Best posts made by Kestrel

@faraday said in Heroic Sacrifice:

So I think you'll get more success just by trying to attract the scattered folks throughout the hobby who are already craving more of a story environment than by trying to bribe people into playing a completely different style of game than the one they want to play. As @Lithium said - find like-minded people and cater to them. Even if, as with TGG, that's just a small group.

I think this is a given, but the thing is that the kind of playerbase you advertise for isn't necessarily the kind of playerbase you'll get. The 100 for example is a brutal survival setting filled with culture-clashes, war, genocide, criminal protagonists, and the oft-repeated phrase 'there are no good guys', but the MUSH version of it mostly had people who really wanted to establish peace and play moral protagonists. It was, through no fault of its creators, a very mushy version of the setting it was based on, which is why at some point I walked out. (Side note, is anyone else ultra excited for Season 5 airing tonight?)

Any game can state its ethos from the outset, and you can proudly trumpet ICC = ICA until you're blue in the face, but ultimately it's the game designer's responsibility to cultivate the player culture they want. If the design doesn't support the ethos it's trying to achieve, no amount of asking people nicely is going to change that. @arkandel is quite right in that if you're telling people that it doesn't matter if you win or lose, but you're only rewarding winning, you aren't going to get the results you want.

So absolutely, I will look for like-minded people, but I'll also look for ways to encourage and reward that like-mindedness, to ensure that it sticks, and doesn't change when people invite their friends from other games or people join the game with preconceived notions from other game-cultures they've been involved in. Besides, there's a minimum and a maximum people can do in any situation: the best and worst fits can still be coaxed towards the higher end of their natural range if the environment provides positive reinforcement. That's all I'm looking for.

@arkandel said in Heroic Sacrifice:

What do you get for being successful on such a game? Oh, everything. You have access to exclusive scenes, for starters; there are plenty of "high council meetings" in MU* to the point it's almost a separate trope for them, where the Duchess and the Count meet their peers to share secrets and make decisions. You are among those who get the spotlight in public scenes, who are invited to social events and are bestowed the cool ranks.

You don't get those - as a rule - for failing. It's not a matter of attributes and dice pools (or at least not exclusively) but rather the fact that it reflects how real life works; politicians, business people and generals don't advance in their perspective careers because they are challenged but because they beat those challenges.

I don't see why it has to be this way. If you fail and your character ends up in jail, they could still have a very cool scene where they're brought before the high council and interrogated about their crimes, who they know, etc. They could be bribed to betray their friends, thus being turned into a double agent who has regular meetings with important NPCs trying to blackmail them or extract information.

Story, even spotlight, isn't contingent on winning or losing. In fact I think that when people think of a character like Wash from Firefly/Serenity, his two most memorable scenes are: A) goofing around with toy dinosaurs; B) dying horribly. His legions of fans prove that a suave, successful sexpot isn't necessary to portray a great and deeply beloved story, which is the ultimate aim in designing this kind of system.

Throwing things away.

Lawd, throwing things away is fun.

I know I’m being a bad environmentalist. I know I should recycle and repurpose this stuff. But I’m in the process of moving house and the contractors are swooping in so fast on my old place that I do not have time. So, in anticipation of their arrival tomorrow to tear up and repurpose this place, I have been throwing out every single piece of accumulated junk from the last 8 years I’ve lived here. I cannot explain the sheer glee doing this has filled me with.

When people hear I’m in the process of moving house they keep offering me condolences like this must be such a difficult time for me and I’m like, no. I fucking hate this place. Saying goodbye is a joy. I just don’t want the door to hit itself on my way out.

@Ghost said in The 100: The Mush:

I dislike they way they abuse their players by putting themselves first

Abuse their players, wow. You know this isn't actually the first time you've made this metaphor, and at this point I'm thinking you have some unresolved issues you need to see yourself through.

I'm sorry, did someone open a game to their liking and others' of their own free volition, during their own free time and free of charge, which you didn't like, when you were younger? Child abuse is all too common in this day in age. As always, boo, we're here for you.

@arkandel said in Character 'types':

• Is there a kind of personality you choose for your PCs? Do you mostly play military folks? Clever people? Seducers? Jokesters? Do you quip with most of your characters? Are they typically polite or rough around the edges?

