Best posts made by mietze

Ack.

In the case of not being able to rp your +sheet...this is a fact of life on a mush. This is also why ic position with ooc activity and expectation components must be clearly labeled as such. Yes, it’s uncomfortable to say “I see you’ve applied for x, but you’re not what we’re looking for,” but I think it’s better for the game in the long run if staff is willing to do that AND they have a exit strategy for people who need to be removed. Sometimes people seem great but are very not. Sometimes a noob can grow and thrive in the role. Clear expectations and clear removal won’t make it easier when you have to (because it sucks all round) but it allows you to take a chance on people and salvage things for the rest of the folks if someone who seems great turns out to be an inappropriate one.

Ark, private if possible, but I think it can always be personal. Otherwise, most likely your target person(s) won't realize it (for good or ill). That's why those dumbass generic staff "reminder" posts about specific things but couched in general language never work either.

I think there's also people who enjoy being able to affect the world outside of the private RP room but it's really not something they feel they MUST have to find enjoyment, people who don't enjoy at all knowing that they'll never be able to affect the game world environment beyond the private scale, and those who recoil from the idea of /having/ to do anything with anyone they don't know/outside of their RP room.

Or some mixing and matching, like the folks that want to affect the game world environment, but want to maintain full control over who gets to take part in that and anyone but their circle is going to be very unwelcome despite the effect on their PCs.

Larger game world effects require staff intervention or arbitration usually I'm not talking about plot forced ON the players from on high necessarily (though that is one form of staff mediating PC abilities to make changes to the game environment!) but more making sure that there's a neutral judge for a scene, or facilitating investigations and the like. There are many players (including me!) who can be quite happy with having minimal to no effects on the world at large, because we are getting our RP kicks from smaller more personal stories that don't rely on other people beyond those involved caring about them.

Youngest child in preschool for the first time and all 3 olders being in high school for the first time = never ending sickness due to two new cauldrons of pestilence. We’ve had two rounds of confirmed influenza, some weird headache/body ache thing, URI that jumps into the lungs, today is the first day in a long while I’ve not had to take some kind of pain med for joint and muscle pain...and now two of us have scratchy throats!!!

@faraday

Yes, I’ve seen it work out very well but it’s certainly the exception rather than the rule. It also depends on what level of leadership too. In my experience most staff don’t want to do the work to create the environment or upkeep on it, while still wanting to say for some reason they have player leadership. Which is why it often becomes a train wreck, either with shitty leadership or players going full crazy ooc asshole on good leadership players until they leave.

Seems like perhaps this should be seen more as a confession thread (which definitely has its own merit).

WTF? How can you read the splatbooks and say that WoD is not about relationship play? I mean for goodness sake, vampire and werewolf are arguable ALL about maintaining, gaining, and destroying relationships and have extensive sexual themes in too much detail.

I found a good personal trainer to be very helpful. Honestly, I would go with someone certified. It doesn't necessarily mean that you are immune from someone who gets you injured or otherwise harmed because they're incompetent, but it reduces the likelihood. I agree with Gany that if you already belong to a gym, start there! Many times you can also do small group personal training to see if you like it. I've done both with the same trainer once I found someone who was an awesome fit for me, and to be honest I preferred the small group and not just because of the much lower cost.

I do think you should examine your goals for getting a trainer. Why do you want one?

*Do you want different accountability than what you've been trying?
*Do you need extra help with your particular circumstance (once I'd lost 80 lbs but still had around 40 to go, I wanted to find someone who'd been on a similar journey that I could bounce ideas and motivation off of. I found a great trainer who was a little older than me--I was in my mid-30s at that time--but who had started her weight loss in her 30s and had kept it off for 10+ years without using a product. She'd also done her weight loss post abdominal surgery and childbirth. And we really clicked personally, she's been in my corner since even though my health is a flaming dumpster fire right now.)
*Do you need to have things changed up but you don't want to/get confused with the resources out there so you want someone else to put together a program for you?
*Do you have special health concerns that you might need some extra support with if you are new to your exercise program? (I have hypermobile joints. I needed someone to teach me what normal range of motion was, and to spot me and help me come up with ways to be able to perceive where I should stop, because my joints would keep going and I could seriously injure myself otherwise).

Those are all pretty solid reasons to get a trainer (one on one or small group). Some trainers will also have additional certifications (or maybe the other way around); my registered dietician that helped me was also a certified personal trainer, but I didn't use those services with her, just the nutrition/eating program services.

So it really depends on what you want.

I didn't look for a trainer until I was frustrated with my triathlon time training, I was hitting a motivational plateau, and I wanted someone who could help me think outside the box.

