Best posts made by mietze

I think it depends on the structure of the game. If it is more open ended/make your own fun/low to minimal guidance from staff in it and RP, I think the cg should reflect that.

If the desire is that pcs should fit in and have a place for their PC within a high staff involvement/plot driven place then probably the CG should reflect that. There might even be different levels of expectations for someone apping in a more powerful pc or old PC with ties to the surrounding area, ect, vs an 18 year old noob (unless it is WoD of course).

I concur with others that the numbers and structure of the sheet tells you nothing about the player. Sometimes behavior in CG or in that process can though (and for the player, their treatment by staff in that process is also very important to note).

It really just depends on the level of hands on the staff wants, ect. I think if you already are being made crazy by someone apping in/by staffer behavior and tone to you, then taking heed of that and parting ways is often the best thing to do. I know I have wished on both ends many times that I hadn't ignored warning signs of a bad fit. (Which does not mean bad person.)

@surreality or even if they arent offended, sometimes people then go on an OMG I'm Stupid kick too. This has not happened to me as much in MUland (I think more people have a very defensive lashing out reaction more, even though feeling bad might be the same root cause!). But I have had to talk down many committee chairs or other people down from the ledge when they exploded into "I am forever unworthy" because they had to follow a new policy or adopt a new structure because of new or previously unaware best practices mandates passed down or similar.

It is draining enough to sit down with a cooperative soul to figure out how to renegotiate practices or boundaries. When you also have to deal with a lot of fragility expressed in either a need to spend the majority of the time comforting that person or warding off their defensive attacks it is absolutely exhausting. So I'm not surprised when people ghost or just decide the risk to opening one's mouth isn't worth it when you can just avoid it ever again on a mush.

@Pandora here's the thing though. If a person knows that they are not going to be comfortable without negotiated cliff notes before they engage, it really isnt IMO asking for babysitting for them to ask that of someone. The someone can then decide if that price of admission is worth it or not. If the expectation is that no one ever has to ask for what they need instead everyone must provide exactly what they want by psychic deduction, I can see the point. Though isnt it the same if someone were to get upset and call everyone else spoiled babies because they never want to be asked for anything but instead want everyone to understand that they should never have to deal with that discomfort?

Unless a game has procedures spelled out (sometimes they do) I think it's better to assume playstyles will be mixed. It is therefore probably good if people are willing to be uncomfortable and speak up about what they want, and be willing to be uncomfortable and listen and say no and break it off or compromise, or comply, depending.

I think the majority of folks are relatively roll with it it, in my observation. But people with super strong needs either way should be willing to own it and realize that it might cause some hopefully temporary awkward feeling but ultimately a prevention of even more awkward down the road.

This is super difficult in practice though because I don't think most people are very practiced or willing to make the ask or listen to the ask, they just want things to naturally be their way.

I think this conversation is a valuable one to have, even on a cyclical basis, much like the conversations we continually have with our teens about online safety (now mine are old enough and tech savvy enough that I think I personally get more information than any I dispense). It is easy to forget/get sloppy about. And risk adversity goes up and down, and can be circumstantial. Even if the problem is not "solved." It is stil important imo to think about and personally re/evaluate from time to time whether you're a player or admin.

@saosmash I would rather have people acknowledge the power that comes with that position than either be unaware or unprepared for some of the things that come with it. Some people have better skill than others in dealing with that, and they tend to be people who gravitate towards enjoying the responsibility on some level.

I guess I just have a knee jerk yuck reaction to the idea of the best suited person being someone who does not want it. I see that (imo) somewhat romantic view lead to some really shitty things. Especially when it edges into martyrdom. My experience is that reluctance can turn quickly into resentment and that quickly can lead to martyrdom even with otherwise good people. Which is why I love defined roles as well, and wish that was an intrinsic part of setting up/reassessing staffing models on games. On games where I have seen that happen, things seem to stay healthy and more even keeled for a hell of a lot longer.

It will be 19 years married for us this spring, together for 21. First met on Shadowrun Seattle about 25 years ago?

My kids still have online expectations and rules though, and we talk about safety and best practices frequently. I do not doubt they'll meet some of their partners online though. I see that more and more (almost as normal as meeting someone at a bar) amongst other moms I talk to (definitely was NOT the case 20 years ago!). Except for mostly I meet people at the PTA or other parent groups who met on MMOs and online dating apps rather than text based RPGs, they do not bat an eye at my story.

I'm with Sunny on this one.

There are many many more NPC houses than PC houses.

