Posts made by L. B. Heuschkel

@faraday said in Armageddon MUD:

@Ghost I think the key is expectations. People have to not take the game (and their characters) so bloody seriously.

This is something that's come up a few times over at our place recently -- not surprisingly since we are now, what, about a month old, and players have started trickling in without actually being somebody's buddy shanghaied over from that other game over there.

Ours is a game of comedy and satire, and hence, finding the balance between slapstick and gimmicks on one side and the sharp and scathing social commentary of Terry Pratchett on the other, takes effort. It does matter, a lot. Characters who are too pie-in-face-harhar end up not contributing to scenes, in fact killing them dead if they just fall silent after they've done whatever their funny thing is. Characters who are all gritty grimdark take themselves so seriously that in Discworld, narrative tropes almost guarantee they don't live long.

Faraday's point is everything. Take your character seriously enough that you contribute to the game and the story, but not so bloody seriously that you confuse it with yourself. And certainly not so seriously that nothing bad can happen to it, that a trauma conga renders it unplayable. Respect not just your fellow players but also yourself enough to not cross that line.

@Derp No, actually I think we do agree -- particularly if I rush to cede that the main error of the big MMOs is indeed that they try to cater to everyone in order to get their hands into more pockets, and thus end up catering rather poorly.

There's a difference between the game catering to a particular theme and group, though, and the OOC atmosphere. If someone wants to set up a hardcore vampire vore BDSM fetishist anything-you-can-imagine-but-worse mush, let them. Nothing in that says toxic OOC environment. It may be the most supportive, caring OOC environment ever, just like the most bland and boring D&D style my little fuzzball love bear game may have an OOC atmosphere in which grooming and pedophilia is considered par for the course.

I think I was just unclear on the difference between IC and OOC. It's toxic OOC atmosphere that needs considered -- what happens IC shouldn't matter (and in a safe and non-toxic environment usually won't).

One factor which is also somewhat important isn't technological but social. Atmosphere and game culture matters a lot. In a supportive environment that doesn't tolerate stalking, grooming and other abusive behaviour, stalkers, groomers and abusers will be rarer.

Whereas in a toxic community where no one gives a fig in the name of 'free speech', the people who are considered prey will leave. For me, the turning point that made me leave WoW, for instance, was exactly that: I realised I spent one hour in eight actually -roleplaying- and the rest of my communications with other people were either helping them deal with someone being toxic at them, or watching people be toxic at me. Every public statement anyone made seemed to attract a horde of rabid alt-right recruiters, every female had a following of males either trying to get in her pants or telling her off because fuck girls the internet is for porn. The game became a hotbed of extreme rightwing politics, blatant racism and sexism, and Blizzard's infamous stance of 'not violating our community standards', a concept they take to almost Zuckerbergian levels.

At some point it's just enough. People, the sane people, dropped like flies. My friends were gone or leaving. You get off the sinking boat, leave it to the numberchasers and the edgelords trying to out-nazi each other.

TLDR: The first hurdle in preventing online abuse is to create a community in which abusers do not feel welcomed.

Disturbingly shit human being.

That said, I experienced something similar on LegendMUD, decades ago (where staff handled it very well and efficiently, credit to them). A player somehow took control of my husband's character at night, having apparently guessed its password. That was bad enough considering that the 'hacker' devoted several months of time (before discovered) to establishing a relationship with a girl in the US. In fact, we only did discover the whole mess when said girl logged on in Central European Time, to announce that she was flying over to marry my husband.

When we investigated, my husband's character appeared to log on only from our house, just like this piece of walking human waste from Armageddon. I could certainly testify that my husband was in bed or at work at the time stamps of log-on (nevermind the fact that frankly, the English used in his supposed correspondance with American girl was way above my not-English-native speaker husband's levels).

I'm told this is apparently a common thing. Simply copy or spoof the IP address of the person you're harassing.

@Auspice Well said. Especially about the creativity on tap part. I am a writer as well -- now retired and trying to get published, previously a copywriter -- and it could not be more true. I think part of my deep love for mushes and tabletop roleplaying is that it lets you tell a collaborative story, sharpen the pencils of your imaginations, exercise your tropes, and practise your writing all in one -- and have fun at the same time. I am hopelessly addicted to storytelling.

It's just that writing on your own is a very lonely experience. The process from rough storyboard to published novel is literally years, sometimes decades, during which you and your story are entirely alone with each other.

That's why I need to step out of my own head and into a fandom or a game to practise, or the well dries up due to lack of human interaction.

@Auspice said in How to Approach (nor not) a Suspected Creep:
That may be part of why they stand out to me, also.

They do. That certain kind of special, super focused attention that a character, typically male, gives to one other player, typically a slightly insecure female. I've observed it often in my capacity as guild leader, admin and so forth. I tend to present male in games myself, and thus, I get to see it from two angles -- that of recognising the behaviour as something I've seen directed at myself from people who know my OOC gender, and as a fellow male observing someone quietly separating a female from the herd, so to speak.

That's exactly what happens. It's like watching a sheepdog separate that particular sheep from the herd. Singling it out, moving it away, out of reach of the rest.

Typically disguised as special interest, decked out in compliments about good roleplay and interesting background, and then followed with hints and observations that others are not so well intentioned. Be careful with that guild member... Don't talk to her, she gossips... Unspecified dirt, quiet continuous gaslighting. And then, some day, you sit there with this person in tears, when they realise that they've been played, used, and isolated. They leave the game, or at least the social circle, because they feel that they can no longer trust -anyone-. Your game is out one good person and the creep still remains, waiting for his next victim.