Intelligence agents. Spies. Information brokers. Hackers. Quack doctors. People with an agenda they're playing close to the chest. People who aren't what they initially appear to be, who may be subject to misleading rumours and first impressions. Liars, rogues and investigative types. People with trust issues that go both ways: they don't trust people easily, and nobody trusts them.

Almost never anyone who seems like they could conceivably be someone important, fancy or respectable. The characters will be underestimated, never overestimated.

For me, a character is successful if it surprises people enough to make them ask questions.

• Do most of your characters fall within a certain range between 'good' and 'morally gray'?

Usually grey. I play morally-driven and amoral characters in equal measure, but on both sides they're always somewhat grey. Which in my view is just a matter of realism: no one's purely bad or purely good. They all have at least one thing they would sacrifice anything for, whether it's their lover, their friends, their government, their cause or their own skin. Even amoral characters have a sympathetic reason for why they are that way. (Maybe they lost a child, a loved one, or learned some hard lessons during their upbringing.) So I generally favour anti-villains and anti-heroes.

And for two more - this time controversial - bonus points!

• Do you judge others either for the types of PCs they usually play? As in, do you ever roll your eyes and go "pft, that @Arkandel rolled a snarky hipster in his early twenties again. Is that all he knows how to play?"

Yes.

I judge people who across the board always play pretty, perfect, wealthy people, with supermodel played-bys and so on.

I just find this style of wish-fulfilment RP kind of shallow, and rarely very engaging for anyone other than the person it's meant to serve, who is playing the character in question.

• And finally... do you judge others for the type of character they are playing and if so do you associate the player's views with the character? For example if someone played a Slaver on Shang, or a racist on a nWoD game.

Almost never.

However if there's a visible pattern there are times that I'll squint, for example if I've known this player for a good few years and I notice that all of their characters are white nationalists played by white blonde models, and their description always focuses on just how flawless their alabaster skin is; or if they're known for really getting their jollies from rape RP on a regular basis; or if they're a grown-ass 40 year-old playing (or fucking with) a series of sexualised teen/child characters.

One incident I'll handwave, especially if I wasn't privy to all the details. (Maybe they faded? Maybe they were making a pointed, thoughtful attempt at social criticism?) But when it's a pattern, especially an exclusive pattern (e.g., ALL of their characters are flawless-alabaster-porcelain-skinned white nationalists) then ... yeah. I'll squint. Especially if they make their political opinions OOCly known at a later/prior date.

I otherwise wouldn't care or judge someone for playing a slaver, a racist, a chauvinist or any other evil character, unless it seemed to align with their OOC behaviour. That's just their character. It's a story. Stories can have villains.

@Admiral said in Good TV:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/orlando-jones-has-reportedly-been-fired-from-american-g-1840432889

Well that's a shame, I liked that show, and he was the best part of it. Guess I won't be watching Season 3 and onwards.

EDIT: Scratching my head here as to why anyone would make this decision. Did they read the book? Did they read that chapter in New Orleans? Why on Earth would anyone think Mr Nancy's speech was "too much" for a show based on this book?

@arkandel said in Let's talk about TS.:

@ganymede said in Let's talk about TS.:

For you, this may be the case, but it's not the same for everyone. Hence, the part where I said that you should set up clear boundaries and then expectations.

This takes all of 5 minutes, and saves you a whole lot of later stress, presuming your partner isn't lying. Then you have a difference issue entirely.

I suspect you're right. It's just tricky to start a conversation like "Hey, so just because my character is banging yours it doesn't mean other characters of mine won't bang other people" without feeling like I'm basically insulting the other person.

I mean, again, this is an issue which I feel is their problem, not yours.

I've never made it a point to tell anyone that TS doesn't make me their virtual property. That to me does seem like a given. And if to them it isn't a given, I would expect it to be their responsibility to bring it up. If they don't, they don't have a right to get mad at me afterwards when they realise that this is totally not my kink.

@sunny said in Let's talk about TS.:

When I say that I want to not talk about me or the person behind the other character (save to avoid things that might upset/trigger/whatnot the other person), that should be respected.

