Best posts made by lordbelh

My grandpa died recently (which is a bummer), and he had a sailboat that I've been doing all the maintenance work for the last decade and a half. Its a real beauty, this glorious teak deck and interior, and it sails like nothing. These days it's a bit small compared to the others around (33' when everywhere they're rocking 40' and 50's these days), but its built like they don't quite do anymore (unless you're paying in the millions) so its fairly roomy anyway. Its stable, designed for ocean sailing.

Anyway, while I just don't have the time to use it enough to justify keeping it, I took a 'farewell' trip, a week long sail down the coast of Norway with a friend, picking up my cousin on the way. It was just so freaking glorious. First day they promised lots of wind in our back and sunshine. Got out on the water? No wind. But we were bobbing along, and then in front of us we see this big black wall. A massive thunderstorm coming in. But we got the wind, suddenly! Even if was a headwind, but that's fine, the lady sails really well even close against it. And the storm just blew right next to us, so we got 15 minutes of downpour, then it was bright and sunny again. Off the the rainclothes, back to shorts and no t-shirts. Behind us it was this gorgeous display of awesome lightning, shooting down like an orbital bombardment. The rest of the week, all kinds of weather, all kinds of winds. When you sail along a broken coast like Norway, the wind is really unpredictable like that, but that just added to the fun of it. We had sunshine, we had downpour, but it always broke up so it didn't become a drag.

We sailed the whole week, barely using the engine when we had to get into some tricky ports. One beer for lunch (don't drink and drive, kids, even on the sea), but every evening we had a few. The food was great (friend's a great cook, even in the tiny galley he did wonders), and thankfully my cousin became the cabin boy, so he did the dishes. As captain, I could just have my beer outside and grin!

It was just a wonderful farewell with my gramps, and to the boat that I am now debating if I'm going to keep anyway. Though between it, and the dingy, and the boathouse, and helping keep grandma's house in order, my own place, I just.. bah! We'll see.

The trip took us past glaciers, inbetween fjords, and across a couple of really rough ocean stretches. The latter became our bane on the way back. The weather was nice, and we thought we'd be good.. but the massive swells and the headwind.. and then knowing 30 minutes behind us lay a safe port and all the beer we wanted, sort of killed our adventuring spirit. We took it the next day instead.

Anyway, life can be great.

Haven't played in a year I think, not since I was on Savage Skies. Which was a real good game with great people that I thoroughly enjoyed, but I fell out due to a work overload and never managed to get myself back into. Anyway, I had some real enjoyable RP the other night, and I just reminded me about why I fell for the hobby in the first place. Just letting the imagination go, and tossing ideas back and forth, building on each others' writing to craft something fun and engaging. Good times!

Perhaps it wont be a year until I do it again.

I wasn’t really planning on saying more for a while, but hell.

I can’t claim I’m entirely without fault here. It takes two to tango. Without going into the details right now, I put in a Crisis action that channeled some of my recent frustrations with the game. Rereading it, I can’t say I would’ve written it quite that way again, as Hellfrog wasn’t wrong when she detected passive aggressive frustration there and a distinct lack of enthusiasm for her story. Whatever justifications or context I might provide doesn't really matter, because it was quite obviously a mistake that I own.

I was asked to leave when I explained what prompted it. I realized that I should probably just say ‘okay’ and left it at that, but I didn’t. It would be disingenuous of me to then protest on some level I didn’t walk myself right into the ‘if you feel that way, it’s best you should leave’ ending. With the should not being optional. The cat was out of the bag, regardless of any willingness to keep any frustrations in check in the future. It was clear Hellfrog thinks I am a toxic and antagonistic player, and this has been her opinion of me for quite some time.

I don’t walk away with a hate-boner for Arx. They didn’t think I was a good fit, and that’s their prerogative. When there is no trust left between player and staff, what's the point? While I have a lot of thoughts about Arx and its state, I’m going to take a break from it all before I write anything more about it, if I ever do.

Mostly I’m just a bit disappointed with the ending after a year on the game. I liked Victus, the character becoming something different than originally designed through a lot of great interactions and organic roleplay. As he kept complaining: Arx will corrupt anyone if given enough time. So again, to those of you I rped with, thanks. I would’ve kept playing if I’d been allowed, but I suspect some of my enthusiasm was already dead. My joy came from my interactions with players, not the game world or its story.

@Sunny said in The 100: The Mush:

Hold up. Let me say something here very clearly, because I have put forth firmly worded negative opinions. You are not a bad staffer. You are an incredible storyteller, you have good intentions, you treat people with respect, and you're reasonable. I could probably think of a dozen other things that you excel at, where staffing is concerned.

I'd agree with that.