Does it always work like that? Of course not. Most IC exchanges, however creepy they may seem, are quite harmless and nothing covert is intended. I've seen this happen to myself and others enough times, however, that my radar is up and when I do spot red flags, I'll rather ask than feel sorry later. Even if it nets me the occasional 'mind your own damn business'.

@Auspice said in How to Approach (nor not) a Suspected Creep:
The white knight, the overly romantic 'husband' material ........ who is somehow in a deeply committed relationship with multiple women at the same time.

That guy managed to singlehandedly drive six female players out of my WoW guild before I realized and kicked him out. He is a pain in the ass.

@Alamias I've played characters many times who were absolutely IC creeps. Lewd, borderline abusive, sleazeballs, you name it. I've never had anyone tell me to back off or that I made them uncomfortable. I have been paged 'not interested, sorry' a few times which I have obviously accepted. Once, 'I'd like you to back off a bit now' which I obviously also accepted, and followed up with an OOC apology and clarification that this was indeed IC, and they were very welcome to kick my character's arse six ways into sundays because yes, he was definitely deserving of it. Ended up playing with that person regularly, on a note, and getting said character's arse kicked a lot.

The kicker there seems to be, at least to me, whether the line in the sand between IC and OOC is crystal clear. A bit of self irony in the poses, a narrative style that makes it evident that you, the player, are aware that you, the character, is out of line, will really go far to make others not question what the hell they're dealing with.

I haven't had much experience with this grey zone; usually, things turn out a lot more black and white. I've certainly had pages as an admin, asking me to please to do something about someone who kept making sexual innuendos and making people uncomfortable. I've also had to ask people to tone it down or make it private because while they were consenting adults, everyone else didn't want to watch it. And in the bizarroland that is video game MMOs, I've had to do the opposite -- tell strangers to shut the hell up and get on with their lives because they were trying to read something sexual into everything so they could do the 'won't somebody think of the children' crusade at us.

I am not convinced that as a stranger you can do anything on the woman's behalf if she does not ask you to. As you say, butting in as a stranger might feel just as creepy as what the other guy is doing. However, if the creepy guy is making you uncomfortable as a third party, there's nothing wrong with letting this show in your own actions and words. Often, this will serve as a hint to victims of creepers that it's okay to ask for help. Or at least to cold shoulder the other guy and hide behind you -- I've done this a few times.

@JinShei Details. I can aim a rulebook and hit a student at 50 paces.

@JinShei I am going to hit these people so hard with every rule and regulation of the Musicians' Guild. I bet they don't even have a license.

@Arkandel said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

@L-B-Heuschkel You can also only read a novel within the scope of what its author wrote down.

Quite. That's why it's a novel, not a roleplaying experience. That comes later, when you create a character to tell your own story in the universe the writer handed to you.

@Coin I am partial to the term 'interactive novel' for games like Skyrim and similar. You get to decide what part of the plot you want to look at and play with, but you can still only play within the scope of what the game designers wrote down.

@Coin said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Keep reading my further posts and you'll see that I deem that not really RP so much as an OOC game. I mean, it exists, but they are two fundamentally different things that have, for some reason, been conflated in some contexts, which is dumb.

This. Nothing wrong with an advancement focused game set in an interesting game setting, and the focus being on getting stuff, grinding experience, and improving.

To be a roleplaying game, the focus must be on playing the role. Video games marketed as roleplaying games, and for that matter, most MUDs I've played, are not. They let you put on another writer's character for a while, and play either a game of 'can you think like the writer of this mystery' or let you play an advancement game on a pretty backdrop.

Each has their place, each are fun to play, but they aren't interchangeable. But this is of course a hill I'm going to die on quite alone because the term roleplaying game was kidnapped and held for ransom when the first text adventure game came out.

Doesn't sound like her, but I suspect there's a substantial number of them out there. People who start out as drama queens and descend into complete catfishes, particularly at the time they begin to realise there's money to be had.

@Tinuviel Considering she went on to scam people into paying for her groceries (homeless and destitute!) and her new laptop (the old one BURNED!), I'm inclined to say she was just pretty damn smart.

@mietze There are, and it really is about getting off on it. There was this woman on a MU I played... Some of us finally started to grok what was going on when we started talking about her, instead of to her (she was expert at keeping relations so that her friends never talked to -each other-).

In the span of a few years she was raped, pregnant, miscarried, pregnant again, miscarried again, abducted, found a dead body, seduced in a romance story worthy of Hollywood, dumped in a ditto, made homeless, opened a shelter for street dogs while homeless, attempted killed by her sister ... the list went on.

Hundreds of people on social media appeared to support her through one disaster after another. Once we started poking... They were all stock photos. Every single one.

@Coin said in Punishments in MU*:

That's not even getting into some people getting approved because staff is their friend and "they can be trusted with this".

Burn it with fire.

@Coin Yes. Very much yes. In case of my WoW example, story and RP was done in spite of the system and code. Which goes to prove that somehow, idiots like me are willing to play a game company for access to their servers, to play a game they don't even offer.

I left that community as it gradually dissolved into an alt-right recruiting ground, but my point remains. Players will endure any game mechanics if they're hooked on story and community (and bail when either of them fail).

@Coin Agreed. I'll play any codebase if the story grabs me. And none if it doesn't. I prefer codebases that emphasise roleplaying and writing over experience grinding and gold chasing, but I think I lost the right to complain about non-roleplay-oriented systems about at the time I did a five year stint as a guild leader on a WoW roleplay server.