Best posts made by mietze

A kickass person (not me) found a PB for my latest character, when I've been struggling a great deal and frankly with RL exploding I've barely had time to pick my nose, much less look around for a PB!

Tonight at pickup the parents of a kid notified the director that they found out yesterday they were exposed to someone outside their family who has tested positive, and that they'd be picking up their kid early tomorrow because the whole family was going to get tested now. When pointed to the health and safety policy, flimsy ass paper shield that it is, that has been in place since they first enrolled their kid they got pissed off, and said why should they not be able to use the daycare, if their kid doesn't have a fever.

Since the center I work at is a shitty corporate one, we have no janitorial service (the closers like me decontaminate stuff every nigh with our cheap ass stuff), and one break room that is not legally large enough for more than 1 person to be at a time as well as a single bathroom for the entire staff of 30. Did I mention that we have no sick leave, no PTO, no paid holidays, and if the center closes (as we will need to, for 2 weeks, if anyone in that family tests positive) nobody gets paid?

All because some entitled shitty people decided to not follow the quarantine policy if they travelled out of state (as per local health guidelines, also posted prior to thanksgiving) and didn't know to just lie about exposure. I guess I could have more empathy if this was a struggling family. They're not. They just don't want to hire a nanny. (They regularly flout pick up times/center closing time too, and laugh off the late fee, 'oh, is that it? that's cheaper than the hourly rate of the daycare at my gym!')

I guess it's better than the other center in my town operated by the same corporation, who had a mom who /had covid/ bring her kid in for days because she needed the rest, without notifying staff of her infection, until the kid was sent home one day for developing a fever during the day. (And no, that family wasn't kicked out either).

I'm not terribly worried about getting the virus from this incident because it's in a class way far away from me, I am religious about masking and hand sanitizer and hand washing throughout the day, and I don't set foot in the breakroom. But I'm so fucking tired. And in my state, child care workers under the age of 60 don't get vaccinated until April.

I'm just sad, angry, depressed, incredulous at how fucking selfish people are. And honestly, I'm pretty sure we already have many more people who are sending their kids after known exposure, or ignoring travel quarantine policies, it's just that they're not so brazen as to not even try to lie about it. And you know, oddly enough, it's /never/ the parents working two jobs who actually probably do need to keep puttng their kids in daycare beause if they don't work they don't get paid sick leave/PTO either.

Oh well though, still less stressful than fielding suicidal calls and helping distraught people watching their entire financial life obliterated or mourning the lost of both their parents in isolation, while being punched in the face with "why u not sell 100 credit cards this week" and "omfg your MPS score is only 85 why is it not 100" business morning huddles every morning at the bank!

Probably because like many things consent/non-consent is not either/or but a spectrum.

If you don't think that any PC should be able to rape another PC as long as they have the dice to force them into unconsciousness in combat, and that the player of the raped PC should then have to play out the consequences of that happening, why are you playing on a non-consent game?

Gillette, I have played on games where revoking consent or hiding behind a consent policy did mean removal from play and/or staff intervention to not allow that player to wiggle out of it.

I have yet to see doxxing here or RL pictures posted or encouragement for people to go outside MSB to harass someone (if there's even a whiff it gets slapped down). Saying here is as bad as WORA is hyperbole, to be honest.

In fact, I see people calling each other out on their personal hypocrisy far less than they could. And generally there's a devils advocate or challenger for every negative thing said.

I am pretty sure this is largely due to the aging of the mush population and everyone even those dreaded shut ins having lives and options other than mushing, so people just let a lot of shit go. Which is good, imo, even if not always appreciated.

Or getting pissed/indignant/betrayed when it does.

To be fair, this happens in every organizational adult group I've been part of too. Workplace, PTA, professional associations, political parties, animal rescues, blah blah blah.

Collaborative storytelling and ooc socializing/community with peers (people who enjoy collaborative storytelling and RPGs). Since I can't really do a tabletop every other week or weekly due to life in general, breaking that up into chunks while the kids are asleep or when I had time was really enjoyable.

I find mushers tend to be really interesting people. I have friends that I've now had for like half my lifetime now, because of mushing, seen their kiddos grow up, etc. I have friends I enjoy talking to now and then from all over the world. When I was a kid and college student I used to have many pen pals (I still do have 1 of them!), and honestly I think the connection is much the same.

Why I don't play now?

Twofold. One is basically life. My oopsie baby is at the age that makes playing pretty hard (unlike the noob grub stage where I mushed almost as much as my earliest days because all he did was sleep, boob, and poop, so I could babywear with my laptop). I'm also involved in the local political scene so many nights/weekends are occupied. And I'm trying to soak up as much time as my teenagers will allow me to, with them: I'm launching 3 young adults into the world in less than 4 years. I have some health issues that complicate things too that I don't wish to subject people to that aren't close friends!