It'd be a shame if @GirlCalledBlu stopped making games. Because, unlike what @ghost seems believe, people not making games is way worse than a game not being up to everybody's standards of perfection.

The idea that everybody'd been better off without @GirlCalledBlu and @Seraphim73 making the 100 is patently false. Because people had fun. Because whatever disappointments were had, including that it shut down, is vastly outweighed by all the tons of fun people had on the game.

Things could've been done better. But lets keep that in perspective.

I think the most constructive path forward would've been to just cancel every last ban that happened. They were an unhelpful over-reaction to a situation that would've burned itself out if the response hadn't been so pointlessly heavy-handed.

That they didn't follow Gany's request for silence was utterly predictable. This forum, along with its predecessors (and now successor forum), was based on the idea of a place to voice the community's opinions without being beholden to the powers-that-be on the various different games we play on. It was somewhere you could stand on your soap-box and decry abuses of power, and ridicule the small tyrants that make themselves large in insulated communities. And yeah, it was a place to meet, chat, have fun, and also revel in the positive aspects of our hobby.

But the foundation was always a pretty big fuck you to the man. There was simply no way your call for silence could've engendered any response but what it did, and when you decided to enforce your authority with bans, well, that enforced the idea that you were that petty tyrant. And the righteous thing was to tell you off.

Gany, you dealt with this like you were an arbiter in a court, aloof and above the rest. You're not and you never were. You were a custodian in a town square, and while your authority here on this site is absolute, it only really matters as long as the village thinks you're good.

There's now a new forum. There's a split in the community, and the community part of this forum is honestly the only reason I pay much attention to it, so I find that a real shame. A large part of the blame for that has to be on you mods. If we're now stuck with two paralell forums, and two town squares, the least you can do is throw an olive branch out and clean the slate on your part of this mess.

Sure, there were two sides. Frankly I found the initial Derp situation went way beyond what was reasonable. That Farfalla is back suggests the second situation wasn't. Either way, it was handled horribly.

So unban everybody. What does it cost? Nothing. If they asked to be banned in the heat of the moment, or threw out some angry words while angry, well, shit happens. People say and do things when angry and full of emotions. Making them have to come and ask to return is just petty, though. If you unban, perhaps they will. Perhaps they wont. But its one less divisive wound in the community, even if everybody continues to stay on their side of the new lines.

Just my thoughts.

I'm the kind of RPer who really doesn't talk to people all that much OOC about what I want from my scenes, or my relationships, or the direction I'm looking to take my character in. My general philosophy is what happens, happens, and part of the fun is the mystery of it. Its not to say I can't be coaxed into talking about these things, its just that I never initiate them myself. The only exception is re-made relationships in which you need to have a common ground of understanding to portray said relationship accurately going forward (whether that relationship is romantic or sibling of parent or friendship or hated enemies).

As an extension, I don't really think I've ever discussed what I want out of a TS scene. I've never asked anyone if they want to bump the uglies in text. Often what I write isn't even what would actually get my knockers off properly, which is not to say I'll not get aroused. Its just, you know, personally I don't find blood spraying everywhere to be particularly sexy, but if I'm playing a vampire they rarely get all that interested unless you offer them blood, too. And if my character has gotten drunk as part of the foreplay, it should shock nobody if he (occasionally she) falls asleep, or abruptly has to run (stumble and fall on the way) to the toilet.

Anyway, I do know I like certain styles. I like sharp descriptions (as opposed to the vague 'she got naked'), I like it blunt and to the point action. I don't like endless flowery rants or internal monologues of this is the best and its love and wow lets go to heaven together. I'm very okay with temporary awkwardness and things getting derailed.

I can count on one hand the amount of times I've actually TSed over the last year, though. That by itself keeps things a bit fresh, I suppose. I will quickly use FTB and one-post summaries, or make it all about the sexposition (thank you GoT for that word!) if the sexytimes come in too rapid succession. If I portray a relationship often a scene set will be post coital, so the sex is part of the background, but you know, its already done so lets get our clothes back on and focus on the story going forward.

@Ghost said in The 100: The Mush:

To 100 staff: Stop running games and opening mushes unless you are willing to let others craft the story and affect the metaplot. No one wants to hang around a railroad to support your characters in fulfilling your stories. This kind of behavior will contribute to souring an already dying and difficult hobby.

I think telling people not to make games is a sure fire way to bring your doomgloom about. Seriously, its perfectly fine to criticize people for the mistakes they make. I think these staffers made quite a few, and though I'll blame RL for me fading out initially, a lot of those choices probably contributed to me not returning.

