Best posts made by L. B. Heuschkel

One of the issues I see all the time, on this board and on games, in myself and in others, is the dreaded FOMO. Feeling that you're not quite invited to the real party. You don't quite belong in the inner circle. Plot doesn't quite make it out to where you are. When things happen, they are over before you get to get involved. The same song on repeat from game to game -- there's an inner circle and then there's the rabble who never feel like they truly are included.

Please note: There are absolutely games where staff encourages an inner circle to close up and fuck the rest. Disregard those games for the purpose of this thread; I want to talk about games and game running where the intent (successful or not) is to include anyone who wants to be included.

It's something I keep in mind as a story runner, regardless of where I have been. How to make myself accessible to anyone who wants me; how to get wanted by others; how to signal that you're interested in doing things without signaling that you're a door mat.

People list lots of obstacles; from brain weasels to inconvenient time zones, from not being able to play every night, to lack of focus and too many old cliques and grudges. I don't want to discuss whether these issues are real -- they're all real to at least some of us.

What I want to discuss is ways that have WORKED -- when it comes to getting story to spread like ripples on a pond, reaching beyond the initial, most involved people and out to where everyone else are. How to make even very casual players feel like they can have a say if they want to. That if they remain uninvolved it's because this story does not interest them or they don't have time right now, but maybe the next one will and they will be welcomed if they jump into that one instead.

Making a game environment feel welcoming and inclusive is harder than it sounds like, and I'd love to swap stories of things that have worked at least some of the time for y'all. (We have plenty threads about when it doesn't work and everyone feels FOMO).

For me,

• Scheduling events up to three weeks in advance, and making it clear which kind of characters will be given preference. Not 'my buddies' but 'people with park ranger type skills'. A new player who doesn't know anyone has an 'in' there if they happen to have skills that fit the scene.

• Doing a fair number of open scenes in which recent happenings (from events) are talked about. Information is passed on to others in the form of gossip and small talk. Names and plot devices get wider distribution. You know it works when a couple of players go off to scene about something adjacent on their own.

• Keeping track of who ends up 'taking the reins' in events and scenes, scheduled and not. If it's always the same person, that person doesn't need special catering. The ones who are always there but don't get to say a lot, they're the ones I need to throw a little extra to -- they really want to be included but they're struggling.

• Not to be confused with the ones who turn up and act disinterested, drop out half way through, or feel like trying to push molasses uphill. They don't want to be there; don't waste precious energy on them that could go to the others who do want to be there.

• Rumours and gossip posts on a relevant forum: Give names and locations so that characters adjacent know who to ask and what to ask about. If you read on the forum that the building your office is in had a gas leak explosion, there's RP right there, talking to others in the same building about what the hell happened.

• Balancing different kinds of fun. You don't have much success with stark horror or epic adventure if there's never anything else. Mix and match genres. Include occasional slapstick. Black needs white, dark needs light. Audiences like different things.

• Which leads to, be clear what a scene is in advance. Is it comedic? Say so. Is it deep dark terror? Say it. Save others the frustration of being in something they don't like while others who do miss out instead.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm out of tea. For now.

Forgotten that just because characters are friends or lovers that doesn't mean that the player behind the screen is your friend (and obviously, not your lover either). I've allowed myself to get hurt a couple of times when I thought an OOC friendship had developed only to get dropped like a hot potato when the other player grew bored.

@Ganymede said in RL Sads:

Would you allow them to say this to their grandchildren?

And there's the perspective I needed. Thank you.

@kanye-qwest said in A healthy game culture:

Or my favorite, someone is upset they can't get included in something, and you find out the people who could include them just don't really want to play with them. Do you think you can/should force people to interact with other people?

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. That's an attitude that sort of implies that there are people hired to create entertainment for you, and unless you're on a pay to play game, that's a mindset I'm wary of.

Which is obviously not to say that there aren't games and cliques on games that can be next to impossible to crack. But then the same kind of applies: Go somewhere else, do something else.

Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue has taken away my ability to draw and paint, a hobby which I was pretty big on.

This year, my family got together to buy me a Cintiq. I don't know if this will make me able to art again, but I really, really, really appreciate their attempt to restore something to me that I lost, and really miss.

@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

There are very few truly racially homogeneous places on Earth, and this isn't like some modern thing. People really have this fascination with medieval Europe being 100% white and anything to the contrary is SJW propaganda. Fuck actual history and art I guess lmao.

Amen, amen, and amen again, said the historian. POCs were definitely a thing in medieval Europe, and the only people claiming otherwise are white supremacists pushing an ideal all-white European age of glory that never existed.

