was pretty damn complex too. At one point, if you knew French you could pick up smaller snippets of other Romance Languages depending on how similar or dissimilar they were from French, all the way down to "I don't know what they're saying, but I know that it's kinda Greek-like" for 'Ancient Greek'.

You want secrets? Damn did we have them. It's possible. It takes time, but the most important thing as a game is will someone use it because if not, why bother? And people started complaining about it. And we killed the general WoD secrets culture. And it faded into obscurity.

Which of my posts were you responding to with that mention? As I don't think that, personally, I would ever attempt to code any of this stuff on a MUSH with the intention of making 'a successful MU*'. As stated above, I think 'a successful MU*' would be a MU* that isn't a MU* at all. Why try to improve on something so unwieldy when its audience and function could be fulfilled by something better and more user-friendly?

Garbage on Facebook about how x idiotic fad diet, 1 weird trick & 2 cups of chamomile tea a day or whatever cure anxiety.

I shouldn't let it get to me, but it really does. I want to throw rocks at it.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

'Activity' is nothing but a ratio of time spent in-game and time spent off-game and the only way to not hold anyone accountable for their offline time is to have zero expectation of activity whatsoever.

This rubs me the wrong way. If someone can only get on once a week, or once a month, why should they be excluded from having the fun they want?

Sometimes, yes. As illustrated by the example @Arkandel provided here:

@Arkandel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@mietze said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I don't know why it's so hard for people to just say "oh darn, this person wasn't able to be here oocly, well, let's just assume they were prevented from acting by something unforeseen until we have a chance to talk."

There are two reasons, one better than the other.

1. Because said people are jerks.

2. Because this person is actually abusing the fact they aren't around. For instance I log on maybe once a week but please assume I've been to all the political meetings, and while your PC was at risk of dying in the Slaughthouse of Horror please assume I was also there fighting valiantly at the back. What, it's time for you to put in a spend for Glory 4? Me too! We're old war buddies, you and I.

... I guess I could have summed it up by stating 'people are jerks' and leaving it at that.

It isn't always a case of, 'omg, real life is so busy!' Some people just don't like RPing certain things. For example, conflict. If all you log on to do is TS with your boo, and you just really hate conflict and have 0 desire to ever be involved in it or to go through the hassle of RPing your involvement in a battle, in major story points, I don't think that you should be allowed to reap the benefit of story points you just aren't putting the effort into.

What you give is what you get. It sucks you can't be online 24/7, or that you can't get along with everyone well enough to play with them — I'm not even arguing that you should. But it is annoying for those players who had the time to spare and invested into the story, risking their character and giving enjoyment to other players, to watch as some apathetic schmuck rolls past them to claim all of the glory points and none of the effort.

Even on a MUSH — if a player doesn't RP with me, I'd rather our characters just not have our stories be more intricately involved than, 'Oh hey, yeah, that guy John, I've seen him around'. I don't want that player sending me a page assuring me that John has been giving my character lots of personal one-on-one time if we cannot actually RP it out. Otherwise, it's as dull as solo-killing a player who's offline on a MUD and calling that 'story'.

@Ganymede, brief mention: my earlier post wasn't in response to yours, but to the one I quoted. Apologies for the confusion.

Depression meal today was an extremely spicy chilli ramen I then managed to splash directly into my eye.

If there's a god, he's laughing at me.

@Thenomain said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

I think 'a successful MU*' would be a MU* that isn't a MU* at all.

Which is funny, because most of what you said you would do or that your friend would do has been done before. Play By Post integration: RP over a Jobs system (mostly complained about). Dynamic grid: Part of what we gave up years ago (still used in spaceship games). Web-Interface: Evennia and any Muck coded by Nuku. Auto-logging features: Every client ever. Player/Character profiles: Wiki and, in-game, finger.

We're already there.

@Thenomain said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

Alright, I see what you're saying. As she's stating it, tho, we've applied all of that, almost all of that on the same games, and I wouldn't have called it a success. The fact that we have regressed to the older, shittier UX of Mu*, whether Mud or Mush, is my evidence of that.

To which I say: you did not apply it well enough. I mean, just because social networks like Friendster existed long before Facebook doesn't mean they were worth their salt, or that there wasn't a better way to do things.