The other is that I had a situation that was a close mimicking of what made me step way far away from mushing after Ashes to Ashes; I don't really feel it's fair to play if you cannot be open and cheerful to new people and not viewing all interactions through the lens of a hurtful situation. So it's easy (however much I miss telling stores with my lovely lovely partners and meeting new people) to just bow out for the moment. When I was ready to come back after A2A there were a lot of new things (like wikis, no masq, new editions of game rules, etc) but it was easy to join in the fun and the new stuff was pretty neat. So I'm not worried about entering back in when the time is right and I will have the right attitude.

I know some people that are coarse as can be here (though I wouldn't term them mean or anything, but blunt yes.), but in game they are even keeled, polite, respectful, dare I say professional in dealing with others. And there are some people here that talk up positive things that they have a history of crapping all over in game, and can be downright nasty and destructive.

But this isn't a thing unique to here. I've met enough mushers to have folks I adore ooc and RL that I don't click with or relate to in game and vice versa.

what I have enjoyed most is the fact that most people are willing to disclose who they've played. While that has sort of happened on previous boards, it really was so not a safe environment (because of the doxxing and multi platform harassment amongst other things). So it's nice to see that people are willing to share who they've played.

Having read electric soup at its most active, more or less the same pattern took place there without the distraction of poop throwing.

And as we have also seen time and again, there are definitely people who are bound and determined to show you how much of an ass they are even if they never break a rule. Including anti-profanity and anti-attack.

I think having "no negativity" can be a problematic descriptor because that's definitely in the eye of the beholder. Waxing poetic about how superior one's play style/conduct is has no negatively per se, but it's certainly been used here and elsewhere to beat people with or attempt to intimidate them. Fortunately those folks tend to be just as easily spotted.

I think once you've played on 3+ games, it's pretty intuitive to take ANY review or issue, positive or negative, with a grain of salt. It's why I think very little harm is done to games by "negative" reviews. I do think damage can be unwittingly done by a stampede/rush/extremely high expectations based on a positive review though.

So it would just plainly be better if people just read things as opinions. I'd say leave the princessing or the eeyoring out of it all, but that's just a personality thing that you'll never be rid of. It's not super hard to just read and get a feel for folks.

What's wrong with staff saying "Clearly you've put thought into this and we respect that but it's not a direction the game is going to go, no matter what you roll, by our choice?"

There's no need to do weird contortions to justify it, just say "We don't want that within the scope of the game."

Will some players get huffy or feel constrained? Yes. Would they have probably found something else to bitch about? Yes. Is it unreasonable for players to have the expectation that they have truly free reign without boundaries to change anything at all in the game environment whenever they wish to start rolling for it or because they want to? Yes. Has our community coddled this a bit by letting people down easy, throwing down false mechanical barriers, and deflecting the question so as not to cause a fit? Yes.

As to course corrections player to player--unless you have a cordial ooc relationship with that player or they ask you point blank...don't. Do not offer unsolicited advice. It will likely be received in the same manner that you'd feel where they to tell YOU how to play (their way) on the same game. Limit your play with them if you truly can't stand it.

If staff doesn't notice flagrant violations of theme in their presence or promotes that player despite their obvious lack of interest in the theme ooc and sloppy attention to what other people are doing--then honestly the problem is not the player. It's the staff. Don't blame a player for destroying theme immersion that the staff is unwilling or unable to deal with.

@Ganymede

You know what the sad thing is? Honestly having this process of experimentations and inevitable failures within the likely scope of the game could be so so so much fun to play. I once played an engineer on Fading Suns who pretty much just took apart and tried to figure out odd artifacts and tech. Pretty much I was given carte Blanche (within reason) to have in a scene some gadget she was tinkering with do amazing things as long as a) they were not useful, and b) the item was totally destroyed by the end of the scene. For anything that could be useful for her or used against any other PC I had to go through a pretty laborious real time waiting and working on things (though that was super fun too honestly).

It was pretty fun to play a crazy inventor/reverse engineer! Even though it didn't really win her social points with the other pcs icky.

So really why someone would bitch about having to go through extended trials and errors is hard for me to wrap my mind around, it would give you more motivation and things to talk about icly than a lot of people have outside sob stories!

Back when I was an active scene runner/prp person for vampire and werewolf and law, I just asked for the people signed up (or who'd requested I run a story for them) to privately disclose any "no go" areas/themes for them. Then I could privately advise them to either not participate or if possible alter some details that I knew about in advance.