@arkandel yes, and I have seen people humblebrag about what a great leader they are/were when I know for a fact at that time they bragged about how they tried to shut out people they didn’t like from plot stuff or whatnot, or didn’t see how they made people very uncomfortable with their not so well hidden animosity.

But. When it works it works. I just think it’s a hell of a lot more hidden work to get going on both staff and player side than our idealism about player autonomy suggests.

Ender's Game, The Dark is Rising series, Anne of Green Gables series, Caddie Woodlawn, Harriet the Spy, all of Judy Blume's books.

I can't decide whether to fuck a vampire, feral, or werewolf--awww hell, let's do all three! Or several of each kind! All at once! Because I have a flaw/merit that compels me, it's all in the name of story!

Report to whom? Sounds like grandpa is a Swedish National in Sweden. It sounds like the rest of the family is aware and hates it (and the older people probably suffered socially for it). There are still Nazi old folks living in Germany. The collaborators through Europe couldn’t/didn’t go anywhere most of the time.

Yes, Magee deleted a lot of their posts before they requested to be banned. Banning does not automatically delete posts. There is one poster whose posts we do sometimes delete after they are banned again, due to their content.

Hell, I have even had other staff tell me I was wrong and/or The Worst Ever, without even bothering to read the job in question because what the player said happened (rather than actual documented on the job evidence) must be true because that was their friend they’d known forever and I must be wrong because that friend said so. Voice for the voiceless and all that.

I do think that staff often have a hard time apologizing or acknowledging when they have behaved poorly or made a decision that was incorrect/hasty/avoidant, etc.

But there’s always plenty of people to tell you are wrong. About everything. Including your unspoken thoughts and intent.

This is why 'casual' needs to be defined.

And why I don't like vague "be active" stuff.

There are excellent people who have limited time but make efficient use of it. You can structure activity expectations around actual activity vs. just time.

But if the only thing cared about is extra points at chargen so one can have the prettier sheet to do what one wants to do with in theory (even though the player can't be around for anything/will not run anything or whatever the 'activity' expectations are) I guess I have less sympathy for them not getting extra points at the start.

@thenomain
At least it’s not called “Well, Actually...”

@Coin you can scroll back on discord though, right? It's a little better than skype groups at least though maybe that depends on the volume.

Either way, my cognitive inability to keep up with that kind of thing now really gets to me/makes me frustrated too, so. Not the medium for me, I definitely find it easier to be a contributor to a board than something like that. Might be just a matter of spending my time in it though.

@apu said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

@thenomain said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

My core problem with WoD is the players play the monsters, but rarely monstrously. What in Mars is a threat to Werewolves, Vampires and Mages?

Could be a number of anything, if one's creative enough and willing to put some thought and time into it. Aliens is the first thing that comes to mind, but what about a disease that hits the supers, requiring them to work for a cure.

Well, I suppose alien viruses/bacteria/environmental hazards are less of a concern for vampires and high level
Mages (Werewolves get the shaft for sure there)...it might be interesting to explore (or deal with the aftermath of earlier NPC first contacts) what happens the first time vitae is given to an alien plant/creature. What happens to the spiritual world once you leave the planet, is the new one totally hostile/alien as well? Do the same reality rules that effect what you can/can’t/get hurt by by doing something magey that would be out of place with earth physics or environment be negated/amplified/have new implications when you are off planet and in space? Do the advantages your powers gave you on earth lessen in some circumstances with a lower g environment or when relative time passes differently due to space travel?

It could be really interesting. But I’m pretty sure a large scale open WoD in space would just turn into space prostitues and the like.

Sometimes I wonder how much of a conflict there really is. I play with people from a wide variety of time zones and available log in time. And I have to say, I have never played with someone with a very limited amount of game time who was resentful that they didn't get Head Honcho/Super Visible Leadership Position on a game and who said it wasn't fair. (I try to stay away from stupid people mostly though).

I have seen terrible things happen because leadership positions were given to people with no lives but the ability to be on game 24/7 though, and who were chosen because of the presumptions of greater ability, instead of choosing the more balanced, capable, proven abilities of people who were not on 24/7 but who had excellent skills in putting together a team to help, delegation, organization, and willingness to extend play and fun stuff across diverse group.

So again, I'm not against alternative ways to meet responsibilities. But if someone is really angry over not being "allowed" to get something that has defined responsibilities (not just some vague stupid Be Active garbage) that they are incapable or unwilling to fulfill, honestly I tend to think there's something more wrong with that person than the situation.

If we are not dated, how do we know we’re not expired.