Dear lord, thank you for saying it.

Perhaps this makes me antisocial, but I do not log on to pretendy-fun-times to talk about RL. Nothing makes me run for the hills faster than a RP partner who feels that our RP entitles them to be all up in my OOC business. Especially after I've made it a point to politely inform them that I'm not here for that.

To everyone who misunderstood @sunny: this is my squick. My boundary. My expectation to keep things IC as much as possible.

Approaching TS (along with other kinds of RP that I know can make people uncomfortable, like gore/torture) I always make it a point to talk to people about their limits, reassure them that we can fade/stop/dial-down at any time if they become uncomfortable, and so on. When asked about my limits, my usual response is that I'm mostly OK with anything [insert exceptions], but would like to keep it IC as much as possible.

That should be respected. That is my boundary. I've had people lose their shit about me refusing to talk at length about my character, my life, and so on. In fact I once told someone that I have anxiety issues, which they were exacerbating, and that I want to stop talking to them – to which they responded by getting increasingly angry that I was 'ignoring them' and 'refusing to communicate'.

All I wanted from this person was to be left alone. And when I've stated that, it should not be a debating point.

I made a New Years Resolution to stop arguing with strangers over the internet.

It's been just under 9 hours and I'm already struggling.

@theonceler said in Let's talk about TS.:

I was really hoping this thread would be about more words for weiners, because I'm honestly stumped.

Try 'his tumescent mushroom cloud of unyielding flesh'.

@GreenFlashlight don't ever quote Ben Shapiro @me, you sick fuck.

@Kanye-Qwest said in Depression Meals:

I mean if I'm being honest, when I'm VERY low I will stand by the fridge and eat a tortilla and a handful of grapes, or go to a drive through and get french fries.

Back when I was on a mexican kick, I would pull a corn tortilla out the fridge, open up a can of refried beans, spread that all over with a knife, pour on some salsa from a jar and then roll it up into a cigar like a sad yet spicy crepe.

I thought about naming and shaming on this thread — started typing out a response, deleted it — but because I don't think most parties involved in this particular debacle did anything wrong, I don't feel comfortable doing so.

A while ago I joined a game run by some people for whom I have the greatest respect; they're good people. Feminists, caring staffers, people whom I have no doubt are invested in the idea of creating a positive atmosphere on their game. They had a public policy of no tolerance for creepers, and openly invited people to come forward about any incidents that might occur on their game.

An incident did occur, to me, and I did not come forward. Or rather, a series of incidents centred around a specific individual who kept making me very uncomfortable.

When I joined their game, I did so with the sense that I was a guest and a relative nobody. They didn't know me, and I didn't know almost anyone playing on this game either. I got the sense, however, that everyone else was part of a tight-knit community of friends, including people who know each other IRL, and so on. The public channels and OOC lounge were constantly filled with people clamouring for each other's attention, reminiscing on the good times they had playing other games, sharing in-jokes, and so on.

So when someone started harassing me in pages, to the point of inducing severe mental health related discomfort, to the point of driving the one friend I joined this game with out (he did it to her too), to the point of compelling me to avoid his character at all costs, I felt like I was faced with two choices:

• Come forward, tell the staff their close buddy was bothering me, and possibly risk burning all my bridges here if they took his side over mine, or drive out other players who were friends with him if something was done about it.
• Accept that I'm a relative nobody on this game and I'm probably not going to get along with everyone.

I tried ignoring this player, but the behaviour persisted. I politely told him, in private, that I have mental health issues that he's exacerbating, and that for this reason I would prefer to limit contact with him, or else postpone our conversation to a later date, when I'm feeling a bit better and I'm better equipped to handle it. He not only wouldn't accept me putting up boundaries, but became increasingly aggressive in his desire to push them, and then came to MSB to complain about an anonymous someone (I saw his posts and knew he meant me) who was frustrating him through her refusal to communicate with him and resolve certain issues. These issues, to me, seemed to largely revolve around me not giving him enough attention.