But I have to say, it seems like an epic fucking lack of perspective if you think that just because you feel (and I even concur to a certain extent, though nearly as far as you and others have said) they hogged a bit too much of the lime light, they shouldn't have made the game in the first place. Seriously? Its not like anyone has been accusing them of being the kind of crazy malicious mean people that sometimes do end up in charge of MUs. They make games they want to play, and then lose a bit of perspective as to just how inclusive they're being. I didn't see once that they tried to shut people out. In fact, even as some seriously negative players were bitching, those players still got to rise up as far as I saw.

They made a game that for the most part, a lot of people enjoyed. They added something to the community, however short lived. I hope they make more games, hopefully better games. Perhaps I'll even play one of them. But its not a crime to want to play the labor of love you've put together.

Frankly most crazy I saw on this game, were the people who playing there, yet went on and on about how this was just like the last game and how they were still hogging everything. At which point I had to wonder what pathology would make anyone who seriously thought this couple was the worst, would still come and play on their game and keep playing there, all the while paging people about how bad it was. (My response was pretty much 'you should probably leave, then'.) That's dysfunction.

@Arkandel I have to admit I just hate the you, and slap that on to a TS scene and it will make me run for the hills.

That feeling you get when you finished something, and it was good work, and you can actually feel a bit proud of yourself.

Honestly, I don't see why the game needs male channelers. The setting is pretty specific, and the contrast between how a small segment of females wield awesome world-changing power (and are either revered or vilified - and always feared - for it) while much of the lower-rung society is male dominated is one of the more interesting aspects. Or course it's not universal - in Andor women seem pretty darn independent, and the sea folk are ruled by women.

I used to love the setting when I was younger. And though the world itself is still pretty awesome, occasionally Jordan's writing and characterization (especially of some of the female characters) was pretty cringe-worthy when I reread all the books in an adult age in preparation for the Sanderson conclusion.

Anyway, I'd certainly give a WoT game a gander.

STing means penalizing your own character. Having something to make up for that seems perfectly legit to me. You don't want your STs to be losing out becase they're dedicating time to make other people's fun.

@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.

ETA: We were still existing in the same game. A shared environment in which what I do affects what you do. Even if that's just to walk away. And this is somewhat of a peeve of mine: But I do feel like there are way too many players who rather than share would own this environment, making every other character and player but a bit piece in their grand story, to be straight up ignored and set aside if they feel like it. And I think ownership of public spaces is part of it.

@Kanye-Qwest I'm going to preface this by saying I really like your game (and you are an integral part of that), and this comes from that place:

Making responses that come off as petty, defensive, vindictive and antagonistic on a thread about your own game is not a good look, especially when its directed at fairly benign system design disagreement.

It might just seem like a part of a small feud on MSB, but when its here and about the game, it creates an impression.

That in turn will likely to some extent translate into the game, and its interactions. Fairly or unfairly, most players have come across staffers who confirm to those qualities and it wasn't pretty. Seeing you display them here is likely to make 'em crawl under a stone instead of engaging with you (or at least start that process). That just leaves things festering.

So in the future I'd encourage you (and this generally goes for any staffer on any game who wants the best for that game) to just take the high road. Show your best face. There are a host of unintended consequences for not doing it. Pursuing feuds do nothing for you.

Coming late to the party:

I think what MUsoapbox does is offer a sense of community, and a places to air both thoughts and grievances that are sometimes legitimate and sometimes not. But in general its a net positive to the community. I know people who will deride it, but they still read a lot of it, and reference it.

I use it less than I used to, partly because I feel a lot of the discussions are recycled. There's only so many times you can chew on the same issues before they've lost all flavor and texture. I would've loved it if more people used it, and it had a wider field of opinions and viewpoints.

I don't think its as much of an echo chamber as some people would say. I disagree with too many people here on too many things, including people whose opinions I'll still respect even if I think they're full of bullshit on occasion. People will argue back and forth, and if some new posters feel they're getting piled on I think its often because the old crowd have seen and cut through their (new to them, old to others) arguments so many times that it becomes almost by rote.

But if its not an echo chamber, then its still limited by its prevalence of WoD leaning players.

I only saw a bit of Wora before it ended. I thought it too was a net positive, but I didn't like it very much.

Since this is a thing:

@The Rock Bottom
Recket, Mage of the Order of Hermes

@TR
Faolan 'Lonnie' O'Rourke, a mortal officer of the law.
Other characters I never played very long.

@Steel & Stone
Ser Harold Charlton, the old warhound.

@Wand & Witchcraft
Alphard Pollux Black, the wizard who could.

@Reno
Tommy, Bruja

@Requiem For Kingsmouth
Caesar, Mortal Cop
David, Mekhet schemer.

@BITN
Buddy the Deadbeat

@Arx
Victus Thrax, bastard warlord.
Gerry Taken, fence and leatherworker (whom I admittedly barely play.)