Liege lords are under absolutely no obligation to provide their vassal houses with any plot or personal interaction, and many (frankly) do not. If a house moves from barony/county to county/march, they don't switch liege lords and in theory the liege lord should probaby receive more income off of them as well, to reflect the enrichment of those lands, ect. Could be easily negotiated during the process of discussion. This kind of protects higher level nobles more than it harms, so I don't understand the OOC animosity towards it--you're not required to ever do anything for the folks under you ICly unless you feel like it (kudos to the people that do!), and your position as a <whatever level you are> is safe regardless of what you do/n't do ICly or OOCly barring getting excommunicated or going to war.

It's a little disheartening how oocly snide many people are publically EVERY time there's an elevation. I've rarely heard the first thing be congratulations, or even if it is, there is immediately passive aggressive or aggressive commentary about it. Even carving out a barony or raising a county takes sacrifice and work and saving up.

And I think because there's not a real lot of pressure put on the higher ups to need to collect more $$, resources, from those underneath them (again, I understand and appreciate the thought behind this, to not penalize people who can't be 24/7 active), there's often not a lot of incentives give either to give your treasure/time up the chain.

I think that a lot of people get very stressed when they think that someone getting something closer to what they have because they think that it will mean more competition, but the way things work now I'm not sure that is a founded worry.

From what I have seen, plot giving out rarely seems to happen MORE with higher ranking PCs, they're no more or less likely to be given stuff from staff. They really don't seem privy to more special goodies. People think raising their social rank/title will open doors to more specialized plot or people will suddenly want to talk to them more, but honestly I'm not sure that it really does. Nobody is required to come to the defense of a vassal (in fact there are reasons given where that would not be the case at all). I assume that no vassals are ironclad required to respond to their liege's banner call (though that's rather disappointing if that's the case, maybe that's not true and I've just read into things incorrectly).

I think the only way to keep people down, which seems to be the desired outcome here?, is to have a more dynamic system where you can LOSE status as well, if you are not continually investing--but I don't know if even some of the same people who really dislike how "easy" it is to get elevated would appreciate having to keep fighting for what they have. So taken all together, I don't really care if people can continue to improve/enrich their lands and status. Eventually a system will go in for domains, and we'll have to see how it shakes out. But when you have a system that doesn't require anything to maintain the status quo of one's rank and status but does allow for growth potential, it seems pretty logical that yes, there are going to be climbers.

I still do not think it's "most" people even doing this though. People seem to freak out about every single one, but even looking at all the houses on the game, it's a pretty small number for the amount of time and resources that can just be stockpiled since there's not much else to spend them on.

I just wish people were a little less snarky about it towards the people who work towards elevation.

@Pyrephox yep. I try to cut large scenes and also scenes with newbie players that need a lot of help code wise or one or two notoriously needy/particular players a lot of slack when it comes to GMs trying to storytell.

And I think everyone has bad days too. If however there are a few times where I feel like I have been passed over consistently I just do not sign up for stuff with that person anymore. Either they are annoyed by my playstyle but do not feel they can decline my participation, or there are issues with attentiveness/being scattered that just do not work for me, or I know at that point I will just worry about it being the first thing so I wont enjoy future interactions because if that worry--does not matter and I do not hold it against them. Sometimes the fit just isn't great, and it does not mean bad or incompetent intent.

I think this is a case of being sure to know or learn the culture of this particular game. In all the WoD lines there are really awesome stories to be told for the minor splat in the sphere that are just as interesting as the supers. But realistically as a player that PREFERS the minor role (ghoul will forever be my WoD love), the sphere may be populated by super players who arent really interested in seeing people who play the roles as anything but TS hounds because that's all this players see in the "minor/support" role. That tends to attract players who aren't interested in being more than that over time (which there isn't anything inherently wrong with someone focusing on that aspect of play IMO) which means that you may not find meaningful stories with other non-super PCs in the sphere (which have always been some of my favorite stories in that role). Sometimes staff does a great job of changing the culture so that ghouls/kinfolk/kinain have value and compelling stories both with the super community and with each other (the most enriching RP I have had in WoD was on RfK as a ghoul because of the encouragement and interest of other people playing them to have our own stories as well as that with our various vampires/coteries).

But on a free for all game with little staff management, I'd say pick your pack wisely and make sure you know oocly if the folks you are coming in with are enthusiastic about creating stories that you like with you too. And just be prepared to take some ooc flack, you are likely to get dismissed as only interested in TS if you are kinfolk or ghoul with many folks. Hopefully the culture of the game is more supportive.

You can always talk with that PC to work it out too, for how to handle it. Or to at least touch base about why your character might be avoidant.

There are a few opportunities for interpersonal bad blood/conflict because of the mix of nationalities on the ship and the timeline. I know I've reached out to a few people about that and have gotten favorable responses, but I feel more comfortable pulling punches until I know that conflict is welcome.