In case someone can infer from this story who/where I'm referring to, I do want to say for the record that the harassment was not sexual in nature. I think this guy is an arsehole, but I'm not looking to accuse him of more than he deserves. He did want a romantic relationship with my character, and then became ICly & OOCly passive aggressive towards both me and the dude my character ended up hooking up with when he realised that wasn't happening, but that was it. I do think that he's emotionally abusive, manipulative, paranoid and narcissistic. He would regularly assume the worst of minor inactions and then go on the aggressive because of it. ('You didn't respond to my page or react to my joke on the channel within 5 minutes, therefore xyz'.)

I half regret that I didn't complain about him but at the same time ... I'd like to hear from staffers here. Someone you don't know joins your game and says 'your BFF here is making me extremely uncomfortable and wilfully ignoring the fact I've told him he's exacerbating my mental health issues, along with my polite requests to terminate our communications'. Whom do you believe? I didn't want to be a trouble-maker. I wanted to come to this game where no one really knows me, stay anonymous, have fun, no drama, and not rock the boat.

I upvoted @mietze's post quoted in the OP because holy crap do I know what you're talking about, especially in that first paragraph. So yeah — anyone who thinks creepy stuff only happens on games that don't have anti-creepy stuff policies, you are very wrong.

At a later date, staff from this game approached me via private message on MSB and asked if I would be interested in joining another game of theirs. My initial answer was hell yes, I would, I think you're great. But I stopped to ask, 'Does your friend x still play there?' The answer was yes. So I said 'no thanks, in that case', and left it at that.

I don't know that I have constructive advice on what should be done. The obvious is, 'You should have told staff, Kestrel.' But when there's a tight-knit circle of friends, most of whom are wonderful and one of whom is awful, it can be pretty intimidating to consider the risk of ruining their mojo by letting the others know that one of them isn't real sweet to individuals outside that circle.

@Wizz said in Depression Meals:

Chicken-flavor ramen, big ol' squirts of sriracha, squeeze half a lime in the bowl. I can and have eaten it literally every single meal.

The best thing about chicken-flavour ramen is it's usually vegetarian.

This is good shit. It burns your gut so instead of worrying about emotional pain, you're more focused on the imminent diarrhea.

@L-B-Heuschkel

Shameful OCD confession. Note: I've gotten a lot better and don't do this any more, but OK, I used to be this kind of crazy.

So I used to log every scene I was in, not to share, but in order to monitor my writing skill over time.

I wouldn't just clean these logs up to make them pretty. I would go pose by pose and check what about my writing (and other people's) in this scene I liked, what I didn't, and why. I actually did learn a lot of very useful things doing this: I noticed that I had a bad habit of using underconfident language, especially in the form of adverbs; that I could never simply commit to my character smiling, it was always a slight or subtle smile. I overused words and phrases like "really", "practically", "seems" and "as if". This really hit home after reading the Bone Clocks, in which one of the characters, delivering a writing seminar in a very fourth-wall-breaking scene, gives some of the best and most useful writing advice that has stuck with me to this day, including ripping to shreds the overuse of the word "seems".

So then I would edit my logs, not just to tidy up typos or code spam etc., but also to improve my original poses until I was satisfied this was "good writing". Better flow, better sentence structure, kill all those double verbs. I am less comfortable admitting that I also did this to other people's poses, though I never actually showed them this; I just did it as an exercise in editing to teach myself how to perfect my own writing.

Friendly reminder:

Nobody ever deserves food restriction. No matter what your dumb brain tells you.

I wouldn't be playing this game if I didn't have complete and absolute confidence in the staff's genuine interest in creating an inclusive game environment where minority players don't need to deal with or be exposed to the kind of stigma they either live with day-to-day or have a personal family history of tied to the era.

I did go check that song link and agree that it's pretty yikes. But I will second giving staff the benefit of the doubt.

For what my opinion counts on this topic, I'm vouching for them and the game in general. It's a nice place. People are very welcoming and I'm enjoying myself. The one time something even close to annoying me on a channel (specifically to do with reasons one might be wary to play a game set in this era), staff shut it down and handled it admirably.