Briefly I've bounced around other games, but not very long. These are the ones who stick to mind. I haven't been MUing all that long, or so it feels like. Before I got into MUs I did irc rp, and before that I was doing MSNChat rp.

Anyway. If you know me, knew me, saw me around but never got around to play with me, feel free to drop me a nudge and we could fix that! I try not to be terrible, even if I sometimes am. I'm currently in a bit of an RP slump, but trying to jolt my way out of it.

@Bennie You are a fucking troll.

I've had plenty of characters I've enjoyed, but some do shine a bit brighter in my memory than others. On MUs, I suppose these three stand out the most:

Faolan O'Rourke, a rundown and lazy 'old hand' in The Reach's Police Department. I loved the Law Sphere and its sense of community, and the small beat cop moments that some pretty great storytellers wove. And of course the people were (if not universally) pretty great. At least the ones I had anything to do with. He nearly had a heart attack getting shot at, fell into a massive depression after being dragged into a ghost story (he was willfully ignorant of the greater world of darkness), and had a chance to educate some new grunts from the academy in the best ways of avoiding a) working too much, b) where to get the best food for extended lunch breaks, c) how to get other people to do your paperwork and d) survive!

David Wright-Phillips Austere, of RfK. I find it hard to count the brilliant moments of fun on that game, even if it had its share of great frustrations as well. He was only really supposed to be a Carthian to look after his ward, while trying to convert her into proper Circleness, but for various reasons he ended up deep in the Carthian conspiracies. I'm still a bit sad that the first version died before he had a chance to seize the reigns of Prince, since I'd have loved to see the fallout of all the double dealing scheming he'd been up to to secure it. Shoutout to @Ganymede 's Cai, who was delightful, and @Caryatid 's Nora, and @mietze 's cannibal ghoul (the things you can bond over). The dynamic he had with Baptiste was pretty great, too. Both working for the cause, but with all the tension of ambitions vampires with opposing religious views. They orchestrated the ascensions of the Movement and the overthrow of the Invictus. He always intended to make Baptiste pay for making David beg forgiveness for insulting Phineas, (Phineas' condition for being Baptiste's Sheriff and supporting his Praxis), though. No, neither being made Seneschal or the boon covered the burning humiliation of that moment, not even by a long shot!

Alphard Pollux Black, of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I pretty much made him just for a lark. He was obnoxious, and terrible, and quite easily manipulated by preying on his various bigotries or oversized ego. Both happened quite a lot, which I greatly enjoyed. He was also the butt end of many a joke, and that was sort of the point, too. I remember best Ria, and Medusa, Andromena, Douglas and Julian, and all that Harry Potter hijinxing.

With honorable mentions to brutish Victus Thrax, the always cowardly Corrigan (Pete, you should've listened when he said he was going to run away. RIP, buddy), the always dependable Ser Harold Charlton, and vamp-hater Recket with his endless supplies of fireballs.

@Miss-Demeanor Eh. A very big eh. People are supposed to not play bitchy/assholey characters on a game full of delinquent teenage PCs, because some people would like more IC conscientious characters? I would very much hate a game where Staff went: 'please guys, make your characters nicer, we're getting a reputation.' My thought would be: a game that isn't reduced to hug town is a great place to be. Mind, my experience of the game leans heavily towards there's tons of friendly hugtown style play on it, with only a handful of really abrasive characters.

This thread is the thread I didn't know I wanted, but sure chuckled mightily over while drinking my coffee.

@Miss-Demeanor said in The 100: The Mush:

@lordbelh I wasn't talking about characters in that instance, I was talking about players. If your fun, as a player, is SO dependent on being able to be a dick to anyone, anywhere, anytime... to the point that you can't accept toning down your character's IC attitude just a little so others can enjoy the game too? Then yes, you're an asshole. But that's something you have to answer for yourself.

There is antagonism that is game ruining. But nothing I've seen on the 100 even approaches that level of antagonism. There's no stomping on people's throats in gangs of roving assholes, tormenting every newcomer on the game with spears pointed and demands for their stuff or die. There's no crowd of bitching harpies whom every one of them will snark at your every word and your every move.

If your whole fun is predicated on destroying other people's fun, then sure, you should probably reevaluate what you're doing. But its a fact of life that everybody will not like everything equally. I'd rather not water down my RP just to suit someone else's temperament. I'd rather they found a different someone to play with, or just a different game entirely. Which some have, obviously. But every game doesn't have to be everything for everybody, so that's fine to me. You think the game has too much antagonism, and that's okay. But I don't share that opinion, and I think that if you water the game down I'll probably be the one to leave. Hell, if anything I'd like more fights. With conflict people get to show their characters for whom they really are.