I'm sure as heck in no rush to get to hold all the things together to create my own game but if I ever do? I have thought about basing one off the free town of Fredericia, Denmark -- which historically had freedom of religion and asylum for any crime committed anywhere else since 1650. The result was a Wild West-like chaotic border town-feel, with half a dozen religious denominations and factions struggling for survival, hitmen and kidnappers from elsewhere hunting wanted men who in turn dared not step outside the city gates, a large military garrison constantly feuding with local land owners, and a plethora of absolutely over the top personalities and stories -- and it's all very well documented.

Then add, oh, and by the way, the magic of folklore of superstition is real, shake, and bake.

Speaking as someone with a diagnosis or two of my own I tend to fall back on the adage that mental illness can be an explanation, but it is not an excuse.

@silverfox said in GMs and Players:

I feel like you can make a false accusation without being a bad actor.

If you are triggered by a specific behavior it is really hard to stay calm and in perspective.

I'd be enough of a semantics nitpicker to say that then that is not a fake accusation -- it's a mistake. And mistakes do indeed happen, but they're rarely deliberately malicious.

I'm seeing one point missing in this discussion: Writers like to relax too. I should know, I am one.

I will readily agree that writing scenes for a mush is not writing as in writing a novel, not even close, not even on the same planet. However, writing a novel is a very lonely job. You're entirely alone with your 60k-120k piece for the duration of writing it, editing it, editing it again, and only then can you start hoping for some kind of feedback from beta readers and editors if you have one. It may be literal years here, where you get nothing -- nothing -- socially out of writing.

No wonder, then, that you need to take breaks. Talk to people. Use your passion for words in interaction with actual real people.

Many writers use writing prompts in a social context. They subscribe to some blogger who tosses out a 200 word prompt every morning, and then discuss what they got out of it with other subscribers, or they join Facebook groups with similar purposes. All in order to challenge themselves, write something they wouldn't have written for their novel, get forced out of the familiar. And to talk to other people because did I mention that writing is a very, very lonely job?

To me, that's what mushing is. I love roleplaying games, always have -- but mushing draws me before more grinding-type games because they let me write together with other people. Get feedback. Talk about it in and out of character. Explore my own headspace and theirs. Learn new things.

So, if you ask me, this is very much a writers' thing. It's just important to differentiate between mushing because it's a fun and great exercise and social opportunity, and deluding yourself into thinking that your collaborative fan fiction somehow is the next New York Times bestseller. It's not. But practising and playing may you enable to write that bestseller, some day.

Logging in to discover a log of a scene I was not in, did not know was taking place, and had no influence on -- but it's a direct consequence of a plot I am running, and the player characters are totally into that plot, they picked up all my cues from previous scenes and are energetically comparing notes and coming up with solutions.

@Tinuviel said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:

@A-B said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:

These things are basically my entire social life.

Seriously, don't do that. These things are social, sure, but they cannot replace actual spaces designed specifically for social interaction. They're not that. Make friends, sure, but don't devote your entire life to these things. They are temporary, and your time on them might be even more so.

Just chipping in to say that for some disabled or chronically ill people, at least, that's not really a choice that exists. Not pertaining directly to the situation here which I know nothing about -- just noting that to some of us, online communities are our social interaction. That's definitely not a healthy or desirable situation, but it is how it is.

It still doesn't mean that other players or staff are anyone's unpaid volunteer therapists, though.

Going to just reiterate my agreement -- that ultimately, all of this is about two factors:

Communicating clearly what your game is and who it's for. Don't try to be for everybody.

Make up your mind what game culture you want, and reward the behaviour you want to see more of.

I agree 100% that game culture changes player attitude. I've met people plenty times who were absolutely dicktastic in one environment and the sweetest, laid back people in another. The more competitive the environment, the more toxic, the shittier behaviour. And usually, some vague mumbling about how you have to adapt to a game and find its tone and so on.

For me, the hardest part was finding a game where I felt welcome. I have a few challenges to deal with before I feel that there's room for me in a game.

One is a learning disability; due to chronic pain my capacity for taking in new information is limited -- I can swallow down only so many game commands, setting lore, and background information in one sitting. Games with miles and miles of old history that you are expected to read up on and know before daring to join a conversation -- not happening. If your setting deviates that much from the canon universe, whatever that is, it's not accessible to new people.

Games with complex custom settings and stories that require lots of lore learning before playing are out (looking at a lot of novel or movie setting games here), as are games that require you to learn a ttrpg system (looking at the various WoD games here for sure).

Social anxiety is another. Games where you have to pretty get on your knees and beg in order for older players to notice slash recognise you are out. MU*s are social games -- don't make newbies exist in their own vaccuum for days if you want them to stay. At the very least return IC greetings.