To be honest, I think a lot of players like to be surprised/to feel unscripted/have to think on their feet. Unlike a published prewritten article, a plot is something that can change/move due to the dynamics of the people in it (in theory anyway). If you have to give a rundown summary that removes some of that element. Or it desensitized people to content warnings over time. I know some problematic people who will indeed file complaints/scream at people over certain content that regularly signed up for scenes in which warnings of a general but accurate sort were given. They had lots of friends going and didn't want to not sign up, and then targeted the runner for their abuse. Now the same thing could be said of privately asking, but I had a lot more success with it, both in being able to tailor the scene without anyone's knowledge into something enjoyable for everyone, including me--but also in feeling more entitled to then boot/remove a player being a dick afterwards and protect other players vs. needing to focus all my attention on a player freaking out after they'd been given a opportunity to proactively disclose their Do Not Go areas.

Yes, that is cold to some extent. But a) I no longer tolerated people using MUSHing as their therapy/other players as their whipping boys/girls due to other issues and b) got sick of the squeaky wheel/needy player in the scene in progress slowing things down/wasting the time of other players that were GGG (Good, Giving, and Game). I'm a nice, considerate person in RL and most of the time in game. But when it comes to running a scene or plot, I prefer to protect the experience of the quiet people too, and respect everyone's time by avoiding derailing ooc behavior.

I think as long as the runner has given each person ample opportunity to disclose their NOPE areas, then the responsibility lies on the triggered person to quickly and with minimal ooc disruption exit the scene. And I agree with Coin, that it also is very annoying when someone decides to roll into a sphere that is obviously not going to be something they can thematically handle, and then proceeds to bitch/try to change/vomit their discontent all over people who are playing canon theme.

@Arkandel Yeah, I paged or mailed every one ahead of time and also checked in for boundaries before the scene kicked off with everyone assembled. And also requested that if there was an element they couldn't handle for any reason to page me immediately to see if it could be resolved for them to continue or to allow me to work with them for quick no harm no foul exit.

If someone got nasty ooc or harassed other people in the name of their upset, I booted them and apologized to the others.

Ghost, this is why I prefer, as a scene runner, to at least have an open invite to conversation one on one on the table.

Granted, as a PrP runner usually I will never have to deal with relationship issues, ect, because those tend to be a private RP thing (and thus all the labels in the world will not prevent people from going apeshit or running away, they need conversation at least of the "what are your boundaries" variety--which for some people may legitimately be 'I don't want to talk about this OOC ever, it is what it is, no backsies' in which case the other player needs to decide if they can cope with that, ect.).

I do think virtually all "emotional separation issues" stem from reluctance/inability/unsuccessful communication between the two (or more) people involved.

And you know, I have actually, in the course of running a PrP or action scene for people who were not my friends or I had had minimal contact prior to that point, had players say to me privately "You know, I've had a really shitty day/week. I would like things to not be nuanced, and preferably I'd like to at least have some sort of a 'win'." And we all had a wonderful experience. Or, midway through a law scene I ran, someone disclosed to me that they were starting to feel a little anxiety (not because of graphic content, but becuase they were feeling sensitive and were anticipating stuff) and asking for a spoiler/reassurance that it was NOT <subject>.) That too was happily and safely and privately resolved.

In none of those cases would a blanket warning have helped. Nor would a general warning. Nor would have preferences entered the month before at chargen or even a week before when they signed up for the scene, or even 48 hours before.

If people cannot fucking bother to talk to each other, then I don't know what on earth we can do to make a collaborative community scene work.

No, I would not. I have had friends also check me (though I've never had to be disciplined in game, because it's relatively easy for me personally to maintain separation). The ability to be honest and to think in broader terms than "must keep friend happy at all costs" is not a rare commodity in our community. We bitch like it is, but IME it is not.

I think that we often as a community attempt many things to depersonalize the conversation or attempt at prevention to save our perception of comfort (but every human organization or group does this).

But it's not rare for someone to tell a friend "no" or "you need to step back" on a mush.

To be clear, absolutely clear--I am in no way opposed to content warnings, and I apply them in every scene I run whether or not the game requires it.

My opposition is only to the express idea that we could or should put into place a system that removes any expectation of personal communication between players, because some people with triggers don't ever want to have to disclose they have them because they are so avoidant.

I do not care if there's a coded +triggers thing; though I don't have much faith given how many players across all genres neglect to keep things like +info updated as time goes on, that it would be super helpful where it's most needed.