@Prototart oh yes, forgot about that! I would imagine it's similar with any game with FCs!

@Wizz overload? When your brain cannot handle things anymore, and you snap? When the human body has not yet had time to really adapt to these body/mind altering new experiences? It happens to people now with far less invasive and complicated things.

Probably also because of the pervasive themes in this type of SciFi is the exploration/discomfort over how much alteration one needs to undergo before that person starts to lose their grasp on empathy/humanity.

One could argue that WoD also forces that as well through trauma since even mortal PCs can be removed from play as PCs due to breakdown/insanity in some way.

Not sure why cyberpunk is perceived as uniquely gross when it has people literally rewiring their bodies, ripping out systems to install new ones (including from petri dishes and organ harvesters, in addition to the foreign substance only ones). I would find it mildly disrespectful to say "sure, jam physical objects into the brain and replace nerves with wires, inject yourself full of nanobots and other chemicals, what are you some kind of loser, totally none of those things will ever affect your experience of the word and wouldn't alter your mental health at all." When you have people actively suffering/who have experienced frightening things RL from postpartum depression/psychosis, and anti-rejection drugs neuraltoxcity, ect, but ok.

Also the vampire prince failing a frenzy roll when someone pulled out a cell phone. In the middle of court. What happened after the scene itself was over was not super fun but that particular rp moment was pretty funny as people rightfully turned tail and gfto.

Redneck Life.

I love that game. Luckily my board gaming group loves ME enough to suffer playing it quite a few times now.

I think a tight rein on management (keeping the action order moving along, giving cues to players that need it, ect) allows the group to settle into a rhythm that can extend attention span (I've certainly has scenes go over 4 hours) and allow (perhaps counterintuitively) for more player/PC creativity and thinking outside of the box.

When I have seen scenes/plots fall apart into confusion and boredom (either ones I've run, because I have made more than my fair share of mistakes/misjudgments, or ones that I have participated in and then regretted wasting my time in doing so) it's usually because the scenerunner is stressed (for time, for player behavior, for whatever) or intimidated to provide direction or leadership (usually because they think providing direction or leadership means taking away player/PC agency. Even though in my experience it's exactly the opposite. No boundaries or guidance tends to result in player flailing or people devolving into OOC scattering.)

Volbeat's name sounds kinda a little too similar to vulva for me to not have that image in my head. Admittedly, being named Vulva (Velvet Vulva?) for a singer is actually kinda neat.

And why WOULDN'T you want to sound like Weird Al?!?!?!

Reading up on all the comic MU stuff makes me glad I never tried them, honestly it is pretty stunning to me that OCs are so disdained! Since I often like the worlds/themes of a genre or place more than I enjoy endless chaining to source material detail (and yes, I understand from reading wikipedia that comic book FCs probably have ten million ways you can go with any given character since they like to rewrite/mix up/alt universe it up) that I would not wish to offend someone by playing a beloved character "wrong" because I didn't know as much about them as a true fangirl should.

I'm not a huge comics fan (though I love reading about them as well as listening to friends talk about them). But I have gone to a few events for comics fans as the driver/interested companion/for interesting peoplewatching/because I really enjoy people, and I have seen people almost literally froth at the mouth over canon and deviations and stuff.

It seems like if you're not a totally ovaries to the wall fan person, but wanted to try out a new mush experience you never had before, that you'd want to pick either a super obscure (but how would you know if it was?!) or OC character!

@sab you might really really love legacy betrayal then!

@three-eyed-crow I could kinda see maybe an agreement you sign in order to make a bit (kind of like how in the olden days there was often a behavior agreement or disclaimer you had to type "I agree" to?).

But. For this purpose, you'd also need people to give you their legal names, probably at least the country of residency and inform them that you intended to publish their work, credited, in some kind of anthology like thing that you intended to put up on a third party selling/publishing site.

I am pretty sure that would turn a LOT of at least the old fogies off, and maybe scare off people who don't write on their own or don't plan to and probably wouldn't care if they thought about it, but that's a LOT of info to give out/sign away.

German-Japanese-Cajun

Adopted into an Italian and British/Scottish family.

I've actually been starting to find quite a few distant (3rd cousin range) biological relatives on 23andMe.

I always wondered if the no identifying information I had was full of shit or not (my adoption happened in the era of agencies being able to do whatever) but it was neat to see the test confirm at least the Japanese/Asian component as well as geographical region where a lot of those 3rd cousins show up.

I have fair skin and freckles but tan well and don't burn easily. I think my biracial features were much more obvious when I was a kid and teen (I got teased a lot) but now i don't think other people notice except for other -Asian people. They're usually the ones that ask.