Think of all the issues surrounding power exchange and discrimination built in to the very familiar WoD. How many times have we heard people complaining about ghouls? Kinfolk? Both always had their own neat potential but it often gets shoved aside with other people’s extreme distaste for “who would want to play that except for TS! They’re useless!”
And that is a purely fantasy thing, without any sort of real world history ties.
Yeah, sith warrior rocks. If you don't mind hilarious spoilers, I highly suggest looking up the My Sith Is a Jerk videos on youtube. Don't say thank you or anything.
I think there will always be an element of hiding PC actions though. To me, keeping your status as engaging in traitorous activities or being a spy isnt an ooc masque, I tend to see masque as more of a "what are you", not "who are you", but that is probably heavily influenced by my WoD background.
He understood the law. He just tried to intimidate because he thought he was above the law.
@bored i think with this particular group of staffers on that mush, silence and anything said would be seen as confirmation of their paranoia.
So nothing made the situation “worse” in the context of response them. I don’t think anything would have mattered.
Just because someone has talent, skill, and training does not mean that they are willing or capable of being a good businessperson.
A lot of skilled professionals can compensate for this by working for someone who does have business accumen and can take care of that framework. Many visual arts folks don’t have as many opportunities for that.
I saw this a lot in massage as well. Despite being handicapped by starting my business pregnant, and thus unable to use all the tools I had for building my biz, I managed to stay in the black for over 3 years because I had a good background in business stuff thanks to running non profits as a volunteer. I know people immensely more talented than me that couldn’t keep their own place because they couldn’t handle even keeping deadlines straight for business license renewal, or massively overcharged or undercharged based on their actual costs and clients.
A lot of people are super uncomfortable dealing with money or asking for money, and I think that probably arts programs spend about as much time on entrepreneur skill building as part of their instruction as most massage schools do—slim to none.
So I don’t know i would put the blame on individuals seeking to hire an artist or what not (most people have no clue how to evaluate value) or artists who make the decision about price point when they’re inexperienced or inept. It’s a very tricky thing to figure out price point and valuing and negotiating things even if you do have a good head for biz...and many many many creative people don’t have the patience for it.
I think I am most attracted to games these days with staff that have and implement good boundaries as far as community behavior expectations, are not intimidated to remove problem players regardless of talent, or to say no to things that create theme drift away from what they the staff feel most energized and creative running/providing for. Including when people decide to close/wrap a game.
With that foundation I as a player feel more comfortable taking risks and exploring the theme/play available, rather than just keeping my head down.
I like to see experiments. I'm rarely disappointed even if they close because an energized and happy staff makes things enjoyable for me, usually, if that energy is a good fit.
I like all kinds of genres and I often enjoy games based on things I am meh about the original content (love battlestar games, but I am ugh about the "new" tv show for whatever reason, same thing with Buffy, those games were super fun but I actively loathe the TV show!). I find gamerunner enthusiasm to be by far the biggest predictor of my own happiness as a player on a game.
So I am totally in the camp of build what YOU are most excited for, not what you think will fill a "need" but you're not totally into it.
And my own personal gripe. My kids go back to (high!!!) school next week. I love summer, I love having everyone on relaxed home schedules, I love getting to hang out with my bigs, etc. I am always sad when it's back to school time. :(. And my god in 4 years I will have 3 kids in college/trade school and one elementary!!!!
Like I said, yes it was rather silly. But you know, I have done silly and relatively harmless things in the name of Jesus CHRIST fine WILL you shut UP, myself...on game and off.
I guess I don’t understand why you shouldn’t cherish something that was given to you at just above cost, by someone who wanted to do so. Sometimes people do make the choice to do that especially for people they feel appreciate it. I mean I do understand somewhat impulse for guilt, but I think it is a shame that might taint the enjoyment of a piece.
I have set up my chair at tent city and refused all donations other than a promise to pay it forward in some way if people really wanted to give me something. If I billed for time there probably I could have/“should have” made around $1500 during that time I spend there while they were close (and for typical outcall/location clients I’d have charged a lot more). I did it because I wanted to, and because I knew the people who would sign up for it did so because they needed the touch, the body work, the pain relief, whatever and it was my privilege to work with them. I always offered an insane discount to other body workers for the same reason.
