@Arkandel Yikes. I mean, you're not wrong, but, yikes. Treating fellow players and admins with respect, and respecting their right to privacy, this is a hill I'm willing to die on. Pity it's such a contested hill because yes, people are assholes.
On the offices thing, a final note: The ironic thing was, we all had an office each, just, we weren't allowed to edit the file it was in. So, utterly pointless. 
@Tinuviel ... But of course. It shouldn't be, but it was. It's not fair, but it's how it is.
Also, yes, oh god, the offices. I never ever used mine. When I was online, I was in the test area, building and testing my code. Or on a regular character, playing. Not sitting behind an imaginary desk in an imaginary office, enjoying imaginary importance.
@JinShei On the first place I played, back in the late 90s, a fellow admin used a command (aptly named 'force') to force a female character to emote how she performed oral sex on him. The player was too indimidated to report it -- we only found out because use of the Force command was logged, and the game's main admins occasionally glanced at the log to see if anything weird was going down. He too was fired, obviously, but it does go to show that yes, even admins will get up to absolutely horrific behaviour, and players won't always feel safe enough to tell you.
@Tinuviel I can grumpy adult with the best of them, I'm a 48 year old disabled person who's stuck at a computer most of the day. 
There's never any court to take appeals to online. Sure, there may be one on paper, but as anyone who's ever argued with Facebook, Blizzard, or any other private company with public access will know, that's just not how it works.
I will always advocate for human decency and mutual respect, and as part of that, the right to have a private conversation. I will also always tell people that there is no such right on the internet -- at least no such right that will not be routinely violated and cannot be enforced. It's not fair, but it's how it is.
@Tinuviel That is indeed why I concede that realistically, you are 100% correct. Regardless of what ethics think.
@Tinuviel Ethically, I disagree with you. Privacy SHOULD be a right.
Realistically, however, you're absolutely correct -- on big business and social media, and on supposedly private channels in-game.
@Tinuviel They will. And they should. Games with untrustworthy admins end up dead in my experience. Which is as it should be.
@Derp Have spotted her a few times poking things with sticks at our place. She's awesome.
@Pandora said in The ethics of IC romance, TS, etc:
Firan staff spied on people IC/OOC and used/abused the info they gleaned on their characters, as well as sharing 'funny' snippets of IC/OOC conversations with others. That's gross imo, crossing the line from watching-to-make-things-better to watching-to-make-things-worse.
That's... not acceptable. I've staffed on various online games, and that's never been acceptable anywhere I've been. It may have happened but I certainly didn't hear about it -- but of course I'm also the kind of person who believe that rules exist for a reason, not to be discarded if I feel like it.
Players have the right to privacy in actions and conversations as long as they are not using that privacy to harass or disrupt a third party. Admins shouldn't be monitoring or reading logs unless there has been a formal complaint and investigation is ongoing.
That said, I've heard this complaint often, and always, the solution offered is the same. If you can't trust your game's admins, take private stuff to Skype, Discord, wherever. Away from the game. Let the admins worry why, in a few years, player activity starts to doze off because people don't feel SAFE in the game.
@JinShei said in Discworld: The MUSH:
That can be arranged.
Yes. As an audience, I want to see this.
NOOOO! As a character, oh hell no, there's only one thing Vimes hates more than Assassins and that's people named Rust!
@Goblin Believe me, being invited for tea and biscuits with Lord Downey, cordially known as the best damn poisoner on the Disc, is mildly unsettling as well, let me assure you.
Next time we face consequences for our actions, let's swap guild leaders?
@Arkandel If your PC is going to cheat IC on another character do you feel obligated to let your partner's player know?
Yes. Any large plot choices that inevitably will affect a character whose roleplay is tied to mine, needs to be discussed with the player of that other character. Otherwise, the risk of drama migrating from the narrative into the OOC far too high. Also, I do not let them know -- I discuss it with them. Letting them know indicates that I have already decided, and am only informing them as a courtesy.