As a simple example, you've raised wiki and finger to my suggestion of player/character profiles, but one of these is accessible from a webpage, the other from a downloadable client, and there is no integration between the two. It's unwieldy. It's more complicated than it needs to be. And I'm not talking about the coder-side of things. Wouldn't it make sense to have everything in one place, in line with how most of these crazy kids like to do things now in 2016?

I'm not trying to shit on the hobby. I love the hobby. I just want more people to love it as much as I do, which is why I would love for more of its pioneers to think a little outside the box.

Mind you, I have to ask: How would these things make it successful? What is 'successful' here?

Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I really like the idea of making lots of money. This isn't my only concern, but if I were going to pour all my energy and resources into a project of this scope, it would be a concern. Having addressed the capitalist elephant in the room, allow me to salvage the remnants of my starry-eyed idealism:

I think MU*s are a dying genre. It isn't a novel thing to think — people have been saying it for years. To me, for a MU* to be considered successful, it would have to exceed the declining expectations of its genre, resuscitate and popularise it. Anything short of a total resurgence in the public eye would be a level of success for a MU* that I wouldn't be interested in wasting my time on, not because I'm really greedy, but because I think the genre is capable of that level of success, because there is a market for it, and it makes me kinda sad that no one other than IRE is tapping into it. And I don't even think IRE is doing a good job of it — their ethics aside, I just think they could be doing better, even on a commercial level.

Lots of people read fiction, participate in improv classes, or identify as aspiring writers. A very, very small percentage of these people play MU*s, but I think that a much larger percentage would be interested, and would play if they even knew what a MU* is, or if upon finding one, they didn't find the newbie experience so odd and unfriendly. It galls me that MUDs keep wasting time building hack-and-slash code to try and compete with WoW-style MMORPGs, or that MUSHes, which are aimed at exactly the right niche, are so badly publicised.

So in sum, what would I consider 'successful' for a MU*? Well, other than having fun, I suppose I would just want to make something that lives up to its potential.

@ThatOneDude: Thanks for answering. See above. Highly relatable.

@Ominous said in Dating in the 2020's:

Funny anecdote about dating apps from today!

I get a reply message out of the blue from a woman on OKCupid today. I don't recognize the woman. I read her reply and nothing is clicking. I read my original message and, while it sounds like something I would write, I don't remember writing it. After some thinking and looking over her profile, I realized that I sent the original message sometime around December 2017 to April 2018.

I'm not sure whether to even reply or not. I'm not first choice, second choice, or even third choice. I am waaaaaaaaay down the list.

For what a woman's perspective on this is worth, I think you should reply.

I take regular breaks from online dating and if I care enough to reply to someone who sent a message ages ago, it's not necessarily because I put them on the backburner and am only just now circling back. If anything, it's a compliment that after all that time I still felt like they were worth reaching out to even at a slight disadvantage of knowing how bad it looks. It usually happens because after a couple weeks of having to slog through all the shit on these apps, I've lost my energy to reply to even the decent seeming people out there with how drained and jaded the experience makes me. By the time my tank's full again, I regret not having taken a chance on the more genuine people when they first expressed interest, but I just wasn't in a good place to. Shit gets tiring, but it's much easier after the initial (and significant) hurdle of moving things off the app.

Most recently I disabled my account because I received threatening messages from someone who was mad I hadn't replied in a timely enough fashion ... to literally two sentences' worth of conversation. I took a long breather, vented to a few friends, denounced online dating "for good" and then decided, fuck it, a few arseholes don't get to ruin my ability to enjoy all the good that humanity still has to offer.

Anyway! I have a date lined up!! I am pretty excited for it, the guy seems legit. We have exchanged 12515 words at this point (yeah I just put them through a counter). He sent me his first message at least 3 or 4 months before I sent my first reply. During this time I wasn't dating other people, I've just been focusing on me. He replied expressing some confusion as his first message was topical at the time and by then it wasn't, but then we moved onto new topics.