I do very much care about a stated attempt that there should be no expectation of direct communication between people doing a prp or other scene together. I do think it is kind of a paper shield, because if at the start of a spontaneous or last minute scene, if I scene runner pull my +trigger command and see that there is one person that has "please no mention of suicide" in the anonymous feedback response and I say "tonight for this cop scene you will be encountering an apparent suicide" and that person leaves then here then their expectation of total anonymity is destroyed too, and I'd worry if no one leaves that it means I have an extremely avoidant person here now that will not say anything at all but will be damaged.

I really do not at all see why the problem with blind, no communication strategies in dealing with player discomfort is so hard for people to see. I think it encourages terrible habits and game culture. And I would not feel safe playing on a place that actively encourages people to think that personal communication about issues in scenes is optional, rather than expected.

Aside from Shadowrun games, the only crime interaction I've had on a MUSH is at TR.

In my observation, there are a couple of unique problems with keeping "crime sphere" PCs occupied:

*As someone mentioned upthread, there is an not-insubstantial number of very individual/loner people who have no OOC inclination or IC motivation to band together. This makes PrPing and ST difficult if those people are not go getters and willing to take turn running their own prps and events for each other. Which tend to lead to:

*I've noticed a lot of crime PCs really seem resentful towards LEO PCs for not providing them with RP (normally in the form of here, you try and catch me and I'll get away since I think your stats/abilities can't possibly trump mine). They see cop PCs have events and such, and I wonder if maybe they assume it's staff driven, so it fuels some feelings of unfairness there?

As an example, the cops on TR tend to run slice of life things for each other. Going after NPCs, because it's less stress. You don't have to worry about someone saying that they're good with whatever outcome and then freaking out on you. You don't have to worry about someone pulling a punch at shooting at you. You don't have to worry about the inevitable ripple effects on all sides from PvP action. Now, there are a lot of people who want to RP that they're a cop but who never show for events or express interest in getting involved beyond channels and faction membership (I'd say those are like the loner criminal folks who want to use it as a justification for skills/livelihood but may or may not be really interested in RPing out 'the life), but I think you're more likely to have folks who want to RP being a cop with other people doing the same in the law sphere than folks willing to interact with strangers similarly in the crime sphere. I don't think everyone is like that, but that's just my observation as someone who has had both types of PCs.

So I think crime folks are even more dependent on making their own fun than law folks are. (and both groups kind of historically have needed to very much be willing to make their own fun rather than wait around for staff support). I don't know a good way around that because of the nature of criminal PCs. They're so much more highly individualized than, say, a police officer. The police officer in theory can be ordered to do something, they have a reason to work with at least 1 other person, ect. I don't know that criminal PCs outside of organized crime or small playgroups have a reason to do that. They have even more of a reason to shrug off any staff plot with a "So?" than most sphere folks, and even if there is a big bad sphere meta plot thing going down there are always more people than not who are of the "So?" variety. (This is not bad or good, IMO, just an observation).

Transparency re: IC things:

*Documentation and archives
*Any metaplot should be documented both in plan and as you go along summary on a staff board or forum that does not idle out so that when you have staff turnover you do not have a black hole of memory because someone "kept it all in their head"

Transparency re: OOC stuff:

*Yes, all parties of a complaint should be made aware of who/the nature of it. Person to person, not through a vague Some People bboard post.
*All complaints documented and archived including those that are found to be unfounded/unactionable
*All parties should be informed of the specific resolution.
*Agreed that some disciplinary actions, such as banning, should be posted to the sphere/game at large. The basic complaint, the fact that it was found actionable, and the length of time for the ban. These actions should be posted to an active staff forum that does not expire as well, so that there is a running documented "ticker" for such things so that people do not have to dig up stuff out of the archives every time and so that when there is staff changeover someone can tell at a glance how many actions a player has had made against them.
*I also happen to think that OOC discipline for OOC reason should be tied to the player, not to the PC. Someone with ten million alts should still only get 3 strikes for the same behavior before it escalates to the next level. The problem is the person, not the PC.

Uhhhh why is a developer who shares their system being criticized for making improvements or changes and making them available to people 3 times in 10 years?

Like...wow. It's ok to not like something, but man.

I don't mean this in a mean way. But I do not think that any system can realistically fix feelings of being "useless" in a scene where their number is somewhat marginally lower than other people's in that scene.

I only say this because I have heard expressed oocly (and indeed at times have felt personally) the feeling of being "useless" in a scene or group when the dice pool was lower, the same, and even higher than the other people in the scene. Usually truly feeling /useless/ has more to do with not feeling like you have a niche in the group (honestly something that stats really won't fix) or not enjoying the RP or feeling out of one's element in the chemistry of the scene.

Even if all rolls and pools were equal, I think that if there is too much redundancy or there's not chemistry in the scene or if there's not the same level of ooc comfort with things, you are going to have people who will feel useless, and those that are totally oblivious.