Do you think you are responsible for a character whose roleplay is related to yours if your paths are to separate? In other words do you feel guilty someone else's PC might become quote/unquote unplayable because of your IC choices?
Yes. Again, communication. Before you enter a relationship between characters, discuss what you want from it. Domestic bliss is a nice goal to have IC, but in actually, it's bloody dull roleplay once you get there. I am far more willing to enter an IC relationship where we have decided in advance that this is a slow burn, long term build-up. Happily ever after is not the plot's purpose -- the journey is.
Very closely related to the above, what if the choice that takes a PC mostly off the table is OOC? For instance if you stop being active on my PC's spouse to play an alt with Theno's PC. Do I have the moral high ground to get pissed off?
Depends. You can't ask someone to keep playing a character that no longer interests them, for whatever reason. You can ask them to provide closure, however, so that the story of your character can move on. Their character may file for divorce, die, move out of the country, anything that works for the both of you, and lets your own character get on with their life.
I've been burned on this one a few times so nowadays I create transient characters. They may enter relationships but their basic attitude to life is that people come and go, and while you may be here today, you might as well be gone tomorrow. Enjoy the other person while they're there, and don't plan too long term.
When it comes to TS what's the correct way to suggest it? Do you let the RP become more explicit until the big words come out or you get told no? Do you page the other player first and explicitly ask if they want to do it? Something else?
TS is not my goal when roleplaying but I will act it out if I feel it has narrative qualities; I'm not interested in text porn for its own sake. At the point where a YA novel would do a fade to black I page the other player and ask their preference, possibly a little earlier. Since none of my characters engage in sexual encounters out of the blue, I imagine that I already am quite aware at this time whether the other player is just in it to get off, in which case I am not likely to engage.
Assuming OOC consent between adult players is there anything in an IC relationship, including TS, that you consider unethical?
No. There are things I personally wouldn't want to be part of roleplaying, but what happens between other, consenting players is none of my business as long as it's done in private.
Sitting in the barn with my horse, listening to her chewing her hay or keeping still as she naps with her head resting on my shoulder. I am ever baffled that 800 kilos of muscle horse can and will treat my disabled self as if I was her baby, made from glass.
@JinShei To be fair, we're not really competition to the MUD. We don't offer the extensive geography, economy, experience, and combat system that the MUD does. The MUD, on the other hand, doesn't do much in terms of roleplaying. Seems to me that we should be able to co-exist quite nicely, and might even end up sending players each others' way.
@JinShei Speaking as the Assassin who's in trouble... We're having a party. Even if I am going to have quite a bit of trouble explaining to Lord Downey why exactly I was seen climbing in through a Palace window. Oops?
@JinShei Gee. I know what I'm doing, I really do. Except when I don't.
@JinShei Please tell me I didn't post in the wrong place. I'm new to this forum, it probably shows.
@JinShei Ankh-Morpork: Where the best meet and the worst thrive.
Ankh-Morpork: Where your boots know the names of the streets better than you do.
Ankh-Morpork: Our vampires don't sparkle.
Ankh-Morpork: Join the Watch before the Watch joins you.
Ankh-Morpork: We'll rule you wholesale.
I'm for it. A number of friends have declined invitations with 'no thanks, already tried that a few years back' and they are clearly confusing us with DiscworldMUD. Probably best to sort that out or we'll have a very confused, partially shared player base. The time to rebrand is now, not later.
I suggest keeping the website url though, or at least redirecting from it, so that people Googling for "discworld game" are likely to find us as well, based on the algorithm.
@WildBaboons Some of us are horrible lore nerds who do in fact have memorised most of 41 novels, three movies, two animated movies, a few theatre plays, and a number of short stories, plus the cast for the upcoming Watch series.
Thing is, we don't bite.
Discworld runs on archetypes and tropes. You don't need to know much beyond the very basics of fantasy literature to be able to follow what's going on. Pratchett wrote about people and fantasy tropes foremost, setting second. Sure, some references will go over your head, but when they do -- we're happy to explain. All in all, I say come on over, we'll probably spoil the heck out of the best books but it'll be worth it.