Context matters though, if her message was courteous and at least mildly apologetic for the delay or not, or at least acknowledging it. Any number of things could've happened, like maybe she met someone IRL, maybe her cat died, maybe she joined on a whim after ending a big relationship and then realised she needed more time than she'd initially assumed she would to recover. (All things that have personally caused me to duck out situations where the other person was genuinely not at fault.) Also I mean, it's just a message on a dating profile, it's not like you hooked up, confessed deep feelings and then she bailed on you, right? Investment isn't owed or established yet.

Worst case scenario after exchanging a couple messages you realise she really isn't that interested and all you wasted was the length of a single pose on a MUSH where you could've just as easily been hitting on some random Portman played-by.

@Pandora said in The Shame Game:

Show me an asshole that honestly doesn't know they're an asshole and I'll show you someone that probably has a few indicators of a personality disorder.

This is a pretty meaningless statement. 'Anti-social personality disorder' is also a personality disorder. Besides, the bolded part (and especially the italic part) could apply to literally every person on earth.

@Cupcake: unpopular opinion, but I think your thread sparked some poignant debate. I'm not sure why anyone thinks citing a source is pretentious. No one's saying you can't disagree with an argument just because a cited source supports it. Thanks for providing food for thought.

I also think it's funny that someone got shamed for trying to bring up the shame game. I guess the first rule of Fight Club is that you do not talk about the Fight Club?

I don't care about the Oscars.

I don't care about celebrity culture.

But Joaquin Phoenix's speech is worth listening to and replaying 1000 times.

Transcript.

4 minute video.

@Apu said in The Shame Game:

Shaming is a dual-edged sword. In most cases it is a horrible thing - like shaming a woman who happens to enjoy having sex and is happy with having more than one partner - but, on the flip side of the coin, it can also be a very powerful tool. While it might fall upon deaf ears (or blind eyes, if it's done on a forum such as this) it just might get someone's attention and make them realize their behavior is unacceptable and help them to decide to try and change it. I don't condone using it except in the most extreme of cases and only if you're sure that the shaming won't cause more harm than it might cause possible good.

Shaming can be said to be a powerful tool in that it helps enforce social norms, some of which are pretty useful to have around — like don't molest children and don't talk at the theatre.

The problem is, who decides social norms? In some (too many) settings for example, sexual purity as a desirable feminine trait is a social norm. People can be shamed for deviating from the norm in anything from skin colour to their eating preferences.

In essence, shaming is the worst sum result of mob mentality, and even where the mob's anger is justified, it's a poor tool for the job.

If there's one thing everyone should know it's that sometimes they're wrong and make bad judgement calls — individually, let alone as part of a mob or adherence to social norms.

So employing the worst sum result with the conviction that you may be right isn't the best idea. It leads to bad things.

I think shame is only worth using (and risking) when applied independently and internally, not commanded externally.

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Getting into Writing:

I think the important thing to remember there is that we're at different places in our learning process and we want different things. What's an intense, emotional scene of great beauty to me may be eighty lines of purple prose to you and can we get on with the murderhoboing already. A romance writer has trouble enough communicating with a crime novelist -- now add different play styles to the picture and it's no wonder the arguments go on.

I wish I could upvote your post 100 times, but I’m just going to respond to this part.

So much misery could be avoided between incompatible RPers if we would just be more accepting of this sentiment: that not everyone likes or wants the same things and that that is OK.

I have talented, highly intelligent friends whom I adore and respect, yet whom I fundamentally disagree with on matters of taste. Friends with whom I share a love of Terry Pratchett, yet have heated disagreements with about Neil Gaiman.

I have sensitive, insecure friends in this hobby who’ve felt utterly destroyed by attacks on their style and choices. I have been that friend. I’ve loved scenes they’ve GMed that others hated, and been unendingly frustrated when as a result of criticism they received, they decided to stop running a story that they loved running and I loved participating in.

Just because someone doesn’t like a thing you did/wrote doesn’t mean it’s bad. It might mean that the two of you are incompatible scene partners who like different things, and that is perfectly OK.

I think game runners and staff can become particularly vulnerable to this and it’s always disheartening to see.