It’s wonderful to have your work respected, to be paid fairly for it, and to put idiots in their place who disrespect you. (I too have heard my share of “well my kid/aunt Susie/grandpa/friend/partner gives backrubs all the time and doesn’t charge people $60!” Or “show me that trick/how to do that release, etc!”). But I don’t know. If I had done the equivalent of mining my own metals (I guess...ummmm squeezing my own coconuts or whatever I’d grown myself and combining them with the oils I’d distilled from gardening for a specific oil blend tailored to my client?) you better damn well believe that I’d choose to perform that on someone who maybe wasn’t able to shell out $500/hr but could and would as a fellow artist/worker/etc appreciate and bask in it.
@Arkandel I am not even sure I have a length of projected run standard anymore. To some degree I wish I had more bandwidth to play more games so I could support the experiments and sure why the hell not let's have fun while it lasts stuff, that is the only thing that keeps me from trying out interesting stuff. I would love to have a short lived but intensely fun run than spending months and months and months trying to break into a more stable place for uncertain acceptance/inclusion. But I can see why someone else with the time limits that I have might gravitate towards more stable games instead (since in theory the time invested wouldnt go to waste if things come to an abrupt end!).
And powerful or undeniably successful women as well.
It’s harder to scream “it’s all about cheating whores and ethics in game journalism” when it’s ceos, people you admire, people part of the community you want to be, etc.
If the only people speaking out were “unsuccessful” or people of color the narrative would continue to be, as it has been for a long time “it’s just gold diggers and the dumped/couldn’t bes trying to bring the successful man down.”
@surreality eh. If I have to sit through people screaming about ts sluts ruining a game every few months for fucking years, or people invoking the omg you are a horrible person if you do/don’t allow secret staff alts or omg someone is licking someone as a greeting on channel or omfg is it spider or anyone who does/doesn’t want social stats to mean anything in a game or who likes/does t like systems where they are ic coercive must be a lame-ass unable to handle anything bad happening to their pc wimp/rapist wannabe ad nauseum...
I don’t think conversation for a few months about a radical change in moderation is either all that repetative or even alarming.
It is the nature of a discussion board that repetative threads come up. At least major discussion takes place in one on this subject with burps now and then elsewhere.
Why be sad over a freely given gift though. Unless the person is either ignorant or somehow deficient which it doesn’t seem either is at play here.
Hence my...well, irritation is too strong of a word for it, but it’s in that vein, of people who jump all over people laying out their asked for rate on either side. If you don’t want to work for an unprofessional rate, you shouldn’t and you shouldn’t feel the slightest bit guilty. But IMO neither should you assume that someone who chooses to is doing so for WRONG!!!! reasons. You just don’t know. If someone I treated at a discount on a home visit because of Reasons tries to strong arm the next LMT for that rate, they’re an idiot. But it doesn’t make me one, and I hope the nice beneficiary of it wouldn’t wring their hands and allow that lower rate to tarnish it. I’d almost rather them not accept it. But again, not my call, it’s on them if they accept or not.
I think what people charge for services is highly personal, and that nobody should get shit thrown at them for disclosing what they can afford or what they choose to charge.
Ultimately the artist or worker has to make their own decisions about what their exceptions and bottom line is. I intensely dislike it when people seem to be butting in on that without any nuance, or trying to make someone out to be stupid/the devil. It’s just more complicated that that.
I think big games are also awesome and I do have great fun on them, but it's not what I really want to run myself. 
Pretty much all day I’ve been on the edge of stress- and anxiety-vomiting turning in my court paperwork. But now I might be adopting 2 kittens this evening, so there is that.
Across how many threads and months and months was there constant discussion about how RfK players were unilaterally the devil/how dare any place not incorporate x from RfK slapfights? Which wasn’t particularly fun for us non-harassing but still sad ex-players either. I mean...it happens. Upsetting/uncomfortable/boring rehashes happen here. Like all the ducking time. Perhaps we should take it as a sign people actually care and have a lot in common because this is a remarkably people thing to do. 
Easy access to the rules/system is awesome!! I think if you are excited about it you should go for it!!
@surreality said in RL things I love:
My crazy cousins have determined that Thanksgiving feastivities will be enduring through Saturday.
At some point on Saturday, this is going to happen.
We are mostly old farts and none of us are getting any younger, but you can be damned sure I'm charging the phone up for that shit (for insurance purposes when someone inevitably ends up sent to the hospital if nothing else).
It’s pretty fun, and less hurtful than you’d think— however it’s very smelly. You’re in an enclosed not well ventilated inflatable plastic space, and evenwhen it’s cleaned well, it’s still funky.
I found it messed up my equilibrium.