I don't expect roleplay to get handed to me on a platter when I enter a game, but I have had the same experience many times when deciding that I can do this, yes I can -- you get a character through the app process and finally get on the grid, and no one responds to you. You walk into rooms and try to join a conversation and get flat out ignored. You see people who are somehow marked 'helpers' or 'newbie friendly' and send them a whisper or a page -- and get no response. After a few hours of that, I'm out. I'm not going to stay where I am obviously not wanted.

And obviously, the community needs to be tolerable. I've seen some pretty horrific things out there, although the MMO games tend to be a lot worse than the MU*s.

In the end I gave up on MU*s and MMOs alike. I got dragged back in this fall by @JinShei whom I used to play with elsewhere when she was opening her new Discworld themed mush. I am grateful for that because it's a setting I know very well, Ares is ridiculously easy to learn and use, and since I was there from the start, I don't need to bang on doors to get the older players to acknowledge me (though I make a point out of trying to greet guests and newcomers the way I've often wished someone would greet me on a new game).

Amazingly, it looks like my tale of woe got a happy ending.

@Kestrel I am in no doubt that this guy is a very fine specimen of toxic masculinity. He is a textbook example of the stereotypical basement dweller with a grudge-on, all the ability to be bloody annoying, and none of the ability to figure out what it is he actually wants. Besides showing women admins and coders who's boss, apparently.

Someone else mentioned a ban list to be shared among games. I'm not so keen on that idea for multiple reasons.

One, leopards can change their spots. I did talk with someone who's on GH and SS both and at the time we were still in the belief he'd done nothing on SS, we agreed that no, we weren't going to do anything either. Because it is possible for someone to be a dick on one game but not on another, and witch hunts aren't pretty. Our attitude changed rather fast when the connection to what happened to Kestrel was made, obviously.

Second, leopards certainly can change their names. It'd be practically impossible to keep up. I mean, this guy has been recognised over and over on his behaviour, not on his name or IP.

And third, we're it. This board has proved highly effective in dealing with this dude, as has the Discord groups that many of us are in. We talk. When it's bad enough, we act. And if there's anything to be learned from this mess, it's that we're actually pretty good at connecting dots and dealing with things. We can pat ourselves on the back for that. No one started up the old chestnuts about manning up or dealing with it or keep this private. We've proved that yes, we can in fact band together when necessary. And that makes me a happy musher.

When you run an event in which you expect the players to pretty much pull out their switchblades and go to town on a mediocre villain but somehow this scene ends with him crying in a corner while the heroes release every animal in the shelter and flee down the street in a rush of rage fuelled guinea pigs, mice, zebra finches and combat crayfish.

Getting here late, but uh, my 2 kroner.

I create characters that fit the story I want to tell. I do the research I need to, in order to get the basics right. I don't sit down and think long and hard about their skin colour and culture because I am not giving a presentation on it. I'm playing a person. Even when I play literally a white guy whose home address is 10 minutes over from where I live in real life, he's nothing like me. Different experiences shape different people. There are no two members of any ethnicity who are the same, have had the same formative experiences.

I love seeing diversity. I hate diversity taking priority. Play the character you want, and if they're a member of a different nationality, ethnic group, gender or sexuality of your own (and you want to make this an issue in the first place) do some basic research, avoid the most obvious tropes and clichés.

There's a writing exercise I recommend if you're in doubt (like many others here, I am a writer). Write your story with every character as a white male (or whatever your default is). Then roll dice for gender, ethnicity and sexuality. If doing so fundamentally changed your story, then you're not writing people but tropes. Obviously works best in a setting with at least some equity.

On the subject of characters getting hit up for the horisontal mambo? Never happens to me. My characters tend to stay single for the duration of their run. I am a slow burn kind of player, and I think I give off a very obvious vibe that I'm not interested in RP relationships that last three days at best. I use a male top model for a PB on two out of three games so it's not about the looks. Have seen old, disabled, pointedly not attractive characters get pounced on by hornies (yes, old and disabled is considered 'bad' by a certain demographic. I am old and disabled in real life, I get to say it). It's about the way you act, talk, and signal.

And then of course there's that demographic of players where the only thing that matters is that your character has a pulse, but that lot tends to get bored and wander away from me after about three minutes of me pretending not to notice their cleavage or long eyelashes. I am not displeased with this.

@HelloProject ... Yes. Dreadlocks appear in many cultures but contrary to what certain TV shows like to promote, the early medieval period that isn't actually called the Viking Age anywhere historians aren't crying their bitter tears, has left us a fair bit of engravings and pictures of the Norsemen. Short hair and excessive personal grooming were a thing. Giant dreadlock manes were not.

ETA: The reason I laugh, rather than get upset, though is that cultural appropriation this way is annoying but not oppressive. When I stop laughing it's because certain alt-right groups are appropriating so-called viking heritage to peddle their homo superior bullshit.