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Getting into Writing:

I think there are a lot of aspects of writing that are both skill-based and habitual, like most other things, and you can teach and nurture those. I 'got into' writing in third grade when our teacher made us journal for like 15 minutes as part of class every day and I certainly got better at it in more structured environments where I was forced to stretch into different aspects of it. IDK, I've worked in journalism and technical writing and I feel like I use different muscles for those than when I try to write creatively (largely for myself), but they've made me a better writer all around.

I definitely think you can get better at writing over time. Like with anything, practice makes perfect.

Many years ago I watched a televised interview of JK Rowling in which she described a writing technique of hers that I still employ to this day: when plotting her books, she creates a table of her characters and the overall plot, marking what each character needs to be doing in each chapter in order to progress their independent narratives. This is a technique I'd never considered until then, and her advice has proved invaluable to me. Furthermore learning terms like "plotter" vs. "pantser" and better knowing myself and my needs in this regard has also helped. (Obviously, I'm a plotter.) I follow publishing blogs which provide all kinds of useful tips.

I don't think this taught me creativity, though, it's just helped me streamline my writing process. Over time I've gotten much more methodological, and I'm more mindful of various pitfalls for I might consider "bad writing". My style, grammar, punctuation, sentence-structure etc. have all improved with education and practice. But these are tools, not the essence of the work itself. There are things I do that spark my creativity, like going to different physical locations with my laptop/notebook to write, but I think these are things that work for me personally because of who I am as a human being, rather than things that could work for everyone. I've read about different writer routines which to me seem absolutely insane as I know they could never work for me.

For example, @Pyrephox thinks if you want to write properly you shouldn't also MU*. For me, this doesn't work. If I try to concentrate on only one writing project at a time, I develop writer's block. I need multiple projects to work on and bounce back and forth between to keep my creativity flowing. When I'm blocked on my novel, putting it down for a bit and MU*ing instead works like a charm to reinvigorate myself. But I know myself, and I think knowing yourself is critical to any endeavour. One size does not fit all.

@Tinuviel said in Getting into Writing:

@Kestrel said in Getting into Writing:

For example, @Pyrephox thinks if you want to write properly you shouldn't also MU*.

I would definitely say, though, that if you want to write properly don't try to "write properly" on a MU*. Writing a novel and RPing are totally different animals. The fact that they're different-but-similar enough is probably why it's helpful as a creativity unblocker. You can be creative without it feeling like "still writing your novel."

I mean. Are they, though?

Various RP communities I've been in have encouraged things like short stories and character vignettes, which I think can make for good practice.

A while ago I wrote around 10,000 words worth of backstory lore for a player org I'd created. It contained chapter headings etc. And I have huge respect for the amount of work involved in creating an original setting for a game/campaign run for other people to participate in, complete with a detailed website and documentation.

Tools I use to create characters for RP settings are the same tools I use to design characters in my story; I keep notes not entirely dissimilar to a "character sheet" for them to reference in the prose. While the prose might not reveal their entire backstory, knowing it in my head is important to me. I've created a fake language lexicon for use in RP, and I've done the same for use in a book.

I definitely view RP and MU*ing as a literary exercise, though I also agree with the comparison to acting improv. I think there are different ways to approach the hobby and if the desire is there, it can certainly be used as a tool/exercise for improving your professional writing. For me, the key differences between writing for publication and writing to RP are:

• On a MU*, I have immediate feedback for my writing as opposed to needing to wait until after professional publication to know whether or not I've fucked up. Even if no one says anything, you can still get a general sense of whether or not your partner feels engaged in the story you're telling, though of course there are other factors here like whether or not you're demonstrating engagement in theirs, too. But I'm sure everyone has had at least one positive experience of a stranger letting them know, 'hi, I really liked that thing you did with your character, they're fun and that was super duper cool'. Or conversely, heard some soul-destroying gossip in a similar vein.
• Stakes for succeeding at RP are comparatively very low, so I don't have to worry so much about whether or not I'm fucking up, and I'm free to experiment.

I have no interest in writing erotica professionally but surely even things like TS offer the benefit of getting better at writing sex scenes over time. I've shit-talked professional writers for their shitty sex scenes, and praised others for being good at it. (Call me, Patrick Rothfuss.) Maybe if GRRM had some experience in that department and spent some time trawling MSB, he wouldn't be so rubbish at it?