@bored

I may be biased as an activist, but I think that if you care enough about a political issue to take to the streets or any public forum and rally for it, you're also the kind of person who wouldn't be happy in a work environment where your views are at odds with the existing work culture. Certainly I wouldn't want to work for Tyson Foods, and I wouldn't be shocked if they didn't want to hire me either. It would make no sense for them to. They'd be right to be very suspicious about allowing me anywhere near their facilities.

Related to the JK Rowling controversy, Maya Forstater was "forced out of her job" (in reality, they just didn't renew her contract) for being a TERF "saying sex is real". Though when you put it into context: she was working for a NGO thinktank built to fight inequality while also insisting on misgendering transpeople. The thinktank decided they didn't like her thinking. It was clearly not conducive to their brand image nor goals of fighting inequality. This seems so beyond reasonable to me I'm just baffled as to why it's controversial at all.

I believe a company is entitled to have an ethos and hire people who share that ethos. I may not agree with Tyson Foods' ethos, but I understand it. They think battery farming chickens is fine. I think those cages should be broken.

Taking a stand isn't something anyone has to do. I volunteer with Extinction Rebellion at the moment and we insist on making anyone who signs up abundantly aware of the potential consequences of their involvement. We ask new volunteers to practice "radical consent" when carefully choosing which, if any, risks they're willing to take, and offer lower-risk roles for the passionate yet cautious. For example, I have opted not to undertake any roles that could risk me getting arrested, because I can't afford a criminal record at present.

But if you choose to take a stand of your own free volition, I think it's the height of chutzpah to expect there to be no repercussions for doing so.

@Derp the difference between being a Klansman and being a Muslim is a Muslim wants to exist, and a Klansman wants other people not to exist.

Please none of this "both sides" rhetoric.

I don't think "Muslim" belongs in your list of examples. A Muslim is, a Klansman does.

If we exclude false equivalence, however, and substitute Klansman for literally any other political / religious / belief-based organization — i.e., any other kind of activist (Klansmen are activists, after all, just for a very different ideology than mine) ...

I still 100% stand behind a company's right to hire and fire in accordance with their company ethos, so long as that entails judging people for what they do, not who they are.

Companies shouldn't be allowed to fire people for being Christian. They absolutely should, however, be allowed to fire people for being Christians publicly protesting gay rights, especially if their role entails working with or having the approval of gay clients/consumers, or representing a progressive company image in the public eye.

I'm going to put my hand up and say I don't know much of anything about Hirohito, nor the IJA. I feel very embarrassed reading this thread because it's obviously something that had serious consequences on human history and that I should have been educated about it in school, though I wasn't. I instead learned more about lines of Royal Birtish succession than just about any other historical topic, which I must say was a profound waste of my time. It's evident to me that Eurocentric bias has serious impacts on our education system and cataclysmically, our ability to empathise with and connect with other human beings who have a family history tied to the era.

I know that as a descendant of Holocaust survivors, I feel upset when I encounter people who don't know the facts about it, most especially if they actively dismiss, minimise or deny it. And I feel sympathy for the people on this thread who feel gaslighted by the treatment of a similar atrocity against their own people.

I'm going to make it a point to go and educate myself about this and then, hopefully, pass it on. I was vaguely aware of a history of fascism in Japan, but not the details of what occurred. I don't know if @marsmrsmars and @juneko play this game, and can't fault them if this has left a bad taste in their mouths, but if you do, I play this guy and would be interested in learning more about this through your characters' perspectives.

Meeting someone who goes on genuinely fascinating rants and then says, 'Sorry, I'm bad at small talk.'

Oh precious child. Me too, friend, me too. And that's a good thing.

I would never advocate that anyone personally beat themselves up for the actions of their ancestors, but what I inferred from @JinShei is a sense of shame as the result of a loss of national pride. I imagine it's a lot like finding out your childhood hero isn't as great as you thought they were.

And I think, personally, it's good for people to let go of national pride, at least in the sense where it becomes tribal and creates a feeling of righteousness in viewing their nation against the world, or sees their history and culture as superior to others. When school systems don't teach the honest truth about their country's history — and every country has done bad things — this becomes easy to believe because we want to believe good, pure, moral things about ourselves and our surrounding foundation. And that can easily plant the seeds for enabling imperialism, or even internally, the existing systems of class conflict that you haven't been taught to recognise.